What
are your top 10 favorite books/authors?
(P.S. This one is super hard because I have A
LOT of favorites, so I’m taking liberties here and making it a baker’s dozen J)
1.
The Plague — Albert Camus
2.
An American Tragedy — Theodore
Dreiser
3.
American Pastoral — Phillip Roth
4.
American Psycho — Brett Easton
Ellis
5.
Tie between Invitation to
a Beheading and Bend Sinister —
Vladimir Nabokov
6.
Pride and
Prejudice — Jane Austen
7.
Weathering Heights — Emily Bronte
8.
Beautiful Bastard — Christina
Lauren
9.
Tie between The Bean Trees
and Animal Dreams— Barbara Kingsolver
10.
All the Bright
Places — Jennifer Niven
11.
Where She Went (The sequel to If I Stay) — Gayle Foreman
12.
Outlander — Diana Gabaldon
13.
I Was Amelia
Earhart — Jane Mendelsohn
What
book do you think everyone should read?
The Plague by Albert Camus. I’m sure a lot of
people will think it’s a yawn fest. And
it’s not particularly sexy. But both for
its prose and content, it’s seriously one of the most beautiful and affecting
looks at human nature I’ve ever read. I go back to it every few year and
re-read and always get something new from it.
And lately, especially in these divisive, polarizing times, when I need
to be reminded that humans beings don’t suck and aren’t a horrible scourge on
the earth, I pick up my copy and skim through it. Camus was a both an existential philosopher
(and the father of absurdist philosophy) and a talented fiction writer; he had
this amazing uncanny ability to see past all the bullshit straight to the heart
of humanity. His writing really does
remind me humans are alright. And that most of the time, being human is pretty
cool.
Pen,
typewriter, or computer?
I
write on my laptop pretty much anywhere there’s room for me to open it. I’m as likely to write sitting in my car in a
parking lot while I’m waiting for my kid, as I am to write at my bike-desk at
home, or at a coffee shop, or in bed at three in the morning. Likewise,
I can write almost anywhere as long as it's not too noisy. Once in a while I
take editing and idea notes via pen in the notebook I carry around as well.
Do you have a writing routine?
I'm pretty boring. I
write when I want to (and I always want to) and don’t really have any writing
habits. Unlike a lot of authors, I don't
have special writing rituals or writing spaces.
I don't feel married to any one method, space, or time, and write
anywhere from 10 am to 3 am depending on my energy levels and mood.
What is your writing process? For
instance do you do an outline first? Do you do the chapters first?
I do not
outline my book characters’ backstories before writing or map out my plot. I
kind of just write and see what comes of it. In that way, my writing process is
more organic, allowing my characters and the story to figure out who and what
they want to be as I go along. Also, I’m just really bad at being organized.
I’ve actually tried to outline, and it just never works out. Otherwise, yes, I
start at chapter one and generally work in a pretty linear fashion. After the
first draft or two I might go back and write new chapters and sandwich them in
somewhere, or take others out, but for the first draft or two it’s pretty much
point A to B to C all the way through.
What
is your writing Kryptonite?
Pacing
and dare I say . . . plot. I often come
up with a great idea and then run with it without really figuring the story out
from beginning to end. My writing tends to be more organic and that’s not all
bad, but it means I often hash everything out as I go along. And though I go through numerous drafts,
sometimes the pacing still suffers for it.
That’s why a writer needs good beta readers and editors! I’m really good at describing things, and
including details, and writing relatable genuine characters. And I’m a pro at dialogue. So though I always have good ideas, I focus
on those things more and then tend to struggle with knowing exactly how to
write my ideas for the actual story out into a cohesive plot. Again, editors and beta readers are super
helpful there. Usually I figure it out, but it’s definitely sometimes a
struggle.
Advice
you would give new authors?
You are good enough. Trust yourself. And
remember, you’re the best friend you’ll ever have. Don’t ever take advantage of that
relationship.
If
you could tell your younger writing self-anything, what would it be?
Not too long ago I found one of my (highly entertaining)
old high school notebooks, which is, A) filled with hundreds of
maudlin-bordering-on-psychopathic poems, creepy short stories, and snappy
screenplays, and B) reminds me how obsessed I apparently was with Paul L., sex,
myself, identity, meaning, and alternative music, and C) more importantly
reminds me that I have been writing like a mad person since I was a 5th grader.
After paging through it, I wanted to go back in time and give my 10 to
18-year-old self a talking to big-time before kicking her in the ass. Because
even though there’s a lot of cheese in there, there’s also a lot of seriously
amazing work. If I could, I’d tell her — Always believe in yourself. Don’t let
anyone else be your barometer. You don’t need to be better than anyone else; be
your own best self and take the leap. You won’t fail if you keep trying (you
will fail if you don’t try at all), and no matter how it plays out, no one will
ever be able to take that away from you.
Truth, like love, isn't always obvious.
Seventeen-year-old Ruby Brooks has never had a boyfriend. After moving to small-town La Luna, New Mexico following her mother’s untimely death, boys aren’t even on her radar. Ruby just wants to forget the last horrible year and blend in. But when she discovers an ancient pueblo ruin in the forest behind her house, and meets Ezra, a bitter recluse whose once-perfect face was destroyed in an accident he won’t talk about; Angel, La Luna’s handsome sheriff’s deputy, and Leo, a stranger who only appears near the ruin, Ruby finds herself teetering between love, mystery, and other worlds. What happened to Ezra’s face? And why is she so attracted to the one boy in town everyone despises? As Ruby unravels her own connections to both Ezra and the pueblo ruin, she’ll learn surfaces are deceiving. Especially in the heart of New Mexico, where spirits and legends aren’t always just campfire stories.
Set against a Northern New Mexico backdrop, Between Wild and Ruin is a young adult coming of age story that captures the wild and whimsical pulse of New Mexico through the eyes of teens Ruby Brooks, Angel Ruiz, and Ezra Lucero. The first book in the Wild and Ruin series, Between Wild and Ruin explores the time-tested credo ‘never judge a book by its cover’ through a paranormal lens, weaving Puebloan and Hispanic folklore and Southwest cultural narratives into tightly written, high-concept fiction ‘brimming with mystery, intrigue,’ and as Kirkus Reviews puts it, an “intriguing historical drama and an over-the top quadrangle romance.”
Jennifer G. Edelson is a writer, trained artist, former attorney, pizza lover, and hard-core Bollywood fan. She has a BFA in Sculpture and a J.D. in law and has taught both creative writing and legal research and writing at several fine institutions, including the University of Minnesota. Originally a California native, she currently resides in Santa Fe, New Mexico with her husband, kids, and dog, Hubble after surviving twenty-plus years in the Minnesota tundra (but still considers Los Angeles, the Twin Cities, and Santa Fe all home). Other than writing, Jennifer loves hiking, traveling, Albert Camus, Dr. Seuss, dark chocolate, drinking copious amounts of coffee, exploring mysterious places, and meeting new people—if you’re human (or otherwise), odds are she’ll probably love you.
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