Interview with Adele Griffin (The Julian Game)

Bio: Adele Griffin was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania, she moved to New York to work in children's book publishing. Her first book, Rainy Season, was a loosely biographical account of growing up on a military base in Panama. She is also the author of the Witch Twins and Vampire Island middle grade series. Her novels Sons of Liberty and Where I Want to Be were both National Book Award Finalists. Her most recent book, Picture the Dead, a young adult historical novel set during the Civil War, will be published by Sourcebooks in June, 2010. Adele lives with her husband and daughter in Brooklyn, New York. (Source)

Kate: On your website, you list Robert Cormier as your biggest writing influence, can you explains what you love about his writing and how it influenced your career as an author?

Adele: Robert Cormier! I can't praise him enough. Even today, I'll hit a wall in my writing and pick up one of his books and lose the afternoon to it. He really understood the new kid story and the bully story, and I am so philosophically on-message with his message, which I interpret as the "peaceful warrior" stance.

Also, things HAPPENED in his stories. I was first reading him at a time in my life when I felt like nothing was happening to me. So I was escaping to tension, drama, action-- and there's a cinematographic element that I've always loved in his plots.

Kate: I like your "early work" postings on your website. If you had a chance to fulfill any other career (besides author) what would you be?

Adele: It would have to be a job where I am pretty much alone a lot, and am free to talk to myself. So I pick: dog walker. Also because I love dogs. I was always the kid getting bit by dogs because I wanted to pat them and kiss them.

Kate: Why did you choose to write for young adults versus adults? What do you love about YA fiction?

Adele: Here's what I love most: you get a more passionate reader. I can never recapture as an adult the way I used to read a book. I mean, I used to DEVOUR a book-- I'd tent it on my nightstand last thing before I went to sleep and grab it first thing when I woke up. I read with flashlights under covers. I read in the dark with my Mom yelling "Deli, you'll ruin your eyes!" (And I did.) No way am I a rebel reader like that anymore. But that's how young people are-- crazy, omnivorous, wonderful readers. So the next best thing is to write for them.

Kate: What was the initial idea/thought for The Julian Game and how did you mold that into the final product?

Adele: It was first a novel of an unbalanced friendship. As in: what do you do when the most popular girl in the school wants to hang out with you, but, here's the catch-- she is INSANE. And then the next layer came from the front pages of the newspapers: as in, what do you do when that insane girl decides you are Enemy Number One and then uses every cyber, classroom, and after-hours harassment trick in the book to bully and derail you?

Kate: I absolutely loved Ella Parker's OCD behaviors, yet she was so popular. What made you create her little quirks and still make them cool for this school? Did you do any research into these specific behaviors?

Adele: Ha ha! The research of my own life, I guess. I am always working on my OCD, though it was worse when I was younger; I had all kinds of rituals and patterns, and they can run your life. And while it feels over-simplistic to say "I grew out of it" it's a very quiet, distant problem now. But writing Ella was easy that way-- there was an autobiographical component. And then I turned all that OCD aggressive and angry, and, voila, there was Ella.

Kate: What are your thoughts about social networking and how it can make or break you in the "real world"?

Adele: I think the transparency of social networking forces tough decisions about privacy at young ages. It's really difficult to decide, even as a grown up, how much of yourself you want to put "out there" or engage with. When I was a kid, a nasty word or an insult was whispered on the phone or yelled across the lunchroom, or maybe written in a note-- but it eventually disappeared. Now, it's indelible. And I do think kids will figure it out, they will adapt to all this, and the rules of online versus real world will come clear, but we're in a transition time right now, and these growing pains are very hard.

Kate: How do you think teens can prevent fallout from a posted video or picture online?

Adele: In that scenario, I think there are worse things than going the "peaceful warrior" route. You stand tough, and you persevere, and know that "this too shall pass," and that you'll live through it.

Kate: What other projects are you working on? Can you tell us anything about them?

Adele: I've got a ghost story out nest spring, called TIGHTER. It's a retelling of The Turn of the Screw by Henry James, my favorite ghost story of all time.

Thank you Adele for taking the time out for the interview!

For more information:

Adele's Website
Adele's Facebook
Adele's Twitter

The Julian Game

My Review of The Julian Game

Adele was kind enough to send me some of the early cover options for The Julian Game: 

I think these are really fun, but I think the one that was chosen was definitely the best! 

Which one is your favorite?