In high school I discovered an aptitude for academics that served me well in college, but still I mostly read what was assigned. The book that finally made a reader out of me was Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. I still love it.
I grew up in the suburbs of Detroit, lived twenty years in the South Bay beach communities of Los Angeles, and currently reside in the Des Moines area.
When not writing, I’m busy raising two boys (ages 13 and 15), and I play as much tennis as my schedule and overused right arm will allow. (Source)
Kate: Can you name a few people who have influenced your writing career?
Wendy: Anne Tyler and Anita Shreve are two of my two favorite authors. Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice is my text book. J.K. Rowling is a genius who made literary magic.
Kate: As a debut author, how did you find the publishing process? Any parts that you specifically liked? Disliked?
Wendy:
Liked:
—Discovering a story that fueled me. I wrote Stork in five months, despite an injury to my arm that reduced me to writing and typing left handed.
—Finding my agent (Jamie Brenner). She read a one page query on Tuesday and signed me on Friday. It was an indication of her excitement for the book. After years of querying other projects, it was a thrill and a relief and a life-changing event.
—Getting the offer from Candlewick. Another of those pinch-me moments.
Disliked:
—Could have done without the stack of rejections I’d collected on three previous adult novels.
Kate: I really enjoyed learning more about the Icelandic heritage and the Storks. Where did the initial idea for Stork come from? How did you expand on that to make it into the final product?
Wendy: Once I’d made the decision to tackle YA, I knew I wanted to explore a paranormal theme. I also wanted to find something high concept. Years ago, an episode of the TV show Unsolved Mysteries featured a boy who claimed a pre-life memory in which he floated above the earth and chose his mother. The story stuck with me. I tweaked it to invent the Stork Society, women who have the ability to guide undecided souls.
I went with an Icelandic heritage for Katla because it’s unusual, is rich in mythology, and even its very name lends well to my story.
Kate: What type of research did you do for Stork?
Wendy: Stork is a work of fiction. There are themes consistent with Norse lore, but I take liberties, big-time liberties. By inventing the Storks, I was able to create a subset of supernaturals with their own cosmology and beliefs. I researched Norse mythology, Iceland, and the works of Hans Christian Andersen, but, again, my book borrows only where convenient.
Kate: Do you prefer to write for young adults versus adults? How come?
Wendy: Tough question. There are aspects of both that I find deeply satisfying. Adolescence is such a pivotal period. Compelling fiction is about upping the ante, putting everything at stake. What more vulnerable time in an individual’s life than the crossroads between childhood and adulthood? Throw in a magical ability and your basic good versus evil smackdown, and well, maybe there’s a story shaping up.
Adult fiction is also soft clay for a writer. Admittedly, I’ve read more in the literary and women’s fiction genre than any other. I’m fascinated with the complexities of human relationships, families in particular. I enjoy the latitude adult novels have in exploring multiple and multi-generational points of view, or even the same character across the chasm of time. Not only do I get to cook up a scandal, but I get to bury it for years and then sit back and dump the whole lot of them into the mud. Good fun—for me, anyway.
Kate: Did you incorporate any traits (personality or physically) from yourself or anyone you know into the characters for Stork?
Wendy: Kat is, I hope, funny. I can, on occasion, be funny, too. She’s also a little snarky—guilty there, as well. Because storks are white birds and in keeping with a Nordic look, I described Kat as a blue-eyed blonde. I, myself, am not a natural blonde (as evidenced by my high school pic on the bio page of my website), nor do I have cerulean blue eyes (more of a swampy green), so we don’t have much in common physically.
Emulating (or maybe stealing from) J. K. Rowling, my character Grimilla is very Snape-like, not that I personally know Snape—or J.K., for that matter.
Kate: If you were a Stork, what bird do you think you would pair with?
Wendy: Hmmm. Haven’t been asked that one yet. Something strong and principled with a dash of mystery. Maybe a falcon, an image that evokes the romanticism of medieval knights. In truth, they (the knights, not the falcons) were probably brutish and smelly, but I deal in fiction and can conveniently rewrite or edit such details. And now I wonder what Jack would look like with feathers?
Kate: I am very excited that you are continuing this series, can you tell us anything about Frost?
Wendy: Frost borrows heavily from Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen. It picks up just a few months after Stork concludes. A record-breaking snowstorm attracts the interest of Brigid, a mysterious researcher from Greenland. Kat is soon drawn into an adventure in which the stakes are both personal—and global.
Kate: What other projects are you working on? Can you tell us anything about them?
Wendy: My adult novel, The McCloud Home for Wayward Girls, is slated for publication by Berkley Books (and imprint of the Penguin Group, Inc.) in August of 2011, so I’m also in the editing phase of that project. It is the story of three generations of women who run a bed and breakfast from their historic property, formerly a home for unwed mothers – and the scandalous family secret that surfaces when the inn hosts the funeral of the town matriarch. Uh-huh, some of that muck I described earlier.
Kate: Is there anything you would like to say to your readers?
Wendy: Absolutely. Thank you, thank you, thank you. YA readers are some of the most passionate, loyal, and dedicated out there. Writing is such a personal undertaking. I write what I think will connect with readers and keep them turning the page, but you never really know. To those readers who find Kat and follow her on her adventures, I hope I’ve given you an enjoyable story. And if you laugh once or twice and swoon over Jack a little, all the better.
I am definitely swooning over Jack A LOT! A big thanks to Wendy for taking the time out for an interview!
For more information about this author and book:
My Review of Stork
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