Laurie Halse Anderson is the one author all teens know. They have ever since her first novel, Speak, was published a decade ago. Speak, the story of a high school girl who goes mute after being sexually abused, became a National Book Award finalist, a Printz honor book, and more importantly launched Anderson’s career as a writer who speaks to and for teens. This well-earned reputation has continued to win thousands of fans and a slew of awards including, most recently, the Margaret Edwards Award for lasting contributions to young adult literature.
Her latest book, Wintergirls, was inspired by mail from her fans. It’s an honest, poignant, lyrical tale of one girl’s struggles with anorexia, her best friend’s death, cutting, and depression. After speaking at Millbrook and Ravenscroft high schools on April 3rd, Anderson ends her two week Wintergirls tour with a program at Quail Ridge Books at 7:30.
Here are a couple of my favorites quotes:
#1 Dead girl walking, the boys say in the halls. Tell us your secret, the girls whisper, one toilet to another. I am that girl. I am the space between my thighs, daylight shining through. I am the bones they want, wired on a porcelain frame.
#2 Smoke gunpowder and go to school to jump through hoops, sit up and beg, and roll over on command. Listen to the whispers that curl into your head at night, calling you ugly and fat and stupid and bitch and whore and worst of all: “a disappointment.” So painful, so cruel.
LHA: I am a very auditory person. I was a language & linguistics major in college and I pick up accents and new languages quickly. There is something about the shape of a spoken word that resonates within me. Storytelling is traditionally an experience shared by the speaker of the tale and the listener. Written text is a relatively modern construct that doesn't always carry the same impact of the spoken story. I can make a lot of notes about a book but until I can hear the character talking in my head, I can't write it.
LHA: I'm not quite sure how to analyze it..... a lot of my writing process is a complete mystery to me.
LHA: I love jumping back and forth between the forms. I think it keeps each book fresh and exciting for me because I don't have to grind out the same-old, same-old all the time. I think that the best parts of my stories are written in my sub-conscious brain, anyway. My sub-conscious prefers to play in a different pasture than my conscious self. I can't imagine doing it any other way.
LHA: Honestly? I didn't get there. She got into me. There is some of me in Lia's character, no doubt. I've fought a bad body image most of my life, though I was never as close to the edge of death as Lia is. But her voice in my head is very distinct from my own. By the end of the book, I felt like Lia was haunting me, much as Cassie (Lia’s best friend who dies early in the book) haunts Lia in the story. It was a little unnerving.
LHA: Yes, the cross-outs (strike-throughs) are very deliberate; in fact, they are a critical clue to understanding the main character's struggles. I decided that strike-throughs gave a stronger visual impact than the typical narrative devices. (I wonder if this could be considered a palimpsest? I'll have to ask one of my smart English teacher friends.) I first saw them used on blogs and realized they were the perfect device for an unreliable narrator who cannot be honest with herself.
LHA: I was a confused and depressed teenager. My family went through a very rough patch during those years and nobody would talk about what was happening to us. I completely understand the struggles so many teens have to cope with. I hope my books accurately reflect their pain and their path to uncover their strength.
LHA: I am writing Forge, the historical novel that follows Chains. That will be followed by a third historical that finishes the adventures of the characters from the first two books. It is tentatively called Ashes. I'm also working on a picture book about Abigail Adams, and exploring new characters and stories for my next YA novel.