Carrie Mesrobian Author Interview
Carrie is the Author in the Spotlight for the month of May here on Booksnob and she has graciously agreed to answer some questions about her books, Sex & Violence and Perfectly Good White Boy. Find out what Carrie likes to read, get some writing advice and learn the back story behind her books.
Hi Carrie,
1. Tell
us a little bit about yourself?
I’m almost 40. I’m married to a
dude. We live in the suburbs of Minneapolis. I have one daughter and a dog. I
grew up in Southern Minnesota so I’m kind of small-town in my ways. I mostly
define myself in things I don’t do. I don’t camp, or hike, or fish or like to
do things in noisy crowds (parades, malls, outdoor festivals, etc.) I’m highly
boring. I like reading and I like writing and I like sitting around doing
nothing.
For jobs, I’ve mostly been a
teacher. I used to teach high school Spanish, until I realized that I don’t
like singing, dancing, traveling or talking to people I don’t know, so probably
that was a terrible fit – foreign language teachers tend to be sort of extroverted
and what not. Also, I don’t really care about Spanish as a subject. Probably,
if you’re going to spend your days teaching a subject, you should care about it
a lot.
2. What
is the inspiration behind your book Sex & Violence”?
It’s hard to remember. It started
with the character of Baker. I was reading lots of YA where the girl character
was this loner type with long black hair and thrift-store style and she was all
‘different’ than any other girls and I was bored of that. I wanted to see more
of a Buffy Summers character; a girl who bought her clothes at the mall and did
school spirit stuff and got good grades. Yet she also wasn’t averse to risk:
she drank and smoked pot, she had sex, etc. Baker is kind of exactly everything
a kid like Evan needed.
3. What
is the inspiration behind your new book, Perfectly Good White Boy? Can you tell us when your new book hits the
bookstores?
Perfectly Good White Boy comes out
October 1 this year. And it’s inspired by my husband, really. He joined the
Navy just out of high school and that decision has always rocked me. I liked
thinking about that question: what would make you give up your liberty and
choices for a career in the military? How do you get to that point? Do you
think about it a lot? Or not at all?
I read a lot of stuff about
military life and history and war stories. The idea that young men view the
military as an easy choice – a direct route to being a man, as it were –
fascinates me. Our military is all volunteer now so there are so many stories
behind why all these people join. What problems it solves; what problems it
creates. I wanted to show one kid’s life, up until the moment boot camp
transforms him into the familiar product we’re so used to seeing and
dismissing. I wanted to imagine that this was the life of a kid who is now
fighting a war for his nation. This is where he came from and this is where
we’re sending him. How each sailor, soldier, airman or Marine comes from a
specific place and family life. Do we care about them as individuals, these
people who fight wars we don’t have think about any more?
4. Usually an author puts some of her own life
experiences in the book. Did you do
that? Do you have anything in common
with your characters?
I tend to have most of the
opinions my characters have. Like 99% of what Evan Carter thinks is something I
think, especially his views on women. I’m very critical of myself as a woman so
that was an easy road to travel.
The lake in Sex & Violence is
the lake my grandparents had a cabin on when I was younger; that’s what I
pictured the whole time I was writing those scenes. And a lot of the stuff
about boxing and fighting were things my husband taught me while he was
teaching me to box; we used to have a heavy bag in our basement of our old
house and I’d go down there and hit it when I got anxious. Which was a lot.
Also, while I don’t have PTSD, I
do have generalized anxiety, so I understand that part of Evan’s life. I’ve
been in therapy before, so a lot of those experiences helped me write the Dr.
Penny scenes. And in Perfectly Good White Boy, Neecie is a character with
hearing loss and most of what she says about that are things that have occurred
to me.
5. Can
you tell us why or when you decided to become a writer?
I started writing poems in 2nd
grade. Then I always had a journal or a diary. My dad used to bring me reams of
dot-matrix computer paper from his office and I used those to write stories.
Writing gave me a lot of relief in my life, helped me process crap that was
happening as I was growing up in a way that was really healthy. It helped me
get into the habit of quickly naming and labeling what was upsetting me or what
was wrong with a situation. I like how you can be disembodied as a writer, let
your words travel out in the world, in place of your body. I have a lot of
weird body issues so it’s a nice haven in that respect. And it’s really the
only thing I can do well, I think.
6. Do you like to read? What authors or books influence you?
I love to read and have always
loved to read. Both of my parents are readers, but my mother was really the one
who got me into reading fiction. She took me to the library every week, so she
could stock up on books herself. I can’t remember not being a reader.
In terms of influence, it’s hard
to say. I think Catcher in The Rye is a big influence on Sex & Violence,
but I’ve never read anything else JD Salinger wrote so I can’t say if he’s an
influence of that book is. Eireann Corrigan’s Ordinary Ghosts and Geoff
Herbach’s Stupid Fast were also key YA books with boy narrators that made me
realize I wanted to tell a boy’s story at all.
I also really like to read books
that aren’t anything like my life or like how I write. I like YA, for sure, but
I tend to like fantasy and science or speculative fiction in YA, too. Big
concept books are fun for me, though I don’t think I’ll ever write one.
I don’t read much regular fiction,
but I love Jeannette Winterson. She just knocks me out. And I love Gabriel
Garcia Marquez.
I like to read romance novels,
especially regency historical romance novels. Especially when I’m working on a
book really intensely. I like knowing that I can fall into bed with a book like
that, full of taffeta skirts and fancy ballrooms, and they’ll have nothing to
do with what I’m writing or thinking about.
7. I
know you teach classes at the Loft Literary Center. Can you tell us about some
of the classes you teach?
I mostly teach classes that are
based on popular YA fiction. I’ve taught classes on The Hunger Games, Harry
Potter, Twilight, YA dystopian fiction, and Cassandra Clare novels. I like
using these books that we’ve all read as reference points to discuss what makes
or breaks a story.
I’m not sure I know how to teach
anyone ‘how’ to write. I think our main purpose at the Loft is to get people
excited about writing and make them feel like it’s a valuable endeavor. A lot
of my students just like the time and space to write; they want to sit in class
and make up fake people and hang out with other kids who like to do that, too.
8. How do you balance teaching, writing and a
family?
I do most of my teaching in the
summer time, so I have this great babysitter come mind my kid while I do that.
Which is excellent, because she does things with my kid that I don’t like to
do! And I have a husband who’s been willing for the last decade to be the
primary wage-earner, so he doesn’t mind that we don’t keep pace with people we
know who have dual incomes. And he believes in what I do and what I could do,
so this is important, because that allows me to step away from family or
house-hold stuff and get my writing done. This matters, because if he didn’t
value my writing, then it’d be even harder than it already is to tear myself
away from dealing with endless kid/household matters. Because it really is
easier to do laundry or make dinner than it is to sit down and make up fake
people stuff some days.
This was more of an issue before
my daughter started school. But she’s 11 now so I get about 5-6 hours a day to
work on my stuff, at least during the school year. I think that’s pretty lucky
of me, actually. But it’s still hard sometimes when you have a kid to put your
own stuff first. You don’t want to be selfish. But I think being selfish is
important, because you’re showing your kid that your own dreams and work matter
to you and that you’re not always going to drop everything and cater to their
stuff.
Also, having one kid makes this
easier. There’s a reason I have one kid. I don’t think I could handle having
another kid, really. I know other people manage this but I don’t know that I’d
be able to write books and be a good parent to two or more children.
9. Can you impart some of your writing advice to
us?
I think you have to find what works
for you. Your personality, your preferences, your financial situation, your family
situation. Telling a person they have to write every day or they have to write
so many words a day or they have to write every morning at 4 am – no. I don’t
know what your life is like and what your struggles are like. It’s really going
to be a matter of scheduling, more than anything else. The writers who make
this scheduling/time management work are ones who mostly enjoy writing, though.
If you don’t enjoy writing mostly, I don’t know why you’d bother with the
constant struggle to finish work or rearrange your schedule or whatever.
10. You won the
Minnesota Book Award for your book, Sex & Violence. Can you describe your initial reaction when
they called your name at the awards ceremony?
I really was shocked. I didn’t
think they’d give the award to a book with my title. It seemed somewhat
undignified, I guess, for so many smart librarians and book people to want to
award a prurient title like that.
Also my husband screamed and
freaked out and I was crocheting so I was trying to set that down so nothing
would spill on it.
I was also very happy, though,
because my editor Andrew Karre was there, as was an entire group of people from
Lerner Publishing Group. I was glad to bring home a win for them, very much.
They’ve been such an absolute pleasure to work with.
11. In one
sentence, tell readers why they should read Sex & Violence.
It’s kind of funny, sort of sad,
and at times sexy, so if you go in for any of that kind of thing, maybe you’d
like it?
Thanks Carrie!!
