Interview with Author Rebecca Stead

About Rebecca Stead

Rebecca Stead grew up in New York City, where she was lucky enough to attend the kind of elementary school where you could sit in a windowsill, or even under a table, and read, or draw, or write, and no one told you to come out and be serious (well, eventually someone did, but not right away). It was here that she began writing.

Rebecca lives in New York with her husband and their two sons. Her second novel, “When You Reach Me” was published by Wendy Lamb Books in July, 2009.

Interview with Rebecca Stead

How long have you been writing fiction, and what motivated you to begin writing?

I’ve been writing since I was a kid. I went to a public New York City elementary school, and we were lucky enough to have writers from our community come in and publish a school magazine called The Spicy Meatball. My first story appeared there, and I’ve written (sporadically) ever since.

I took creative writing classes in high school and college. But for some reason, I never saw writing as something that could be a person’s actual job. I had all the encouragement in the world, and yet it never seemed possible to me. Instead, I became a lawyer who wrote stories on the side. After my second child was born, I decided to stop working for a while. And that’s when I started taking writing seriously.

The world of “First Light” is so varied and detailed. I enjoyed the descriptions of the city below the ice and the interesting technological devices that the people living there used to stay alive. Was there any major inspiration behind the world of “First Light”?

Books. I love stories about imagined or secret worlds. Also, as a big-city kid, I’d always had a sense of longing about small towns. It felt to me that in smaller places everybody, even the kids, had special identities, whereas in a city people are pretty much anonymous. So a hidden society that’s also a small town was very appealing to me. I loved the idea of a place where bread is delivered to every household every evening.

On your author spotlight with Random House you said: “Like so many passionate readers, I decided to try to write a book of my own–to open one of those magical doors myself. It turned out to be very hard. The door did not spring open at my touch the way I’d secretly hoped it would. The knob was greasy and the frame had swelled in the heat. But as I struggled with it, I caught a few glimpses of what was on the other side–snow, and dogs, and people flying by on ice skates. And those images kept me from giving up.”

How long did it take you to write “First Light” and what were your major challenges along the way?

I started writing in 2002. At that point, I had no writing community at all – I was at home with the kids, just typing when I could. A year later, the result was a very unwieldy first draft. I had no idea what to do with it.

Years before, I’d taken a short-story workshop at the 92nd Street Y, where I met Wendy Lamb. Amazingly generous person that she is, Wendy read my first draft, offered me some feedback, and suggested I find a critique group to help shape the story, which is exactly what I did. I owe so much to her, and to those wonderful writers who read draft after draft over the next two years. They taught me an enormous amount about novel-writing, and kept the work alive for me.

I sent the revised manuscript back to Wendy in 2005, and she offered me a contract. We worked on the story together for another year.

That’s a lot of revision. World-building is tricky, and I was really creating two worlds – the world of Gracehope under the ice, and the world of arctic fieldwork on top of it. There was a lot of figuring out what really needed to be in the story and what bogged it down. And writing something as long as a novel was challenging for me – it was hard for me to maintain a sense of “the whole.” Over and over, I mapped the book out for myself using post-its on a manila folder, trying to get a sense of where the tension went slack or where too much was happening at once. It was a long process.

Did “First Light” come easily for you, or did you have to make major plot or character changes along the way?

The basic plot held together through the revision process, but there were a lot of significant changes made along the way. For several drafts, Peter became gravely ill and more or less slept through the second half of the book. My critique group told me very gently that I couldn’t lay him down on the floor just because I didn’t know what to do with him, and they were absolutely right.

There was also a lot of “slimming down” – two characters collapsed into one stronger one, a storyline about arctic dreams eliminated, several short scenes from minor characters’ points of view deleted, all to make what remained stronger. This was always the theme of revision – finding the essential elements and making them as powerful as possible.

The ending of “First Light” left readers in a bit of a cliffhanger. The city below the ice is in danger because of global warming. Soon they could have to emerge into the world above ground again. Do you have a sequel planned to further develop this storyline?

I don’t have a sequel planned. Every once in a while I have an idea for a future scene or a storyline, and I do write those down, but mostly to entertain myself.

Can you tell us about your new book “When You Reach Me” to be released July 2009?

“When You Reach Me” is the story of Miranda, a twelve-year-old girl who receives four mysterious notes that slowly convince her she must help prevent a future tragedy. But she has no idea how. It’s also a story about friendship, and love, and a game show called The $20,000 Pyramid.

Do you have any favorite authors that have been an inspiration for you?

So many! Geraldine McCughrean, Philip Pullman, M.T. Anderson, Julia Sauer, Laurie Halse Anderson, Neil Gaiman, Robert Heinlein, Ray Bradbury, E.L. Konigsburg, Madeleine L’Engle, Robin McKinley, Margo Lanagan, Megan Whalen Turner, Garth Nix, Lois Lowry, Anne McCaffrey, Lloyd Alexander, Monica Furlong, Nancy Farmer, Peter Dickinson. . . I could go on and on. And on.

What advice to you have for aspiring writers, both young and old?

Don’t censor yourself.
Don’t be afraid to write something you aren’t proud of.
Don’t be afraid to get excited about your own work.

Thanks for taking the time to complete this interview, Rebecca.

Thank you!

For more information about Rebecca Stead you can visit the official “First Light” website.