The Story is About   +  novel

Jillian Cantor is the author for this Thursday's Author Tales! Jillian's debut novel The September Sisters was released February 24, 2009!

When I wrote first draft of The September Sisters, back in 2003, there were a lot of stories in the news about missing children. I saw a news show about it, and I noticed some of the missing children had siblings, so it planted this seed in my mind – what happened to those siblings after their brother/sister disappeared? At around this same time, my sister and I had finally started to become friends, after a long childhood filled with bickering, and so I was thinking about what things had been like for us as kids. It was the combination of these two things that set The September Sisters in motion!

What was the most difficult part of The September Sisters to write?

The last chapter. I think I have about 20 or so different versions of it. It was really tough to figure out a realistic way to end things so the readers would feel satisfied and so the story would ring true. I don’t want to give anything away, so I’ll just say the initial ending was totally different than the one you’ll read in the final draft!

Abby had a very interesting first love. What was your first love like?

My first love is also an interesting story, though, nothing at all like Abby’s! When I was 15 and a sophomore in high school, I had a huge crush on a senior who played drums in the school band (I played clarinet.) I was devastated when he started dating someone else, but it only lasted a month, and then, for the first time, he noticed me. We started dating and fell madly in love – that was 15 years ago. Today, we’re married, and we have two kids!

What are you hoping young readers will take from this novel and possibly apply to their own lives?

Well, first and foremost, I hope they enjoy the story. I love books where I become completely absorbed into the lives of the characters, and I hope people will have that reaction to my book. I also think that Abby is a strong female character – she attempts to take control of her own destiny even when it feels impossible. And Abby also figures out how to see people for who they are, underneath, despite the color of their skin or what other people say about them, which I think is a very admirable trait.

What was your road to publication like?

It was very, very long, and filled with a lot of rejection! Like I said, I wrote the first draft of this book in 2003. (And before that, I wrote another novel that I was never able to find representation for.) When I finished the book, in early 2004, I sent out some queries and started looking for an agent. I got some positive responses and some feedback, but no one offered to represent me. Then I had a baby and sort of gave up on things for awhile – I felt really defeated. In the summer of 2006 I decided to give it one more try; I dusted the book off, made some revisions, and sent it out to more agents. After a few months, it fell into the hands of the fabulous Jessica Regel at the Jean V. Naggar Literary Agency, and she offered to represent me. But, the road didn’t end there! She started sending the book out to adult editors, and I got some more rejection, until finally she suggested that the book might work better for young adults. I revised it again, she sent it out again, and then it fell into the hands of my amazing editor, Jill Santopolo, at HarperCollins. She loved the book, but still thought it needed more work, so she offered some suggestions. I revised again, my agent sent it back out, and then last January it sold– more than 5 years after I wrote the first draft!

Who or what inspired you to become a writer?

When I was in fourth grade, my humanities teacher, Mrs. I., assigned us to write one short story every week. This was the first time I ever wrote fiction and also when I first knew I wanted to be a writer. As I got older, great books and great writers always did and still do inspire me to want to write.

Why did you decide to write for young adults?

It wasn’t a conscious decision, as you can see from my answer above! I had a story to tell, and it happened to be about a 13-year-old girl. When I wrote the book, I had no idea that it might be a young adult book or really even what the young adult genre was like. But after The September Sisters sold, and before I started on my second book for young adults, I read a lot of young adult books, just to see what’s out there. And I realized how much I love writing about and reading about teens. For some reason, the teen voice always feels very authentic to me as I’m writing.

Do you have any advice for aspiring writers?

What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever received? My advice for aspiring writers is to read a lot, and read the kinds of books you like to write. Write a lot, too, and find a person you trust to critique your work and listen to him/her. The best writing advice I ever received is this: A professor of mine used to say “a writer writes.” It sounds like lame advice, but really I thought about it a lot when I was struggling to get published and not sure whether to keep writing. I kept thinking that what made me a writer was, well, the writing itself. And that if I wanted to keep thinking of myself as a writer, I had to keep on writing, no matter what.

Who are some of your favorite YA authors?

I’m pretty new to YA fiction, so I have a lot to catch up on. But I love Sara Zarr – both Story of a Girl and Sweethearts blew me away. I also love Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin, The Patron Saint of Butterflies by Cecilia Galante, and Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson. I haven’t read Twilight yet – which everyone keeps asking me about, so that’s definitely on my to-read list.

Are you working on any other novels? And can you tell us a little bit about it?

Yes, I recently finished my second YA novel, THE LIFE OF GLASS. It’s going to be out next winter (2010) from Harperteen, and it’s the story of a 14-year-old girl named Melissa who learns about life, love, loss, and beauty during her freshman year of high school. The book follows Melissa as she sorts through memories of her dead father and struggles with her mother’s return to dating, her beautiful older sister, and her feelings for her best friend, Ryan. I’m really excited about it – I can’t wait to be able to share more!

If there is anything you’d like to touch on or add, please feel free!

Thank you so much for inviting me to be your guest today and for the great interview! For more about me and The September Sisters you can visit my website, www.jilliancantor.com