How to Be Female: Mindy McGinnis & Amber Keyser

HOW TO BE FEMALE

A conversation between Mindy McGinnis, author of THE FEMALE OF THE SPECIES, and Amber J. Keyser, author of POINTE, CLAW.

Amber: Let’s talk about Alex first. She’s a character that I can’t stop thinking about. She is about as far from the stereotype of what a girl should be as you can get, and yet she is driven by an experience that is all too common–the victimization of girls by men. Tell us about her. 

Mindy: She’s angry, that’s the simple answer. Female rage is something that goes largely unexplored except in a sexualized manner, yet women get pissed – maybe even more so than men. There is nothing more violent in nature than a mother protecting its young. Animals know that – we’ve been socialized away from it.

Mindy: You deal with anger and protective feelings for fellow females as well in POINTE, CLAW, and – like me – chose to couch it in terms of an animalistic nature. What made you decide to take that route?

Amber: I’m trained as an evolutionary biologist and much of my research was on animals. We observe a behavior and then ask questions. What are the evolutionary pressures that would result in that behavior? How does that behavior enhance survival or reproduction? How are multiple behavioral strategies maintained in a population? I brought that perspective to the story. At the same time, I was growing more and more convinced that maintaining highly-social mammals like whales, primates, and elephants, in captivity is immoral. That led me to pose other questions. 

What is the survival strategy when you have been caged? In an essay I read long ago Alice Walker proposed that if women could not express their true selves then they either go mad or die. All of that came together in POINTE, CLAW. I’m not sure I can even put it into coherent sentences. I had hoped that understanding animals would help me understand humans.

Amber: I’m interested in the contrast of Alex’s underlying violence and her gentleness and competence with animals. It strikes me that both of us have more sympathy for animal nature than human nature. It’s a direct contrast to the Judeo-Christian world, which has so elevated “humanity.” Is there a difference in your mind between human, female, and animal?

Mindy: Not necessarily. For me the inclusion of Alex’s compassion for animals was to show that she is not a sociopath. Killing in defense of others is a choice that she makes, and while she tells herself she doesn’t feel bad about it, the guilt does weigh on her in the end. The difference for her is that animals don’t KNOW better. Animals don’t live in a moral world; humans do. 

Mindy: How about you? How did you weigh the more animal nature of one character against the other?

Amber: This idea of a moral world is bouncing around inside my skull. Humans lay such claim to the moral high ground. Or maybe I should be more precise: many men claim a moral high ground, from which they tell girls and women what to do. So much of POINTE, CLAW is about the barriers girls and women face when trying to express their true selves. When they embrace the more animal side of their nature–the lust, the anger, power–society slaps them down.  There’s a quote by John Steinbeck on the inside cover of my book: We are no better than the animals; in fact, in a lot of ways we aren’t as good. This guided my writing as I explored the ways humans fail to act morally toward animals and toward each other.

Amber: In an earlier post, Elana and I talked about “unlikeable” female characters. I have a feeling Alex would fall in that category. (I can’t help it… I like her.) The other two female characters in THE FEMALE OF THE SPECIES, Branley and Peekay are, at least at the beginning, fit a more “typical” girl stereotype. Can you describe them for us? Both Peekay and Branley push, in different ways against the boxes they are shoved into. Can you talk about that?

Mindy: The vast majority of reaction to Alex from both male and female readers is that they love her. I think she says and does a lot of the things that they *want* to, but are prohibited from doing. Peekay definitely has violent fantasies about things she wishes she could do, but isn’t the kind of person who can – or even should. Branley we don’t see from an internal POV, but the blonde sex-bomb patina chips away and we see her as a real person by the end.

Mindy: This is an interesting dynamic at work in POINTE, CLAW as well. You have an attractive female who is filling a stereotypical role, paired with a girl who is anything but. What do those two have in common?

Amber: Ballet is such a weird thing. You get all these little girls who love their tutus and pink tights and want to grow up to be famous dancers. Often their mothers fuel these dreams, but the dream is impossible. Only a very select few succeed. They’re the ones whose bodies grow in exactly the right way so that the proportion of femur to tibia is perfect, their feet have the right shape, and the length of the Achilles tendon allows the right kind of movement. You can work hard and have great talent but if your body isn’t exactly perfect you will fail to achieve the dream. What a set-up for disaster! 

In the book, we have Jessie. She is almost perfect, and it’s still not enough to get her to where she wants to be. Dawn is very far from the societal ideal of a “perfect woman.” She’s stocky and queer and butch and completely unconcerned with social niceties. But here’s the deal. Dawn might be 1000 miles away from perfect woman and Jessie is an inch from it, but neither one can hit the mark. That tells me that the whole concept of perfect woman is a complete and utter waste of time. Be “woman” whatever that means to you. 

Amber: But let me throw that question right back at you. What do Alex, Peekay, and Branley have in common?

Mindy: They’re all three definitely sexual creatures. Branley has learned how to use her attractiveness and sexual drive – which she definitely has and celebrates, and hooray for her – in a way that gains her power. She’s conventionally beautiful, and has all the elements of sexualization working for her. Jack makes a comment at one point that he misses the girl who rolled her pants up and walked in the creek with him, the girl that was his friend before she figured out that she was cute as hell. I thought it was interesting to throw out there that Branley has figured out her power over men, and she believes it’s her greatest strength because that’s what society has taught her. 

Peekay is budding into someone who is more secure in herself physically and wants to explore more sexually, partially in rebellion to her “preacher’s kid” label, but also because she is a sexual being and she wants to have sex. However, because of her upbringing she wants that to be with someone she loves and and trusts, and is planning on losing her virginity to her long-time boyfriend when Branley “steals” him.

Finally, with Alex it was important to me to show that Alex is by no means frigid, or frightened of her sexuality. What happened to her sister is horrific, but she hasn’t allowed it to internalize into an “all men” statement. She trusts Jack – maybe even loves him – and because of this is able to be with him physically in ways he wasn’t necessarily expected, with her having had such trauma in her past. Alex is very much a creature of instinct – and the sexual instinct is strong. She’ll follow that, for sure.

Mindy: You made a bold choice by including female desire in the form of masturbation in your book. Sadly, I can think of very few books that portray female masturbation – and even less in a positive light. What made you decide to include this facet in the narrative?

Amber: Like anger, which you wrote about above, female desire, especially when separate from romantic love, is an underexplored topic. When I was working on THE V-WORD, a nonfiction anthology of personal essays by women about first-time sex, I interviewed author and teen librarian Kelly Jensen about depictions of young women and sex in YA. One of the things she mentioned was how rarely female masturbation is depicted in fiction, especially compared to the frequency of male masturbation. I took that as a personal challenge to work into my next book! But in the context of POINTE, CLAW, the scene where Jessie masturbates and the other short glimpses of both girls touching themselves are absolutely organic. 

The entire book is about various forms of desire: sexual, creative, a yearning for self-expression, the need to be truly seen, and of course, the desire for freedom. It would be completely weird to explore those things without acknowledging that young women also have sexual desires and can satisfy them in various ways.

Amber: There’s a lot of consensual sex in THE FEMALE OF THE SPECIES and also rape and attempted rape. One of the biggest and thorniest issues of growing up “girl” in today’s world is the intersection of sex and violence that even the most feminist of men don’t seem to grasp. Can you talk about how Alex, Peekay, Branley, and Peekay’s gay friend Sara navigate this territory? What does Jack’s perspective add or reveal?

Mindy: Branley as the “hot one” deals with a lot of sexual humor that is aimed at her, like penises drawn on her locker, even rape jokes during a school assembly. Her answer is to ignore, which is always an option, but I wanted the reader to be able to see the anger that percolated in her during these occasions, even if it remained unspoken.

Peekay is drugged and nearly gang-raped, which she reacts to as I think a lot of people do – with disgust, and self-blame. She’s sickened about what nearly happened to her, and can’t help but analyze what role her own actions played in the events. 

With Sara – who is a lesbian – I wanted to be clear that she is not eliminated as a possible target for rape because of that. Peekay’s father says as much to her in a family-meeting style sit down. 

Without putting it too heavily into the text, rape is more about power than it is about sex. Rapists can and do go after young or old, attractive or unattractive, fat or thin, gay or straight. Victims can include pregnant, physically or mentally disabled individuals, even the very elderly. Your own orientation or physical appearance rarely has anything to do with the targeting – rape is a crime of power and opportunity.

For Jack, it was important to me to show a man who is at heart, a great person. There are plenty of expectations on young boys as well as women, and Jack falls into that. He’s supposed to be okay with having casual sex with Branley. He’s supposed to be okay with killing animals in a slaughterhouse for a living. These are masculine traits that he, as an all-American boy, should revel in.

But he doesn’t. Jack questions his actions with Branley and looks for ways to distract himself while at work so he doesn’t have to think too hard about what he’s doing. He wants more out of his life than what is being asked of him. It was also important to me to show Jack and another male step up – out of outrage – when they see what was about to happen to Peekay at a party. They are not okay with that, and make it clear… it’s just that Alex beat them to it 

Amber: One of the things that all the female characters in our books have in common (and maybe I’m going out on a limb here but I’m going to say that all women share it) is the ever-present threat of sexual assault. After the Trump pussy-grabbing video came out pre-election, I read an article about how many hetero couples were talking about this issue for the very first time. Even the most feminist of men were shocked at how often the women in their lives experienced sexual assault or lived with the apprehension of sexual assault. Margaret Atwood wrote about how sexual assault has always been a weapon of war and tool of oppression. 

I wonder what it would be like to live and write in a world where we didn’t have to live under this threat of violence. Honestly, I hate that I am even writing that sentence, but both of our books make the claim that women are fundamentally not safe in this world and that fact shapes how we live our lives, how we interact with each other, and how we inhabit our own bodies.

Source: http://www.teenlibrariantoolbox.com/2017/0...

On the Verge: Interview with Mindy McGinnis

Jody: On a recent panel you talked about where your ideas come from. Not a Drop to Drink you had an image of a girl holding a gun and A Madness So Discreet started with your interest in the old insane asylum in Athens, Ohio. I’m curious about your new book—which is the first fantasy you’ve written—about the inhabitants of a dying island world.

Mindy: In a lot of ways Given to the Sea is a montage of many different thoughts that have come to me over a period of fifteen or twenty years.

The first scene that ever occurred to me was a star-crossed lovers type of situation, with an Ivanhoe-esque turn with the female refusing to cave to her own desires to be with the male, to the point that she's willing to pitch herself from a window to save her pride. That scene doesn't actually exist in the book now, but it planted the seed that told me I wanted to write a fantasy.

A combination of many things came together for everything else: an interest in Huntington's disease (also called the "dancing sickness"), the idea of genetic memory, and rising sea levels.

Jody: It just occurred to me that the rising sea level idea is the flip side of your first book. Not A Drop to Drink was a world with no water, and here, with this new book, you’ve got a world with too much water… Was the process for writing these books the same?

Mindy: My process is always the same. I sit down and write the book.

Jody: You make it sound easy.

Mindy. Not easy, but you just do it. With this book I thought I had all kinds of freedom because I was building a fantasy world.

Jody: So, you're thinking anything goes…

Mindy: Except it doesn’t. You have to keep track of your own rules that you're making, because you made them in the first place.

Jody: And sometimes you write yourself into a corner. What do you do when that happens? Any tricks you can share?

Mindy: I think a lot while I'm driving. I live in the middle of nowhere so if I'm on my way to an event I've usually got at least an hour each way, and the drive might give me some room to sort things out.

Jody: You've recently started writing full time. Has that changed how you write?

Mindy: It's harder to make myself write. Before I was on a very tight timetable. If I had twenty free minutes, then I needed to crack out some words. Now, I've got all day... and I know it. I'm learning how to budget my time better, which is weirdly harder when you have more of it.

Jody: What kinds of scenes or stories do love writing most and least? 

Mindy: I love writing biting dialogue, insults, stuff like that. Least, action scenes. Writing a battle scene and trying to keep it as "realistic" as possible while still making it thrilling and fun is challenging.

Jody: You write in different genres... from dystopian to gothic historical fiction to contemp, and now fantasy-- what makes a Mindy McGinnis book a Mindy McGinnis book—besides the fact that at least one of the characters is probably going to die?

Mindy: That, and a definite layer of grit and realism overlying everything. That's my approach with any genre. If this WERE going to happen, how would it unfold? No drama. No fuss. Just, give this thing some room and see what happens. Usually nothing good, because it's a McGinnis. :)

Jody: This is on a totally different note, but I know you've launched a podcast recently. What got you interested in that?

Mindy: I started listening to podcasts while I was running, and I started on the high end of production value - Serial, This American Life, Cracked,etc. I burned through those and started listening to others that were suggested to me and, most of the time, was not impressed. I thought to myself, "I could do better than that." Then I thought I should put my money where my mouth was.

So I did, literally. It's a time investment for me, since one of my biggest complaints about other podcasts was that they needed heavy editing (lots of filler, dead space, inside jokes, side rants).

Jody: And your podcast doesn’t--

Mindy: I don't make my listeners listen to anything I wouldn't want to hear.

Jody: I'm guessing there's some money involved. 

Mindy:  For hosting and distribution. I'm hoping to at least break even with it, if not make it financially productive, by the end of one year (I paid for one year of hosting up front). If it's not lifting its own weight by then, I'll have to pull the plug. At the moment I spend more time on the podcast than I do on my writing, which economically makes zero sense.

Jody: True. But hey, what does make sense in this business?

*(Check out one of Mindy's podcasts Here)

Okay, time for the lightning round. What kinds of things do you do for fun?

Mindy: Oh, God. I'm such a geek. Genealogy. Seriously. I found an ancestor (female) that I'd been looking for for ten years a few weeks ago and I almost cried. I also love old cemeteries and will just stop the car and go visit one if I see one that looks interesting to me.

Jody: Last good book you've read?

Mindy: Defy the Stars by Claudia Gray

Jody: TV show you've binged?

Mindy: Brooklyn Nine-Nine. I'm catching up!

Jody: What's up next for you?

Mindy: Given to the Sea will have a sequel (it's a duology) in the Spring of 2018, titled Given to the Earth. I have another contemporary, This Darkness Mine coming October 10th of 2017 from Katherine Tegen Books.

Right now I'm working on a story I'm mentally referring to as "Drunk Hatchet With A Girl," about a teen lost in the Appalachian region.

I'm sure marketing will retitle that.

Jody: Probably. But wouldn't it be awesome if they didn't? Hey Mindy, thanks so much for chatting with me today! And dear readers, if you'd like to know more about the dark and brilliant mind of Mindy McGinnis, see below:


Source: https://www.jodycasella.com/2017/04/an-int...

Castle Maguire Book Blog: Interview with Mindy McGinnis (2016)

I’m delighted to be sharing my fourth (count them – four!!) interview with YA author extraordinaire, Mindy McGinnis, on her FOURTH novel today. She’s one of the most exciting and eclectic YA writers out there, and she also loves cats! When I asked her about her recently released YA novel, THE FEMALE OF THE SPECIES, here’s what she had to say ...
 
KC: THE FEMALE OF THE SPECIES is a very different book for you, although your novels to date have been somewhat eclectic in terms of genre (dystopian, historical fiction/horror, and now teen vigilante justice). In your author notes you say that you'd actually written a draft of this book 15 years ago and decided to dust it off now. What was the original inspiration for the book, what prompted you to dust it off now, and what were the main things that changed between the original version and the final published version?
 
MM: I was in college when I ran into the inspiration for SPECIES. I never had cable television growing up, so my freshman year in a dorm I was suddenly mainlining all kinds of things, but especially true crime. I watched a mini-doc about a girl who had been raped and murdered in a small town, but there wasn't enough evidence to convict. Even so, everyone knew who did it. I was watching this becoming more incensed, and realized, that if I were capable of it, I could easily find this town, find that mine, and take care of things myself. Then I thought it was probably time to turn off the TV.
KC: If I'm remembering correctly, this is the first book you've written from multiple/alternating points of view. Did you find writing the alternating characters' viewpoints challenging or freeing, or a little of both?
 
MM: It was my first time for alternating POV's, although I was also drafting a fantasy (GIVEN TO THE SEA) at the same time, which has four alternating POV's, two male and two female. Even so, SPECIES came first, and more importantly than being my first POV dive, it was my first time writing a male MC, first person. So that was something I wanted to make sure I got right. I had various male readers and critique partners, so that I would know I was in the head of a teen boy, both for the good and the bad.

KC: This is also your first contemporary YA - your previous books have been set respectively in the future and the past. How did you find the worldbuilding aspects of creating a contemporary township for this book versus a dystopia (in your NOT A DROP TO DRINK duology) and a historically accurate past (in A MADNESS SO DISCREET)?
 
MM: Ha - this one was a breeze in that respect! I've worked in a high school for 15 years, so I know the voice, I know the small town environment, and I know the narrators. Once when I was writing MADNESS I had to stop and do 15 minutes of research just to figure out what policemen were called in 1890 Boston. Here... so much easier! 
 
KC:  One thing that has stayed with me very viscerally since reading the book is your depiction of the scene where the cop speaks at the high school assembly about drug and alcohol abuse and does so in a very different way to what the students (and probably readers) were expecting. What was the inspiration for Officer Nolan's character and how did you come up with his approach to educating teens about alcohol and drugs?
 
MM: We had a task force come into the school to educate the staff about different drugs, their uses / effects and paraphernalia. The guy was amazing, because he made everything personal. But he also talked to us like adults (which we were), and I couldn't help but think, Geez, I wish he could come in and talk to the kids like that. Whenever there's an assembly that is about safety - drugs, alcohol, sex, whatever - it's typically condescending and very antiseptic. They kids are bored and it has no impact. So I wrote what I thought would actually work.
KC:  Do you have a plan for your next book that you can share with us?
 
MM: I do! My first fantasy, titled GIVEN TO THE SEA will be releasing from Penguin/Putnam on April 11, 2017. It is the first in a duology. I also have another contemporary coming from Harper in the Fall of 2017, titled THIS DARKNESS MINE.

Source: http://kcmaguire.com/blog/author-interview...

The Debutante Ball: Interview with Mindy McGinnis

Which talent do you wish you had?

I wish I could dance! This is something that has bothered me since junior high. I. Can’t. Do. It. I have athletic grace, but I need a goal, a target, a glove, a hoop. When it’s just, “Go out there and be graceful,” I’m frozen and awkward and all kinds of bad. There is nothing good about watching me dance. If the devil really makes deals, he knows what to offer me.

When you were a teenager, what did you think you’d be when you grew up?

I always knew I wanted to be an author. I remember in 8th grade we took one of those assessments that measured your strengths and weakness and gave you some possible career choices that would be good fits. The proctor asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, and I answered “Writer” without even blinking. My results came back and said I should be a cop. Granted, I think I would’ve made a decent cop.

Share something that’s always guaranteed to make you laugh.

A really clever That’s What She Said joke. I don’t know why. It doesn’t get old for me.

Oh, also cats misjudging jumps. That’s just funny.

Have you ever tried writing in a different genre? How did that turnout?

Yes! I’m very lucky in that my readers have been willing to follow me as I experiment and hope around. My first two releases (NOT A DROP TO DRINK, IN A HANDFUL OF DUST) were post-apocalyptic, A MADNESS SO DISCREET is a Gothic historical thriller, and THE FEMALE OF THE SPECIES is a contemporary. In April, I have the first in a fantasy series releasing; GIVEN TO THE SEA.

What three things would you want with you if stranded on a desert island?

A knife, rope, and water. Sorry, I’m practical.

Do you have a regular first reader?  If so, who is it and why that person?

I do! RC Lewis (STITCHING SNOW, SPINNING STARLIGHT) is my go-to critique partner. We met on the site AgentQueryConnect as aspiring authors and found out that we worked well together. We’ve been reading and critiquing for each other six years now and we know each other’s strengths and weaknesses, which is a wonderful thing to have. She catches all my accidental British spelling uses (towards, colour) and corrects all my comma splices.

Source: http://www.thedebutanteball.com/interview-...
In Tags

This Book Will Change How You Think About Rape

#RealTalk: The Female Of The Species by Mindy McGinnis, is changing the way we talk about rape culture. . . one page at a time.

Everyone who has read The Female of the Species can agree that this is one of the most powerful and important YA books of all time. Mindy McGinnis’s The Female Of The Species is making waves this fall as it sparks thought-provoking conversations and challenges the way our society thinks about women, feminism and rape culture.

Why I Wrote The Female of the Species

By Mindy McGinnis 

I’ve been asked a few times how you write a book about rape without it being too upsetting. To which I say, it should be upsetting. Deeply disturbing, in fact.

I just checked the news before turning off all my connectivity to write this. The top two stories from my local NBC affiliate dealt with rape. The ages of the victims were 10 and 15. The ten year old did not survive. On CNN there was an article about a high school athlete who sexually assaulted two girls while they were unconscious. He received two years probation.

Meanwhile, a man who shot a police dog while robbing a gas station received 45 years in prison.
I know it’s not easy to talk about, read about, hear about. But that doesn’t change the fact that it’s a reality for many, many girls – and boys too, don’t forget. In the US, one in four girls will be sexually abused before they turn eighteen.

I’m betting you know more than four girls under the age of 18.

When I wrote A MADNESS SO DISCREET I had many people ask me why I would include a subplot about the main character being sexually abused by her father, in a book written for teens. My answer was – and is for THE FEMALE OF THE SPECIES as well – because it happens to them.

It happens to them and they need to see themselves reflected in fiction, so that they may process the enormity of their experience in a safe place, free of judgment.

THE FEMALE OF THE SPECIES is about a lot of things. Rape, vengeance, assault, but also friendship, community, and teens with aspirations beyond their small town. It won’t be an easy read, a beach read, or a feel-good read.

But it’s an important read.


Source: https://www.epicreads.com/blog/this-book-w...

Seeing Double In Neverland: Interview with Mindy McGinnis

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1) Did you have to do any research for Given to the Sea? 

A little. Khosa's "blessing" of being the Given is very much like chorea, or the dancing sickness of the 14th and 17th centuries. I also drew upon the symptoms of Hutchison's Disease when working with her character and ailment. But in the end it is a fantasy, and her issues are not strictly of a scientific nature.

2) What is your favorite read so far in 2016?

I just finished IRON CAST by Destiny Soria and loved it!

3) What was your favorite scene to write in Given to the Sea and why?

It's a multiple POV book with four different characters. At the end there's a nexus of all four being in the same place, at the same time, with something extraordinary occurring. It's the first time they are all together, and it's a culmination of many things, plot, character, story arc. So that was fun to execute.

4) What is your next project going to be? 

I have a contemporary coming from Harper in Fall 2017, THIS DARKNESS MINE, and the sequel to GIVEN TO THE SEA will be out from Putnam in Spring of 2018.

5) In Given to the Sea who was your favorite character to write?

Dara! The Indiri is so sure of herself, at all times. She always knew what she had to say, and she said it

6) What do you hope readers will take away from this book?

That there are no "good' and "bad" characters. Everyone in this book just has a different goal.

7) Who's writing most inspires you?

Unsure. I can't really pick out a specific author but I know I'm reading something amazing when I'm uplifted as a reader and despairing as an author because I know I'll never be that good.

8) What inspired you to write Given to the Sea?

A kernel for the idea of GIVEN TO THE SEA was planted a very long time ago when I was a child. I loved the TV movie of IVANHOE with Anthony Andrews. There's an amazing scene with Sam Neill and Olivia Hussey where she's locked in a tower and he comes to see her. She thinks he's there to force himself upon her and she gets up in the window and says she'll jump if he comes a step closer. He's a decent guy who means her no harm, so he manages to talk her down but it's a very powerful scene. It stuck with me (even though I didn't understand all the implications until I was older). Elements from that scene have found their way into SEA at various levels - the girl who doesn't want to be touched, a boy in a power position who *could* take advantage if he wanted, a girl who's pride is so strong she'll die before she submits.

9) What TV show is a must for you to watch? 

Right now it's VICE PRINCIPALS on HBO. Obviously anyone who actually talked to the students the way the characters do would immediately be fired, but it's fun to watch because sometimes that's *exactly* what we're thinking in our heads, even if we can't say it.

10) What was the hardest character to write in Given to the Sea?

Witt. He's a closed off person, naturally, so writing him was difficult because he won't even admit his feelings to himself. Getting him to be okay with me writing them out was a struggle.

Source: http://seeingdoubleinneverland.blogspot.co...

On Gaining the Experience to Properly Execute A Story

Mindy, what was your inspiration for writing THE FEMALE OF THE SPECIES? 

SPECIES is actually the first novel I wrote, over 15 years ago. I was a freshman in college and cable was a new experience for me. I was watching some sort of true crime show about a murder that had occurred in a small town. It was a situation where it was fairly obvious who the killer was, but there wasn't enough proof for the courts. The documentary named the small town, and I thought, "Man, if someone watched this and was convinced of that guy's guilt, they could just go kill him." And then I thought.... huh. Interesting story.

I had always known I wanted to write a novel, but I hadn't done it yet. The idea of vigilante justice stuck with me, and with all the freshman warning talks about parties and date rape and self-defense classes, the story came together for me. As I said, it was my very first novel, and I didn't execute it well at all. It was honestly, quite terrible. I worked on that book for years. Revised. Scrapped. Revisited. Scrapped. After hundreds of rejections I decided it was unpublishable and moved on.

When I was throwing possible ideas for future projects at my agent Adriann Ranta, I happened to mention the concept behind SPECIES. It was originally an adult novel, but I knew it could very easily be adapted to YA. Adriann was excited about it, so I re-read my original novel. It was terrible. Actually unreadable, to be honest. 

I started from scratch, using only the concept and character's first names. It's a complex story with a killer for main character so I needed to be able to build empathy for someone who is morally questionable... not easy to do. I don't think I was a good enough writer to execute that the first time I tried. Fifteen years later, I had more experience.

Is there a scene you particularly love?

My favorite scene happens at a party where Alex's violent tendencies come out for everyone to see. She saves a girl from being gang raped, but all anyone can talk about is the fact that... well I won't say what Alex does to the guy in question but, it's memorable.

How long or hard was your road to publication? How many books did you write before this one, and how many never got published?

Very. Hard. As I said, SPECIES was my first completed novel, but my debut NOT A DROP TO DRINK was my fifth finished novel. I had four failed manuscripts, ten years, and hundreds of rejections under my belt before I acquired an agent. 

What are you working on now?

Lots of things, actually! I have a fantasy, GIVEN TO THE SEA being released in April of 2017 from Putnam, and PHANTOM HEART is my Fall 2017 release from Katherine Tegen. Beyond that I have the sequel to GIVEN TO THE SEA (drafting that one right now) and another contemporary that will be releasing in Fall of 2018 from Katherine Tegen. So... yeah. Busy!

Source: http://www.adventuresinyapublishing.com/20...

HCC Frenzy Mindy McGinnis Interview

We’re BIG fans of Mindy McGinnis here at Frenzy. We’ve read and loved each of her previous books, so her latest, The Female of the Species, was easily one of our most anticipated books of the year. It follows a young girl named Alex whose older sister was murdered three years ago. When the killer walked free, Alex uncaged the language she knows best—the language of violence. 

The Female of the Species is an intense, unforgettable read that we just can’t stop thinking about. We asked Mindy a few questions about the book (and more!) because we need to know more. 

FRENZY: What inspired you to write this book?

MINDY: I was in college in the early 2000’s and had cable for the first time. I was watching a true crime show about a murder in a small town. It was a situation where everyone more or less knew who the killer was, but there wasn’t enough physical evidence to convict. They named the small town, and the supposed perpetrator in the show. I thought to myself, “Man, if someone was really convinced he was the killer, they could just go there and dispense justice themselves.” Then I thought, “Huh. That’s a novel.”

FRENZY: What was your favourite book as a teenager?

MINDY: I don’t know that I had a favorite book during that age range, but one of my all time favorites is THE STAND by Stephen King.

FRENZY: If you could have coffee with any author, who would it be?

MINDY: Stephen King, for sure. I’ve been reading his stuff since I was thirteen.

FRENZY: What’s your favourite way to waste time?

MINDY: I’m really good at wasting time so I have many answers. Twitter, petting my cat, talking to my dog, napping. But in the end I’m building relationships with people or animals, and napping is good stuff… so is it really a waste?

FRENZY: What’s the best writing advice you’ve received?

MINDY: You don’t have to write every day to be a “real” writer.

FRENZY: Describe your book in four words.

MINDY: Rape Revenge Vigilante Justice


Source: https://hccfrenzy.tumblr.com/post/15081766...

The Strand Magazine: Desperately Seeking Nancy Drew

I’m a collector at heart, something that has caused me no small amount of trouble when it comes to books. I started young, maniacally memorizing the order of the Black Stallion series, double-checking that my many-colored Goosebumps books were in the right order, and constantly comparing the facial expressions of the Wakefields to decide which was Elizabeth and which was Jessica on the Sweet Valley Twins covers.

Far and away, the series that gave me the most amount of anxiety was my Nancy Drew Grosset & Dunlap editions. There was no Internet to access an amazing amount of information such as link: http://www.series-books.com/nancydrew/formats.html) to help me decode the printings, editions, and reprints. Yes, I probably could have asked a librarian or a bookseller for some help but… I fancied I was a bit of a sleuth myself

You could frequently find me on the floor of my local library or bookstore (R.I.P. Waldenbooks) underneath that ever-present row of yellow spines, copying down the titles on the back and making checkmarks next to the ones I had or didn’t have, depending on my mood and how much money was in my pocket. By the time I was in middle school, I felt I had the Nancy Drew issue mostly under control.

SecretsCanKill.jpg

And then this happened. 

Yes, it was an updated Nancy Drew, with everyone wearing puffy clothes and sweater vests. This plagued me from 1986 onward, with a whopping 124 books to collect. I would occasionally drift away from the goal, then find a title I’d never heard of taunting me from the library shelf, usually with an obscenely high number (#111??!?! How did that happen? I just found #23!) By 1997, Nancy was using computers to solve mysteries— and so was I.

 Lists! Pictures! Titles in chronological order! The Internet was my friend… but unfortunately, Nancy didn’t rank for me anymore. I was going to college. My paperbacks couldn’t go with me and Mom was interpreting “empty nest” literally, and so I did some shelf sweeping.

 But not my yellow Nancy Drews, some of which were my mom’s.

So my books traveled with me, from college to first home, to second home. I don’t have a pristine book collection, by any means. They were dumped, dropped, stacked, and moved more times than I can count. All of my books are well loved, with cracked spines, yellowed pages, dirty thumb smudges, and curled corners. A true book collector might look at what I have and see nothing more than lost value. But a book lover would see what I do: books that have been loved, read, eaten over, cried with, and sweated on into the long hours of the night back when I didn’t have air conditioning and my reading lamp produced real, palpable heat.

I prefer them that way. My books have been read, multiple times. And that’s what they are for, to be interacted with and touched. I love my banged-up books, and The Secret of the Old Clock ranks highly as one of the most abused, since I was determined to one day read the entire series, starting with the first, straight through to the end. But I always lost my steam somewhere along the way, distracted by some other series or a new release. So The Secret of the Old Clock suffered many re-readings and handlings… whereas I’m pretty sure my copy of The Mystery of the Fire Dragon has never been cracked.

 I still have them, and yes, those gaps of missing books in my series still mock me. Someday I need to use eBay to fill those holes, but where’s the fun in that? I may have outgrown Nancy but a bit of her is still lurking inside, sending me to the easily spotted “yellow shelf” whenever I wander into a used bookstore.

And then I’m a kid again, staring at the artwork and getting some delicious chills from the cover of The Message in the Hollow Oak and The Mystery of the Moss-Covered Mansion. And of course, I flip the book over and scan the titles, trying to remember which ones I don’t have… and which ones I do.

Source: https://strandmag.com/desperately-seeking-...

Rural Poverty and The Female of The Species by Mindy McGinnis

Sometimes, it is indeed a small world after all. Shortly after moving to Texas, I learned that author Mindy McGinnis lived just 10 minutes from the very library I had spent the last 10 years working at in the state of Ohio. This town was my home, the place where my children were born. It was also, at the time, the county with the highest poverty rate in all of Ohio.

So while there were many aspects about Mindy McGinnis’ THE FEMALE OF THE SPECIES that stood out to me, one that stood out most vividly is the depiction of rural poverty. THE FEMALE OF THE SPECIES is set in a small, Midwestern town that is ravished by poverty and in my mind’s eye I could picture the very places around this small town that I thought Mindy might be talking about.

And while all poverty is bad, each type of poverty has its unique challenges. For example, one of the greatest challenges in rural poverty is transportation. Rural communities are often spread out and don’t have public transportation systems, which makes things like going to a grocery story or doctor’s appointment quite challenging. There are usually fewer options in rural communities, and less options means less competition and less price choices.

Although I currently live in Texas, I work in a public library in another rural Ohio community that is also fighting high poverty. Many of my patrons don’t have the money to buy current technology, and even if they did have the money the truth is, there are still parts of my community that have no providers offering wireless or DSL Internet. Like many other places experiences high rural poverty rates, drug use and drug related deaths are reaching epidemic proportions. So as I mentioned, THE FEMALE OF THE SPECIES resonated with me in ways that I can not even begin to describe.

Today, I am honored to host author Mindy McGinni who talks about rural poverty and the part it plays in her newest release, THE FEMALE OF THE SPECIES.

The Female of the Species addresses many issues within its pages; rape culture and vigilante justice being the most prevalent. A quieter issue raises it’s head though, one that is easy to overlook, shadowed as it is by the more controversial topics.

Rural poverty.Much of the time poverty is associated with urban life and that is certainly a truth that cannot go ignored. However, there is another face to poverty, one that looks picturesque. Farms with collapsed barns. Homes where no one lives anymore.

I was born and raised in a rurally impoverished area and now I live and work in one. For fourteen years I have been employed as a library aide at a local school where nearly forty percent of our student body receive free and reduced lunch.

During deer hunting season our attendance list shows double digits of our students are excused for the day to participate… and in most cases it’s not a leisure activity for them. They’re putting much-needed food on the family table.

Food pantry lines are long, faces are pinched, and during the summer months many of our students go without lunch because they depended on the school to provide it. Because it is a sprawling, rural community, people who have to weigh the cost of gas for the drive to the pantry against the food they will get there.

None of the characters in my book suffer the indignity of hunger, because I feel it’s an issue that deserves more space than there was room for within this particular story. But hunger breeds a specific type of desperation that calls for an escape, and this can open the door to darker things.

Upper and middle classes know the need for a vacation. We all feel the cycle of our daily lives triggering stress, causing irritation and anger, and even pushing us towards exhaustion. So we take a “mental health day,” call off work for little or no reason, or we cash in those vacation days and just “get away from it all.”

We have that luxury.

Many of the jobs available to the working poor pay by the hour, and to take a day off means to take a pay cut – one that the budget doesn’t allow for. Vacation time may be possible, but the idea of affording to actually leave is laughable. Escapes from reality are sometimes sought not in a getaway, but in drug use.

There is a major heroin epidemic in my area. We have lost students in my small school district to it. One Twitter user already thanked me for mentioning the epidemic in The Female of the Species, saying that she hopes it may draw more attention to the issue. If it doesn’t, this should; last weekend alone multiple people OD’d, two of them in a mini-van with a four year old.

It’s easy to point fingers, lay blame, criticize and judge. What kind of people do this?

The desperate. The addicted. The hopeless.

Such descriptions aren’t solely the realm of the poor, but there are correlations that can’t be denied.

On my worst days – and we all have bad ones, no matter who we are – I can get upset, feel like giving up or just ducking out of reality for awhile. Stress is present in all our lives, no matter our socioeconomic standing.

But on these days I remind myself that I have food. I have clothes. I have a working car that I can drive to my next school visit, library appearance, or book club talk. I can fill the gas tank and go to work without having to worry about paying for that stop.

The small luxuries of our lives are something that most of us take for granted until they are taken away from us – a cracked phone that doesn’t work, the car being in this shop for a few days, the heat and electric always being on.

When you do have one of those days, think about those who can’t afford a phone at all, and are literally holding their cars together with duct tape. In the past I’ve had students that heat their home with the kitchen stove, and the children sleep with the pets to share body heat.

Spare a thought for them on your bad days, and if you can spare more than that, please do.

Source: http://www.teenlibrariantoolbox.com/2016/0...

On Rape Culture

In preparing to do a guest post about rape culture, I wondered what I had to say that could add to the conversation. The subject has been covered, and well, by others. So I told myself to wait for a couple of days, and something would come up.

I didn't mean for my thoughts to be taken literally.

Last week was our county fair. It's been hot and dry here. Thousands of cars and pairs of feet had stirred up a dust cloud, and as I was leaving the grounds I saw a minivan coated in a fine film of dirt that someone had decided to treat as a canvas. The ubiquitous dick and balls drawing was everywhere, along with FUCK ME scrawled multiple times.

I watched people walk past it, some pointing and laughing, some shaking their heads. Parents covered their children's eyes and rolled their own. But nobody did the one thing that made the most sense.

Nobody erased it.

There we were in a public place with multiple erect, demanding penises in clear view of anyone who walked past, along with a directive to perform a sexual act on it. And no one was willing to make it go away with a swipe of their forearm. Sure, it can be argued that they didn't want to touch someone else's personal property, but I wonder if such passivity sends the message that the dicks had a right to be there, or in the least, are an acceptable background in our culture, one deserving only of an eye roll and a quicker step to put it behind you.

Do I think people are being actively harmed by dicks drawn on dirty cars? I don't know. As for the FUCK ME, I can't argue against bad language without painting myself a hypocrite, as I have a sailor's mouth. It's the passivity that bothers me, the acceptance of a situation that young girls will see a dick as soon as they are old enough to open their eyes in public - and will never stop seeing them.

I did the only thing I thought I could do. I tucked my hand in my shirt sleeve and wiped the van free, uncovering a sticker family on the back, two little girls bringing up the rear. 

So that's two that didn't have to see a dick.

It's a start.

Source: https://www.bookrambles.com/2016/09/the-fe...