Q&A with 2012 Featured Author Laura McNeal… plus a CONTEST to win a signed copy of her latest book!

Laura Rhoton McNeal is the author of “Dark Water,” a 2010 finalist for the National Book Award and winner of the San Diego Book Award in young people’s literature. She holds an MA in fiction writing from Syracuse University and is the author, with her husband Tom, of four young adult novels: “Crooked” (winner of the California Book Award in Juvenile Literature), “Zipped” (winner of the Pen Center USA Literary Award in Children’s Literature), “Crushed,” and “The Decoding of Lana Morris.”

Where do you find inspiration?
Everywhere. Right now, the book I’m writing is set near the beach and features a bridge, so if I can’t think of what should happen next, I go running on the beach or under the bridge. I try to think, while I’m running, about how my character would describe what I’m seeing. Also, I try not to think about what a tragically slow runner I am.

What advice do you have for aspiring authors?
Read classic literature and study how the writers you love put their sentences and chapters together. Learn grammar. Share what you write with someone who loves the same kind of books you do, and then listen to his or her criticism.

What are you reading right now?
“War and Peace.” I decided to see if it was famous for being long or for being good. It’s famous for being wonderful, in case you wondered, and I’ll probably still be reading it when I arrive in May, so don’t tell me what happens to Andrei and Natasha.

What’s your favorite opening line from a book?
“There was no possibility of taking a walk that day.”
*** HEY BLOG READERS, IT’S CONTEST TIME!! Laura didn’t tell us from what book this opening line hailed. You have until February 27 at noon to email us the correct book title and author. We will then randomly select one entry with the correct answer to win a signed copy of Laura’s latest book, “Dark Water”. 

What book has inspired or affected you in some way?
Writing young adult novels is generally considered easier than writing what some people call “real” books. I think of them as real books, and whether a coming-of-age novel is classified as “young adult” or “adult” it should be something you can love when you’re 16 and love even more when you read it at 25 or 40 or you teach it in an English class, as I did with “A Separate Peace” and “Tess of the d’Urbervilles.”

If you could sit down at dinner with three other authors, living or dead, which three authors would you choose, and why? 
This is the list as I wrote it before I did a Google search for “Charles Dickens + Hans Christian Andersen.”

1) My husband Tom McNeal because he makes me laugh and he’s my favorite writer.  Also, if you share a dessert with him, he only takes two bites and you get the rest.

2) Hans Christian Andersen because he turned personal anguish into stories we all know by heart, including the saddest, best children’s story of all time, “The Steadfast Tin Soldier.” Andersen liked to make really elaborate cut-paper pictures for children when he came to dinner, and that would give him something to do while I gush a little bit too much about “The Steadfast Tin Soldier.”

3) Charles Dickens because I love his novels and he met Andersen twice.  I could just listen to the two of them talk while I eat the entire dessert I’m supposed to be sharing with Tom.

And this is the story about Hans Christian Andersen and Charles Dickens that I found when I did my fact-checking.

Anyone else want to join our table?  We could use a NICE person who speaks Danish.