daily pie: Happy Book Birthday: THE SHADOWS (THE BOOKS OF ELSEWHERE, VOL 1)

As I recently proved ("like a theorem!"), June 15 is a date full of awesome. Today is no exception, with debut novels by two of my agent's clients.

First up is Jacqueline West and her middle-grade fantasy, THE BOOKS OF ELSEWHERE, VOL 1: THE SHADOWS.

From the series' website:

Old Ms. McMartin is definitely dead. Now her crumbling Victorian mansion lies vacant. When eleven-year-old Olive and her dippy mathematician parents move in, she knows there's something odd about the place - not the least the walls covered in strange antique paintings. But when Olive finds a pair of old spectacles in a drawer, she discovers the most peculiar thing yet: She can travel inside these paintings to a world that's strangely quiet... and eerily like her own. Yet Elsewhere harbors dark secrets - and Morton, an undersize boy with an outsize temper.

As she and Morton form an uneasy alliance, Olive finds herself ensnared in a plan darker and more dangerous than she could have imagined, confronting a power that wants to be rid of her by any means necessary. It's up to Olive to save the house from the dark shadows, before the lights go out for good.

Welcome to Daily Pie, Jacqueline!

THE SHADOWS is the first volume of your series THE BOOKS OF ELSEWHERE. At what point in the creation process did you know you wanted to write a series? How many volumes do you envision?

I feel a bit ridiculous admitting this, but I didn’t consciously think of The Shadows as the potential start of a series until my agent suggested it. I was too astonished that someone wanted to publish my work to imagine that they would immediately want more. However – and this sounds ridiculous, too – although I had written The Shadows as a stand-alone novel, there was nothing in it that needed to be modified in order to make it the start of a series. When I started working on Volume Two, I wondered if I had subconsciously left a lot of doors open – or at least unlocked – in Volume One. The Shadows has a conclusive ending, but several issues are left partially unresolved, and the final line of the book practically screams, “Sequel Coming!” even though I wrote it not knowing that there would be a sequel. (See? Ridiculous.)

At this point, I envision at least four volumes. Volume Two is written, I have Volume Three planned out in detail, and I know what happens at the end of the series. Whether a few more major twists pop up, mushroom-like, in the middle and surprise me is yet to be seen.

In your interview with The Tuesday Visitor, you said that the first inkling of TBOE to come to you was the setting: a mysterious old house. Have you mapped the house and its features, for yourself or your agent, editor, or illustrator?

Nope, nope, and nope. I prefer to leave the visualizing to the reader – and of course to the illustrator (I was lucky enough to be paired with the brilliant Poly Bernatene, who I trust completely). I have a very clear vision of the old stone house on Linden Street in my head, but I appreciate the fact that everyone who reads the book will have a slightly different vision. I think we all have a certain creepy old house somewhere in our imaginations or memories, and I hope readers will use their own creepy old houses as reference points. After all, what is creepy to one person is cozy to another. Plus, leaving the house in the abstract gives me more freedom to play with the setting – to add or adjust things as necessary.

Then again, I have drawn a very detailed map for the project I’m working on now, which is not part of the Elsewhere series, and I reference it constantly, and I’ll probably include it if and when I send the book off to my agent. I guess the lesson is not to claim that I have any hard and fast rules, because I’ll only feel foolish when I break them.

We love Super-Agent Chris Richman here at Daily Pie. You were the first author to sign with him. Some might say that was a brave choice. What factors played a role in your decision?

Well, I didn’t know I was the very first author to sign with him when I did. I don’t think I even asked. I’d sent my query to a senior agent at his previous agency, and Chris, as a junior agent, plucked it out of obscurity, which is the dream situation for a writer with no connections and no notoriety. I was utterly naïve about the publishing world (I’m a smidgeon less naïve now), and I was delighted to find someone who believed in my book and who seemed to understand me and my work so completely. And then, as I got to know Chris, more and more of our similarities came to light: We have an identical list of favorite authors, we’ve worked the same unusual jobs, we’re dorkily obsessed with the same shows. When he was featured in the “Ask the Pro” column in Writer’s Digest, I read his answers and thought, “Man, if he wasn’t already my agent, he’s exactly the agent I would want.” He’s the ideal advocate and adviser for me. Of course, now he’s a big important Super-Agent, and I feel incredibly lucky that I got to him before the deluge.

By the end of June, you'll have had two book birthdays this year! Cherma, your book of poetry inspired by a Bohemian settlement in western Wisconsin, was published in March by Parallel Press. How did you encounter the Cherma settlement?

The Cherma cemetery is where my great- and great-great-grandfathers are buried. It’s situated just a couple of country blocks from my parents’ house, and I first explored it as a teenager. I have a bit of a cemetery obsession, and I love immigrant history and family lore, so that location and its story were what inspired me when I began work on a poetry series as part of a college writing workshop. As a kid, I was always begging to hear more family stories (I guess I’m the inverse of a lot of jokes; I actually wanted to hear my parents and grandparents tell me all about how things were when they were my age), and when I began working on Cherma, I started taking notes, asking my parents and grandparents more about what they could remember, and researching historical records and documents.

A process question: Is there anything you absolutely need before you can write (e.g. music, silence, coffee, to walk the dog, mantra, etc.)?

The dog wishes I needed to walk him before I start writing. As it is, he has to wait for the end of the writing day, contenting himself by prodding me intermittently with his nose. I do have a general routine: I make coffee, eat breakfast, watch The Daily Show on Hulu, and then get down to work. Does that make “Welcome to The Daily Show! My name is Jon Stewart!” my mantra?

For fun: You come upon a dark, crumbling mansion. The front door is unlocked. Which do you explore first: the basement or the attic?

The attic, absolutely. I would never explore a dark basement on my own.

Thanks so much for taking part, Jacqueline, and best of luck with your launch!

Readers, check out this great book trailer for THE SHADOWS: