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Question & Answer Time!
Who is Kylie Minogue, and are you as in love with her as your character is?
First off, if you’re one of the millions of Americans who don’t understand or know the wonder that is Kylie Minogue, you helped shape the plot of this book! Kylie Minogue is the international pop star who sings the hit songs “Can’t Get You Out of My Head,” “Love at First Sight,” and “The Loco-Motion.” Her popularity soars in Australia and Europe, and she has yet to ever do a proper tour of the United States, where her fanbase is considerably smaller. If you don’t know who Kylie is, you’re sadly not part of this super-fantastic club.
In The Straight Road to Kylie, Jonathan, the main character, has a mild obsession with Kylie, and because he is so desperate to see her in concert, he’s willing to go back in the closet and pretend to be the It girl’s boyfriend, with the promise of being flown to London to see Ms. Minogue at the end of the school year.
As for my own level of Kylie-obsession, I’d categorize it as a healthily mild. I own many of her albums, some of which had to be special ordered from Europe, as well as the 2006 and 2007 Kylie calendars. They're cute. I’ve also been known to get stares while singing along to “Your Disco Needs You” in my car, and I did spring for a four-day-weekend trip to London in 2005 to see her Showgirl Tour. But, hey—if she’s not coming to New York, how else was I going to see her? Jonathan’s Kylie-obsession in the book goes few steps further than my own, I think. But more power to him.
Since both you and your character have major Kylie-love going on, be it mild or major on the obsession scale, is it safe to assume that this book is a little autobiographical?
Well, first of all, according to the age-old adage “Assuming makes an ass out of you and me,” it’s never safe to assume anything. But I think I’ll go ahead and set the record straight on a few points: I never slept with any of my galpals in high school. That would’ve been a mess. I also was never bribed into pretending to be something I wasn’t, that I can remember. I did drive a dirty old Volvo named Aretha, and her mileage does match up with the Aretha in the book. I also did go to Winter Park High School, just outside of Orlando, Florida, where the book is set. But I don’t think I ever went through as much drama in four years of high school as poor Jonathan does in the couple of short months that the book is set in. . . .
On that note, is there any reason you decided to set the book in Orlando?
Well, the easiest thing to say to that is that it’s really easy to write what you already know, and I know Orlando like the back of my hand. I spent the first eighteen years of my life there, so that’s to be expected. . . .
The other side of it is that I wanted to introduce Orlando as almost its own character. Only the people who grew up in Orlando can really understand its weirdnesses and quirks, and the fact that it is its own city, apart from all the freakin’ theme parks. And I hadn’t read any other teen books that had this sort of setting, so I wanted to give it a try and see how it went. I think it turned out okay. Jonathan and Orlando seem to complement each other well with their sort-of mix of glitziness, classiness, and tackiness. If that makes any sense at all.
Not completely, but moving on . . .
Thanks.
What made you decide to write this book?
Besides the fact that North America’s lack of Kylie needs to be made into a more recognized and serious issue? I mean, it’s making gay boys pretend to be straight!
Yeah, um . . . any other reasons?
Well, in January of 2005, my friend Dan, my roommate Nick, and my boyfriend Billy formed a novel-writing group, and I’d sort of been toying around with trying to write a YA novel set in Orlando for a year or so. . . . And then after their first meeting, which went really well, I decided I wanted to try it out. So I sat down at my computer and typed out the first chapter in one sitting. No joke. ’Cause it sounds kind of like I’m B.S.’ing, but I’m not.
Incidentally, if any of you want to write something, I highly suggest a writing group. If you can get yourselves organized and really motivate each other, it can be really helpful. And then one day you can even PLUG each other! Like this! Dan Poblocki’s first of two books with Random House Children’s Books will be out in 2008, and it’s very scary and will freak you the hell out. Nick Eliopulos maintains a hilarious online comic blog called Interrobanger?!, and his first published comic strip appeared in Stuck in the Middle, a graphic-novel anthology about the horrors of middle school. Billy Merrell had poems come out in two anthologies this past spring, 21 Proms and This Is Push. My pug, Paisley, pretty much just uses up air.
Are you always so tacky?
Fortunately, no.
Phew. Let’s segue into some less serious questions. Are you on the MySpace?
Isn’t everyone’s mom’s dog on that by now? Yeah, I am. And if you send me a message first, so I’m sure you’re not some weird spammy, evil, fake account, we can totally be friends.
Do you have anything else coming out?
That’s kind of in the serious-questions category, I think, but I can go ahead and say that, yes, I do. Simon Pulse will release Fat Hoochie Prom Queen on May 6, 2008. Because I'm doing some last-minute revisions on it, I'd rather not say too much, except that it's also set at Winter Park High, and there will be some minor character overlap with the first book. There's also a bit of seven-foot drag queens, Krispy Kreme overdoses, and beer funneling thrown in there. Can we play Favorites now?
Okay, Pushy. Favorite . . . movie?
I’d have to say Mean Girls. Though I’ve heard good things about Stick It . . . I might have to revise this later. *UPDATE: Mean Girls still rules. Despite LiLo's recent suckage.
. . . drink?
Alcoholic or nonalcoholic?
Both.
Okay, mango margarita (I’m twenty-five, yet still seventeen in so many ways), and Diet Pepsi.
Favorite band?
Garbage, since forever. Goldfrapp is biting at their heels now, though. Everyone should hear their Supernature album, or at the very least, listen to “Ride a White Horse.”
Favorite . . . pickup line?
I’m Nico. Buy my book.
. . . ice cream?
Green mint chocolate chip. And yes. It has to be green.
. . . way to end a Q & A gracefully?
Abruptly. |
