Michelle Hodkin
THE UNBECOMING OF MARA DYER
Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers
September 2011
About the book:
Mara Dyer believes life can’t get any stranger than waking up in a hospital with no memory of how she got there. It can.
She believes there must be more to the accident she can’t remember that killed her friends and left her strangely unharmed. There is.
She doesn’t believe that after everything she’s been through, she can fall in love. She’s wrong.
About me:
www.michellehodkin.com
www.twitter.com/MichelleHodkin
What made you decide to be a writer?
I didn’t, exactly. I was struck by inspiration lightning on May 15, 2009 and started writing that night. The next day I had 5,000 words. The next week I had 15,000. I never wrote as a kid or a teenager, though I did study English and American Literature in college, and did a ton of writing in law school and as an attorney. But fiction? Never. This was, quite literally, the book that I HAD to write. So finding out how much I loved it was an incredible and awesome surprise.
Favorite books/authors?
This list would be longer than the entire human DNA strand if I included YA authors, so I’ll just list some adult favorites: The Magicians by Lev Grossman, Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton, Geek Love by Katherine Dunn, Portnoy’s Complaint and Operation Shylock by Philip Roth, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, The Passage by Justin Cronin, On Gold Mountain by Lisa See, The Decameron by Giovanni Bocaccio, The Shining by Stephen King, anything by Carl Hiaasen, anything by Daniel Handler, and The Hot Zone by Richard Preston.
Morning person or a night owl?
I am so nocturnal that I am borderline vampiric. Left to my own devices, I’ll sleep during the day and be up all night.
PC or mac?
A Mac convert since 2010. I bought it for $1200 so that I could use Scrivener, which costs $40.00. And Scrivener was worth it.
What did you have for dinner today?
It's 3PM and I haven't eaten breakfast or lunch, yet. See? Nocturnal.
Quick! Share 11 random things about yourself.
1. I speak Hebrew. Not well, but still.
2. I am allergic to color
3. I’ve been to Turkey, but not Mexico.
4. I can sleep for over fourteen hours if I have no place to be and no one to wake me.
5. I rescued an injured sparrow from a liquor store when I was 19 (don’t ask). No shelters or veterinary hospitals or sanctuaries would take her, so I brought her home to my 400 sq. ft. studio apartment. She lived with me for two months, during which I had to keep mealworms in my refrigerator, and feed them to her with tweezers. It was gross.
6. When I was in middle school, I wanted to be an epidemiologist. Then I realized I’d have to spend the next 20,000 years learning math. I became a lawyer instead.
7. I love the smell of gasoline. What?
8. Once upon a time, I may or may not have had a crush on Michaelangelo. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. The animated one. Yep.
9. The best tomato soup I've ever tasted was in Germany.
10. I own over 700 books and can’t bear to part with them. #hoarder
11. The person who was most surprised at my becoming an author was me.
THE UNBECOMING OF MARA DYER
Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers
September 2011
About the book:
Mara Dyer believes life can’t get any stranger than waking up in a hospital with no memory of how she got there. It can.
She believes there must be more to the accident she can’t remember that killed her friends and left her strangely unharmed. There is.
She doesn’t believe that after everything she’s been through, she can fall in love. She’s wrong.
About me:
www.michellehodkin.com
www.twitter.com/MichelleHodkin
What made you decide to be a writer?
I didn’t, exactly. I was struck by inspiration lightning on May 15, 2009 and started writing that night. The next day I had 5,000 words. The next week I had 15,000. I never wrote as a kid or a teenager, though I did study English and American Literature in college, and did a ton of writing in law school and as an attorney. But fiction? Never. This was, quite literally, the book that I HAD to write. So finding out how much I loved it was an incredible and awesome surprise.
Favorite books/authors?
This list would be longer than the entire human DNA strand if I included YA authors, so I’ll just list some adult favorites: The Magicians by Lev Grossman, Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton, Geek Love by Katherine Dunn, Portnoy’s Complaint and Operation Shylock by Philip Roth, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, The Passage by Justin Cronin, On Gold Mountain by Lisa See, The Decameron by Giovanni Bocaccio, The Shining by Stephen King, anything by Carl Hiaasen, anything by Daniel Handler, and The Hot Zone by Richard Preston.
Morning person or a night owl?
I am so nocturnal that I am borderline vampiric. Left to my own devices, I’ll sleep during the day and be up all night.
PC or mac?
A Mac convert since 2010. I bought it for $1200 so that I could use Scrivener, which costs $40.00. And Scrivener was worth it.
What did you have for dinner today?
It's 3PM and I haven't eaten breakfast or lunch, yet. See? Nocturnal.
Quick! Share 11 random things about yourself.
1. I speak Hebrew. Not well, but still.
2. I am allergic to color
3. I’ve been to Turkey, but not Mexico.
4. I can sleep for over fourteen hours if I have no place to be and no one to wake me.
5. I rescued an injured sparrow from a liquor store when I was 19 (don’t ask). No shelters or veterinary hospitals or sanctuaries would take her, so I brought her home to my 400 sq. ft. studio apartment. She lived with me for two months, during which I had to keep mealworms in my refrigerator, and feed them to her with tweezers. It was gross.
6. When I was in middle school, I wanted to be an epidemiologist. Then I realized I’d have to spend the next 20,000 years learning math. I became a lawyer instead.
7. I love the smell of gasoline. What?
8. Once upon a time, I may or may not have had a crush on Michaelangelo. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. The animated one. Yep.
9. The best tomato soup I've ever tasted was in Germany.
10. I own over 700 books and can’t bear to part with them. #hoarder
11. The person who was most surprised at my becoming an author was me.
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2011debuts- The Elevensies
elevensies
a mid-morning snack
with coffee or tea
WHO WE ARE
A group of YA and MG authors whose first books debut in 2011
COVERS UNCOVERED
a mid-morning snack
with coffee or tea
WHO WE ARE
A group of YA and MG authors whose first books debut in 2011
COVERS UNCOVERED
Designed by ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.2)
chasethestars
chasethestars
Comments
Also, I'm a little bit not smart and couldn't figure out how to post :/ Had to call in Victoria for help. But now that I am here, I plan to stick around :D
Great intro post. Very engaging. And the Michelangelo crush? Thank god, I thought I was the only one. Unless you were joking, in which case, I never said that.
And thank you, x10000! I am sooooo excited :D
PS: YOUR cover? YOUR book? Spectacular.
you're amazing. welcome.
:)
What a great story of how you wrote this book! Very inspiring and impressive. :)
Kathy
Your book sounds amazing AND it has an amazing cover!
And YOUR book sounds amazing, and THANK YOU. I'm pretty psyched meself.
Yay, Hitchiker's Guide! I often find myself wanting to drop references to body debit cards and the Total Perspective Vortex, but then I think -- will anyone know what I'm talking about?
Now I have to go look for your amazing cover that I'm hearing so much about.
The only thing I'm admitting is that your book sounds amazing. So happy to have you with us, Michelle. :)
Crystal