Gabrielle Zevin's The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry discussion

Post your questions here for Gabrielle Zevin to answer on April 15, 2014.

What or who inspired A.J.? Love him and his book shop.

I love my local bookshop The Dolphin bookshop in Port Washington but so many independent book stores are in trouble. In the book you alluded to the fact that a place that does not have a bookstore has no soul. What can be done to prevent our towns from losing this valuable resource ?

For the birthright series, where did you come up with that idea? did you have a person in your life that you based anya on? I am a huge fan of the series i read the first 2 in one weekend! I couldn't put them down!! Then waited for the 3rd and read that in a day! Thanks!

It was interesting how you used short stories throughout this book. Despite the fact that the last Nobel Prize for Literature went to a short story writer, they still aren't as popular a format as novels. What (or who) inspired to you to intersperse short stories into this book instead of novels?

I've really enjoyed your previous books 'Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac' and 'Elsewhere'. Where did you get your inspiration for these from?
This book is very different, what made you choose this as a story idea?

What is the most important advice you could give an aspiring author? Maybe something you've learned that isn't often told to young writers?

What do you draw the most from your relationships with your agent/editor? What advice can you give to new editors about working with authors in revisions?

Thank you for creating Anya. She is incredible!

Gabrielle, one of the first YA books that began my obsession with YA books was your book Elsewhere, and I was wondering - do you truly believe there's an after life, whether or not it's like "Elsewhere"? That book fascinated me, and I appreciated the topic you wrote it on!

I read your book Elsewhere several years ago. I love that book! It was so different than other YA books that I have read. I was also wondering where you came up with the idea for that book.

I would like to know how you came up with the idea for one of my all time favorite books, elsewhere. I'd also like to know if you had the idea for the cover picture or was it different from what you originally envisioned. Thank you for writing elsewhere and I am so looking forward to meeting AJ Fikry!

You're responsible for the screenplay for my favourite movie, 'Conversations with Other Women'. How did that come about? I assume it was written with split-screen in mind, so what was it like working with that particular restriction? (Also, you wrote it when you were crazy-young, if Wikipedia is to be believed, so kudos for that. What was it like being involved in a project like that in your mid-twenties?)

Thanks!

Elsewhere is one of the best books I've ever read!! It was so different than every other book I'd ever read. It was very original. I was wondering where in the world you came up with the idea for that book.

Alas there is no longer a local bookstore like A J and his wife opened where I live, but your writing brought it to life for me. I am envious of the island residents.

My question: I am curious about the development of the that part of the book where the guest author is actually an actor...and of course the woman in the audience. Was the idea of the woman author writing as a man reflective of a personal experience?

Last year I read Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac on recommendation, and I loved it so much I'd have it buried with me in a big Egyptian-style funeral! Anyway, I gave it to one of my friends to read and 11 months later almost every girl in my tutor group and read it and adored it. So my question was: what was your inspiration and how did you write a book that is so - quite frankly - addictive?

A friend made the comment so I'll ask you. any thoughts on doing a story from Maya's point of view?

It was because of Elsewhere that I became a lover of books! The book was so insightful and original, I instantly fell in love. I loved the characters and the whole concept of there being an Afterlife but aging backwards until you're reborn again. Is there a possibility of a sequel or a prequel to it?

It's interesting that what makes this discussion possible is an Amazon owned online website. These resources have made it possible for readers and authors to connect in a way never before possible. Yet, at the same time, these same resources threaten the existence of independent books stores like the one in the book. What are your thoughts on the roles for the different resources moving forward? I, for one, would be very sad if all the local bookstores in my area closed.

What is the process that an author goes through to reference one of your novels? Or vice-versa...

I stayed up until 3:00 a.m. this morning to finish The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry. What an amazing book! Gabrielle, you always have such brilliant characters. For this book, did the character of A.J. Fikry come to you first, or did the story line come first with a vague notion of the character? Also, how did you choose the many books mentioned in the novel? Personal favorites? I think I remember reading that the short stories weren't necessarily your choice, but were what fit A.J.

I'm intrigued by the idea of growing up in a bookstore. Is there anywhere else that you would have liked to have been dropped off as a baby? I think a small bookshop is perfect.

Hello Gabrielle,
I love all the books that I have read by you (especially the Birthright trilogy) I was wondering what inspired you to become a writer and what tips would you give to someone who was think about starting to write books.
:)

Not sure why this question occurred to me just now, but I know some authors talk about what music they listen to as they write, and, I'm assuming that others probably don't listen to music while writing. I'm not sure that I could write with music playing, as I think that I would get distracted by it. So, my question is, do you listen to music while you write, and if you do, are there certain favorites you rely on, or do you seek new material in music along with your writing? (I think I can guess the answers here, and I'm curious to see if I'm right.)

Gabrielle, did you know when you started the novel what the fate of different characters was going to be, or did it evolve while writing?

Gabrielle Zevin; three questions for you!

One: The character Lambiase's journey in terms of what he read, and who he considered himself to be really facinated me. Did you base him on a real person, or was his personal growth more associated with the power of a real bookstore with personalized recommendations that change as you change?

Two: Did you ever work in the bookselling industry (as a rep or in retail), and if you didn't, how did you research for this book?

Three: You are going to be doing an event in San Francisco this Wednesday. If you have a chance, would you be willing to stop by other independents in the area and sign stock?

This isn't a question- I'd just like to thank you. This book helped cement my decision to stay in the book business. It reminded me about the importance of what a bookstore does, even a tiny one.

Hello Gabrielle,
'Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac' is one of my most favourite books,and the first I read in English, and now I've finished first chapters of 'The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry'. And I noticed that both Naomi and A.J. says that they hate orphan stories however orphans and orphanage plays a pretty big role in a further plot.
So I want to ask is there any reason why both characters hate orphan stories despite everything that is going to happen to them?

Ryan wrote: "Gabrielle, you mentioned in the back of the book that your tastes may not be similar to Fikry's, and then you referenced Neil Gaiman's American Gods. What similarities do you actually share with Fi..."

We both love Old School by Tobias Wolff, but other than that... I probably liked Infinite Jest more than him, and I probably like short stories slightly less than him.

Read, Run, Ramble wrote: "What or who inspired A.J.? Love him and his book shop."

I always tell people that AJ is ten years of doing publishing events. Publishing people in my experience are a combination of two things: 1) they are not particularly driven by money, and 2) they rely on their taste to MAKE money. This makes for odd, or should I say particular, individuals.

Read, Run, Ramble wrote: "What or who inspired A.J.? Love him and his book shop."

Also, thank you! It was pointed out to me recently that my dad is also a man with strong opinions about things, so he's probably a little bit my dad, too, though I didn't necessarily think that when I was writing.

Ryan wrote: "Gabrielle, you mentioned in the back of the book that your tastes may not be similar to Fikry's, and then you referenced Neil Gaiman's American Gods. What similarities do you actually share with Fi..."

Interestingly, re: Gaiman. I became aware of his quote about bookstores BEFORE I read American Gods. I'm not sure Fikry would necessarily be a Neil Gaiman reader. He's got so many feelings about genre. Though I do think he would give the young Maya The Graveyard Book and Coraline.

Jo Beth wrote: "I love my local bookshop The Dolphin bookshop in Port Washington but so many independent book stores are in trouble. In the book you alluded to the fact that a place that does not have a bookstore..."

This is such a hard question. And I am not a social scientist or an urban planner or an economist or even an MBA. But here's something I believe and something I tell young readers when I'm speaking to them: we have some say in what our towns (and our futures) look like. If people who live in a place DECIDE that it is important to have a bookstore and they go to it and patronize it, towns will have bookstores.

Shelby wrote: "For the birthright series, where did you come up with that idea? did you have a person in your life that you based anya on? I am a huge fan of the series i read the first 2 in one weekend! I couldn..."

Thank you! The Birthright series came from the fact that I'd always enjoyed organized crime stories and I thought it would be interesting to write a book set in the future. I wanted to write a future that was more like the past -- the economy had gotten bad, and government had made poor decisions for the people. But I wanted the world of the Birthright series to be recognizably our own. Anya was a teeny bit myself, but her life is much, much, much harder than mine. I wanted to write the kind of girl that was very self-aware in a good way. I've often been frustrated when I read series where the girl has to NOT know how smart or how pretty she is, if she wants to be seen as a "good person." I wanted to write a girl that knew exactly what her strengths and weaknesses were.

Shelby wrote: "For the birthright series, where did you come up with that idea? did you have a person in your life that you based anya on? I am a huge fan of the series i read the first 2 in one weekend! I couldn..."

Re: "chocolate is illegal" -- that idea came from a crazy chocolate-induced headache I had in the summer of 2009, I think.

Davida wrote: "It was interesting how you used short stories throughout this book. Despite the fact that the last Nobel Prize for Literature went to a short story writer, they still aren't as popular a format as ..."

Well, I knew AJ was a man of very particular taste and often anti-populist sensibilities. I had always heard that the hardest thing for booksellers to sell were short story collections. So, of course, I thought my anti-populist hero would love them!

Ultimately -- and I hope this isn't too much of a spoiler -- the short story recommendations are ones he is making to Maya. The reason he is making them is because he thinks (as many of us do) that short stories are an excellent training ground for a young writer. And a writer is what AJ hopes Maya is going to turn into someday.

Obviously, the idea of "collected works" runs through the book, too. I was fascinated with the idea that those of us who read for an entire life could make a collected works, too. That collected works were not just for authors, but for readers.

Elizabeth wrote: "I've really enjoyed your previous books 'Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac' and 'Elsewhere'. Where did you get your inspiration for these from?
This book is very different, what made you choose this as..."

All of my books have started with a questions. At the time I wrote Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac, I was thinking about my grandmother's Alzheimer's Disease and the question I asked myself was, "Is a person more than her memories and experiences?" When I was writing Elsewhere, I lived on a street with a nursing home and a daycare center, and I saw a woman walking down the street with a baby carriage in one hand and a little old lady in a wheelchair in the other -- I remember asking myself, "Is life really the same at both ends?"

For AJ Fikry, I had been reading so many articles about the rise of the e-reader and the demise of the bookstore. I probably had two question for this book: 1) what is the importance of a bookstore to a community? and 2) how do the stories we read define our lives?

Destiny (Elizabeth Grace) wrote: "What is the most important advice you could give an aspiring author? Maybe something you've learned that isn't often told to young writers?"

I'll start by saying that a lot of the "often told" advice does work. Read a lot, write a lot, etc. But as for things I would put in the not "often told" category? I think sometimes a lot of advice for young writers puts too much emphasis on daily word counts and just getting things down. I believe thinking is just as important as writing. I've had book ideas I thought about for seven or eight years before I started writing them. You must prepare to write well. You think about things you want to say and the ways you want to say them before you start. So, I guess my "not often" told advice would be it is OKAY not to write sometimes and also, that thinking is underrated.

The one other thing I would mention is, I spend a lot of time writing detailed character biographies BEFORE I start writing a novel now. I like to know as much about the characters as possible before I start to put them in scenes or in prose. It's something I only started doing a couple of books ago, and it's made a big difference in terms of removing some of the expositional burden from the novel itself.

Thanks Gabrielle for your thoughts.

Bethany wrote: "What do you draw the most from your relationships with your agent/editor? What advice can you give to new editors about working with authors in revisions?

Thank you for creating Anya. She is incre..."

My agent thinks about everything in my career that I don't always want to be thinking about. He is my advocate and sometimes my "bad cop" too. I count on him to be truthful to me all the time, and he is!

I feel like all my editorial relationships have been positive and joyful, though the editors I've worked with have been quite different. In general, editorial is one of my favorite parts of the process. Most editors REALLY want to make the book the absolute best it can be, and it's wonderful to have someone who shares this goal with you.

Re: editors working with authors on revisions
I think all authors are different and I think editors have to vary their styles a bit depending on who they are working with. When I started out, criticism hurt me more, and so I needed my editor to be gentler with me. In general, I think young writers require a gentler hand because they have a lack of familiarity with the editorial process. Now, I've written eight books, and I am less sensitive and more eager to get the work done. The editorial process on AJ Fikry was one of my favorites because Kathy the editor and I reached a shorthand so quickly. Her editorial was perfect for me because it was so specific and clear.

Thank you for mentioning Anya, by the way. I love writing her, and I still think of her sometimes. (Also, I'm pretty sure you and I have chatted on Twitter.)

Lily wrote: "Gabrielle, one of the first YA books that began my obsession with YA books was your book Elsewhere, and I was wondering - do you truly believe there's an after life, whether or not it..."

Thank you! I do not believe in a particular afterlife though I am prepared to be surprised by what comes next! I don't believe in an afterlife like Elsewhere either -- people often ask me this question. I wrote Elsewhere because I wanted to talk about the things that mattered to me in this life, the one I am in and the only one I know for certain. I think the reason there are so many books and movies about the afterlife is because it's good, and maybe even important, to reflect on the afterlife. It can help clarify the things we want from this life.

Mia wrote: "I read your book Elsewhere several years ago. I love that book! It was so different than other YA books that I have read. I was also wondering where you came up with the idea for that book."

Hi Mia. Thank you! I answered this question a little above here in the feed. But I'll tell you something else about coming up with the idea: I'd stayed up very late and I was just about to fall asleep when I had a flash of an idea. It was in that strangely productive time between wakefulness and sleep; I closed my eyes, and I pictured a girl in a small cabin on a boat in the middle of the ocean. Where is she? What has happened to her? She arrives at dock and the sign above the pier says WELCOME TO ELSEWHERE.

Susan wrote: "I would like to know how you came up with the idea for one of my all time favorite books, elsewhere. I'd also like to know if you had the idea for the cover picture or was it different from what y..."

Hi Susan, I've answered the question about how I came up with Elsewhere a couple of times on this message board already, so I'm going to direct you above!

As for the cover... The cover process for Elsewhere took a while. I think it's because my publisher really cared about getting it right. The snow globe WAS my idea, but it was in a list of about fifty ideas I sent them. I remember that I didn't even think it was my best idea, per se. My favorite idea for the cover was that I wanted it to look like a waterlogged book, like it had been out to sea for a very long time. But that idea was probably too obscure. In any case, I did very much like what the final jacket looked like and I think it was the right jacket for the book. I remember a rejected version of the Elsewhere jacket that had dead babies floating in a river... I think the book wouldn't have been terribly popular with that jacket.

Nick wrote: "You're responsible for the screenplay for my favourite movie, 'Conversations with Other Women'. How did that come about? I assume it was written with split-screen in mind, so what was it like worki..."

Thanks very much!

The director and I wanted to conceive of a story that worked with the split-screen format. The idea of a couple, who may or may not be together, appealed to us because the split-screen became a metaphor for the characters' relationship. So yes, the script was definitely written with split screen in mind.

Wikipedia is correct about my age at the time. I was the oldest twenty-five year old in the world. (I think I was 24 or 25 when I wrote it. We shot when I was 26; it came out when I was 28.) It was a privilege getting to work with such great collaorators at such a young age. Getting to work with excellent people makes your work better.

Natalie wrote: "Elsewhere is one of the best books I've ever read!! It was so different than every other book I'd ever read. It was very original. I was wondering where in the world you came up with the idea for ..."

Thank you and thanks for asking! I've answered this question in detail a couple of times on this message board already so I'll direct you up, earlier in the feed. The short answer is insomnia & location or something like that.

Gabrielle wrote: "Susan wrote: "I would like to know how you came up with the idea for one of my all time favorite books, elsewhere. I'd also like to know if you had the idea for the cover picture or was it differe..."

Thanks so much for answering my question! I absolutely love the cover and use it in my 7th grade class. When we talk about "judging a book..." I show them elsewhere, and I ask, "So who, based strictly on this cover, wants to read this book?" Most of them add it to their "On Deck" list right then!

BTW, just finished The Storied Life and loved it-- charming, witty, intelligent, sweet, and kind...

Don wrote: "Alas there is no longer a local bookstore like A J and his wife opened where I live, but your writing brought it to life for me. I am envious of the island residents.

My question: I am curious ab..."

I'm sorry you no longer have a bookstore!

To answer your question: I've always been fascinated by literary "frauds": the novelist JT Leroy (who did apparently hire a younger man to pose as the author at readings), the memoirist James Frey, of course. As an author, when I read a piece of nonfiction, I am usually aware of its construction, and so it's interesting to me where that "fraudulent" line is. I do, to an extent, believe what Leonora Ferris says in the book -- that something can be emotionally true without being literally so. I also think it's interesting the way people read books they know are written by men versus written by women. A woman at a reading I gave last night said she thought AJ Fikry was written by a man the whole time she was reading until she got to the end and saw my picture. I was fascinated by this comment.

Emily wrote: "Last year I read Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac on recommendation, and I loved it so much I'd have it buried with me in a big Egyptian-style funeral! Anyway, I gave it to one of my friends to read a..."

Thank you, and that is very flattering! Entombment, this is serious. The idea -- which I mentioned earlier in the message board -- probably came from my grandmother having Alzheimer's Disease.I found myself asking, Is a person more than his or her memories and experiences? It took me a long time to get the book just right, though. Sometimes, I think the reason people truly love a book is more because of the characters than the story, and I remember when I was writing the characters of MOATA, they (and particularly James & Will) seemed incredibly vivid to me. When I was done (and now years later), I still think of James. I worry about him and wonder what he's doing.

Marci wrote: "A friend made the comment so I'll ask you. any thoughts on doing a story from Maya's point of view?"

Hmm, I have heard this comment a couple of times now, and it's definitely something to consider. In a way, the Maya character is the one most in flux of any of the characters in the story. This is because she is growing up, so almost every time we meet her, she is a different person in a way. But yes, I've been thinking about Maya a great deal... So many secrets she doesn't know! What happens when she writes her first novel? But I'm not sure I want to delve into a sequel just yet. I'm happy with where I left the denizens of Alice Island.

Susan wrote: "Gabrielle wrote: "Susan wrote: "I would like to know how you came up with the idea for one of my all time favorite books, elsewhere. I'd also like to know if you had the idea for the cover picture..."

Happy to hear that the cover still works and I am delighted to hear you enjoyed Fikry!

Alithea wrote: "It was because of Elsewhere that I became a lover of books! The book was so insightful and original, I instantly fell in love. I loved the characters and the whole concept of there being an Afterli..."

Oh, thank you! I am so pleased to hear this. For years, I have considered writing a prequel to Elsewhere. (Always made sense to me that the story would move backwards instead of forwards.) It might be about the Captain and possibly about the time his ship got lost at sea. But I've never done it. In a way, I think it's because I'm happy with where I left Liz and company, but also, because people have loved Elsewhere so much over the years, I wouldn't want to ruin it for them in any way.

Nada wrote: "It's interesting that what makes this discussion possible is an Amazon owned online website. These resources have made it possible for readers and authors to connect in a way never before possible...."

This is an intriguing question and probably requires a dissertation to answer it properly. For many reasons, I think the health of bookstores and paper books are vitally important in terms of the quality of books that publishers will be able to put out. However, I don't think we can fight technology either. What I want is for people to be mindful. We don't want to accidentally find ourselves in a world without paper books, without literary fiction, without bookstores. People, as I said earlier on this board, have a lot of ability to determine what the future of their towns looks like, and I believe towns will have bookstores if people decide that it's important for their towns to have them -- this means choosing to patronize these bookstores, of course.

I like talking to readers online, but I also think we need to be mindful of the ways in which technology is changing the author/reader relationship. I don't think it's a great idea to buy a book solely because a writer is amusing on Twitter, say. I think it's important to remember that gorgeous, life-changing books come from unpleasant people. And vice versa. Mediocre novels occasionally come from people who are AMAZING on social media. But I digress.

Apologies! I probably haven't answered this question thoroughly enough.