The Jandy Hour

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The Jandy Hour

We interrupt the regularly scheduled program to bring you:

The Jandy Hour

Featuring Jandy Nelson

If you are a frequent or loyal or just longtime reader of this blog, you might remember, oh, a year and a half ago I started SWOONING about a book I'd had the opportunity to read an advanced copy of. It was called THE SKY IS EVERYWHERE by Jandy Nelson. I was SO besotted with the book that I fangirled the author on Facebook as is my wont—have done this to Stephanie Perkins, Ally Condie, Natalie Standiford, Libba Bray, among others; not boys, it's too weird to get fangirlly with boys. Anyhow, I emailed her and we became admirers and then friends.

I cannot say how much I love this book, though I will try: It is poetic without being florid. Sweeping without feeling overwrought. Insanely romantic without ever going over than line into icky. It deals with grand themes: love, lust, loss, grieving, identity—all of which in the wrong hands could cross over into melodrama. Luckily, Jandy's hands are the right hands. The book is simply—and literally—breathtaking.

And now it has a cover that is as breathtaking as the book itself. I liked the big floating heart, but this new cover is sexy and romantic and full of lush fecund growing things, like the book itself. See?

So, in honor of the paperback release of THE SKY IS EVERYWHERE, we have this awesome interview with Jandy, along with GIVEAWAYS galore. Signed copies of her new book, plus for those of you SKY SCHOLARS, a quiz and a giveaway of a beautiful deluxe journal, so you can jot down poems like Lennie does.More on the giveaways after the interview. Without further, ado, Jandy:

I'm going to ask the obvious, and hard, question first. When I first read—and fell in love with—THE SKY IS EVERYWHERE, I was hit by the utter truth and immediacy of what grief felt like. "My sister dies over and over again, all day long." I just knew when I read that you were writing from a personal place. So, would you share the inspiration for this story.

First, thank you so much for having me here on your blog! I adore IF I STAY and I adore you and I'm counting the days, minutes, seconds until WHERE SHE WENT comes out! [Editorial note: less than two weeks now!!!]

Thanks for your words above. And yes, it is a very personal story for me in terms of the grief. Years ago, I lost one of my closest friends in the world very suddenly to a heart attack. I had lots of brothers growing up, always wanted a sister, and this friend was a sister in every way but blood. I imagined every step of my life with her by my side and losing her just swept me off the continent, hurled me right into the stratosphere. It changed everything. Many years later, Lennie crashed into my psyche with her clarinet and worn copy of Wuthering Heights. I kept seeing her, this grief-stricken girl scattering her poems all over a town and I knew this was it: my opportunity to write about this kind of catastrophic, tectonic, transformational life event, to really explore the intricacies and complexities of grief. Then the fiction part came in because I wanted to explore it all through a love story—or two love stories really. I wanted to write a story where joy and sorrow cohabitated in really close quarters, where love could be almost as unwieldy as grief.

You and I have talked about the similarity of writing THE SKY IS EVERYWHERE to my writing IF I STAY, highly emotional and cathartic. Can you talk about how it felt to write this book?

Yes, it's wild how similar our experiences were! I remember reading an interview you'd done days after I'd done one on the radio and realized that we almost spoke about our experiences verbatim! It was incredible.

Writing SKY was one of the most joyous experiences of my life as ironic as they may seem considering the subject matter. It was crazy. Even as the tears streamed down my face, I often felt like I was in a fit of ecstasy. I think this is because I got to discover over and again by writing the book the same thing Lennie discovers within the book, that grief and love are conjoined, that you can't have one without the other, that grief is a measure of love lost, and that love is eternal. I think that's all so hopeful and it filled me with hope as I was writing it and discovering it with Lennie. We were definitely in it together! Also, for me, this is a story of a girl waking up to life in all its joys and sorrows and even just a few a few pages into the story, the world (though dark) is turning on, switch by switch, so it was a joy to see light after light illuminated within and outside of her. Lennie's grief is very transformative and ultimately redemptive for her as it was for me experiencing it with her. I felt like my friend who died was with me in the room the whole time I was writing the story—it was as if every morning we showed up at my desk together. Unbelievably, the book sold at auction to Penguin on the anniversary of her death— exactly 11 years later, almost to the minute. That's crazy, isn't it? I mean, I had absolutely nothing to do with the timing of the submission, the auction, any of it. There are 364 other days in the year, but it happened on that day. I'm pretty sure she was working behind the scenes!

I've read somewhere that some other bits of SKY are true, like the poems scattered all around town. Did you do that?

No, not really, but after my friend died, I'd go sit at this bench by the water. One day, I wanted to talk to her so badly I wrote her a note and then crumpled it up and threw it in the water. It seemed the only way. And it got me thinking, wondering what do you do? Do you scatter notes to the winds? Do you write letters and just drop them in a mailbox w/o an address? Maybe write Heaven as the address, or Hell, or The Beyond. I like that idea a lot actually—all these letters showing up at the post office! Anyway, I think the seeds for Lennie scattering her poems and writing on whatever came from this kind of thinking (combined with a love of graffiti and found art). It's such a mad helpless feeling not being able to communicate with people when they're gone. I think for Lennie it was that motivating her—the desire to communicate with Bailey—and something more too. I think she needed to mark her grief as well as her and Bailey's story on the world, to somehow make sure their story wasn't forgotten, to make sure it was part of everything. A couple girls in the UK told me recently that everyone in their school was reading SKY and scattering poems all over their town! Nothing has made me happier than imagining that town covered in poems!

But in terms of other stuff, yes, I have to confess that the most wacko stuff in the book is true: Big's pyramids, The Forest Bedroom, a grandmother who only paints green people—I stole all that and more from my crazy relatives.

The Northern California hippie town is SO PERFECT, it's like a character of its own. I have to ask, is it modeled on any one place, or a pastiche of places? I want to go there!

Thank you! Let's go together! I made up the town, didn't really model it on one I know, more one I dream about living in. I see it so clearly in my mind, I fully expect to stumble on it one day while driving around. Lennie calls the area northern Northern California but the natural elements are all true to the Russian River area, perhaps with a shot of adrenalin. My river might rush a little more and the redwoods might be a little grander, but otherwise it's pretty accurate—I've spent lots of time up there. I love it. I'm so happy you thought of the town like a character. I really wanted it to be. The landscape—the rushing river, the thick old growth forest, the redwoods—is so in the DNA of the Walker family, I wanted the natural world to be instrumental in Lennie's recovery and awakening almost in a spiritual way and I wanted the town to feel idyllic and a little magical. A place where people actually might believe that the scent of Gram's roses could make them fall in love.

You've mentioned that initially you thought you would write SKY as a verse novel. When did you realize that this would change?

I realized very very early in the writing process, after about two weeks. It was the scariest moment ever because I'd never written fiction before, only poetry, but I knew the story needed to be told mostly in prose. So I dove in and fell madly in love with writing fiction. I think that contributed a lot to the ecstatic state I was in writing SKY. I just loved being so immersed in a story: it was like living two lives at once, which really suits me.

I have a crush on both Joe and Toby. Do you have a favorite?

They have crushes on you too. [Editor's note: *blushing*] Though Joe is no longer available. I think when you're writing a love story, you fall in love right alongside your main character, so I have strong feelings for both. My heart kind of aches for Toby and rejoices in Joe. But as the author, I never really felt like Toby was a viable long-term romantic option for Lennie, always knew Joe was the one for her. She and Joe are both so similar at their cores, both emotional and creative and romantic—passion hunters really. Toby is a little laconic and broody for Lennie. Personally, I like the strong silent type and I'm pretty mad about cowboys, but I also love the guy who bursts with life and creativity, so nope, can't pick. It's impossible! They share my heart.

Speaking of Joe and Toby, one of the things I LOVED about this book was the "inappropriate" ways that Lennie found herself behaving. "I do not think this is how normal people mourn," she says of her flaring, um, lust at one point. I've wondered if some readers, younger ones in particular, might not have gotten that, might have judged Lennie for channeling her grief the way she does with Toby. Has that happened? If so, do you want to speak to it?

Yes it has happened. Most of the readers I hear from understand why Lennie was drawn to Toby, how deeply she needed him, and him, her, how they confused their shared grief with passion, etc., how together they somehow conjured Bailey, but others definitely feel she crosses an unforgivable line. And Lennie feels she does too! So does Joe. In this regard, Lennie is her worst critic really and judges herself quite harshly. I have more compassion about it. I think grief is a very complicated, very powerful, often blindingly passionate emotion and it doesn't always allow one "to behave" as one would wish or expect. I think there are as many ways to mourn as there are people. In general, people make mistakes, make questionable choices, especially when their whole world has tipped over and they're "out of their trees," as Gram says. Lennie was quite out of her tree for most of the book. In the end, she gets back in that tree and tries to make amends and make things right with the people she hurt. Also, an aside: on a practical story-telling level, if characters always made the right choices, there would be a lot of very boring stories out there!

There's a definite horticultural theme in the book, tons of flower imagery, and in your publicity photos, you are surrounded by gorgeous flowers. You have a quote on your website about eating flowers. Do you have a green thumb?

Oh my God, I have a black thumb! I'm the grim reaper of the vegetal world! Once they come into my hands it's doomsday! Luckily fictional flowers don't need much attending! I once went to this extraordinary flower farm up north—the roses were as big as my head and every color of orange and pink and red. I swooned. I think that was the moment Gram's garden began to seed.

The paperback cover for SKY is pretty drastically different from the hardcover. What are your thoughts on the shift?

I'm totally in love with the paperback cover. I love that it's The Forest Bedroom, love that the vines are creeping over the sleeping girl. It has a dreamy magical quality that really works for me and I like the green leafyness of it. And it's sexy and romantic too! I'm excited my story gets to be inside it. The hardback cover was dramatic and I was happy with it, but I'm really smitten with this one. I feel like I can say this because the same designer did both. She's amazing.

You were a literary agent before becoming an author. How is it different to be on the other side?

It's a miracle being on the other side, truly. I feel so lucky. My favorite part about being an agent is making the call to a writer saying that I'm madly in love with his or her book and want to represent it—that's such a joyful moment, as is making the call to an author that there is an offer or offers from publishing houses—it's just crazy gleeful. But I have to say getting those calls is perhaps even more amazing than making them! It's funny, I'm so used to being around the publishing process that sometimes it's hard for me to remember that it's actually my book and not someone else's that's being discussed. I pinch myself a lot. I do think the most difficult part about being on this side, about being an author in general, is the colossal lack of control. All you can do is write the best story you can—the rest is largely not up to you.

Given you have this unique perspective, do you have any advice for aspiring writers out there?

Ironically, agenting has hammered into me the idea that you must write the story you need to, without paying attention to the market, to trends, to an audience, that you must try to be true to your own voice and vision and just pour yourself onto the page. It may sound corny to say that, but when you're an agent, you see, again and again, writers trying to write for the market rather than for themselves and most often that's a mistake. So, I guess my years working in the industry have taught me to pay little attention to my years working in the industry!

Here's a paragraph from the Q&A in the brand spanking new awesome paperback where I talk more generally about advice to aspiring writers:

Read, read, read. And write, write, write. Also, remember that what makes your voice as a writer unique is the fact that you're you, so don't be afraid to put yourself on the page, to reveal your passions, sorrows, joys, idiosyncrasies, insights, your personal monsters and miracles. Only you can be you and only you can write like you—that's your gift alone. If you have the writing fever, just keep at it—writing takes a ton of practice, patience and perseverance—make sure to ignore the market and don't let rejection talk you out of your dream. I love this quote by Ray Bradbury: "Yet if I were asked to name the most important items in a writer's make-up, the things that shape his material and rush him along the road to where he wants to go, I could only warn him to look to his zest, see to his gusto."

* * *

Sigh. Are you feeling the love right how? I am.

Have you read THE SKY IS EVERYWHERE yet? No? NO? NO??!!!!!! Okay then, you must. I'm going to make it easy on you. You can either click here to order yourself a copy or you can try your luck to win a signed copy. Oh, you optimistic peoples, Always going for the longshot. Okay, to win a copy, all you have to do is leave a comment. That's it. No craziness, no poetry (though if you feel inspired, by all means, comment in verse). Just a comment.

Now, for those of you who have already fallen under Jandy's spell, I am offering a gorgeous handcrafted journal, the kind with paper that looks like it comes from trees (read: expensive) so you can not be like Lennie, scattering poetry on styrofoam cups, but can leave it in a journal. Jandy will even sign this journal with some special magical muse-beckong incantation.

So, if you want to win the fine handcrafted journal, put on your thinking caps and answer the following SKY questions. DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT, post your answers here. Rather email them to me at info at gayleforman dot com. I will randomly select a winner. And no, you don't have to get them all right to play. You just have to make a game effort.

Both contests run until March 30th.

Pencils up: