For our #SRC2014 BONUS week, we are pleased to host a short interview with Bestselling author, Megan Abbott!
What was the inspiration behind your book, The Fever?
I’d been thinking about a story like The Fever since I was a little kid, reading Shirley Jackson stories and books about the Salem Witch Trials—stories about small towns and terrifying outbreaks among girls. But the real push came when I first heard about a 2012 mysterious outbreak among a group of high school girls in upstate New York, all of whom developed these baffling tics. I watched two of the girls on the Today Show and it haunted me—the fear, confusion and anger in their eyes. I started writing The Fever the same day.
What is the strangest fan encounter that’s ever happened?
Strangest and best occurred at Murder by the Book in Houston when a reader asked me to sign his leg with a sharpie so he could have a tattoo made. The following year, I returned to the store and so did he. And there was the tattoo—my signature right there on his calf!
Knowing what you know now, what publishing advice would you give yourself when you were first starting out?
Manage your expectations and think of publishing as a marathon, not a sprint. When you sell your first book, it’s hard not to imagine, that your life will change. But it won’t—at least not in the ways you think. So it’s important to keep your focus on the work itself rather than obsessing the business aspects you can’t control. I still have to remind myself all the time.
What is your favorite summer beach read ever? What are you reading this summer?
I still remember reading a worn paperback of Interview with the Vampire at age thirteen or so at Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. I couldn’t stop turning the pages. So dark and depraved and compulsively readable.
This summer, I’ll be digging into Joanna Rakoff’s My Salinger Year, Celeste Ng’s Everything I Never Told You and Ben H. Winters’s Last Policeman trilogy, which I’ve heard is incredible.
What are you most looking forward to this summer?
Finally catching up on Breaking Bad and going to see Richard Linklater’s Boyhood—twelve years in the making—on the big screen. And a gin and tonic or two.
Enter HERE for your chance to WIN a copy of The Fever!
Find more about Megan:
www.facebook.com/MeganAbbottBooks
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