Ask the Author: Julia Watts
Answered Questions (6)
Julia Watts
Hi, Kat! Quiver is a young adult novel that focuses on two teens in two very different families living in rural East Tennessee. Libby is the oldest of six children in a Quiverfull family. Quiverfull is a Christian evangelical philosophy with the view that the man is anointed by God to lead the family, that the woman is his subservient helpmeet, and that the couple should have as many children as possible so they can grow up to perpetuate this lifestyle as well. Libby starts an unlikely friendship with Zo, a genderfluid teen whose family--who is as liberal as Libby's family is conservative--moves into the farmhouse next door. I guess you could say it's a dramatization of the current "culture wars" which shows the need for people to reach out to each other in friendship.
Julia Watts
That's like asking who my favorite child is! I will say, though, that I always feel closest to the first-person narrators I create. I feel very close to both Libby and Zo in QUIVER, to Ruby in SECRET CITY, to the irrepressible and not always reliable Vestal in THE KIND OF GIRL I AM, and to H.F. in FINDING H.F. Since I spend a very long time with these first-person narrators "talking to me" (or maybe it would be better to say "talking through me") as I write, I feel very bonded with them.
Julia Watts
Hi, Melinda! It depends on the book. Some books, like SECRET CITY because it's historical, and my forthcoming book QUIVER because it focuses on a specific subculture I wanted to "get right" take six months or so of research before I even sit down to start writing anything anybody else is going to read. Once I start drafting, it usually takes me about a year from start to finish. I start out writing longhand like the dinosaur I am, then revise the draft as I type it into the computer. After one more revision, I'm usually ready to show it to some trusted readers and then I give it a good going-over based on their feedback.
Julia Watts
If someone tells me "I want to write books, but I hate to read," I'm always puzzled. It's kind of like saying, "I want to be a chef, but I hate to eat." Anyone who wants to write should read widely and promiscuously. And as for the writing itself, they shouldn't wait for some divine sense of inspiration to come over them. They should just sit down and do it, every day if possible.
Julia Watts
Right now I'm working, along with a friend, on adapting my young-adult novel "Finding H.F." into a play. It's been really interesting to take the fairly freewheeling medium of a novel and try to figure out what to do to make it work within the limitations of the stage.
Julia Watts
My latest novel, "Gifted and Talented," was inspired by my experiences when my children who were attending an "honors" magnet academy in inner city Knoxville. While many of the teachers were wonderful, the magnet school setting itself became kind of a microcosm for me about what's wrong with parenting and education in our society: middle-class and upper-class "helicopter parents" micromanaging every aspect of their children's lives and futures while working class and poor parents are just trying to get by day to day. And all families are poorly served by an educational system which classifies children instead of supporting and encouraging them. I wrote "Gifted and Talented" to be a funny novel--and I think it is. But it's a funny novel about some serious issues.
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