Interviu Sarah Prineas
Get to know Sarah…
Sarah Prineas is the author of middle-grade fantasy novels The Magic Thief (HarperCollins, 2008), The Magic Thief: Lost (HarperCollins, 2009), and The Magic Thief: Found
(HarperCollins 2010). Foreign rights to the series have been sold in
19 languages, and audio versions are available in English, German, and
Dutch. On its release, The Magic Thief received three starred
reviews, and was a Booksense Top Ten Pick for spring/summer 2008. In
addition, the book was a 2009 E.B. White Read-aloud Award honor book,
was on the 2008 New York Public Library’s 100 Books for Reading and
Sharing list, was a 2009 National Council of Teachers of English Notable
Book in the Language Arts, was a Booklist Top Ten Debut Novels for
Youth 2008, and was a 2008 Cybils Award finalist in the middle-grade
fantasy category. The Magic Thief is on 13 state reading
lists and is Beehive Award winning children’s novel of the year in
Utah. Forthcoming books from Harper Collins include Winterling (2012), its sequel, The Summerkin,
and one yet-to-be-named book. Sarah has a PhD in English literature
and has taught classes at the University of Iowa and Cornell College.
Sarah lives in Iowa City with her mad scientist husband, two odd
children, two perfectly normal cats, and the best dog in the world.
Let the conversation begin!
What is the best writing advice you’ve ever received?
The best writing advice was from my
friend and fellow author Greg van Eekhout, who said, “NEVER SURRENDER!”
Writing is hard, and getting published is even harder, and you have to
be determined to overcome the challenges.
Daily word count?
There’s never a set amount. Sometimes
I write 3000 words, and sometimes I write 0 words. I’m not a very
disciplined writer. But I’ve never missed a deadline!
Outliner or a seat-of-the-pants?
Oh, very much a pantser. The reason I wrote The Magic Thief was
that I’d written the first chapter as a short story and I had no idea
what was going to happen next. I had to write the whole novel in order
to find out!
Ever let anyone read your work-in-progress?
Because I’m not a planner, I have to
do a lot of rewriting and rearranging as I go, so nobody reads my work
as I’m writing it. Once it’s done I have a couple of trusted friends,
all of whom are writers, read it over. They’re great critiquers, so I
revise according to their suggestions and then send the book to my
agent, who is a brutal editor and sees everything before it goes to my
actual editor at HarperCollins.
What initially drew you to writing?
I started writing because babies are
boring. Really! My family was living in Germany at the time, and I had
a newborn. I didn’t speak very good German, and I was very lonely and
bored. So I started writing to have something to do while my baby
napped (he was a very good napper), and something clicked. I realized
that writing was something I was meant to do–that I had to do. The boring baby is now eleven years old, and the second Magic Thief book is dedicated to him.
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