Interview With Rosemary Clement-Moore
Award Winning Young Adult Author on Where the YA Market is Headed
May 7, 2009
Award winning author Rosemary Clement-Moore and her Girl vs. Evil stories follow teen Maggie Quinn in her adventure’s to extinguish demon’s from Hell in a very Nancy Drew meets Buffy type way. Her most recent award goes to Hell Week [Bantam Doubleday Dell Books for Young Readers 2008 ISBN 9780385734141] which won the YA category of the Galye Wilson Award of Excellence from Southern Magic RWA.
Her debut novel and first in the series is Prom Dates From Hell [Random House Children’s Books 2008 ISBN 9780385734134], followed by Hell Week and her concluding adventure, Highway to Hell [Random House Children’s Books 2009 ISBN 9780385734639]. Embracing her Young Adult niche, Rosemary has a new book releasing this September, The Splendor Falls [Random House Children’s Books 2009 ISBN 9780385906357] which is nothing short of a wonderful gothic romance.
The most common question to authors will begin the interview:
What got you into writing?
I’ve always been a storyteller. Make believe was my favorite game, whether it was live action, or with my Barbies, or whatever. But my friends always wanted to play Charlie’s Angels or Sweet Valley High or My Little Ponies. I wanted to play Battlestar Galactica or Star Wars. And since I couldn’t talk them into it, I sat down and wrote my own stories. Also, I noticed early on that the boys often got to do the fun stuff (fight with swords, fly vipers and X-wings), and if I wanted girls to do it, too, I was going to have to write my own stories.
Did you always want to write YA? And where do you think the YA market is headed, specifically the paranormal/urban subgenres?
I actually didn’t set out to write a YA book. I just wrote a book that I wanted to read. I admit, a lot of my reading, then and now, came off the YA shelf. The themes appeal to me--in YA, characters are usually figuring out their place in the world, and how they’re going to use their superpower (literal or figurative) to save it. Lots of mythic archetypes in YA, too.
I think the paranormal trend isn’t new in YA--in fact, Sci-Fi and Fantasy books used to be dismissed by serious literary types as “juvenile.” Lots of what I pulled off the SFF shelves as a kid is now on the YA shelves. Only the category in the bookstore is new. I think supernatural stories will always be strong with teens, because they’re still open to that. They haven’t gotten that adult voice that says “that’s stupid” yet. I hope lots of them never will. (I never did.)
What would you say has been the best help for you as a writer, and any sage advice to help those trying to break into the market?
Something that made a big difference for me was joining a couple of writing groups: the RWA, and DFW Writer’s Workshop. In both cases, meeting in person was important. Once I started thinking like a professional writer, I started acting like a professional writer, and… you know… actually WRITING. Because I’d talked about it for a long time. Finding friends and comrades to hold me accountable with “How many pages did you write this day/week/month” was a very big deal.
Keep doing what you love, and keep putting yourself and your work out there, and someday it will come across the person that loves what you do, too!
More About Rosemary Clement-Moore
Read Maggie Quinn interview Rosemary, and the continuation of this interview here. To learn more about Rosemary, visit her website.
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