Young Adult Author
Laura Taylor Namey: TRIPLE CROWN
“I need to
hang out with Jane Austen because I just want to hear exactly how she came up
with this Mr. Darcy person. I want to know all about him. I want to know his
origin story in her head…Give me Jane and a latte and six hours, and we're
good.”
By Laura
Segal Stegman
Click Here to Watch
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VIDEO
TRANSCRIPT
This interview has been edited for
length and clarity.
LAURA SEGAL
STEGMAN
Hi, everyone.
I'm Laura Segal Stegman, author of the Summer of L.U.C.K. trilogy, and I'm presenting four author conversations on SCBWI's blog in July.
My guest this
week is Laura Taylor Namey, the New York Times and international
bestselling author of a number of young adult novels featuring quirky teens
learning to navigate life and love, including The Library of Lost Things
and A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea and Tomorrow, which has been adapted for
film. Her next book, If We Never End, is coming next year. A proud
Cuban-American, she's a former teacher who says she finds herself wishing she
was in London or Paris. But she's here today with us. So hi, Laura. It's a good
name, yeah?
LAURA TAYLOR
NAMEY
Hi, Laura.
Yeah!
LS
So we're going
to do a triple crown of questions, starting with, do you have any suggestions
for people who'd love to write a book for young readers in your genre?
LTN
I sure do.
Always, my number one tip is to read widely in the genre and age group that you
want to write in, whether that's middle grade, young adult, picture books,
anything like that in the age group. And then choose the genre within that age
group that you love, whether it's contemporary or sci-fi, high fantasy,
low fantasy, whatever you choose, and just read, read, read until you think
you've read too many. And then keep reading five more books, or ten more. And
then also read outside your genre, because sometimes if you're writing YA
contemporary romance, if you read a horror novel, you can get some amazing
ideas on how to amp up stakes or plot stakes. No pun intended there. You can
take all these elements that writers do so beautifully across genres, and you
can mix them into the genre that you want to do.
Study those
books. Then take your top five titles that you think are wonderful and try to
articulate to yourself in a notebook or document why you think they're the
best. Is it because of the prose level? Is it because of the stakes? Is it
because of the characterization? Or is there a certain thing that just makes it
have this special sauce for you? List those things out. And then as you
go forward, just write, write, write, and try to emulate those things by incorporating
them into your work.
LS
That's great
advice, such great suggestions. I read a lot in middle grade. But every time
I've gone out of that genre, like when I read The Library of Lost Things
that you wrote, I just loved it. And it did give me a lot of insight into how
to articulate certain things that I hadn't thought of doing that way.
LTN
Well, thank
you. Appreciate that.
LS
The next
question is, if you could have coffee with any author, dead or alive, who would
it be?
LTN
This is so
easy. I need to hang out with Jane Austen because I just want to hear exactly
how she came up with this Mr. Darcy person. I want to know all about him. I
want to know his origin story in her head. I would probably talk her ear off
about that. So that's just really basic and simple of me, but give me Jane and
a latte and six hours, and we're good.
LS
Brilliant. That
is brilliant. Okay, and to wrap things up, tell us about one of the times
someone who read your work got in touch and what that meant to you.
LTN
Other than
Reese Witherspoon sending me a letter about how much she loved my book?
LS
Tell us about
that!
LTN
Yeah, being in
Reese's Book Club, she does write a personal note to every author she picks as
part of her family, which is the loveliest thing. And when you're writing your
draft, and you get an email, and in the top header is her email address, something
happens to you. That was one of the coolest moments ever. She told me all of
the things she enjoyed. For me, being such a fan of hers when I was growing up,
watching her movies, being a fan of someone who creates beautiful things… for
her to say something that I created meant something to her was one of the best
days of my life. So that was a really cool one.
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| Laura Taylor Namey |
As far as fans,
I love to meet readers at festivals or at signings or book launches or anything
like that. And I remember this one lovely gentleman at YALLFest brought a
letter from his sister who couldn't come, and he stood in my line forever. He
was trying to track me down just to give me this note that was handwritten in
pencil. It had the cutest little pictures and all these things around it. This
girl couldn't come to the festival to see me or any of her favorite authors.
And she just had to tell me how much one of my books in particular meant to her
and how it helped repair a relationship. And that was something that touched me
so much. It was like, this is why you do this. It was so joyful. So I recorded
a little video note for her and got to send that back to her. So if you're that
person, thank you! That means a lot to me, and I still have it.
LS
That's
beautiful! Thank you for telling both those stories. Really touching. Thank you
so much! Laura’s website has all kinds of information about her wonderful books!
Look for links to her site and socials in the show notes. Thanks again!
LTN
Thank you.
Website www.laurataylornamey.com
IG https//www.instagram.com/laura_namey/
Tiktok https//www.tiktok.com/@laurataylornamey
Laura Taylor
Namey is the New York Times and international bestselling author of young
adult fiction including Reese's Book Club pick A Cuban Girl's Guide to Tea
and Tomorrow. A proud Cuban-American, she can be found hunting for vintage
treasures and wishing she was in London or Paris. She lives in San Diego with
her husband and two children. This former teacher writes young adult novels
featuring quirky teens learning to navigate life and love. She holds a BA in
Elementary Education from the University of San Diego and is the winner of the
Peggy Miller Award for excellence in young adult fiction. A Cuban Girl's
Guide to Tea and Tomorrow has been adapted for film.
Laura Segal Stegman is the author of Summer of
L.U.C.K., Ready or Not, and The Chambered Nautilus, a
middle-grade trilogy from Young Dragons Press, all with Readers'
Favorite Five Star reviews. She has been a presenter/panelist at literary
events including NCTE (National Council of Teachers of English), Orange County
Children’s Book Festival, Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators’
(SCBWI) SoCal Harvest Day, San Diego Writers Festival, and LitFest in the Dena.
She also does school visits and such events as the STEM Teacher Summit and
serves as a judge for writing competitions sponsored by Society of Young
Inklings, among others. As a long-time publicity consultant, she created PR
Tips for Authors, which has been presented by The Writing Barn, SCBWI, and
elsewhere. Non-fiction writing credits include work in Los Angeles Times and
School Library Journal’s Teen Librarian Toolbox, among others. www.LauraStegman.com
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| Laura Segal Stegman |
