Mindy: Welcome to Writer Writer Pants on Fire, where authors talk about things that never happened to people who don't exist. We also cover craft, the agent hunt, query trenches, publishing, industry, marketing and more. I'm your host, Mindy McGinnis. You can check out my books and social media at mindymcginnis dot com and make sure to visit the Writer Writer Pants on Fire blog for additional interviews, query critiques and more as well as full transcriptions of each podcast episode. at WriterWriterPants on Fire.com. And don’t forget to check out the Writer, Writer, Pants on Fire Facebook page. Give me feedback, suggest topics you’d like to hear discussed, and let me know if there is someone you’d love to see a a guest.
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Mindy: We're here today with Kathleen West, author of Are We There Yet? One of the things that I find so fascinating is that writers who are also teachers are really common. And I know just from my group of friends that are also writers, and teachers that are aspiring writers, that it's really kind of an intersection that people don't necessarily realize is pretty prevalent. So would you like to just talk about that and how working with students and being in the school system can be a great source of creativity?
Kathleen: That is an awesome way to put it. I do think that working in schools is a fantastic source of creativity and I think it comes from a lot of places. First of all, it's just incredibly inspiring to work with kids of all ages. I have taught third grade through 12th grade and I love different things about each grade level. And one thing I really love is the fact that kids just believe that they can do things and they believe that they can be creative and make great art and great writing and that's super inspiring. And then also, I think that working with kids and families just gives me so much empathy and so much inspiration for my own characters. You get this inside, look at so many different families and how they work and how they love each other in the conflicts that they face, and it is this incredible privilege. And you just get to see the inner workings of a lot of different kinds of people and how they're the same and different. And I think that's been huge for my development as a writer over time.
Mindy: Definitely. I can say for myself. I was attempting to find an agent for almost 10 years and one of the things that really tripped me up in the query process was that hairy little bio paragraph. I never had anything to say. I had no publishing credits. I had an english degree. But I mean, you know, who doesn't? So it was just I didn't have anything to say, that was really like, yeah, I am qualified to do this thing. You want to represent me. I am a writer. I started working in high school as a librarian and I was attempting to write adult fiction and I was sitting at my desk one day in my office and all of a sudden I was like, you know you're working in a library with teenagers. If you switch to YA if you decided to write YA your bio could read: Mindy McGinnis is a high school librarian who spends 40 hours a week with her target audience and knows the market intimately. As soon as I have that bio, it was like a key that just unlocked the door. It is a big reason why I started writing YA. I was just being around the kids and seeing the needs and the gaps in the market. And of course you actually are writing for the adult market, but you're writing about people that are in this space, a heavily teen focused area. So why don't you tell us a little bit about the book Are We There Yet? and how teens and Children are a focus in the plot?
Kathleen: Someone asked me just recently like, how do you get the voice of the kids right? Because I do have teen characters in both of my novels. It's just being with them, like listening to how they talk and how their brains work. And in my new book, the main character is Alice and she's in her late thirties and feels like she's kind of entering a sweet spot in her life. Her youngest child is seven and she's not changing diapers, her career is kind of taking off, she feels like she can put more energy there now that her kids are older and then she discovers that her daughter is way behind in reading at school and at the same time that her son has engaged in some bullying behaviors at the middle school.
Those behaviors cause conflicts with her longtime friends and impact her reputation in her community in all kinds of different ways. So it's about kind of how that conflict plays out for her and impacts all areas of her life. So teens behaving badly is a big part of the book and also the idea about teen identity and parent identity. In my own life, I've seen so much conflation of that, like I think parents tend to take credit for their kids successes and then also are blamed for their failures. I don't think that's super healthy. So I wanted to look at how kids choices can be kids choices and adult choices can be adult choices and everyone can be a good person regardless.
Mindy: Talking about social media and about kids and of course, bullying. I grew up in the 90s and bullying was there, it was a problem, but today it is very different. It has a different face on it and this is something that I had the experience of as I moved through growing up in a world that was suddenly changing, very much transitioning into a digital world. So I started really using the internet and things like that right at the end of my high school career and then going into college. For the most part, if you wanted to use a computer, you went to a computer lab, students didn't have their own laptops. If you had a computer in your room, it was a desktop and you were lucky and other people would borrow it. Social media didn't really exist yet. But things were changing.
At the time I was using AOL instant messenger to stay in contact with my friends that were still in high school or friends that were in college. We were separated. And you know sometimes in the evenings I would get in conversations with them or we would have group chats. And I remember a friend of mine who was younger, she was still in high school, we got into an argument over AIM. She said some pretty nasty things to me and then just logged off and I was upset because it was someone I was pretty close with. And so I was also messaging with a friend of mine, a guy that was younger than me and still back at high school in the area. And I was like, hey, you know, she said these things that really hurt my feelings and I will never forget. He's like, that is not like her. And he said, I think it's really weird. He's like, I'm not sure how healthy this Instant messenger is because it's a lot easier to say something mean to someone because you don't have to say it to their face. And you don't have to see the emotional reaction and the pain that you caused. And this was in 1999 and he was like, I don't know if this is a good idea.
Kathleen: He was really ahead of his time there and clairvoyant about the future. I mean I remember this too, so I must be just a couple of years older than you are, I'm going to be 43.
Mindy: I'm gonna be 42 tomorrow.
Kathleen: Hey, oh my birthday's next week. So we're really close. So same thing like I didn't grow up with this, I did have AIM instant messenger, but I have a sister who's eight years younger than I am and she was really enmeshed in AIM at a younger age. And I remember some of the conversations that she had and these little snide remarks that her friends would make over messenger that you know, I agree they would not say in person. And I think the trouble is now that the permanence of those, you know, you could have a flip thought or flip comment in person and it goes away. But then you have a social media post or a text that somebody screenshots and it stays around for such a long time.
I do think teens are getting a little more savvy about that. My kids are Almost 17 and 12 at the moment and my older child especially has gotten more careful about all the details that he tells me about his life. So I used to feel like I had a pretty complete picture and now I know that there are things that I'm probably missing, which is, I'm sure appropriate as he gets older. But it seems like the kids are doing a better job of forgiving each other for these moments of impulsivity.
The reality of living with social media has made them be a little bit more tolerant and forgiving of each other. I'm hopeful. I also think that they both went through a phase maybe like in fifth grade when they got their school email addresses and had access to google messenger and stuff where it was really huge, or everyone got their phones and there are these large group chats and then it seems like that has fallen away by the time they're in late high school. And they are doing some more 1 to 1 or 1 to 3 communications, less broadcasting of their inner feelings to large groups. So I don't know, I'd have to read some experts like maybe the Pew Center or something has some new studies on how teens are changing their attitudes about social media. But for the moment knock on wood, both my kids seem to be in a pretty good place with it.
Mindy: It is interesting to me how of course we're talking about the change and how it is easier for teens to have their private lives and of course that is good in a way. They are changing. They are growing, they are becoming their own true selves. I always think about when I was a teenager and you know, if you wanted to call a boy or your friends, but especially if you were like, you know, I want to call Bill and I want to say, hey, hey - you want to go out sometime or how are you doing? And it was like I had to call his house and I had to more than likely talk to one of his parents first.
Kathleen: It was a miracle that any of that actually got done. I mean, but I guess that's just the way it was, it seems horrifying now that you'd have to do that. But yes, that was absolutely that way. There is more gatekeeping on that kind of behavior for sure.
Mindy: I think it was also healthy because it made you grow up, you had to know how to speak to an adult. I need to be polite to his mother and introduce myself in order to get access to him, right? People always complain about kids on their phones. But you know, it's no different than tying up the phone line and being on the landline for four hours and chatting. It's just that they're doing it kind of spasmodically over text.
Kathleen: I think that's right. And then also I tried to deal with this a little bit in my book, but I think it's tempting for parents to think like, oh, well I'm going to solve the social media problem by not giving my child a phone until much later. I admire that impulse. The tricky thing that I found in my teaching job is that you end up isolating your child. It's just much more likely that that kid is not going to know the plans that the group is meeting here or everyone's going to go to this basketball game or whatever. So you have to kind of look at what your community is doing as you make your parenting choices or else you can have some unintended consequences about how much access your child has to social group. Which is a really interesting part of the puzzle I think for parents making decisions.
Mindy: One of the things that your book really focuses on is about you know, making mistakes and we all make them. But as you said now, there's an element of permanence to our mistakes. I of course live and work and move in the YA audience in social media and there's always something going on. We call it author jail. There's always someone in author jail. Yes, like someone made a mistake or misspoke and of course, we do need to make those mistakes in order to learn from them. If social media had been around when I was a teenager, I would be mortified, I would be mortified by the things that I said. The things that I did. I mean, you know, I was a teenager and teens make mistakes. That's how you learn, that's how you become an adult. And they are living in this world where those mistakes, the permanence of them, makes it very, very hard to live down as you mentioned earlier. So if you want to talk a little bit about the role that mistakes play in your book.
Kathleen: There are a lot of really big mistakes, mistakes in this book. And when my husband first read it, he was like, she just keeps making bad choices and I'm so stressed and I'm like, well, you know, when's the last time you read a book about just a nice person and nothing happens to them? So there's going to be mistakes in the book. But one thing I like about this book is that everybody makes mistakes. There's three generations of characters, you know, a son, a mom and a grandmother in all three are really fumbling around and making some pretty big mistakes. The mistakes are not limited to the teen landscape for sure.
And in fact, one of the things that I enjoyed writing, the mom makes a pretty big. She has basically like this really big public temper tantrum in front of her kids and that changes how her son sees her. Like humanizes her in a pretty big way because he hadn't really been privy to her mistakes before or she had managed to control her behavior so that her kids didn't see her mistakes and once he does see that she's fallible. Then he's able to kind of connect with her and they're able to move forward.
So I think mistakes play a really important role helping that teen and adult connection move forward. One thing I was interested in exploring our friendships of convenience and the women, the mom friends in the book, became friends at kindergarten round up and then just kind of stayed friends throughout their lives. They don't necessarily have a ton in common anymore. And when their kids are making these mistakes, then they're able to kind of re examine their friendships and kind of figure out what they want from those relationships as adults. I guess the mistakes propel things forward now that I'm thinking about it.
Mindy: When we talk about fiction and we talk about people making mistakes and sometimes, you know, you'll read reviews where people are like, oh this main character was so hard to identify with. She was always making the wrong decisions or I just wanted to shake her. How many people in real life do you feel that way as well? People make mistakes. I remember 10 years ago, the Dystopian heyday of YA literature, that was always a common question - why do you think dystopian literature is so popular? What's the draw of dystopian literature? And I was like, well, do you want to read a utopia? Everybody's happy and everything is fine and there are no problems. It's a perfect world. There's no story.
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Kathleen: You mentioned likability. That's something that's come up a lot in reviews of this book and some people say I didn't really like any of the characters. I feel differently of course, I like them all and I've spent so much time with them getting in their heads. I mean, I would make different decisions than many of them a lot of the time, but in terms of liking them or admiring them or understanding who they are and what they're trying to do, I'm on their team for sure. Likability is an interesting concept for characters, and the writer. I really like to explore all facets of a personality. So I kind of lean into the mistakes or the flaws. I write in the third person point of view, close. So I get into their heads and you're hearing their thoughts and feelings and not every thought or feeling is flattering. I try to go for realistic, so I think 100% likable might not be as realistic as the intermittently likeable character.
Mindy: It's not. There is no one that you like 100% ofl the time and agree with all of their choices, even your best friend. Like there will be times when you're just like, nope, I can't, I don't want to be around you or hear your voice right now. No, going into college, they always say don't be a roommate with someone that was a friend in high school, it will ruin your friendship and I'm here to tell you, that's the truth. When you're living with someone that you're already intimate with. It's just like, Hey, fix your shit. You realize how much you do or do not actually like this person.
And you talk about friendships of convenience. I love that topic because I live in a very, very rural area and I grew up in a school that graduates less than 100 kids every year. You don't have a ton of options when it comes to friends. You are with the same people from kindergarten through senior year. And oftentimes your parents are friends with their parents and those people that are kind of chosen to be your friends. That is just kind of a decision that is made for you in many ways. And that's something that really changed drastically for me when I went to college. It's like, oh, suddenly there's this whole pool of people that I can choose from to be friends with.
Kathleen: I live in Minneapolis and I lived in the metro area here for my whole life, so in an urban setting. But I went to a very small Catholic all girls school, so there were 62 girls in my class and I definitely felt like at the end of high school I was like, I'm ready for a break from these people. But then as years have gone by, I find myself feeling a really big affinity with those women and when I connect with them on social media or whatever, many of them have been hugely supportive of my books. I feel this connection. It's almost like we're cousins, like second cousins or something like that. Like family, we have this kind of shared understanding of childhood. I do feel a really large connection to the women that were in my high school class even though I didn't maintain close friendships with them, from the time that I was 18 to the time that I was 40. I find myself now thinking like, Oh, I'd really like to hang out with those people.
Mindy: The closeness, it is a family atmosphere that doesn't necessarily go away. It just changes into these relationships that you can pick them back up at any time. Like a family member. My class, so I graduated in 97. Same situation. You know, we were together from kindergarten through senior year. I can look at any class photo from any grade name, everyone's first name, last name, sometimes, even their parents, too. Like that's just the way it is. The closeness of that bond is difficult if not impossible to recreate.
My class, unfortunately, we've already lost three people from class. It's too early. It's too early. So we have a Facebook group that's just our class of 1997 and we gather there and we recently lost someone and, and so it's just, we would just tell stories, really. Do you remember when he did this? Or do you remember this? Do you remember that? I don't have that with anyone else. I don't have that formative bond.
You can post on Facebook, something about something going on, you know, in the community, People did leave. I'm still here. Sometimes, you know, it'll be like vague Facebook posts or something, not from me, I don't do that, but I'll get like four or five messages that day like, hey, what's going on? You know? So it's just like, oh, well, let me tell you, I'm still here and I still know everything that isn't necessarily out there widely in the public knowledge. Even people that have left and people that have gone away and created a whole life somewhere else. They're like, oh, what's going on? Like I need to know what's up home. It is a very close bond, but I don't have anyone from that time period that I speak to like every day. I'm sure you can hear it all the ding, ding dings, those are my friends from college.
Kathleen: I kind of have the same situation with my small high school, but it's kind of funny now that I've been writing more full time, I've been looking for part time, temporary teaching jobs. You mentioned you sub also, that's kind of what I'm looking to do about long term something. I did it this fall in a third grade classroom, which was just super fun. And my old high school that I went to with a small catholic high school emailed and said would you be interested in teaching a couple of sections of American lit? And I'm like, absolutely. So I'm actually going there on Monday to talk to them about how that might look for next fall and it's the first time I've been back in the building in at least 10 years. I remember the last time I was there, one of my classmates was a young alumna of the year. But it was 10 or 15 years ago that she was, so I'm just very excited to see what the school looks like and think, I mean to think about working there after all this time is just really fun and fascinating too. I mean one of the fun things about being a writer is just infusing all these aspects of your past into your present works.
Mindy: I do substitute and it's in the same district that I grew up in. Kind of funny actually the other day just speaking about being in touch with people from the past. School's out and I was just hanging out, sitting at my desk, waiting for the parking lot to empty and someone had posted on my Facebook group from high school. Hey, do you remember the time someone pulled a prank on, on a teacher. Do you remember when so and so did this? And I posted back and I was like, yeah. And funny enough, I'm actually sitting in that classroom right now.
Kathleen: I mean that is so awesome. I love that. And I just love working in schools too, because you're part of other people's formative memories that they're going to be carrying through their whole lives to. It's a special job, I think.
Mindy: Absolutely. I will be starting a long term sub position in April for 5th grade english class. And I had really resisted going below high school level just because I wasn't really necessarily comfortable with the age group, wasn't necessarily comfortable with myself and my humor and how things work in that environment. Well then with the advent of COVID and they needed a substitute so badly, I was like, okay, you put me wherever. And I really warmed up to the age group. The teacher that I am taking her place is going to be having a baby, so she's been in and out for doctor's appointments, things like that. So they put me in that classroom when she's out, so I can learn that group and so have something like a relationship now. I had kind of a long day on Monday, you know what it's like? It was the time change plus the kids had four days off. So it was like a zoo. It was just a long day. Nobody was bad. Just everybody was wired. I was standing in the hallway after the bell had rung and the kids were leaving, they were going to get on the bus and then one boy walked past me, he turned around and came back and he said, thank you for teaching me today.
I was like you are welcome and I will come back and I will be here every day as much as I can. Like it's just those little moments. I've been standing there thinking how the hell am I gonna do this long term? And then the one thing, and I'm like yes I will be here, I will be here for you whenever you need me.
Kathleen: I started teaching elementary school just a couple of years ago, right before I ended up selling my first book and leaving teaching full time. But I was ready for a change. And as my teaching career progressed I became more and more interested in global citizenship and teaching about being a good community member and like the whole child basically. So I was like, well what better way to think about that kind of formative experience than in an elementary room. Being down with the little kids really made sense to me. And they do like they just give so much of themselves and before COVID times at the end of the day sometimes I would say like okay, handshake, hug or high five? Your choice, as the goodbye. And some kids would be like, I need all three and I'm like, oh yeah, you know, little kids will just tell you, I need, I need all three today. You know, I've loved all the age groups. Right now. I'm looking forward to teaching some older kids again. I'd really like to teach some writing classes to talk and think about the things that I've learned in writing my last couple of books, you know, with some older students. So you know, it changes over time.
Mindy: Last thing, why don't you let my listeners know where they can find you online and where they can find the book, Are We There Yet?
Kathleen: Are We There Yet is available wherever books are sold. And actually the audio is really great. If your podcast listeners like audio books, I just started listening to it. It's narrated by Therese Plummer. She did an excellent job and so I recommend that format as well. I'm most active on Twitter and on Instagram. On Twitter, I'm at K West books and on Instagram I'm at Kathleen West Writes and I love hearing from readers so feel free to drop me a line and I'll write you back.
Mindy: Writer Writer Pants on Fire is produced by Mindy McGinnis. Music by Jack Korbel. Don't forget to check out the blog for additional interviews, writing advice and publication tips at Writer Writer Pants on Fire dot com. If the blog or podcast have been helpful to you or if you just enjoy listening, please consider donating. Visit Writer Writer Pants on Fire dot com and click “support the blog and podcast” in the sidebar.