Stephanie Kuehnert... The Inteview of AWESOME!!!

Stephanie Kuehnert, author of the fabulous I Wanna Be Your Joey Ramone (see our review here), was kind enough to grant us an interview.
We've got a bit of an odd/interesting/different interview format here at nineseveneight. The first nine questions are normal. (Normal as in we ask her questions, and then she answers them. Don't expect the actual questions themselves to be normal.) The next seven are sentences that we start and she completes. Then we asked for a list of eight favorite YA selections that we all should read.
See? Nine questions, seven sentence completions, and eight books. Aren't we clever?
But we'll shut up now; you don't care about us. On to the glorious Stephanie!
Interviewingly yours,


PART ONE

1. What inspired you to write a YA novel about rock and roll?

Rock and roll is my life blood. It has been since I was ten years old and my family finally got MTV and I started discovering bands like Faith No More, Jane's Addiction, REM, and Depeche Mode. Music meant the most to me in my teen years though, bands like Nirvana, Hole, Rancid, and The Gits really got me through some dark times. I knew and still know a lot of teens who felt the same way and I think that even thought IWBYJR wasn't originally written as a YA novel that is why teens (and adults) connect with it so deeply, because music strikes such an emotional chord for us all. But I've always really admired female musicians and I wrote this book as a tribute to them. Also I wanted to be a rock goddess, but I'm not talented in that way, so I created Emily to live through.

2. So. There's this time-traveling gnome, right? His name is Franz. He lives under a hill on an empty property near your home. You meet him one day while on a walk around the neighborhood. He offers you tea and crumpets and soon the two of you are thick as thieves. When you find out that his home is going to be bought by a corporation that has plans to demolish the hill, you decide to take action. You petition to save the lot and designate it as an endangered species reserve (The gnome population, according to Franz, is rapidly shrinking) and are successful! To show his gratitude, Franz offers to deliver a letter--written by you--to your teenage self. What would you write in that letter?

Man, now I grew up watching a lot of Star Trek: The Next Generation and various other sci-fi and the problem with delivering a letter to my past self is what if it alters her path? And then I never end up writing IWBYJR or meeting my boyfriend or things like that. Now, there was a lot of stuff I went through in my teenage years that I wish I hadn't had to live through and as much as I sort of want to save myself the pain and say, "Hey this guy is really bad news, don't date him" and stuff like that, I needed to go through it to become who I am. So I think all I would tell myself is. "Stay strong. Things will get better. As long as you live through this, you'll end up happy in the long run." That shouldn't alter anything, but it will give me the reassurance I certainly needed back then.

3.Speaking of time travel... If you met Doctor Who and he offered to bring you to any time period, any at all, where (when) would you choose?

Okay, this is where the true dork is going to come out. I want to be cool and say, Oh I want to be in New Orleans in the 20s during the whole flapper thing or, lates 70s London or NYC or early 80s LA for the punk scene or I want to go back to the era of Little House on the Prairie and I do want all of these things, they would all be cool. But my biggest regret in life is that I didn't defy my parents and go see Nirvana in 1993 when I was 14. They told me I could see them in the summer. Kurt Cobain killed himself in April. They're my favorite band and I never got to see them live. So I'd want to go back to late 80s, early 90s Seattle and catch lots of Nirvana shows and also The Gits who I never got to see because their lead singer was murdered in 1993. And early Mudhoney and Screaming Trees shows would be cool, too. So yeah, I'm a grunge-obsessed dork who only wants to go back about 17 years and revel in the live music scene she was born about 5 years too late to enjoy :)

4. What do you like most about being an author?

Being able to tell the kinds of stories that I've always wanted to read myself. I've never been a mainstream person, I was an outsider growing up and wanted to read stories about girls like me. Now I'm writing those stories and it feels so good, especially when I hear from people who really related and are excited about them.

5. Who's your favorite Disney Princess?

Is Ariel from the Little Mermaid a princess? Well, I'm choosing her. I love water and swimming, so I'd love to live under the sea and I think mermaids are hot. I'd be happy as a mermaid, though I'd like to be able to walk on land from time to time which I think Ariel does. I haven't seen it in a while, I might be mixing it up with that Tom Hanks movie, Splash....

6. If you could be asked any question, what would it be, and how would you answer it?

What do you want to be for Halloween?
A Roller Derby Girl. I went to see the Windy City Rollers earlier this year and totally fell in love with roller derby girls. They are tough and beautiful and athletic and I wish I could be that tough, but I'd probably cry like a baby and quit the first time I fell. Now I just need to come up with a good roller derby girl name. My friend Amber came up with Didi Midarling, but I haven't come up with one yet!

7. Have you any advice for aspiring writers and/or rockers?

Hmm, perhaps both can benefit from this. It's not easy being a creative person. It doesn't always make you popular and it doesn't often make you rich. But if you are passionate about what you are doing, never give up on it. Keep writing, rocking, and looking for inspiration everywhere. Practice. Get feedback from others. Make friends that are in your field and learn from them, both from their feedback and from being inspired by them. Creative ventures are not solo ventures, you need an audience.

8. What is your favorite kind of cookie?

Umm all of them? I love those basic sugar cookies with thick sugary frosting on them the best though. Like I get a pumpkin one every year around this time. I have such a sweet tooth. The more sugary, the better!

9. Do you want to be our Joey Ramone?

No, I want to be your Cecil Castellucci. Seriously, that woman rocks and she is my biggest idol right now. I want to write as well about her and write gutsy girl heroines like she does. I try to write those characters, but I could be better. Cecil raises the bar for me. She is the ultimate cool in my world.

LA DEUXIÈME PARTIE (er, part two)

1. If I were a monkey, I would... spend my days swinging through the trees. That looks like so much fun and as a human I just don't have the arm strength.

2. If I could be anything other than a writer, I would be... a rock star. But since I can't play music, I write about rock stars.

3. If I ruled the world... I would probably hand the power off to Obama because he'd do a better job than me. Though I'm probably more radical politically than him, so there are a couple things I'd be weighing in on... I tried really hard not to think politically about this question, but I couldn't help it. Tis the season.

4. Unicorns are awesome because... without them there would be no sunshine. That's from Legend. You've seen Legend right? It's one of the only movies I can stand Tom Cruise in. That and Interview with a Vampire. Apparently vampires or unicorns must be involved to make Tom Cruise tolerable. I guess that is another awesome power belonging to unicorns.

5. I'm bringing sexy back because... I have tattoos and pink hair, meaning I'm unafraid to be myself and being yourself is the sexiest thing out there.

6. High school was... the hardest time in my life. I'm not gonna lie. But it made me who I am today so I begrudgingly accept that I had to go through it.

7. Yesterday, I... had to break up my first bar fight. It was not as badass as it sounds.

OSA KOLME (Yes, that's Finnish for "part three". We're just ridiculously cool like that.)

List your eight favorite YA books.

1. Weetzie Bat by Francesca Lia Block. (The whole series. And I should mention The Hanged Man, too. Really all of her books...)

2. Beige by Cecil Castellucci

3. Ink Exchange by Melissa Marr (and Wicked Lovely too of course, but IE spoke to me on an ever deeper level)
4. Such A Pretty Girl by Laura Wiess (and Leftovers, too)
5. Almost Home by Jessica Blank
6. Girl by Blake Nelson (not sure if this really considered YA, but it was one of the only books besides Francesca Lia Block books I related to as a teenager)
7. Smack by Melvin Burgess
8. Invisible Touch by Kelly Parra