Young Adult Romance (LGBT)
Date Published: 11-15-2016
Publisher: Bold Strokes Books
Sometimes you fly. Sometimes you fall.
A dream at Olympic gold in ski jumping. It’s a dream that’s been the exclusive property of male Olympic athletes.
Until now.
For seventeen-year-old Ellie Engebretsen, the 2011 decision to include women’s ski jumping in the Olympics is a game changer. She’d love to bring home the gold for her father, a former Olympic hopeful whose dreams were blown along with his knees on an ill-timed landing. But can she defy the pull of gravity that draws her to Kate Moreau, her biggest competition and the girl of her dreams?
How can Ellie soar through the air when all she feels like doing is falling hard?
Advanced Praise for Gravity:
“A spicy novel about two young women daring to fly free in life and love while accurately depicting the thrill of ski jumping!”
~ Sarah Hendrickson, Olympic Ski Jumper and member of the US Ski Team Women’s Ski Jumping Team
Get a Sneak Peek at Gravity!
Interview
Is There a Message in Your Novel That You Want Readers to Grasp?
I write about and for young adults. My books are
contemporary and character-driven, and if there is one message it is this: be
yourself. Figure out who that is, remove all the muck other people have put in
the way, and just be you. The world needs you – precisely as you are.
Is there anything you find particularly challenging in your writing?
Writing IS challenging. It’s like a sprinting
marathon with no guaranteed finish line. But for me, I’d say being inside my
characters (since I mainly write 1st person POV, present tense) is
particularly challenging because I surrender so much of myself to them and that
is an exhaustive process.
It’s also one of the most rewarding experiences
I’ve ever had.
How many books have you written and which is your favorite?
I’ve written and published four books: Caught in the Crossfire, Searching for
Grace, Taking the Stand, and Gravity.
Hmm….I don’t know. How many children do you have?
Which one is your favorite?
That’s an unanswerable question because I have to
absolutely love the characters in my book in order to bring the project to
fruition. I grieve them when the final draft is submitted for typesetting. For
real. Sorry – I can’t answer that one. I love each and every one of my books
and the characters in them.
I can say that I love them for different reasons,
though. I love each book in The Crossfire
Trilogy because the kids in those books took a damned gutsy stand at the
intersection of spirituality and sexuality…and refused to compromise who they
were in order to please one side or the other.
I love Gravity
because, while it is a romance and it is a sports book, it’s really a book
about brokenness, and I think brokenness is one of the greatest things that can
ever happen to a person. Sounds weird, I know, but bear with me. In my
experience and observation, people break because the pain of living an
inauthentic life has finally become so huge that they cannot contain it any
longer and in the breaking they get a chance to piece themselves and their
lives together in a way that reflects who they truly are.
In Gravity
I wrote about Wabisabi, an old Japanese form of art that began when a potter
refused to throw away the broken pieces of a bowl that had shattered in the
kiln. Instead, he glued them together again with gold and, by doing so, created
something far more beautiful and valuable. I’ll forever love Gravity for
requiring the research that led me to that lesson.
If you had the chance to cast your main character from Hollywood today, who would you pick and why?
Hmm, for Ellie, the main
character in Gravity, I’d choose
Pink. She’d be a kickass Ellie Engebretsen.
For Jonathan in The Crossfire Trilogy, I’d choose Andrew
Garfield. He’s both strong and sensitive enough to pull off Jonathan. He also
has Jonathan’s smile.
When did you begin writing?
I don’t ever remember a time when I didn’t write.
I guess I was that dorky kid who walked around with a folded over journal in my
back pocket all through adolescence. Whatever experience life has served up to
me – the good, the bad, the ugly, the excruciating –writing about it has helped
me find the meaning of the experience as well as peace.
How long did it take to complete your first book?
To write the 1st draft: 4 months
To revise until it was fit for human eyes: 18
months
Roughly two years.
Did you have an author who inspired you to become a writer?
Honestly, anyone who
writes a book is an inspiration because every book represents someone who
possessed both the tenderness to be open to inspiration and the tenacity to
complete the long project.
My favorite authors,
however, are William Kent Krueger, Pete Hautman, Neil Gaiman, Malinda Lo, Kirstin
Cronn-Mills, Molly Beth Griffin, Rachel Gold, and Carrie Mesrobian.
What is your favorite part of the writing process?
That wonderful day when the box of books arrives from
my publisher and I get to curl up with my book, in real form for the first
time, and read it while sipping a cup of tea.
Describe your latest book in 4 words.
Crude. Honest. Heartbreaking. Exhilerating.
Can you share a little bit about your current work or what is in the
future for your writing?
I don’t have a project
that I’m writing currently, but in my future I plan to explore writing in the
third person, speculative fiction, and writing a straight protagonist!
That said, the book
will probably still be set in Minnesota.
Juliann Rich
Minnesota writer Juliann Rich spent her childhood in search of the perfect climbing tree. The taller, the better! A branch thirty feet off the ground and surrounded by leaves, caterpillars, birds, and squirrels was a good perch for a young girl to find herself. Seeking truth in nature and finding a unique point of view remain crucial elements in her life as well as her writing.
Juliann is the author of four young adult novels: CAUGHT IN THE CROSSFIRE, SEARCHING FOR GRACE, TAKING THE STAND, and GRAVITY (forthcoming in November, 2016). She writes character-driven books about young adults who are bound to discover their true selves and the courage to create an authentic life…if the journey doesn’t break them.
Juliann is the 2014 recipient of the Emerging Writer Award from The Saints and Sinners Literary Festival and lives with her husband and an adorable but naughty dachshund named Bella in a 1920’s brownstone she is lovingly restoring to its original beauty.
Contact Links
Purchase Links
Posts
1 Comments
Thank you for posting
ReplyDelete