Meg Rosoff is a best-selling and award winning author of both YA and picture books. Her first book, How I Live Now, is an idyllic exploration of a girl's first true love. Oh, and World War Three. Her latest, Just In Case, is the story of a teenager who is being pursued by Fate ... not metaphorically.

Meg is a phenomenal writer and a kindred spirit, and I am so pleased that she took the time to answer our Very Deep Questions.




You were a Printz award winner your first time out with How I Live Now. How has that changed your path?

It allowed me to stop working in advertising, a job I hated, so that was a real joy. Although winning awards can be fairly random and has a lot to do with luck, it raises your profile in the publishing world and with readers, and means people expect more next time. But I'm not complaining....

You've taken some heat for the central relationship in How I Live Now. If you knew then what you know now about people's responses, would you have changed anything?

I might not have made Edmond and Daisy first cousins if I'd known how freaked out people were going to be about it, but I don't see anything wrong with it. It's not illegal in most places, and then only because of the genetic considerations. I come from a long line of eastern European Jews, and there was a huge amount of marriage within families. It has caused genetic problems over time, but I'd hardly consider it immoral. My personal feeling is (and I think it comes out in my work) that morality has to do with treating other people with respect and care, not necessarily following the rules that society sets. Real love is something to be treasured in almost any form.

Sounds reasonable. Your latest book, Just in Case, is magical and wild. Did the story evolve over time, or did it come to you all at once (invisible dogs and all)?

I always say that Justin was my problem child -- just as sticky and difficult to deal with as a main character as if he was as a child or a boyfriend. I started out with the idea of a character obsessed with fate, and the more I explored his brain, the more I realized that the book was also about the edges of reality, where what's real and what's not real start
to get a little fuzzy. That's where things like religion and ESP live -- where there's no proof, just a big gray area.

Well, it certainly seems like Justin lives on the edge of reality! While I was reading the book, I'd find myself stopping in the middle of a page and reading a sentence over, or even out loud, because it was perfectly beautiful. How hard do you have to work to make your prose seem so effortless?

I don't generally labor over my writing, though I do labor over plot. I think writing comes very naturally to me, whereas storytelling doesn't. But I've always loved the sounds of words and the rhythms of sentences. Where I do run into trouble is in rewriting. If I change one word in a sentence because (say) I used it in the sentence before, sometimes it throws the whole paragraph off and then it can take ages to rebalance it.

Ages? Well, how long does typically take you to write a novel?

I'm usually a little bit ahead on the idea of a story -- so I was thinking of Just In Case before I finished How I Live Now. Sometimes I don't know the story's there, it just kind of floats to the surface like the answer in an 8-Ball (remember those??)

But generally from the time I start writing to the book on the shelf is between two and 2-1/2 years.

You mentioned that you worked in advertising for some time; do you think that experience affects the way you write novels?

I'm glad to say that it was a huge help. Glad, because for a long time I thought I'd wasted 15 years of my life! But it wasn't a total waste. I learned how to form an effective story arch, with a beginning, middle and end, the importance of holding onto people’s interest (in advertising you write knowing that the reader is NOT interested), the importance of paring language down, of leaving things out, of letting the reader complete the equation in his/her head. I like giving my readers two numbers and letting them do the adding up.

Also, in advertising you let the pictures tell a lot of the story. I try to put pictures in people’s heads and let them draw their own conclusions. People have also said I'm good at drawing vivid characters with a minimum of detail, and I think that's advertising too. So thank you, advertising, but GOOD RIDDANCE!

Can you tell us about your next project?

I'm just finishing up my third novel -- mainly trying to think of a title. It was called Dark Ages for a long time, but my editors think it's too depressing a title. So we're searching for something new. And it's not easy. Imagine renaming a member of your family or your dog. Everything I think of seems wrong! Anyway, that book is about a relationship between two boys back in 1962 -- one is at boarding school and hates it, the other lives alone in a fisherman's hut on the beach. It's about identity and gender and (of course) love.

I've written a few pages of the fourth novel -- which is going to be about a girl (about 19 or 20 this time), who leaves the tiny hamlet in which she was born and sets off into the world with a white horse and a dog in 19th century England. She's going to fall in love with a bitter, angry hunter who lives on his own, but that's about all I know so far....

Sounds interesting… what were your favourite books when you were a teenager?

Too many to list. The Secret Garden, Kon Tiki, the James Bond books, The Good Master, and then a little later For Whom the Bell Tolls and Crime and Punishment. But every time I make a list, I remember about 30 I left out a few minutes later!

What advice do you have for a teenager who wants to be a writer?

Every single writer on earth is different. But I do believe that for most people, it helps to have some experience of the world before you start writing seriously, so I guess I'd say 'don't be in a hurry.' If you love to write, you can always write articles or stories, or letters, or e-mails....anything to keep the words flowing. I know a boy who wrote his first book (and got it published) at 11, but there's no rush, and you don't want to have had your peak experiences by the time you're 15! I didn't write a book till I was 45, but I may have been slower than most.

What book (other than your own) do you think NOT YOUR MOTHER'S BOOKCLUB members would love?

For good readers, I have a few favorites -- there's a book coming out in March called A Swift Pure Cry by Siobhan Dowd that I loved; I also like Frances Hardinge's Fly By Night a lot, I still love the original James Bond books by Ian Fleming, I think Kevin Brooks' new book Being is very strange and intriguing, and I'm a huge fan of graphic novels - I think every teenager should read Maus by Art Spiegelman, and I loved Fun Home by Alison Bechdel about growing up in a funeral home.

LIGHTNING ROUND: TRUTH!

Did you do well in school?
Incredibly well. And look where it got me -- into a thirty year cul de sac!

What's the worst job you ever had?
Every job in advertising was my worst job. It's a horrible career.

What's your weirdest writing habit?
It's not my habit, it's my dogs' -- they lie with their ears under the wheels of my chair so I can't move.

What are your guilty reading pleasures?
Magazines, chick lit, dog- and horse-training books.

How would you spend your ideal weekend?
Two years ago I bought a tiny house on the sea in England with a friend -- no TV, no internet, no phone, no radio, just the sound of the waves. Bliss.

Describe your pets.
I have two lurchers -- half Bedlington Terrier half Whippet. They're scruffy and hairy with innocent angelic faces, gentle natures, and they run like the wind. Like me, they love to snooze.

If you won the lottery and never had to work again, would you still write books?
Ha! Not for a year or two, at least! I probably would write again, but sometimes I feel my publisher is just sitting around staring at the clock muttering "I wonder when she's going to deliver the next book". People never think of writing as a job, but it is. And I'm the main breadwinner in the family, so I have to keep going. I'd like to sell five million books, at least to take the pressure off for awhile.

FINALLY is there anything you wish I had asked that I didn't?

How I Live Now is being made into a film -- they're supposed to start shooting this summer. When I sold the film rights I thought I'd be fantastically rich. But the reality has been very modest. Very VERY modest. You need tons of special effects and a huge budget to get rich from turning a book into a movie. So next time, I'm adding flying dragons and exploding planets.


Good thinking. Thanks for taking the time to chat, Meg!

Random House spotlight: Meg Rosoff.

Read a Guardian UK feature about Meg.

Read Meg's hilarious Guardian blog!

Buy Meg's books from a friendly independent bookseller!