Today I’m introducing a new feature to the BookKids Blog. Once a month , we’re going to take a day or two to feature a local author and their work.
For this month, we chose the lovely Jennifer Ziegler, author of Austin based novels How Not to Be Popular and Alpha Dog. How Not to Be Popular has recently been selected as an ALA Best Book for Young Adults for 2008 and a 2009 TLA Lonestar List selection. Congratulations, Jennifer!
Jennifer is the perfect author to kick off our local author series since she has lived in or about the Austin area since she was in the third-grade. (Except for the one year she spent in Europe, lucky gal.) Perhaps because she finds Austin “beautiful yet tough, full of charm and flavor and history,” our city plays a prominent role in both of her trade books.
In Alpha Dog, Jennifer sets her story in contemporary Austin but draws on many of her memories from her time as an undergraduate at UT during the 1990s. A person reading the book might not find the same shops on “The Drag” that you would see driving down the streets today, but the spirit of the place is still there. Shops may come and go, but the indefinable spirit that defines Austin as “Austin” remains. It’s this spirit that Jennifer meticulously captures and recreates in her books.
In her other Austin book, How Not to be Popular, Jennifer draws not only on the aura of contemporary Austin, but also on the people that populate our city. It’s well known that the people in Austin are unlike any other Texan you’ll come across. As Jennifer puts it:
“Either because of the universities or because it embraces musicians and artists, Austin tends to attract very open, creative, and spirited folks. People who are unapologetically themselves. Fascinating beings who belong in books.”
Jennifer takes the mix of people that she sees when she’s out at every vintage or resale boutique in town or when she’s curled up in a local coffee shop like Genuine Joe’s or Thunderbird Coffee (or even our own coffee shop in BookPeople) typing away at her laptop, and she twists and combines these people into well-crafted characters for her book.
Since I could literally chat about Jennifer and her books indefinitely, I’m going to stop this post here. Jennifer recently came to BookPeople to speak at the monthly meeting of the (Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators). The SCBWI is an organization dedicated to established and aspiring children’s book writers and illustrators. At the meeting, Jennifer chatted with us about freelance work for hire writing for the teen mass market market. I thought I’d share some of her insights in tomorrow’s post.
Madeline
Meghan
juliewbp
I’ve read both of these and loved them. Especially How Not to be Popular. It was really fun to recognize parts of Austin mentioned in the books.
whats the theme of how not to be popular?