Chris Barton vs. K.A. Holt: Two Fab Authors, One Fab Saturday, and THIS Amazing Interview!

So you may have heard that this Saturday, July 11th, we’re hosting not one but TWO book release parties in BookKids.  Holy Crap!  Immediately I thought it would be fun to interview these snazzy authors for The BookKids Blog.  But then I saw the light – why do two interviews when one would be more fun?  Immediately I hit the email and convinced these two Austinites to interview each other.  The results are no less than entertaining, and certainly informative.  Read below to learn everything you ever wanted to know about Chris Barton and K.A. Holt. . .and probably a few things you didn’t. . .

Chris Barton: There’s a ZOINKS! KABANG! YOWZA! vibe on your website, but you’ve also published a book of haiku – Haiku Mama: (because 17 syllables is all you have time to read. Care to do a little explaining about your literary influences?
K. A. Holt: I imagine it doesn’t come as a surprise to say my literary influences are far and wide… from Brian K. Vaughn to Richard Matheson, to Harper Lee and Judy Blume and Choose Your Own Adventure novels. I’ve always enjoyed fast-paced, real-but-not-real books that evoke a visceral kind of response. Whether it’s from being scared, embarrassed, excited, empathetic or thrilled, I love it when a book will make my heart thump and my brain whirl at the same time. When I was in middle school, the kids would tease me for reading “kid books” like Roald Dahl while they were parsing their way through The Stand. But you know, The BFG and The Witches totally kick post-apocalyptic infectious disease’s butt. Books that are written for kids are just as action-packed and thought-provoking as titillating grown-up books – sometimes more. I’m happy to still often prefer – and be influenced by – middle grade and YA books.

KAH: OK, your turn! First, I want to say Hey! I wrote for the Daily Texan, too. Cool. Second, I want to say Hey! I wrote a book in elementary school, too. It was called Me and Marty, and it was about a dinosaur/alien hybrid who was named after cumulonimbus clouds and that’s about all I can remember right now. So. In perusing your site I see that from inception to completion it took about 8 years for you to get The Day-Glo Brothers out on bookshelves. Did you spend that whole time writing and revising? How many drafts did you have? As the 8 years have gone by has it seemed like a very long time to you, or did it fly by? Inquiring minds want to know!
CB: I joke that I spent all eight years researching and writing and revising, because for a 44-page book, that comes out to 5 1/2 pages per year, and that would just be sad. But it was during the first three years that the manuscript mostly took shape – a very large, ungainly shape that at one point tipped the scales at 6,200 words, which is completely ridiculous for a picture book and made it all the harder to find a publisher who could see what a fun picture book Bob and Joe Switzer’s story could be. I lost count of how many drafts there were, because the basic structure of the story never changed – it was just a process of shedding a 500-word anecdote here, a 1,000-word tangent there. My publisher, Charlesbridge, made an offer on the book the same day as the vice-presidential debate between Dick Cheney and John Edwards. I saw the first printed pages from the book on the day when I voted in the 2008 election. (I voted early, though, so it’s not as long as it sounds.) There were several months in there where I was actively revising, making more surgical changes — my editor thought it might not be so good to stop the narrative cold, not once but twice, with scientific explanations. But most of the past five years, I spent waiting for my turn to come up in Charlesbridge’s publishing schedule, waiting for the selection of the illustrator and the completion of his work, and meanwhile moving on and working on other projects. Those eight years did seem to drag on at times while I was in the midst of them, but now that they’re behind me, it’s as if they flew past. I look at my 10-year-old son and can’t believe that he was two when I started. Or that I was in my 20s.

CB: And now that we’re on the topic of kids: You’ve got some, too. Are they so used to Mom being a writer that they’re blasé about the release of Mike Stellar: Nerves of Steel, or are they as excited as you are?
KAH: Kids, kids, kids… I have three of them (despite the fact that the Mike Stellar book jacket tells me I have two). My oldest son is 7, my daughter is 3 and my youngest son is almost a year old (though his age is 7 months, adjusted – he was born 3 months early). Our household is an action-packed flurry of running, screeching, pooping, playing, doctoring, talking and eating. It’s a non-stop high-drama extravaganza of insanity. For real. My son Sam – the 7-year-old – is very excited about the book. I read it to him as soon as the galleys arrived and I was thrilled that it was as exciting for him to listen to as it was for me to write. Technically, he’s still younger than the target age-range, but I love that he was still entertained, and that when he’s older he will hopefully be entertained by it on other levels. Whenever we have anyone visit the house, he will run grab a copy of the book and wave it around. When we go to bookstores he announces that we’re there to look for copies of his mom’s book. (I shamelessly troll local bookstores stalking out copies of the book and asking managers to order it if it isn’t there). Sam is really the best publicist a writer could want. I’ve tried talking him into dressing up as Mike Stellar for the book launch, so that people could have their picture made with him. But I think that might be a little over the top. He claims it would be too embarrassing. However, if I come home one day with an astronaut costume, I might be able to persuade him. My daughter, Georgia, is still pretty young to know exactly what’s going on, but she has an eagle-eye for the cover art. If I’m online and she sees the book she will holler out, “That’s your book!” She does that in bookstores, and at people’s houses too. Ike, the baby, enjoys finding copies laying around and eating them. Who can blame him, really?

KAH: OK – next question for you! It looks like you have some really cool presentations for schools and camps and things like that. Do you enjoy teaching and/or public speaking? When you were writing the book did you think about how you would talk to kids about it? What will you do if you get heckled?
CB: I guess we’re about to find out how much I enjoy them. I’m naturally something of an introvert, but that gets turned inside-out when I’m around a bunch of people who care about something I care a lot about. I get really energetic and enthusiastic about it, and so I’ve got many years of pent-up, energetic enthusiasm for the subjects of daylight fluorescence, and biography-writing, and slogging through rejection letters to make this book happen. As for how I’d talk with kids about The Day-Glo Brothers, the one thing I was sure of throughout the process of writing this book was that, at the very least, I could have some attention-getting props. And the only other thing I’m sure of now is that kids are going to stump me. They’re going to ask me questions about the Switzers or the science that — for all the time I’ve spent on this story – have never, ever occurred to me. And as much as I’m going to wish that one of my props was a Day-Glo jetpack that I could use to just blast right out of there, I’m going to fight the urge to flee, and instead I’m going to answer, “I don’t know. How do you think we would go about finding out?” Geez, Kari – hecklers? We have to worry about hecklers? Now you tell me. All I can do about that is take these author appearances one at a time, starting with the launch party. And if I have to deal with a heckler there, I’ll just tell whichever one of my sons it is that he’s grounded.

Thanks so much to Chris and Kari for blogging on our behalf!  We hope that all you Austinites will be here on Saturday to celebrate the rlease of these two local authors’ books!  Chris’s party is at 1:00pm and Kari’s is at 6:00pm.  Come enjoy some great new books from your very own community!  Be there!