Check out our interview with Gayle Forman, who will be attending the Miami Book Fair this month.
What part of attending the Miami Book Fair are you most excited about?
All of it! I love how the streets are blocked off and so many book-loving people come out. I love being in Miami. I love being in the backyard of Books & Books. I love doing school visits before the event. I love staying with my wonderful friends who live in Surfside. I love seeing authors I know and meeting ones I don’t.
What will your panel cover and what can attendees expect from the presentation?
Middle-grade awesomeness. I’m appearing with Cynthia Leitich Smith, who is a legend, and Ruth Behar who I am so excited to meet. I think all of us write the kinds of books that appeal to young readers and not-so-young readers. They are authors who take their young audience seriously, as do I. I’m excited about our conversation.
Is this the first time being a guest at MBF? If yes, what is something that you wish to take away from the experience this year? If not, how does it feel to finally be a part of this experience?
It is not. I was here at the 2016 fair and I had a terrible cold and honestly, in retrospect, not in the best headspace. And I STILL had a wonderful time. I’m hoping to be cold-free and I’m definitely in a better mental place so one can only imagine how it’s going to be!
Tell us about your most recent novel. What can readers expect from the story?
“Not Nothing” is a story about Alex, a 12-year-old boy who has done something very wrong and is court-ordered to volunteer at an assisted living facility for the summer. There, he meets Josey, a 107-year-old Jewish resident who has lived through 1930s Nazi-occupied Poland, thanks to the heroism of a young woman named Olka. The story takes place in the present day, but we also flashbacks of Josey’s story as a young man in the 1930s and ’40s. At its core, “Not Nothing” is a story about rising to the occasion of your own life. Both Josey’s and Alex’s stories illustrate what happens when you are — or are not — given the chance to do this. And in both cases, we see characters who initially don’t behave as their best selves being treated with grace and offered the opportunity to do better, to be better. Readers can expect a fun, funny and at times heartbreaking book that ultimately fills them with hope. And I’ve been told this one really brings the tears.
Why do you think events like MBF are crucial when it comes to connecting readers and authors?
Novels are empathy-delivery devices. They insert you into another person’s experience and make you see the world anew. Events like MBF do something similar by bringing people together, in person, which I think is crucial these days, especially when we have become so siloed in our virtual worlds. I can’t think of anything more healing than bringing diverse people together to talk about and celebrate books.
What book are you currently reading and what book have you recently read that you loved?
I’m currently reading “The Rachel Incident” by Caroline O’Donoghue and “Tattoos on the Heart” by Gregory Boyle. I recently have torn through most of the Jonathan Haidt books (“The Anxious Generation,” “The Righteous Mind,” “The Coddling of the American Mind”) and it was such an education. I loved them all.
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