FERAL Blog Tour: Bookstore Memories with Holly Schindler

 Today I am hosting Holly Schindler as part of the FERAL Blog Tour. FERAL, a YA psychological thriller was published August 26, 2014 by Harper Teen. For my stop on the tour, I've asked Holly to share her favorite bookstore memory. 

Welcome Holly!!!

What is your favorite bookstore memory (either as a reader or an author)?

Like many areas through the country, my hometown of Springfield, Missouri was hit fairly hard by the recession.  Our supply of indie bookstores was already dwindling, and the recession did a good job of closing the last few remaining indie doors.  Today, my hometown’s main source of physical book-buying is a Barnes and Noble (and venues with smaller bookshelves like Walmart or Target).  I’d say that primarily, when a Springfieldian now wants to browse bookshelves to discover a new author, they head to one of our libraries.

I have to admit, one of my earliest (and fondest) book-buying memories happened…in a grocery-store.  I used to get a new Little Golden Book every week, when I went grocery shopping with my mom.  (When I outgrew picture books and we sold them off at a garage sale, we had a MOUNTAIN of Little Goldens on display on a picnic table.)  

But the bookstore I loved (and now miss) the most was a little place tucked into a strip mall…I have a hard time remembering the exact name of it, but do know it was in the Fremont Shopping Center in Springfield (so we’ll call the store the Fremont).  The feel of the Fremont was just incredible.  It had giant heavy doors complete with carved lion heads.  And it had multiple levels inside, and ladders to help booksellers reach the highest shelves.  It truly was like the quaint bookstores that occasionally show up in movies—think The Shop Around the Corner in YOU’VE GOT MAIL.  

I remember finding so many of my early chapter-book loves there—books by Judy Blume or Beverly Cleary.  I remember buying some of my first classics there, too: ALICE IN WONDERLAND, for example.  (I’m also fairly certain the LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE set I received for Christmas came from that store).

 

I remember the Fremont so fondly: the peaceful atmosphere, the perfume of new books, the assurance that something new and delicious was on the shelves just waiting for me to finally discover it.  Later on, I became a literature major—and I still dearly love to read the classics.  Often, I think that, to a great extent, my love of literature was born in that favorite childhood bookstore, as I wandered the aisles and tugged colorful spines from the shelves…

 

 FERAL

by Holly Schindler

Published by Harper Teen

August 26, 2014

  432 Pages

Add to Goodreads

 

 Purchase Links
Amazon / Barnes & Noble / IndieBound

 

 

 About FERAL

The Lovely Bones meets Black Swan in this haunting psychological thriller with twists and turns that will make you question everything you think you know.

It’s too late for you. You’re dead. Those words continue to haunt Claire Cain months after she barely survived a brutal beating in Chicago. So when her father is offered a job in another state, Claire is hopeful that getting out will offer her a way to start anew.

But when she arrives in Peculiar, Missouri, Claire feels an overwhelming sense of danger, and her fears are confirmed when she discovers the body of a popular high school student in the icy woods behind the school, surrounded by the town’s feral cats. While everyone is quick to say it was an accident, Claire knows there’s more to it, and vows to learn the truth about what happened.

But the closer she gets to uncovering the mystery, the closer she also gets to realizing a frightening reality about herself and the damage she truly sustained in that Chicago alley….

Holly Schindler’s gripping story is filled with heart-stopping twists and turns that will keep readers guessing until the very last page.

 

Holly Schindler Bio:

Holly Schindler is the author of the critically acclaimed A BLUE SO DARK (Booklist starred review, ForeWord Reviews Book of the Year silver medal recipient, IPPY Awards gold medal recipient) as well as PLAYING HURT (both YAs). 

Her debut MG, THE JUNCTION OF SUNSHINE AND LUCKY, also released in ’14, and became a favorite of teachers and librarians, who used the book as a read-aloud.  Kirkus Reviews called THE JUNCTION “...a heartwarming and uplifting story...[that] shines...with vibrant themes of community, self-empowerment and artistic vision delivered with a satisfying verve.” 

FERAL is Schindler’s third YA and first psychological thriller.  Publishers Weekly gave FERAL a starred review, stating, “Opening with back-to-back scenes of exquisitely imagined yet very real horror, Schindler’s third YA novel hearkens to the uncompromising demands of her debut, A BLUE SO DARK…This time, the focus is on women’s voices and the consequences they suffer for speaking…This is a story about reclaiming and healing, a process that is scary, imperfect, and carries no guarantees.”

Schindler encourages readers to get in touch.  Booksellers, teen librarians, and teachers can also contact her directly regarding Skype visits.  

Find Holly online:

Website / Goodreads / Blog / Twitter / Facebook

FERAL Trailer:

Link:

http://vimeo.com/90169956

GIVEAWAY

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Bookstore Memories and writing A Trick of the Light by Lois Metzger

A Trick of the Light
By Lois Metzger
Published by Balzer + Bray
Hardcover: 208 pages
Available: June 18, 2013
 

Description
Mike Welles had everything under control.

He was a good student, an outfielder on the baseball team, a good son, a loyal friend. But that was before. Now things are rough at home, and they're getting confusing at school. He's losing his sense of direction, and he feels like a mess.

Then there's a voice in his head. A friend, trying to help him regain control. More than that: The voice can guide him to become better and stronger than he was before, to rid his life of everything holding him back. To figure out who he is again. If only Mike will listen.

Writing with devastating power and precision, acclaimed author Lois Metzger gives us the story of one young man's battle with his own shadows -- a spare, stark, and vital tale of the way in which the things we build to protect ourselves can threaten to destroy us.

 A Trick of the Light is out today and I am honored to host author Lois Metzger on my blog. When I asked her to share her favorite bookstore memory from the perspective as a reader or a writer, she shared that they don't necessarily have to be separate. 

Welcome Lois Metzger!!

It was the year after college. I was living on Telegraph Avenue in Oakland, California, working as a "temp," which meant I got sent out on a new office job every few days. Mostly I was a typist, but I also filed, ran errands, answered phones, took messages.

On my block on Telegraph Avenue, there was a Laundromat I went to regularly and, right next to it, a tiny science-fiction bookstore I would linger in while the clothes were spinning. It was basically a narrow horseshoe-shaped hall with books floor to ceiling; you just made your way down one aisle and came back up the other way. There were ancient issues of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Astounding, Galaxy, and anthologies such as Harlan Ellison's Dangerous Visions, and musty old paperbacks, some of them Ace Doubles, which meant you could read an entire novel, flip the book over, and then read another novel. I don't even remember that store's name but it had a profound effect on me.

Now, I'm a science-fiction fan from way back. My junior year at the State University of New York at Buffalo, my writing teacher was the legendary SF (please, never sci-fi) writer Samuel R. Delany. He asked me if I'd ever heard of the Clarion Writers' Workshop, which was just for science-fiction writers. I said no. He told me to go there. So I did, for six weeks during the summer of 1975, at the campus of Michigan State University, in East Lansing. A new teacher came every week (my year, there were Samuel R. Delany, Joe Haldeman, Gene Wolfe, Roger Zelazny, and the final two weeks were co-taught by married writers Kate Wilhelm and Damon Knight). My classmates included Robert Crais, Kim Stanley Robinson, and Gregory Frost, who've gone on to great things (and I'm very proud and happy to say we are still friends after all these years). I also wound up living with Kate and Damon briefly; they had a bunch of kids from previous marriages and I always felt like one of them.

So for years I read a lot of science fiction, and wrote a lot of science fiction, but there was one writer who always scared me: Philip K. Dick. I thought he would be too "out there" for me, that his alternate worlds and shifting realities would make my head hurt.

One day, while doing laundry, I headed into that tiny SF bookstore. This time, at the end of the narrow hall, I picked up an almost-crumbling issue of Fantasy & Science Fiction. There was a short story called "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale." Wonderful title. And it was by Philip K. Dick. I bit the bullet, stood there and read it.

Okay, I was hooked. It was so imaginative, and funny, and had so twists and turns -- a bit dizzying, but it didn't make my head hurt. It has to do with implanted memories, and suppressed memories, and people who are not who they say they are. That story, later the basis for the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie Total Recall and the Colin Farrell 2012 remake of the same title, has inspired me to this day.

My new book, A Trick of the Light, is about a 15-year-old boy, Mike Welles, who develops an eating disorder. He has a voice in his head. This voice urges him on to destructive behavior. It tells him not to eat when he is famished. It tells him to exercise when he is exhausted. It tells him to reject the people who love him, because they are not trustworthy. This voice is the narrator of the book.

When I started writing A Trick of the Light, it was a more conventional narrative. Mike, from the beginning, had a voice in his head, which interrupted his thoughts and actions, but Mike told his own story. As the novel deepened and got more complicated, the voice became more of a presence and took up more "air time." Finally, in one of many rewrites, it became the narrator.

It occurred to me that this was kind of strange, to have the voice in someone's head be the narrator of a book. But I had read a lot of Philip K. Dick by then, including what's now my favorite of his, Time Out of Joint, about a man living in a totally fake environment (though it appears to be an ordinary, dull-as-dishwater suburb), surrounded by people who are all "in on it." So I figured, strange is okay. Strange is good. Strange is what makes the alternate world go round. I had found the way to tell Mike's story.

© 2013 Lois Metzger, author of A Trick of the Light

Author Bio
Lois Metzger, author of A Trick of the Light, was born in Queens and has always written for young adults. She is the author of three previous novels and two nonfiction books about the Holocaust, and she has edited five anthologies. Her short stories have appeared in collections all over the world. Her writing has also appeared in The New Yorker, The Nation, and Harper's Bazaar. She lives in Greenwich Village with her husband and son.

For more information please visit http://www.loismetzger.com, and follow the author on Facebook