Author Of The Week: Chat with Katharine McGee (The Thousandth Floor), Plus Giveaway!!

Welcome to our weekly special feature post, Author Of The Week!!

Each week we will be interviewing a different YA author and highlighting their upcoming release!

We will also be hosting a giveaway of the book we are highlighting!!

 

 

Introducing Katharine McGee, YABC’s Author of the Week!!

Katharine McGee is from Houston, Texas. She studied English and French literature at Princeton and has an MBA from Stanford. It was during her years living in a second-floor apartment in New York City that she kept daydreaming about skyscrapers . . . and then she started writing. The Thousandth Floor is her first novel.You can visit her online atwww.katharinemcgee.comor on Twitter at @katharinemcgee.

 

 

Website * Twitter 

 

Meet The Thousandth Floor!!

New York City as you’ve never seen it before. A thousand-story tower stretching into the sky. A glittering vision of the future, where anything is possible—if you want it enough.

Welcome to Manhattan, 2118.

A hundred years in the future, New York is a city of innovation and dreams. But people never change: everyone here wants something…and everyone has something to lose.

Leda Cole’s flawless exterior belies a secret addiction—to a drug she never should have tried and a boy she never should have touched.

Eris Dodd-Radson’s beautiful, carefree life falls to pieces when a heartbreaking betrayal tears her family apart.

Rylin Myers’s job on one of the highest floors sweeps her into a world—and a romance—she never imagined…but will her new life cost Rylin her old one?

Watt Bakradi is a tech genius with a secret: he knows everything about everyone. But when he’s hired to spy by an upper-floor girl, he finds himself caught up in a complicated web of lies.

And living above everyone else on the thousandth floor is Avery Fuller, the girl genetically designed to be perfect. The girl who seems to have it all—yet is tormented by the one thing she can never have.

Debut author Katharine McGee has created a breathtakingly original series filled with high-tech luxury and futuristic glamour, where the impossible feels just within reach. But in this world, the higher you go, the farther there is to fall….

 

 

Click here to pre-order The Thousandth Floor!!

 

 

 

YABC:   What gave you the inspiration to write this book?

I used to work in publishing, in editorial, so I did a lot of thinking about the dystopian novels that have been popular in recent years. I couldn’t help wondering why no one had written a “non-dystopian” version of the future (I don’t mean utopian—I don’t think the future will be perfect, because after all, we’re still human and flawed!) I kept turning over this question in my head… what might the future actually look like, a hundred years from now?

Then I read an article about a project called Sky City, which is being built in China. It’s an enormous, self-contained “vertical city” just like the Tower in The Thousandth Floor—complete with schools, apartments, hospitals, even vertical farms! And voilà, that was the setting for my futuristic novel.

The characters came to me pretty quickly once I had the world figured out. Avery’s internal conflict—as a “made to order” custom baby, designed to be perfect—is really just an incredibly heightened version of the drive for perfection that so many modern-day teenagers experience. Watt has a reliance on technology that’s an extreme version of the way we currently treat our phones. And the rest of the stories are actually quite modern in content: Leda struggles with addiction (to substances as well as a boy), Rylin will do anything to protect her family, and Eris learns a truth that questions everything she thought she knew.

YABC:  Who is your favorite character in the book?

I love all my characters in their own ways, no matter what they’ve done. That’s unconditional love, right? ☺ Though some days, certain characters are easier to write than others!

YABC:  Which came first, the title or the novel?

The novel, but the title came soon after. Once I thought of the title, there was no way my fictional skyscraper could be anything but a thousand stories tall!

YABC:  What scene in the book are you most proud of, and why?

The final ten chapters, for reasons that you will understand once you’ve read the book (evil laughter…)

YABC:  What do you like most about the cover of the book?

I am obsessed with the cover! I am incredibly lucky to have such a wonderful and talented team of designers at Harper. It’s gorgeous and sparkly and elegant, and futuristic without feeling too sci-fi. But I think my absolute favorite part is the swirly title type. I wish I could write all my notes like that.

YABC:  What’s up next for you?

The Thousandth Floor is the first in a trilogy, so I’m currently working on book 2!

YABC:  Which was the most difficult or emotional scene to narrate?

I thought the ending of book 1 was incredibly tough to write, but I just wrote a chapter in book 2 that really hit me emotionally. I had to take a break to eat peanut butter and watch videos of puppies and babies, I was crying so much!

YABC:  Which part of the writing process do you enjoy more: Drafting or Revising?

Drafting, actually! I love getting to work in broad strokes—imagining the when-where-why of the scene, filling out the world details, making sure the dialogue fits into the larger plot. There’s something incredibly stimulating about the blank page. Once you’re editing words you’ve already written, there’s inherently less freedom to go wild with it.

YABC:  What would you say is your superpower?

Are you familiar with the Myers-Brigg personality test? I consistently test as either an ENFJ or an INFJ—which means I’m right in the middle of the introvert-extrovert scale. I think that’s actually a great place to be as a writer, since I have to go introvert in my writing cave to actually get the writing done, but I draw a lot of energy and excitement from being around others. My favorite thing is getting to meet and hang out with readers!

 

 

The Thousandth Floor

By: Katharine McGee

Publisher: Harper Teen

Release Date: August 30, 2016 

*GIVEAWAY DETAILS* 

Two winners will receive a copy of The Thousandth Floor (US only).

*Click the Rafflecopter link below to enter the giveaway*

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