Author Chat with Michael Kun and Susan Mullen, Plus Giveaway!

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

Michael: The book is made up entirely of the exchange of correspondence between two high school friends in the early 1980s when one goes off to college while the other stays home. So, for me, the inspiration came from my own experience writing letters to friends and family when I went to college.

Susan: The same here. I also wrote letters to friends and family when I went off to college. My inspiration came from many different friendships and relationships throughout my life, from memories of my high school and college friends to thoughts of my husband and my daughters. It was really an emotional hodge podge for me.

Michael: What’s interesting to me is how different that world might seem to younger readers today. There were no cellphones. There were no emails. There were no text messages.

Susan: No Twitter.

Michael: No Snapchat or any of those things. So if you wanted to communicate with someone, you did it through letters or through horrifyingly expensive long-distance telephone calls. I didn’t even have a telephone my first year of college. There was just the pay phone out in the hallway.

Susan: It’s funny to think that some young readers might not even know what a pay phone is.

Michael: True. If you didn’t want to stand in the hallway having a very personal conversation that anyone could hear, using a telephone receiver that had been used by God knows how many people before you, there was really one other option.

Susan: Letters.

Michael: Yup. Or mental telepathy, I guess. Maybe we should have written a book where the characters communicate by mental telepathy.

Susan: No, I’m pretty confident that letters was the right choice.

YABC: Who is your favorite character in the book?

Susan: Oddly enough, my favorite character is Cath’s mom. There isn’t a lot of detail about her, but I hope she comes through as a strong and lovely character. From a writing standpoint though, I’d say that I had the most fun writing about Samantha, Scott’s high school girlfriend. I really let my 80s Mean Girl out in dealing with her!

Michael: It’s funny that you should say that there isn’t a lot of detail about Cath’s mom, because that’s what I enjoy about epistolary novels (novels told through correspondence). They reward readers who have great imaginations by letting them fill in some of their own details. For instance, we never say what Cath’s mom looks like, do we?

Susan: Nope.

Michael: And I’ll bet that you and I have a very different picture of what she looks like, and readers will, too. In my mind, that adds to the enjoyment of the book.

Susan: I agree. You know, we never really describe what the two main characters Scott and Cath look like either.

Michael: Right. And there wouldn’t have been any way to do it without it sounding contrived. I mean, in what world would Scott right to Cath and say, “In case you forgot, I’m still six-foot- three, muscular, with black hair and blue eyes”?

Susan: Is that what he looks like? I think the teenage girl in me just swooned.

Michael: That’s why I said that. But, no, that’s not how I picture him. And I’d rather not say how I picture him because I’d rather readers picture him however they like.

Susan: You think female readers are going to naturally picture someone they would find attractive?

Michael: Yes. And I think male readers will probably picture Cath as someone they personally would find attractive.

Susan: I agree. We never even say what color hair she has.

Michael: For the same reason as before, I don’t want to say how I picture her other than to say I always picture her with glasses.

Susan: No way!

YABC: Which came first, the title or the novel?
Michael: The novel came first, or at least most of it.
Susan: We had a different title for most of the time we worked on it.

Michael: Right. For a long time we called it Tell Me Something I Don’t Know. Susan: That was a nice title.

Michael: Agreed. But I am so much happier with We Are Still Tornadoes. Susan: It works. Without spoiling anything, I’ll just say it really fits.

Michael: I still remember the first time I talked with our editor, Rose Hilliard. After all of the pleasantries, and after hearing all of her very flattering comments about the book, I said, “Please tell me you’re not going to ask us to change the title.” Fortunately, her immediate response was, “No way. Love it.”

Susan: Yeah, Rose is cool. She was cool with letting us get away with a little bit of cursing in the book, too. It adds authenticity. What 17- or 18-year old doesn’t let loose with a curse now and then?

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

Susan: Any scene that follows Scott being a bit clueless. Because sometimes he does act like a big dummy, and Cath’s ability to either give him a metaphorical slap upside the head, selectively ignore some stuff, or cautiously try to redirect his thinking in a different direction is the stuff that make their friendship so special.

Michael: You just made me laugh. Susan: Why?

Michael: I don’t think of Scott as being any more clueless than Cath. And as much as they might frustrate each other, I believe he keeps her grounded.

Susan: Fair enough. But you haven’t answered the question. What scene are you most proud of?

Michael: This is the easiest question you could have asked, and it’s the one I don’t think I can answer. There are a couple of fairly emotional moments in the book, and it would ruin them if I were to say anything about them now. When you get to them, you’ll know what I’m talking about.

Susan: Kind of like how the director of Star Wars wouldn’t tell people before the movie came out that his favorite moment was when Darth Vader says, “Luke, I am your father.”

Michael: Exactly. But not to sound like too much of a geek, that was actually The Empire Strikes Back, and he actually says, “No, I am your father.”

Susan: You don’t want to sound like a geek, and then you break that out!

Michael: It didn’t work, did it? By the way, you know I snuck an Empire Strikes Back joke into the book, don’t you?

Susan: What? There isn’t any mention of it in the book.

Michael: Oh, I didn’t say it was mentioned. I said it was a joke.

Susan: You’re kidding me.

Michael: Not at all. I already had one early reader email me and say, “Was that supposed to be an Empire Strikes Back reference? Cool!”

Susan: Where is it?
Michael: I’ll tell you later. It’s near the end. Susan: I don’t think I want to know.

YABC: Thinking way back to the beginning, what’s the most important thing you’ve learned as a writer from then to now?

Susan: The most important thing I’ve learned as a writer is patience with my own writing. Patience to wait until I had a solid idea about how to write the next letter. Patience not to rush the story or the character’s development. Patience to understand that there will be next stages – editing stages and re-writing stages and clean-up stages – when I would have the chance to improve and iron out the bits of writing that were bugging me for whatever reason. Patience, combined with focus and commitment to do the best I could, particularly out of respect for Michael, who could have been spending his time on any number of other writing projects.

Michael: If you’re asking what the most important thing is that I’ve learned since I started writing, well, I started writing a long time ago. I believe this is the tenth book I’ve written or co- written, unless I’m forgetting one. If I did, I’m sure it wasn’t very good. But the most important thing that I’ve learned is that writers write. I know that sounds so basic, but it’s true. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve met over the years who have told me they had a great idea for a book they were going to write and, when I would see them a couple years later, they hadn’t written a word – but they still swore they were going to do it. Writers write. That’s the one piece of advice I always give to aspiring writers – write.

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

Susan: I love how bright, fun and active it is! And I love that the characters are literally hanging onto each other through the tornado.

Michael: It’s a great cover, isn’t it? It’s colorful and eye-catching. I know there’s the old expression that you can’t tell a book by its cover, but you should be able to get a sense for what the book feels like. And a good cover will attract people who wouldn’t have otherwise known about the book. They may see it and take it off the shelf at the bookstore.

Susan: Or see the image on the Internet and investigate. We’ve already had some feedback from strangers who’ve said they picked up the book because they loved the cover.

Michael: The artist who designed the cover is a lovely woman named Olga Grlic, who designs covers for St. Martin’s Press. She designs the covers for Rainbow Rowell’s books, and she did the cover for Augusten Burroughs’ latest, which is fantastic.

Susan: Thanks, Olga! You actually got to thank her in person and shake her hand, didn’t you?

Michael: Well, I did get to meet her, but I didn’t get to shake her hand. She had a cold and didn’t want to give it to me.

Susan: You couldn’t have just answered yes to my question? Michael: Nope.
Susan: Now everyone is picturing her with a runny nose. Michael: And coughing and wheezing.

YABC: What new release book are you looking most forward to in 2016?
Susan: I am beyond excited to be reading the new Tana French novel, The Trespasser. She is the

only crime novelist that I follow and I love all of her books.

Michael: This is terrible, but I really don’t have any books on my radar that are coming out in the next few months. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t books I’ll be excited about. I just don’t keep track of when my favorite authors have new books coming out. I usually don’t find out about them until they get reviewed. That just happened last week. I had no idea Jonathan Lethem had a new novel out until I saw a review.

YABC: What’s up next for you?

Susan: I’m headed off to my very first book signing! My youngest daughter goes to Bucknell University, and this weekend is Homecoming Weekend. I’m doing a signing at the campus bookstore in Lewisburg, PA. Then I have a few signings coming up in Northern Virginia, Atlanta, and Chicago, and I’m doing a signing with Michael in Baltimore, his hometown.

Michael: I’m pretty far along in a new novel called The Allergic Boy Versus The Left-Handed Girl. I know that sounds like a book about superheroes with questionable powers, but it’s the story of a man who is trying to prove to the world that another writer stole a book he’d written and published it to great acclaim. And the only way he can prove it is to track down a girl he’d known when he was younger, who seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth, and may never have existed in the first place.

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

Susan: The wedding scene was the most difficult scene for me to write. Michael: You do know that there is no wedding scene in the book, right?

Susan: Well, yes, but the real answer would spoil the plot, and it makes me too emotional. And if there had been a wedding scene in the book, it would have been difficult to write. First of all, I’ve never planned a wedding before, and second of all, my kids are almost to marrying age, and that is just too much to bear. So while there is no wedding scene in the book, it would have been the most difficult for me to write.

Michael: Please let the record reflect that it was Susan, not me, who referred to her daughters as being of “marrying age.” And also let the record reflect that this interview is taking place in 2016, not 1816.

Susan: Oh, you know what I meant.

Michael: I’m curious to know what kind of dowry you’re offering to the families of your daughters’ suitors. Livestock?

Susan: Autographed copies of We Are Still Tornadoes.

Michael: That should work wonders.

Susan: What was the most difficult scene for you to write?

Michael: The same one I referred to before, but I can’t mention it without giving away a major plot point.

Susan: Like Darth Vader saying, “No, I am your father” in Empire? Michael: Exactly. And that was super-geeky of you.

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

Susan: Drafting was more fun, but revising was crucial.

Michael: I’ve always enjoyed editing more. Once you get the first draft down, you’re free to move things around, tighten things up, remove things, add things. In my experience, you always have some major revelation about your own book when you’re editing it.

Susan: What a surprise that we would give different answers.

Michael: Yes, it’s shocking.

YABC: What would you say is your superpower?

Susan: When I was younger, I could throw a softball from centerfield to home plate on the fly.

Michael: If I am so inclined, I can ruin any party on a moment’s notice. Seriously, just ask.

YABC: Is there an organization or cause that is close to your heart?

Susan: www.runningbrooke.org is a great local charity that was started by a friend of mine to encourage learning preparedness through physical activity. She targets at-risk kids in our area and has partnered with many local organizations to create playgrounds and to get kids moving towards a healthier life. Recess was always my favorite subject and having the ability to run and play during the day made me a better and more focused student.

Michael: www.nokidhungry.com raises money to combat childhood hunger. The number of children in America who don’t have enough to eat, or who don’t know where their next meal is coming from, is heartbreaking.