Alice Oseman

Alice Oseman is the author of Solitaire. From her Q & A with Between the Covers:

Are there elements of Solitaire that resemble your own experiences at high school?

Definitely! I went to an all-girls grammar school which accepts boys into the two final years (Sixth Form), just like Tori does. I based the school on what I knew from my school – the school assemblies, the common room, the cliques, the layout, even the nameless town in which the book is set. Solitaire’s backdrop is completely taken from my world. And while the characters are all fictional, they are definitely inspired by types of people I knew at school. Hipsters, sassy teachers, pessimists, partyers – school really is full of stereotypes, and part of the fun I found in writing Solitaire was smashing those stereotypes into pieces.

If you could invite five fictional characters to dinner, who would you choose?

Firstly, I’d invite Jay Gatsby. Actually, I’d let him just take over the organisation of the dinner. He’d be sure to make it fabulous. I’d invite Kathy from Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go so she could tell me about her life, and then with Artemis Fowl, because he’s my most extreme literary crush and also a well-known genius, I would plot how we could rise up against the dystopian regime Kathy is stuck in. So I guess I’d have to get...[read on]

--Marshal Zeringue