Christian Heidicker is an awfully charming young author from Utah.Cure for the Common Universe is his debut novel.
From his Q&A with Ann Cannon for The Salt Lake Tribune:
One of this novel's charms is its unique premise. Tell us how "Cure for the Common Universe" came to be.Visit C. M. Heidicker's website.
This all began when I wrote a piece for a scientific journal about flower pollen dissemination. My editor at Simon & Schuster, Christian Trimmer, just happened to pick up the June 2014 issue of "Yon Flowery Bits" and read my article. He was captured by the way in which I was able to breathe life into the flower's plight, specifically its helpless desire to pollinate — waiting on a breeze or a buzz that may never manifest.
Mr. Trimmer didn't think the flower angle would quite hook a teenage audience, so he Googled the phrase "Pressing Issues of Our Time." Of course the first thing that came up was video-game addiction. He had me run a search/replace on the document and thus pollen became pixels, roots AV lines, honeybees Serena, and weed whackers GamerGate. The rest is history. [Editor's helpful hint: Read the book and these comparisons will make more sense.]
Did you write this novel with a particular reader in mind? Who do you think the ideal audience is for your book?
Like everything I write, I was thinking of a homeless man named Jesús Gómez, who...[read on]
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The Page 69 Test: Cure for the Common Universe.
Writers Read: Christian McKay Heidicker.
--Marshal Zeringue