Jennifer Salvato Doktorski's latest young adult novel is August and Everything After.From her Q&A with Deborah Kalb:
Q: How did you come up with the idea for August and Everything After, and for your character Quinn?--Marshal Zeringue
A: My ideas begin with a character and a voice. The first thing a character “says” to me usually becomes the first line of my story. In this case, it was Quinn telling me why she started wearing her grandmother’s old cat-eye glasses.
Quinn’s backstory is a sad one. The death of her best friend, for which she feels responsible, left her broken and damaged and uncertain about her future. I wanted this to be a story about the summer Quinn makes herself whole again.
I love the album August and Everything After by the Counting Crows. Lyrically and musically the songs reminded me of Quinn, and the...[read on]