An Interview with Kathleen Glasgow

A Little Bit of Background

If you've been around a while then you already know that I met Kathleen Glasgow at the Tucson Festival of Books back in March. I expressed to her that I was a blogger, a relatively new one at that, and somehow we ended up talking about the possibility of an Interview. Cut to June. With Barnes & Noble hosting B-Fest and Kathleen talking at our local Eastside store, we decided that would be the best time for an interview. This was my first in person interview and I was so ridiculously excited! Finally, you get to read it!

About the Book

Charlotte Davis is in pieces. At seventeen she’s already lost more than most people lose in a lifetime. But she’s learned how to forget. The thick glass of a mason jar cuts deep, and the pain washes away the sorrow until there is nothing but calm. You don’t have to think about your father and the river. Your best friend, who is gone forever. Or your mother, who has nothing left to give you.

Every new scar hardens Charlie’s heart just a little more, yet it still hurts so much. It hurts enough to not care anymore, which is sometimes what has to happen before you can find your way back from the edge.

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About the Author

Kathleen lives in Tucson, Arizona and writes for The Writer's Almanac. If you need some nifty anecdotes about dead writers, she's your girl. Kathleen likes Tyrion, Shireen, coffee, cheesecake, and the Isle of Skye. She received her MFA from the University of Minnesota and her BUS from the University of New Mexico. Kathleen's poems and stories have appeared in Bellingham Review, Clackamas Literary Review, Cimarron Review, and many other journals. Her first novel for young adults, Girl in Pieces, will be published by Random House/Delacorte on August 30, 2016. Be sure to check out her website, follow her on Twitter, and follow her Instagram!

The Interview

Would you mind sharing about yourself? Feel free to get random, we appreciate weird here.

I spent my teenage years in Tucson, I moved here from Pennsylvania. Some weird things that people don’t know is that I have a penchant for stand-up comedy. Not doing it, but watching it. I started getting pretty lonely around 12 and 13 and I’d stay up late and watch “Evening at the Improv” on cable. I watched Jim Carrey before he was Jim Carrey!

When did you realize that writing was something that you wanted to do?

When I won a writing contest in the seventh grade at Cross Junior High School on the North side of Tucson. It was during a weird hybrid class called Typing-English and you basically learned to type while taking English lit. We had to do everything on typewriters and all the classes were asked to write a short story together and the principal was going to read them aloud over the intercom. I had a lot of ideas and so everyone was like, just let her write it and I did. We won.

What were you doing when you found out your book was going to be published?

I was sitting in my office at the University of Minnesota and my agent called to let me know we had multiple offers having only sent it out on submission six days before. She let me know we had about 7 offers and that I would have to be talking to publishers that day. I had to get up and shut my door so no one could hear me cry. As Charlie would say, it was a very momentous occasion.

Can you tell us a little bit about Girl in Pieces?

Girl In Pieces is the story of Charlie Davis, a homeless 17 year old who suffers from acute depression. This is a story about survival, hope, and art and a girl learning to live in the world.

Girl in Pieces surrounds kind of a tough topic, did you ever get so immersed in the darker feelings that you had to step away and take a breather?

*Pause* Yes. Yes, there are feelings that I had to access that I had successfully overcome and so there were times that I would step away for a couple weeks before I went back.

How personal would you say Girl in Pieces is to you?

Charlie’s story is her own. I had my own experiences that were similar to hers, but her story is her own. Who wants to know about me???

I saw on your Instagram that Charlie ends up in Tucson, what made you choose our city over something cliché like Los Angeles?

I put her in Tucson because I wanted her to go from a very cold place, which in the book is Minnesota, a place where she could hide herself under her clothing, to somewhere warm where she couldn’t do that. What better place than Tucson as a place where you can’t hide? There are so many wonderfully weird people here and they are all just letting it hang out. Charlie’s clothing is like armor for her. It was necessary to force her to shed some physical layers as she sheds emotional armor.

Are you currently working on anything? If so, is there anything you can tell us?

I signed a two book contract and book two is due in, um, like a month. It’s set in Northern New Mexico. It’s about a girl, Tiger Tolliver, whose mother dies. Part of the book is about how parents think they’re doing the right thing by keeping you close, but their protectiveness might actually not help you live a full life. It’s a book about skateboarding, grief, and first love, though not exactly the one Tiger is expecting.

One question I love to ask people is if I gave you a series of books, let’s use Harry Potter in this case, and I told you to stack them vertically what book would you put on the bottom of the stack?

The first one. You build up the series. What kind of fool does it any other way??

*We go into a discussion about how if you took said stack and sat it upright, the books would be in the correct order and that’s why you stack them with the first on the bottom. Everyone else is just wrong. ;)

Which book, other than your own, are you most looking forward to this year?

Last Seen Leaving by Caleb Roehrig. It’s so twisty and the plot is nimble as hell. Girls in the Moon by Janet McNally it is gorgeously written, great characters, great mother-daughter story.

If there was one thing that you want your readers to know, what would it be?

Never stop reading. The only place that I ever found myself was within a book. You are out there, somewhere, inside someone’s pages, someone’s story.

What’s next on your bookish bucket list?

Everything. I want it all.

Hardcover, paperback, or ebook?

Hardcover, though I have a special crush on thrift store paperbacks that smell musty, have notes in faded ink, and sometime have letters and postcards stuck between the pages.

Standalone or series?

Standalone.

Twitter or Instagram?

Instagram.

I had so much fun sitting down with Kathleen. What this interview doesn't show are the jokes, laughter, insight, shopping advice, and so much more. Sometimes you can just tell when you've met a wonderful person. And she was kind enough to give me a copy of Girl in Pieces, which is amazing, and sign it as well. Look for my review in a couple of weeks. I really hope you enjoyed our conversation and will pick up your own copy of Girl in Pieces. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments. Let me know what books you're looking forward to or what you're currently reading. I hope y'all have a wonderful day.

Xoxo,

Gabriella