{Tour} As Many Nows as I Can Get by Shana Youngdahl (Author Interview!)

***INTERVIEW***

Hi, Shana! Thanks for taking the time to talk with us today. We’re excited for our readers to get to know you and As Many Nows as I Can Get a little better, so let’s get started!

When I learned of the deaths of a few old friends from my past I was mostly a practicing poet. I kept trying to write poems about all of the feelings I had about these people who were gone from the earth too soon and I couldn’t get them right. Eventually I realized it was because for whatever reason my exploration of that loss was in the characters of Scarlett and David—who for the record are extraordinarily different from me and any of the people I know who left our world too soon— but because I knew them when we were young this was the story that came to me. My favorite scene to write was probably the one where I finally nailed Scarlett’s voice—that’s the scene where she imagines when she met David Warren. I was about three drafts in at this point and when I wrote that I knew all the pieces were clicking together. I also really enjoyed writing the scene where Scarlett and Mina first met, even though that one was not really nailed down until very late in the game (maybe draft nine or ten?) It is now one of my favorite scenes in the novel. So I guess my favorites are also hard won.

Usually I write at the end of our long dining table, the side we don’t eat at, and look out into the woods behind my house in rural Maine. I’m a full-time professor so during the school year I write from about 5 to 7am, then get I my kids ready for school and go to work myself. Summers are a bit more flexible, but I still try to write every week day unless I’m on vacation.

I’d love to introduce Scarlett to adult Kat from the novel Marlena by Julie Buntin. I imagine they might have some interesting conversations about loss and self-forgiveness and moving on. I imagine them drinking fancy water in New York and talking about how even though life might look different than you thought it would when you were young, growing up and working toward your dreams is still worthwhile. I also can’t help but wonder what would have happened if when David went out to Stanford instead of hooking up with the people that he met there who lead him down an even darker path that he could have met Oscar from Jandy Nelson’s I’ll Give You The Sun and maybe caught a ray of light—but I guess that would have changed my whole story. . .

We all make some bad choices. Scarlett makes some really bad ones but she finds a way through them. I think all of us, but perhaps especially young people, feel like they are defined by a bad choice they made, or a series of bad choices, and that the bad can completely ellipse the good. For example if you fail out of your first semester of college you’re doomed and college isn’t for you. This just isn’t true. You probably just had a difficult adjustment. Or maybe you need to do something else for a year or two. If you fall into a place where bad choices define you; you limit yourself and are really at risk for not becoming all of the wonderful things you really can be. People are complicated and screw up and everything is not all black and white. That narrative is increasingly important for our children today.

Of course, I see myself in both Scarlett and her mom; although Scarlett is far better at physics and math than I am. I’m not sure if Scarlett’s choices were catastrophically worse than mine or if when I rolled the dice things just turned out a bit better, but certainly my first year of college though tough was not so tough as hers.

Scarlett for David: Ass. Ass. Ass.
David for Scarlett: Exquisite. Brilliant. Focused.

Things will get better. Dreams do come true. Work hard, switch to fluoride toothpaste now and floss. Oh and that weird floaty feeling you get that is anxiety. Work with it. Breathe.

I’m not sure there has been enough time to say it’s been under-appreciated but I highly recommend Shannon Schuren’s debut The Virtue of Sin. It’s a contemporary about a young girl in a cult who has the courage to break out. I was awed by Schuren’s world building in a contemporary and the awakening of her main character Miriam. And since I’m a sucker for YA goes to college I need to give a shout-out to Gloria Chao’s American Panda which wasn’t underrated but I still more people must read it. I loved every page of Mei’s difficult first-year of college. It was challenging for very different ways than Scarlett’s and as someone who works with first-year college students it really resonated with me. I can’t wait for her next book coming in October!

– E-book or Printed Book? Depends, why am I reading? For teaching always print. Also any author I really want to collect. But for travel/fun ebook.
– Introvert or Extrovert? Introvert, most days.
– N’SYNC or Backstreet Boys? The Cure.
– Classic or Current? Classic.
– Chocolate or Vanilla? Chocolate. Always.

How about some generational pairs of swoony boys? Jess and Luke from Gilmore Girls, Jughead Jones and FP Jones from Riverdale.

Thanks so much for stopping by, Shana! This was a ton of fun and we couldn’t agree more about your swoony boys! #TeamJessForever!