Madelyn Rosenberg & Mary Crockett Author Interview ~ JeanBookNerd

Photo Content from Madelyn Rosenberg an Mary Crockett

Mary Crockett likes turtles, licorice, and the Yankees. Madelyn Rosenberg likes cats, avocados, and the Red Sox. Luckily they both like the weirdness of dreams (and each other) enough to write novels together. The friendship has survived three moves, six kids and countless manuscript revisions.Madelyn lives just outside of Washington, D.C. Mary remains in the mountains near their hometowns in southwestern Virginia. You can find them on Twitter @marylovesbooks and @madrosenberg or their blogs at www.marycrockett.com and www.madelynrosenberg.com.

Print Length: 336 pages
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire (July 1, 2014)
Publication Date: July 1, 2014
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services LLC
Language: English
ASIN: B00J8QDLQ2

Praise for DREAM BOY

"Hits the chick-lit and romance buttons, adding suspense and an intriguing idea as well for nicely rounded entertainment" ―Kirkus

"An original, twisty paranormal romance" ―Booklist

"Mary Crockett and Madelyn Rosenberg take you on a mysterious adventure where romances, friendships and even the power of dreams are tested. You don't want to miss out on this exciting and totally unique adventure." ―Girls' Life.com

""Dream Boy" skillfully and creatively tackles the common theme of good and bad dreams coming alive...The writing is tight and well-paced, and nicely balances action with Annabelle's character development as she tries to unravel the mysteries of Martin and her dreams. " ―The Roanoke Times

"A suspenseful, entertaining novel that explores the shimmery space between reality and illusion" ―Richmond Times Dispatch

MADELYN
Why is storytelling so important for all of us?

Because that’s how we figure things out – what we want, who we are, where we belong in the universe. Whether we’re listening or writing or listening and writing, I think it’s safe to say that without stories, we wouldn’t know ourselves and we wouldn’t know each other.

What’s one thing that readers would be surprised to find out about you?
The number of times I second guess myself?
Beyond your own work (of course), what is your all-time favorite book and why? And what is your favorite book outside of your genre?

I could name about 20 but that would be cheating so I’ll go with The Phantom Tollbooth, which taught me how to play with words. Outside of kidlit I’d probably pick Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri.

What was the greatest thing you learned at school?

Ack, where are you getting these questions? These are hard! Okay, how about this: In elementary school I learned that small people can do big things. And in college, I learned I was smart. I should say here that in high school, I thought that I wasn’t smart, and the counselors didn’t do a whole lot to help me see things otherwise. One said she wasn’t sure I’d get into college, particularly not the college of my choosing. But once I did get in — take that, Mrs. D — I started taking subjects that were important to me, like English Lit and creative writing. My grades soared and my brain felt like it had the answers for once. It took a little longer for my brain to realize that the answers had been there all along. I also started working for the student newspaper in college, and I learned a ton about writing and people and asking questions and putting together a story. Fast.

Can you tell us when you started Dream Boy, how that came about?

Mary came up with the original premise. We’d been friends for years and had often traded writing exercises during our long commutes to our respective jobs. We even started a romance novel together once years and years ago, though we abandoned it six chapters in. We were talking one day and she asked if I wanted to write a book about a boy from a dream who really came to life and that was the nugget we started with. Mary’s rule about writing with a partner is to make sure it’s a project that you’re not overly attached to, so you won’t freak if it morphs, which it did, crazily Mary wanted there to be romance and some dark stuff. I told her I wouldn’t write it unless it could be funny, too. She introduced a character as a boy, and I turned her into a girl. In the end, the story went lots of places neither one of us thought it would go. And in the end, we were both extremely attached.

What was one of the most surprising things you learned in creating Annabelle?
I was surprised that I could still remember so many of my own real dreams and nightmares – subconscious and conscious — going back to when I was very small. I gave some of them to Annabelle and I think that was a way of letting them go. (The bad ones, anyway.)

If you could introduce one of your characters to any character from another book, who would it be and why?

I think Annabelle would like hanging with Callie from Erica Orloff’s Illuminated or Aimee Agresti’s Haven from Infatuate (I’m spending a lot of time reading local Virginia authors). She could get some science help from Piddy in Meg Medina’s Yaqui Del Gado Wants to Kick Your Ass. And I think she’d want to be in a book club with Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

For those who are unfamiliar with Martin, how would you introduce him?

Annabelle’s Golden Boy, maybe? A boy from “Philly” with a thing for French toast.

You have the chance to give one piece of advice to your readers. What would it be?
Dream, of course!

When asked, what’s the one question you always answer with a lie?
With students, it’s probably How much money do you make? With adults it’s probably How much time do you spend on the internet?

Where is the best place in the world you’ve been?
There are lots, including, as Dorothy would say, my own back yard. The most exotic was a deserted beach in Vietnam.

What's the most memorable summer job you've ever had?
A tie: My first college internship, at a newspaper in Fayetteville, N.C. And the summer my sophomore year in high school that I spent as a waitress, which only half counts because I was fired halfway through the summer. I was a terrible waitress; I moved slowly and got rattled easily.

When was the last time you told someone you loved them?
This evening.

Which would you choose, true love with a guarantee of a heart break, or having never loved at all?
True love, broken heart.

When was the last time you cried?
That would be last week.

What decade during the last century would you have chosen to be a teenager?
The 1960s, for the music alone.

What's the loveliest thing you have ever seen?
My children, running through a field. A light fog on the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Annabelle Manning feels like she’s doing time at her high school in Chilton, Virginia. She has her friends at her lunchtime table of nobodies. What she doesn’t have are possibilities. Or a date for Homecoming. Things get more interesting at night, when she spends time with the boy of her dreams. But the blue-eyed boy with the fairytale smile is just that—a dream. Until the Friday afternoon he walks into her chemistry class.

One of friends suspects he’s an alien. Another is pretty sure it’s all one big case of deja vu. While Annabelle doesn’t know what to think, she’s willing to believe that the charming Martin Zirkle may just be her dream come true. But as Annabelle discovers the truth behind dreams—where they come from and what they mean—she is forced to face a dark reality she had not expected. More than just Martin has arrived in Chilton. As Annabelle learns, if dreams can come true, so can nightmares

DREAM BOY BY MADELYN ROSENBERG AND MARY CROCKETT EXCERPT

I’ve always been a dreamer. Daydreams. Night dreams. Dreams of grandeur and dreams of escape. If I were an onion and you peeled back the papery outside, you’d find layer after layer of eye- watering dreams. And in the center, where there’s that little curlicue of onion heart? There’d be a puff of smoke from the dreams that burned away.

It was all just brain waves, I thought— disconnected, like the notebook that my friend Talon keeps. She draws a line down the middle of the page; on the right she writes everything she remembers about a dream, and on the left she puts notes about the stuff that’s happening in real life, things that might trigger her subconscious. Reality on one side, dreams on the other—a clear line between the two.

But it turns out there are no clear lines, just a jumble of what is and what might be. And all of it is real.

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