Q&A: Casey Scieszka, Author of ‘The Fountain’

We chat with creator Casey Scieszka about The Fountain, which is a propulsive and deeply shifting novel about eternity and mortality that asks what it might imply to dwell ceaselessly.

Hi, Casey! Can you inform our readers a bit about your self?

I’m a born and raised Brooklyn woman who seems to have a comfortable spot for the nation. I’ve lived in locations as remote as Beijing, San Francisco, Fez, and fairly actually Timbuktu. In 2013 I moved to the mountains and opened the Spruceton Inn: a Catskills Bed & Bar with my husband artist Steven Weinberg and I’ve been operating the present there ever since. I like chatting up visitors on the itty-bitty bar and internet hosting our annual Artist Residency. My debut novel THE FOUNTAIN comes out March seventeenth.

When did you first uncover your love for writing and tales?

I can’t keep in mind a time I didn’t love writing and tales! Probably helps that I grew up in a really bookish family— my dad, Jon Scieszka, is a children e book author (THE STINKY CHEESEMAN AND OTHER FAIRLY STUPID TALES, THE TRUE STORY OF THE THREE LITTLE PIGS), so my childhood was stuffed with tales being learn and written on a regular basis.

Quick lightning spherical! Tell us:

• The first e book you ever keep in mind studying: CLEMENTINE’S WINTER WARDROBE by Kate Spohn, a children e book a couple of cat getting dressed layer by layer for a snowstorm. I keep in mind studying it with my mother and selecting what we’d have chosen for ourselves from the cat’s collections. I nonetheless learn my previous copy to my daughters now.
• The one which made you wish to change into an creator: That’s in all probability THE TRUE STORY OF THE THREE LITTLE PIGS by my dad as a result of watching it go from a draft on a yellow authorized pad to an actual e book demystified the method for me in a method that I don’t assume the common kindergartener will get to see, haha! But so far as a novel for adults that artistically impressed me in such a method that made me wish to write my very own? That would in all probability be MRS DALLOWAY by Virginia Woolf. Her artistry on a sentence stage, the way in which she crammed a complete world into in the future— studying that in highschool English class introduced me someplace I hadn’t skilled earlier than as a reader and longed to go as a author.
• The one which you can’t cease fascinated by: OPEN THROAT by Henry Hoke. It’s a slim, hilarious, thought-provoking novel advised from the POV of a mountain lion who lives beneath the Hollywood signal. It will get anybody out of a studying stoop!

Your debut novel, The Fountain, is out March 17^th! If you can solely describe it in 5 phrases, what would they be?

Home, immortality, household, energy, love.

What can readers count on?

A narrative which may sound darkish on its floor— a 214 yr previous “young” girl returns to her hometown within the Catskill Mountains to determine what did this to her so she will be able to reverse it and at last die— however is in the end a propulsive romp about love and neighborhood and connection and what makes a life significant regardless of the size of it.

Where did the inspiration for The Fountain come from?

I learn TUCK EVERLASTING by Natalie Babbitt in fifth grade which follows a ten yr woman named Winnie who stumbles upon a magical spring of everlasting life and is kidnapped by the immortal household who guards it as a result of they don’t know what else to do along with her whereas a mysterious man in a go well with hunts all of them down so he can bottle up their secret supply for his personal revenue, and principally, I couldn’t cease fascinated by it to the purpose that twenty one thing years later I lastly needed to write my very own grown-up model!

I used to be additionally deeply impressed by the Catskill Mountains the place I dwell.

Were there any moments or characters you actually loved writing or exploring?

I labored very laborious to NOT have the primary character Vera’s life be one lengthy string of witnessing Important Historical Moments as a result of a) that’s an excessive amount of coincidence and b) I feel it’s at all times a lot murkier in actuality, understanding what’s going to and gained’t wind up turning into a pivotal second. All this mentioned, certainly one of my favourite scenes to put in writing was between three immortal characters who’re reminiscing round a bonfire about all of the stuff they’ve skilled over the previous two hundred-ish years and to permit myself to actually lean into that type of foolish enjoyable for a scene. To have them laughing and bonding, asking one another stuff they by no means get to speak about with different “regular” individuals like, Where have been you once we landed on the moon? What about when Lincoln was assassinated? Where did you’re taking your first automotive experience? Remember life earlier than matches, and what about these horrible sanitary belts?

Did you face any challenges while writing? How did you overcome them?

One of the most important challenges of writing a debut is worrying that it’ll by no means change into something. That you may simply be utterly loopy for spending all this valuable time typing away some bananas made-up story that nobody will ever see. The solely resolution to that’s to easily recover from it and hold going!

What do you hope readers may take away from The Fountain?

That studying may be thought scary and FUN. I’d love for THE FOUNTAIN to be the type of e book that somebody finishes and thinks, Damn, I’m so unhappy that’s over. I want one thing else to learn instantly! It’s all too simple to get sucked into our to-do lists and our screens, to think about studying as some type of tough chore. But the extra we learn, effectively, the extra we then learn, as a result of it turns into a rewarding behavior.

This is your debut novel! What was the highway to turning into a printed creator like for you?

An actual zigzag! I’ve been an English as a second language instructor, a sociology researcher, a contract author and graphic designer, and twelve years in the past I opened a bit resort within the mountains that I nonetheless run at the moment! The Spruceton Inn: a Catskills Bed & Bar and artist residency. In 2010 I wrote an illustrated younger grownup travelogue with my now husband in regards to the handful of years we spent dwelling overseas proper after faculty known as TO TIMBUKTU which was a lot enjoyable to do and I realized a lot from the method. But debuting as a novelist for adults is popping out to be its personal utterly totally different world!

What’s subsequent for you?

Hopefully extra of the identical, in the easiest way! More writing, extra operating the Inn, extra journey and enjoyable with my household.

Lastly, what books are you wanting ahead to selecting up this yr?

I at all times have a bajillion books on my TBR checklist, however I’m significantly enthusiastic about my husband Steven Weinberg’s fully-illustrated 200+ web page how-to tome THE FLY FISHING BOOK: AN ARTFUL GUIDE TO ANGLING (out May fifth) and his gorgeous new image e book I AM THE MOUNTAIN (out June ninth).

I’m additionally sooo psyched to learn the next books these wonderful skills who have been all Artist Residents on the Spruceton Inn:

• RETRO by Jessica Goldstein a couple of failed actress who turns into a time journey agent. Think bachelorette events in Nashville… within the 1800s wild west! (June twenty third)
• MURDER BITES by Mimi Montgomery, a zippy, humorous thriller in regards to the homicide of a canine walker. (August 4th)
• THE SCOOP by Erin Van Der Meer a hilarious satire a couple of journalist working the nightshift at a gossip magazine. (April twenty first)
• And I’m additionally eagerly awaiting 2027 for Angela Garbes’ memoir about feminine midlife and Carmen Maria Machado’s new story assortment A BRIEF AND FEARFUL STAR!
• Plus THE PARISIAN HEIST by my pricey pal Jo Piazza which goes to be your enjoyable summer time learn: 90s Paris and Van Gough’s sister-in-law who took his at-the-time-of-his-death-worthless work and made him well-known. (July 14th)
• And AMERICAN RAMBLER by one other nice pal Isaac Fitzgerald the place he follows the footsteps of Johnny Appleseed the place you’re proper there with him strolling, pondering, and cracking up. (May twelfth)

Will you be selecting up The Fountain? Tell us within the feedback under!