Monday, May 7th Chat Session with Jay Asher
1:20-2:15 pm (11:20 am -12:15 pm Pacific)
**THIS CHAT SESSION HAS ENDED**
The rules are pretty simple. There are only two. Rule number one: You listen. Number two: You pass it on. Hopefully, neither one will be easy for you. (from Cassette 1: Side A)
Hannah Baker records the defining moments of the past few years of her life onto seven audiotapes. Thirteen stories involving several people at her school. She packs the tapes into a shoebox and mails them to the first person on the list. Then, she goes home to kill herself.
Two weeks later, Clay Jensen comes home from school to find a box with no return address leaning against his front door. Inside are seven audiotapes, their sides labeled 1 through 13 in blue nail polish. He has no idea what’s on the tapes, which is kind of exciting…until he presses PLAY.
With Hannah’s voice as his narrator, Clay spends the rest of the night wandering through town, visiting places mentioned on the tapes, unearthing the thirteen reasons why Hannah chose to kill herself.
And one reason belongs to him.
About Jay Asher
Jay began Thirteen Reasons Why in Wyoming while working simultaneously as an assistant children’s librarian and a bookseller at an independent bookstore. He continued working on the manuscript after moving back to California’s central coast where he found jobs at a chain bookstore, a discount bookstore, and…finally!…back in the public library system. While he works on his second novel for teens, he hopes to sell at least one of the many picture books or humorous middle grade novels he’s written.
To learn more about Jay, visit his blog Disco Mermaids or his My Space Page.
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I’m here. So whenever you’re ready…fire away!
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What inspired you to become an author?
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what inspired you to write the book Thirteen Reasons Why
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I’ve always liked to write. I started with comic strips and screenplays…but then I took a college course called Children’s Lit. Appreciation and got an A-plus on two books I wrote, so I was hooked.
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What inspired you to write this story!
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The book is separated into sides of cassette tapes instead of chapters, with one character reacting to the recorded voice of another…I always thought that’d be a cool way to format a book. It wasn’t till I wondered What would be the last type of tapes you’d wanna receive (something blaming you in a suicide) that I knew I had something pretty eerie.
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While the book deals with a heavy subject, I wanted it to be suspenseful more than anything else.
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what made you write this book
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At what age did you start writing?
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Were you into certain novels when you were younger? Name one for example.
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I never wanted to write anything serious…humor’s my main love. But when I came up with this idea, I knew I had to do it before anyone else thought of it. And when I read the intro to my wife and she freaked out, I knew I was onto something.
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How long did this take you to write?
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I started writing novels about eight years ago, but for elementary school kids. This is my first novel for teens and I started it in early 2003.
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Were you into certain novels when you were younger? If so, name one. ^w^
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Stotan! by Chris Crutcher was the first teen novel I read…and I absolutely loved it. Cool thing is, Chris Crutcher read an early version of this book and now I have a quote from him on the cover!
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Did anyone in particualr inspire you to write?
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have u ever writen a book about yourself?
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Is “Thirteen Reason Why” based on a True Story?
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It took me about 3-and-a-half years to write this. But I worked on it off and on while I wrote other books…because I didn’t know this was gonna be the one to break me in.
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What is your 2nd novel going to be about?
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Have you ever had suicidal thoughts that influenced you to write your book?
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I don’t think anyone inspired me to write, other than all the authors I loved reading when I was younger. But no one in my family was a writer.
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Are you ever going to write for adults?
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how did you become an author
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This isn’t based on a true story, but several scenes are definitely inspired by things I’ve seen or heard about…such as the way my first kiss reminded me of the smell of hotdogs…that’s in there.
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Is writing a way to express your emotions and thoughts?
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My second book is going to be suspenseful, as well…but more of a love story.
I think most people have thought about suicide at some point (studies show this to be true), but I’ve never attempted it. I have a close family member who did attempt it, but she survived. Obviously, her and I spoke a lot about it while I wrote this book to make the feelings accurate.
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What is your next novel going to be called?
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No, I don’t want to write for adults. They’re kind of boring to talk to.
This book sold at auction because I had an agent, so we had three publishers bidding on it…so that’s how I officially became an author. Woo-hoo!
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what kind of advice would you give someone who wants to become a writer?
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It is a way to express my emotions and thoughts, definitely…and the greatest form of therapy! But, this is a suspenseful novel before anything else, so I didn’t want my “message” to get in the way of that.
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What was the message that you wanted everyone to know?
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Right now, my next novel is called IN YOUR DREAMS. But this novel was originally called BAKER’S DOZEN: THE AUDIOBIOGRAPHY OF HANNAH BAKER, so you never know.
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What makes a good story? (In your point of view)
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have you ever written a book/story about yourself?
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To be an author, get into a great critique group. People who will support you, but won’t hold back if what you wrote is total…you know.
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man…thats amazing that your doing something that you love… but has there been anything else in your life that has influenced you to go in a different direction like:
sports, girls, personal experiences??
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when will your next book will be coming out
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How many books do you plan to write?
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The message is that everything affects everything. When you do something to someone (even a little teasing), you don’t really know what’s going on in the rest of their life…so you just might be piling it on much worse than you think.
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What type of books do you like to read?
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In high school, were you ever interested in reading than writing?
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My next book will probably be out in October ’08. I plan to write till I lose my mind…so maybe another few months.
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What advise do you have for someone that wants to be a writer one day?
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Do you think that your book will inspire anyone
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WE SHOULD HAVE DONE AIM THIS IS TERRIBLE!!!!!!:evil:
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As far as a different direction, 9 months before this book sold, I almost gave up writing because it was taking so long to sell a book.
I wanted to see what else I was interested in. But my wife made me stick with it, and she was right.
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judson your an idiot.. stop staying stuff like that… mrs. allan hates it… your just making her mad
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im sorry i didnt read my instructions Jay this is awesome…just a little slow…my teacher is about to drag me down the hall by my hair but you are a very intresting person i would love to sit down and talk about your writing:razz:
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I took a lot of Creative Writing in high school…but I hated English. I hated all that symbolism stuff.
But, in the end, it made me a better writer.