Interview with Kiera Cass ("The Selection")

HIER könnt ihr das Interview auch auf Deutsch lesen.  

Click HERE, if you want to read the interview in german.

I have had great luck to get an Interview with Kiera Cass. The "Sauerländer" publisher has been so nice and arranged a meeting with my favorite author at the bookfair in Frankfurt. Read now, which interesting details Kiera Cass told me.

I am a big fan of your books and I'm really honored to interview you today. This would already lead to my first question:

Do you remember the moment when you first thought of the idea for "Selection"? How did you get the idea?

Kiera:

It was a sort of a slow grow. It came from thinking about "what ifs" in other stories. Which was "esther" from the bible and cinderella. So the story of esther, there is king "xerxes" and queen "wasti", which have a huge party and the king sends for his wife and she doesn't come, and he is embaressed infront of his friends. They are all drunk and it's been like: "well just have a beauty contest and get a new queen." and everyone was like: it's a good idea! So esther is maybe one of thousand of broads who's brought to the palace. She is a becoming queen, she saves the people, she's amazing. But I always wondered maybe if she likes the boy next door. Like what if there's a part of her heart she had to let die to do this other huge amazing thing. 

And cinderella never asked for a prince. She asked for a night off in a dress. She just wanted to go to a party. And we assume she is happy because she has got her man, but what if she wasn't? Like being a princess is hard. 

And those two things kind of married in my head and I wanted to write about this girl who came from this humble background and she was gonna getting the attention of a prince which she didnt wanted, because she was already in love. And she would gonna go trough an experience that showed her more of the world than she ever was supposed to see as someone who is poor. And that theme became the selection. So it was slow and it was really upset for a long time, because I wanted to write it like a fairytale and I wanted to put it in the past but I couldn't find a place that worked,so it was like " oh I just put it in the future and i can make my own country and can do whatever I want." So that was sort of once i finally figured it out like that aspekt of it like that's when it came so. It was actually a couple of weeks just thinking about it, before it was like " its oh oh now I know where to put it and I can make it now" so..slow. It was a slow build.

How did it feel when you get the idea?

Kiera:
It's always fun when like something sort of strikes and I have to go and like scribble out stuff on paper. I will may sudden make sure dont forget about the little details and then I usually have like taken to the side because... I remember for.. I have another book that's called the siren which i selfpublished. It will be coming out like redone next year. I remember like waking up from my nap with that idea and I was like "Heeee! Oh my gosh!" and I had to run downstairs and write it down. Then we had to go to a birthday party and I was like: "I dont wanna be with any of you people right now, I wanna go home and be with the people in my head, like else. Sometimes they just have to wait. So its always like a warm, exciting kind of a feeling when you know, you have to write it now. A small bit.

Do you already have plans for the new year? Any plans for new books? And if so, would you tell us about them?

Kiera: 

Yeah, I mentioned the siren, which is sort of an updated take of mythology of this beautiful women who sing and ships just crash on the rocks, the man brawl tight. Excuse me, in my version of the mythology, the ocean is a living thing, and she eats people. She has these beautiful girls who will sing and like drow the ships and make all men want to drown themselves. If she says something you would burry a cup of water in your face like breathe it. It follows one girl, shes living that life shes doing pretty good and and then she meets a boy and that makes things very complicated, so its another lovestory. That will be out in early 2016, and the final book in the selection series, "The crown", that will be out in next may and I have a contract for two more books after that. But I can't really talk about what they are. But yes i mean, this is my job, I love to write stories, I hope I can do it forever, there is more, there is more to come.

Many of us dream of writing such a bestselling book as your Selection. What about you now - what do you dream of?

Kiera: 
I need mostly of a vacation. This month particular I am reworking the crown, and then I have the edits for the siren with me, and then I am travelling... I just got back from phillipenes, I am doing this here, and then I get home and doing something else, and then I am going to canada. Theres a bunch of stuff I have to reck, right bag to bag. So I am hoping once that the book is out, I can throw this, you know, take a breathe and slow down a little bit. Because we didnt know we gonna write a fourth and a fifth book, so we had to write them much fast, everything feels very quick these days. So right now I dream of a vacation. I mean like really everything that is happened,has been far beyond everything I have ever asked. I mean really, I cant think of what else I should ask for. I got to get my book published, it went to number one in the bestseller list, its coming out in a bazillion countries, there might be a movie. My only goal I ever had was to catch someone in public reading my book and that happened, and I ugly cried. It is already more than I thought I could ever have. I am very content, i am very happy.

As we know, one of your talents ist definitley writing. But is there anything you're really not good at?

Kiera:

Maths. I am awful in maths. Theres my husband and he is electrical ingenier. So he does all of the counting and adding, we are very opposite in a lot of ways. He is much more rational than I am. Just much more inclined to do the things we thought it for. Wereas i am just the kind of girl: "Oh my god, all this feelings!" It's kind of a girl. I am not very good at thinking things all the way through, I am not good at maths, I am not very god at being patient. I am sure there's a plenty of things I cannot do but I cant think of them right now.

 

Imagine you have to leave everything behind and are only allowed to bring one suitcase. What would you take with you?

Kiera: 

I am assuming that the family is okay, they are all in the house. I have a teddybear that I had since I was a little girl: patty. And my kids play with her now. That makes me happy. She is getting a second life. And then, honestly not much else, like everything I have can replaced. The only thing that has any value for me is my engagement ring. One day I thought I had lost it for 30 minutes and I was like completely froke out. This is the only nice thing I have, it's just stuff you know. so I am trying not to get too attached to stuff. It's all just temporary. So maybe my teddy bear, a couple of pictures, maybe some books, and will be fine. Maybe beauty stuff and scarfs...

 If you were Maxon, who of the girls would you make princess? And why?

  [SPOILER to Book 3 and 4]

Kiera:

It's so funny because I really do think he and america were really suited for each other, and they came so close to missing out so many times, but really she was the girl for him. I think you read all the books, think that's okay now... 
So the original ending of "The one" was not what it was. The first time through when i didn't know america very long I was making much of decisions for her. It ended up with Clarkson dieing, Maxon dieing,
(I looked a little shocked, Kiera says:)
 I knoooow!  
Queen Amberly lived, because she always wanted a daughter and she ended up adopting america. And then America eventually chose Aspen and they became king and queen. I was fine with that because I thought he would be a fantastic leader. But really Maxon was the harder choice for her so he had to live, so that she could make this choice. I think she was really the harder choice for him too, someone who challenged him in a lot of ways. So yeah I think they are soulmates, they are meant to be. I think that's one of this funny things about, we are looking at them through Eadlyns eyes. It's like seeing down the road, they are still stupid in love, and they are so cute with each other. She's his girl, that's it!

What is your greatest passion besides writing?

Kiera: 
I would say my faith, I am a christian, I am very much faithed. I do find a lot a peace through that. It's very very special to me , pretty much every thing sort of centers around that, that's a part of my life. But otherwise it's very much creating, I love being practic, I used to be a co-captain on a dance team. I paint a little. So I think I am just an artist in some way like I think I had to be so. I love creating, I love being a wife and a mummy, that's special and it's hard, but i love it. I always knew I wanted that. So are the key things in life.

The readers of my blog are really looking forward to reading the interview with you. I gave them the possibillity to ask some questions, and I want to ask you some of their questions now.

Kiera: 
Awesome, I am stoked!

Luca-Vanessa wants to know where you wrote the selection books and how long it took to write one book.

Kiera:
It depends. Lots of them were different. Back when I started writing this in summer of 2008. I'd write things by hand, and I can't do that anymore, it's too slow. So some of it was written at my kitchen table, some of it was written at this shop called "crumb and get it", its a cookie shop. And then there's a small pub near that I called my second office, because I didn't have one, I 'd go there and sit there all day and eat mac n cheese, thats what they have. See a lot of like little places. Then I have an office now in our new house. So I actually have a room that I create in. For the first book from coming up with the idea to actually see it on a shelf was a four-year process. It took a long time, like a year and a half writing, another six months running to an agent and an editor, and then two years after the deal to the editor had made. But then the last two books, you know, they had to be turned around so quickly. I have been writing them in about a month and then we have to like really quickly like fix it fix it fix it. So it depends, sometime it's like a year and a half, sometimes four weeks. It just depends what is needed at the time. I definitely prefer having more time. I realize now that people are paying attention and if you get a detail wrong, they will come at you. Sometimes really hard to make sure that we catch every little thing like this last time: one more book! We gotta reach it out. One last book is good.

Corinna asks if you have a say in choosing the cast by Warner Bros. And which actors could you imagine?

Kiera:

Oh my godness. No, I do not have a choice. I think thats a thing most people dont know, don't realize how little the author is allowed to have a say in these. You just end up in the background and it's not all yours anymore. In some ways that's very good because I don't know how to make a movie. I do know how to make a book but I don't know how to make a movie. I never had a dreamcast. It is really fun to see who people pick, like the fancast on tumblr and like all these others. They are so creative and beautiful. And I am like: "Okay, I see what you are saying, that makes sense, yeah good." But I never had like a favorite. So right now, if it moves forward, I am hoping they'll get some unknown actors and actresses , I would love to see fresh faces but I am just trying to roll with it and see were we will go.

Brigitte is interested in which was your favorite book when you were a child.

Kiera:

I  remember growing up in the 80's, so they had tape players still. And my parents bought me these disney books. It come with a tape and there were dingels: time to turn the page

 It was a good way to actually sort of understand what the words were. That really helped me learn to read. I loved those and the "the giving tree", don't know if it is the giving tree, but it is about a tree and a boy and their special relationship. As he grows up during his life the tree gives him all his apples and his strung so he can make a boat and sail away. Because of that book I have tried to be friends with a tree for two weeks and care about it. I thought it was my buddy. I just believed it so much. It was one of this things which stay with you. They stuck at you when you are young and they are special. I loved it.

Jana wonders if the imagination of a world after the fourth world war wasn't frigthening for you.

Kiera:

It was a little scary. It was like a history lesson in the first books, so that you can kind of see what happened. I really was put there because my editor wanted everybody to understand how we got to this place. So like starting with where we were, it was like: well china owns a lot of our debts, what if they want all the money right now? Oh we would be toasted. Okay. And so we kinda kept keep going. It was like connect A to B, B to C, and I tried to do that. So I tried to make it like a worst case szenario of everythin, like going down that line. And imagining it is very scary because you know based on now. Very much is based on how much money you had, it is where you got put in this new society. I mean I grew up poor, I didn't have a lot of money, so it's really scary to think of life like what if .. So yeah its creepy. It definitley could be creepier, I think there are some dystopiens, I mean I think like "the hunger games" and "divergent". They definitley ask horrorible questions and it's way of scarier. But mine's not a walk in the park either but yet. That's definitely. I think probabley of the dystopiens we read, i think its probabley like the lightest. But still scary for me, yeah.

Mandy wonders how you got the idea for the protagonists' names since they are rather unusal.

Kiera:

They are! Almost all of my names are rejected baby names, cause my husband Callaway, he is like :"You can't name our daughter america!"And i was like: "Why not ist a beautiful name!" He was like: "That's... no! We can't do that!" And I said: "Fine I'll give it to my fictional baby and you can't touch it there!" So yeah a lot: Amberly, Emmica, Tuesday, America, these were all names I thought were beautiful, beautiful baby names. And he was like: "No."
Our real life children are named "Guyden" and "Zuzu" so they have weird names too, I don't know what the problem was but whatever! So yeah, mostly baby names, I didnt get to use. That's fine.

Katja wants to know how you became a writer.

Kiera:

Accidently. I was growing up in high school and stuff. I wanted to do muscials theater early, I wanted be on broadway so bad. I didn't taste this and just kind of decided that i really wasn't... I mean I was more passioned about then I was talented. I was just suited like doing random stuff. I was substitute teacher, I worked in an ice cream shop. And then I went to virgina, which is quite by "Virgina tech". You might know about the shootings that have been on the campus few years ago. So at the time my husband worked on campus, my best friend lived on campus. Everybody I knew was a student, because we went to this campus-based church. I lost people I knew by the end of the day.. It was really scary and I didn't take it very long. About that time the first anniversary came around and I decided I was gonna give my issues to a character and see what she did. That just gave me a lot of space and helped me kind of compute everything that was happening. So after I started writing, other people showed up in my head, and they were way cooler! And I was like: "Oh I'm gonna write their stuff instead!" So it was totally not in a plan, and that just happend in a sort of a way to keep myself in flow and I love it. So, you know, my whole carrer has been like one oops after another, but it's like kind of amazing that it is what it is. Because it is bigger than I could ever imagine.

Last but not least: I want to play a little game.

Kiera:
Okay, I am ready! 

Don't think about it too much, just answer what comes to your mind first. Either- or:

Black or white?

Kiera:

Black.

Coffee or Tea?

Kiera:

No! I hate both, I am a hot chocolate kind of a girl.

Dog or cat?

Kiera:

Dog.

Sweet or salty?

Kiera:

Sweet, all sweet!

Summer or winter?

Kiera:

Winter.

Reading a book or watching a movie?

Kiera: 

Uhhh... Reading a book.

Being invisble or being able to fly?

Kiera:

Invisible!

Mermaid or fairy?

Kiera:

Mermaid of course!

Maxon or Aspen?

Kiera:

NO! (Kiera is laughing) You guys are sneeky! No I can't.Ii keep telling people that there's a bit of my husband in both of them. So it's like one person in two bodys for me. I can't pick. I am sorry!

Thank you so much for answering all the questions! I appreciate that you had time for me.

A lot of thanks to the pubsliher for giving me that chance. It was one of the greatest moment for me, meeting my favorite author.. 
Thanks to my husband who listened to the audiofile with me every evening this week, just trying to get to know what this stupid word means!
Thanks to Viola and Rachel, wo helped with the last stupid sentences and so helped getting ready for posting this.
And of course thanks to Kiera Cass, who is so sweet and lovely!

And now there's a lottery, you can win a signed bookmark. You have to tell me what you liked most at this interview. But please go to the german site of this interview. Click HERE.