Norma Fox Mazer

INTERVIEW

August 25, 2000
  
Norma Fox Mazer is a prolific and beloved YA author who has entertained readers of all ages with her realistic and poignant stories. Teenreads.com writer Audrey Marie Danielson, a longtime fan, had the chance to ask the author some questions. Find out about her next book GIRLHEARTS, which is a follow up to the popular SILVER, coming out in Spring 2001, in addition to learning more about Mazer, her writing, and her family of authors.  

TBB: What prompted you to write GOOD NIGHT, MAMAM? It's a very different Holocaust story.
  
NFM: An editor told me about Ft. Oswego and asked if I'd be interested in writing a novel about the historical event. I have lived in northern and central New York State all my life, but I had never heard of these events or the refugees. It was under my nose, and I'd missed it completely! I hadn't had any intention of writing a Holocaust story until then, but this intrigued me, maybe partly because of its close physical connection to the place where I lived.  
  
TBB: In GOOD NIGHT MAMAM was it difficult fitting a fictional character into a true story and still remaining true to the historical facts?

NFM: I think that any historical fiction has this same problem. I had to write this novel over completely at least four times, and this was because I was working out how to balance fiction and history. While writing GOOD NIGHT, MAMAN, I read a fair number of books, most of them memoirs of people who had lived through the Holocaust. What struck me was that despite the numbing universality of that murderous time each person's story, each survivor's story, was unique, individual, distinct. Of course this is an obvious truth, but I needed to be reminded, so that I would remember as I wrote that my intention in writing this book was not to write history, but to write the unique history of an individual, albeit a fictional one.
  
TBB: Can you tell us about the book that's coming out in August by Arthea J. S. Reed entitled, NORMA FOX MAZER: A WRITER'S WORLD?

NFM: Actually, no, as I haven't seen the text. Dr. Reed [who's better known as Charlie] interviewed me, I supplied her with copies of articles and books I'd written that she was unable to find, and that's about the extent of my knowledge of the book.  

TBB: What is it like to collaborate with your husband?  Do you ever argue about what should go or stay in a story? Can you estimate a percentage of how many of your books are written separately?

NFM: Last question first. I've published 29 books. Harry has published 20 [I think]. Of those, we wrote three together, THE SOLID GOLD KID, HEARTBEAT, and BRIGHT DAYS, STUPID NIGHTS. In other words, what we do is write separately and then, on rare occasions, write a book together. About working together, yes, of course, we argue. We're very different, our writing styles are very different, and we're both strong minded. Nevertheless, we work together well, and we keep promising ourselves to write another book jointly. Maybe next year.  
  
TBB: In WHEN SHE WAS GOOD, Em Thurkill is quite a character. Is she based on a real person or is she strictly out of your imagination?

NFM: As with almost all my characters, something real is at the core, while everything else is imagined. In this case, the tiny core of Em was a glimpse I had one day of a woman who stopped in to say hello to my mother in her apartment building. That was probably 20 years ago, but there was something about that moment that stayed with me and inflamed my imagination.
  
TBB: You started off writing pulp fiction. Would you tell us what that was like?

NFM: It was hard work. Harry and I both did this to support our family and live as writers. Every week, for eight years, we each wrote a 5000 word short story. Just coming up with that many ideas, when I think of it now, so many years later, boggles my mind. We worked a 7 day week and every hour we could catch while also caring for 4 kids who, when we began, were all under the age of ten. But we were happy. We learned so much during those years. How to write a story, how not to be afraid of words, how to sit in a chair and face the blank paper [typewriter days], how to draft and not kill yourself because what comes out is not the vision in your mind, and how to revise, revise, revise to get as close as you can to the story you want to tell. All things that have stood us both in good stead through the years of writing novels.
  
TBB: What made you decide to switch to children's and young adult novels? Can you tell us a little about the transition?
  
NFM: Well, we always wanted to write novels. The pulp fiction we did was originally out of necessity. We had those four kids to support. Necessity turned out to be a wonderful teacher, but we were both always angling to find time to write a novel. Our then agent told us the children's market was "hungry," so I decided to try that and sold the first novel I wrote. That was a big incentive to write another one!  
  
TBB: Do you write young adult short stories as well as novels? What can you tell us about writing short stories that is different than writing a novel?
  
NFM: I have published two collections of short stories, DEAR BILL, REMEMBER ME? and SUMMER GIRLS, LOVE BOYS. Both of them are out of print now, and I haven't read the stories in a long time; but they were well received by reviewers and kids. Now I write quite a few short stories for anthologies other people are putting together. I love writing short stories. There are some ideas that don't require a novel, and yet ask the writer to fully imagine the world. That, in itself, is satisfying, but so is the fact that I can write a story in a month or even less. After struggling to complete my new novel over the past three years, you can imagine how lovely it is to get a piece of imaginative writing finished in a month.
  
TBB: Has your writing changed or evolved through the years?

NFM: I think so. I hope so. I'm always wanting to write better than I have before, to write a novel that will really be terrific. There's so much to think about in writing novels --- the story you're telling, the words you use, how you use them, how you choose them, the effects you hope to create, and so on. Also, I've grown through the years, learned things about life, and I hope some of that comes into my stories.
  
TBB: You've written a lot of books.  Which of them have been the most meaningful for you?

NFM: Every one has meant something to me. At each point that I write a story, I'm attached to it, I'm invested in it. Once I write a book, the attachment is not lost, but loses its power. For three years, I've been working on and constantly thinking about my new novel, GIRLHEARTS. I finished it at the end of June, and I knew it was really done when, overnight, I stopped thinking about it. There's almost a snap when that happens, as if a rubber band has broken.  
  
TBB: Do you have a favorite character?
  
NFM: Not really. My latest book is usually the one I'm closest to at the moment, so right now Sarabeth Silver from GIRLHEARTS appeals to me very much.
  
TBB: How involved do you become with your characters?
  
NFM: As with every aspect of writing a novel, it's a process. I know that's cliche now, but it's true. As I write and rewrite and revise and think and imagine and dream and write again and involve the characters in the story, I become closer and closer to them and know them in a deeper way. There comes a time when I understand my characters so well that I know exactly how they will act and react at any moment, and that's wonderful, exciting; but it's also when I know that I'm just about through with the book.  
  
TBB: How long does it take you to write a book, and do you work on more than one at a time?
  
NFM: Most of the books I've written have been finished in a year, but some of them have taken two or three years, and a few rare times I wrote books in less than six months. I've never worked on more than one book at a time. I wish I could!

TBB: I understand you've just sold your first picture book. How much different was it writing in this genre? What problems, if any did you encounter? What is the name of the book?

NFM: It was very different writing a picture book, and yet the same. A story is a story is a story. But in a picture book, it's all trimmed down to the essentials, and I work on each word in a much more focused way than I ever have with a novel, which is so much more capacious. The title is HAS ANYONE SEEN MY EMILY GREENE?  
  
TBB: How do you decide exactly what you want to tell in a story? Do you have a preconceived idea, or does it come as you write? Do your characters drive your story?
  
NFM: I don't decide exactly what I want to tell. I have an idea which I hope can be expressed in a single sentence or paragraph, so that I can always return to the core of what's driving me to write the story. For instance, for TAKING TERRI MUELLER, the core idea was "A girl is kidnapped by her father." That was exactly the words in which the idea for the story came to me. But they don't all work out so neatly. All kinds of things come as I write, all kinds of surprising developments. As for the characters driving the story, character and plot and theme are so interwoven that I always find it a little artificial to talk about any element alone.  
  
TBB: When did you decide to become a writer?
  
NFM: When I was 13.
  
TBB: Was there a particular author or teacher that made you decide to write?
  
NFM: No. I've always loved to read. I taught myself to read when I was 4 or 5 and read voraciously from then on. The love of reading and of stories perhaps led to my want to be a writer. I've never known exactly why at the age of 13 I knew that this was what I wanted out of life.
  
TBB: What is your favorite young adult novel? Who are your favorite contemporary authors?
  
NFM: Impossible questions to answer. I have no single favorite book or favorite author. I live in a house filled with books in every room. I think there are more fine young adult books today than ever before.
  
TBB: What words of advice or encouragement would you give a teenager who wants to become a writer?
  
NFM: Read and write. Read all the time. Read anything. Read everything. Keep a journal, keep it informal, keep it for yourself. Write something in it every day. It doesn't have to be long or "good" or "important," although it can be any or all of those. What counts is getting the habit of writing, of observing and noting. Don't be impatient. As you write, as you read, as you observe, as you live each day, you're preparing yourself to be a writer.
  
TBB: Are you currently working on a new book? If so, can you tell us a little about it and what the anticipated publication date will be?
  
NFM: I mentioned above the new book and its title, but I'm glad to say it again. GIRLHEARTS will be published in spring 2001. It picks up the story of Sarabeth Silver from SILVER. Her young mother dies, and she's left alone in the world.  
  
TBB: Is there anything else that you would like our teenager readers to know about you, your family or your writing life?

NFM: My husband, Harry Mazer, and my oldest daughter, Anne Mazer, both write for children and young adults --- wonderful, although very different books. Anne has written picture books --- a lot of people know SALAMANDER ROOM --- middle grade fiction, young adult books, and also edited a number of terrific anthologies for young adults. Right now she's writing a series called THE AMAZING DAYS OF ABBY HAYES.  

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