AUTHOR CRUSH FRIDAY: JENNIFER BANASH
Glitter girls, you have pressing questions for your favorite authors and we have their answers. Welcome to our weekly segment, Author Crush Fridays.
We love asking questions and we love the answers from some of our favorite authors. Today we’re talking to Jennifer Banash, author of Silent Alarm (March 10, 2015; G.P. Putnam’s Sons Books for Young Readers). Thank you for talking to us today, Jennifer! We’re honored!
GLITTER: How did you come up with the plot for Silent Alarm?
JENNIFER: Silent Alarm was inspired by an article I read about the 2012 shooting in Chardon, Ohio. The last line of the news story mentioned that the shooter had a younger sister, and I became incredibly intrigued by just that one sentence that mentioned her presence. I began wondering how she was dealing with the fact that her brother had committed such an unspeakable act of violence. My heart went out to her, and I knew I was going to have to write this story.
GLITTER: What one question sparked the whole plot?
JENNIFER: What would it be like if you had to return to the place where your brother, the person you thought you knew best in the world, open fired on your classmates? Your teachers? How would you rebuild your life out of the wreckage? OK, that’s definitely more than one question!
GLITTER: If you could have any of your books turned into a movie, what one book do you hope makes it to the big screen and why?
JENNIFER: I’m fond of all of my books, but Silent Alarm is the one I’d really love to see as a film. The issue is just so timely and important, unfortunately. I’d really hoped that by the time I finished the novel things would have improved in regards to gun violence and school shootings. If anything, they’re even worse.
GLITTER: What character do you relate most to?
JENNIFER: I relate to Luke the most, which I suppose is kind of weird, since he’s responsible for tearing his family apart and taking the lives of fifteen people, then his own. But he never really feels like he’s special or has much to offer the world. Mostly he lives in the shadow of his incredibly talented younger sister, Alys, who is training to be a concert violinist. I was the black sheep in my family, and most of the attention my parents doled out went to my brother, so I can relate to Luke on that level.
GLITTER: What one YA novel do you wish you had when you were a teen?
JENNIFER: Anything by Francesca Lia Block. She’s my hero. Everything she writes is just pure magic, and her novels are portals you just fall into, full of stunning, beautiful imagery. Or Jay Asher’s Thirteen Reasons Why. I was—or thought I was—a bit of an outsider as a teen, and I really needed to know that I wasn’t alone in feeling that way.
GLITTER: Tell us one random fact that your fans still might not know about you.
JENNIFER: My daughter, Story, is the love of my life. She’s turning two the week Silent Alarm hits stores, and the book is dedicated to her in hopes that by the time she grows up, that gun violence—and school shootings in particular—will be a thing of the past.
GLITTER: What are you currently working on?
JENNIFER: I’m superstitious about discussing my work-in-progress, but I will tell you that it’s about an online relationship that’s put to the test when the romance makes its way into the real world. It’s about catfishing, and tangentially, bullying. But mostly it’s about how love, if it’s truly real, can overcome stereotypes and prejudices. Basically, it’s about two people who fall in love through their words to one another, and how words themselves are still one of the most powerful and visceral ways that we communicate in our daily lives. Words matter. In a way, they’re everything.
Jennifer Banash is the author of the critically acclaimed Young Adult novel, White Lines, published by G.P. Putnam & Sons, and the fothcoming novel Silent Alarm, which will be released in March, 2015. Banash is also the author of The Elite series of books from Berkeley Jam which includes The Elite, In Too Deep, and Simply Irresistible. Banash lives, work, and writes in Los Angeles, California, with her daughter, Story, partner Willy, and two slightly food-obsessed beagles.
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