Students interviewing an American author: Kai Strand.

On May the fifteenth we have had the pleasure to do a Skype interview with the American writer Kai Strand. Before interviewing the spontaneous and cheerful author we analyzed an excerpt from “Worth the effort”, a young adult romance story written by her. After analyzing the excerpt’s themes, motifs, symbols and more, we had a better look at the author’s writing style and way of thinking which was the ideal combination to come up with original and meaningful questions.

During the interview we found out that Kai Strand is not only a good writer but one with a heart of gold knowing that besides being a fulltime writer her dream job would be to be a professional volunteer! Even though she is not living her dream job she still does it indirectly by exposing teenagers and kids to different situations they would not be exposed to otherwise throughout her books. This is one reason why the charismatic author likes to write books for these age groups, she moreover loves it because she believes they are “passionate readers” and I believe many teenagers can relate  to the fact that we do get easily attached (or get crushes) on fictional characters.

Furthermore, we discussed the “behind the scenes” of the writing process, more specifically editing a draft and how boring this can become, but also the more fun parts such as creating authentic characters you not willingly take some personality traits from!

All in all, we got to see the difficulties of being a writer, such as the naming process of a book, along with the more fun elements, mainly creating your own fictional world with unique self-made characters.

But most importantly,  it was a pleasure to interview Kai Strand!

By Mariam, 2nde SIA, Lycée International Nelson Mandela, Nantes.

On a Tuesday afternoon, during English class, Kai Strand, the famous author, granted us the incredible opportunity to interview her. She writes under two different pen names, L.A Dragoni and Kai Strand. Having these two names comes from her wish to separate her children’s books from teenagers or adults’ since she writes for them both. Writing has always been part of her life, already in primary school she would write poetry but admitted that she always was more a “letter girl” preferring to write other things than poetry. Like most writers these days, Kai has another job, being the office administrator of a company, which makes goat soaps. She is also the happy mom of four children who have been her first readers since the beginning. When we asked her about her favorite authors she took some time to answer, it was one of the most difficult questions to answer because she reads a lot, although now her favorite one is definitely Meggy Shebutter, simply because she finds her writing beautiful. Nowadays, writing different stories from the ones already written is very hard thus the reason for her many sources of inspiration including her everyday life, her love for the creation of super powers and her wish to let people know about serious issues through fiction like underage homelessness. She meets people who have done exciting things every day and all of them affect her in her writing, consciously or unconsciously. Confiding in us, she explained that the editing process has always been the hardest part of writing a book but the middle was hard as well because she always had a defined idea of the beginning and an uncertain one for the ending but none for the middle. Some writers like to write in their own closed space while Kai Strand prefers to write in public, for example in a cafe where people surround her. In addition, she mentioned that she loves listening to audiobooks as well as reading them. Continuing the interview, she expressed her desire to meet Mozart as an answer to the question: “Which dead artist would you like to meet?” She also told us that she writes to entertain but she is happy that it also makes people think. During our exchange, Kai explained the numerous benefits of literature like travelling without leaving the comfort of our sofa, learning about new cultures or about ourselves. In one of the last questions we asked her what she would like to do if she could do anything at this moment, she answered that she would like to be a volunteer in order to help people out. One of her wishes is that her books inspired a movie or a TV show. Concluding the interview on a note for all future writers, she advised them to read. Finally I would like to thank Kai for the interview for all the 10th graders since it was one of the first interviews for our class and you answered our questions with a great honesty which we all admired!

Suzanne, 2nde SIA, Lycée International Nelson Mandela, Nantes.

Erin and Deek are a lovely couple of American writers to whom we (the students of 2nde SIA) had the opportunity to talk and ask questions. Before the Skype interview, we had to analyse in depth two excerpts, one from The Prophecy by Erin Rhew and another from 122 Rules by Deek Rhew. We also had to write down questions about the excerpts, Erin and Deek’s writing, their passion, their life, etc. When the day of the interview eventually came, we were very excited to meet them and eager to interview them. We asked them question in turn during about one hour. The interview was a delightful and interesting moment when we got to know more about Erin and Deek and their writing process. They love to be married authors since it allows them to live their passion together. They help each other throughout writing, Erin’s skills as a professional editor are then useful to Deek who is more comfortable with the creative part. It also enables them to do “satur-dates” which is the name they gave to the Saturdays when they go hiking and talk about their work and writing in general. The thing they like the most about being both authors is that they understand each other. Moreover, they can share ideas, opinions... However, they probably will never write a book with another author because only the complicity that there is between them allows them to do so. This interview was not our first one, which was very interesting, as we could see what authors have in common and what differs from one to another. It was a rewarding experience. The interview happened during our last class of literature of the year and it was definitely a wonderful way to end the year.

Titouan- 2^nde SIA.