I recently had the opportunity to interview Heather Frost. Heather is a new author and her first book Seers is coming out October 8th. It was a great read. The characters are some of the most developed of any YA I have read recently. This book does not read like a young inexperienced authors first book. Grab it up for a wonderful weekend read.
Me: Tell us a little about yourself.
Heather: I'm the oldest daughter in a family of twelve, and I absolutely love being a big sister. I'm a full-time student, studying English, and I work as a writing tutor. Seers is my first published novel, and becoming an author is a dream come true. If I could have a super power, it would be command over time. (I'm kind of a control freak, what can I say?) I love daisies and rainy days.
Me: Do you think being home schooled helped your creativity?
Heather: Absolutely. The curriculum my parents used encouraged lots of reading, so I was exposed to a lot of good literature. I also wrote a few short essays each week, on any topic I wanted, so I ended up flipping through the encyclopedias a lot as a kid. I learned a bunch, and much of that I've been able to use in my writing. My parents also encouraged us to devote an hour of our school day to some learning activity. For my brothers that involved spending time building computers, or working with the family mechanic. For me, it meant writing. Also, with home school I wasn't bogged down with all the extra homework my friends seemed to have. So if nothing else, home school gave me more time to write than I would have otherwise had.
Me: I was surprised to see that you had grown up in one of the most conservative areas of our country. How has that helped, or hurt, your decision to write fantasy?
Heather: The conservative atmosphere I grew up in directly led to my being home-schooled, which helped me with my writing, but I don't think it's had any real bearing on my decision to write fantasy. I write what I love, and so I'd be willing to bet that I would have turned to writing fantasy wherever I happened to be raised.
Me: Having a large family can be hard. Was writing an escape, or was it more that you used your writing to entertain your siblings?
Heather: A little of both, actually. I told silly stories to my siblings all the time, and even wrote some of them down. (That's what a big sister does, right?) But in the end, writing is an escape for me, and it always has been. When you write you can go anywhere, experience anything; live in any time, meet all sorts of people you would otherwise never meet. As Emily Dickinson wrote, “There is no frigate like a book.” I loved adventure and fantasy books as a child, but I soon found that when you write books, you feel even more a part of the story. How was I supposed to resist such an exhilarating call?
Me: The characters, especially Kate, are so very real. Did you base them on people you know?
Heather: Getting my characters to feel real is something I've worked hard at. Observing real people, seeing how they act and talk, has really helped me as a writer. So my characters have some traits that belong to real people, but for the most part my characters are unique. I've found that my minor characters have more of a habit of becoming people I know. For instance, the band teacher in Seers (who you never actually meet) is Mr. Walton. My awesome band teacher in high school was Mr. Walton. I use names of people I know all the time.
Me: Lee is one of the greatest best friends I have seen in YA in a long time. I absolutely love that she was willing to hurt Kate to help her. Do you have any plans for Lee in the next book?
Heather: Lee is a definite favorite of mine. Who wouldn't want someone so outrageous and awesome as their best friend? I'm happy to report that I have some great plans involving her for the sequel. She'll be just as quirky and wonderful as ever, but she'll become an even more important character as the story progresses.
Me: Do you have any other projects in the works or will you be concentrating on this series for now?
Heather: I have a few other stories I'm working with, but The Seers Trilogy is my main focus for now.
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