Questions for Vixen's author Jillian Larkin

[dclement04]

Jillian,

F-A-B-U-L-O-U-S JOB!! I am really impressed with this book and honestly have to say that I haven't gotten this excited over a book in a while. I finished the book about 2 weeks ago and have your book being passed around my office because I talked so highly of it and others wanted in on the excitement. I feel like I have the POWER because I have the book and no one else does LOL! Anyway, great job! Will there be any other programs that will be offered to review your other books before they come out??

A new huge fan,

Danielle 

[dclement04]

PS- I already posted my review!

Danielle

[TudorRose]

Jillian,

Thanks so much for taking a few minutes to answer my questions.  I will look into the sources you suggest.  Might be just the thing to drag me out of the sixteenth century.  For a little while, anyway.

Best wishes.

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Jillian-Larkin wrote:

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TudorRose wrote:

Jillian,

Congratulations on a job well done.  Thank you so much for letting us get a sneak peak.  I am really enjoying Vixen and can't wait for the sequels. 

I don't usually read books that are marketed as YA, but this book has really grabbed my attention and I really care about all the characters (even Lorraine!).  I was wondering if you wrote the book specifically as a YA title or was that was a decision made by your publisher?

Also, you have impeccably researched the time period.  Your descriptions, especially of the clothing and accoutrements are fantastic.  Do you have any go-to reference guides for the period?  Do you collect vintage clothing of this era?

Again, congratulations on the book.  I wish you much success with The Flappers.    

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Hi,

Thank you! I was specifically thinking of a YA audience in writing the book, yes, but I am pleased that it's appealing to an adult audience as well.

The research for this book has been pretty extensive. As I said on another board, reading Zelda by Nancy Milford helped me learn more about the parties and people of that time period. Reading literature from that time gave me a good feel for how people spoke and acted back then. I have a few go-to websites for various aspects of the period.  Here's a little sample:

Slang: http://home.earthlink.net/~dlarkins/slang-pg.htm

Music: http://www.redhotjazz.com/

Clothing: http://www.fashion-era.com/1920s/ (it really doesn't get much better than this site)

I'm a very visual person, so I also often just go on Google Images and search for vintage clothing, certain city streets, newspapers, what have you. The Metropolitan Museum of Art had a fantastic costume exhibit called "American Woman: Fashioning a National Identity." The guide book for that exhibit proved very useful in describing the clothes.

Ha, I would love to collect 1920s vintage clothing, but it's always been a little out of my price range. Mostly I just have a lot of 1920s-inspired clothes. And my winter hat is a cloche hat.

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[Bonnie_W]

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Jillian-Larkin wrote:

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Hi Bonnie,

Thanks so much! And yeah, when naming the characters, I did look up a list of popular baby names from 1906 (since most of the main characters are seventeen in 1923). Gloria is also kind of named after Gloria Gilbert in The Beautiful and the Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald, though I like to think my Gloria is a nicer person I often use this site for the slang:

http://home.earthlink.net/~dlarkins/slang-pg.htm

Walking the line between too much slang and too little is definitely a struggle, and something that is never perfect by the end of the first draft. I owe a lot to advice from both my agents and editor in that area. The first draft of VIXEN didn't have enough slang, while the third had too much. It's wonderful to know that you think we struck a good balance in the end.

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Thanks for your response, Jillian!  (And I didn't mean to sound stupid when I said baby names from the 20s.  I did know they were born earlier and was initially thinking about it, but apparently forgot and wrote 20s there!)

Yes, you handled the balance of slang quite well; it really flowed.

You mentioned earlier that there will be a fourth character in the next book.  Is it someone we've met already (I'm leaning towards Vera)?

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Jillian-Larkin wrote:

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I love great young adult literature too, some of my favorites being the Uglies series by Scott Westerfeld, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman, and The Giver by Lois Lowry.  I have kind of a thing for dystopian novels.

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I LOVE the Dystopian genre myself and have read and enjoyed all of these. :-)  I just took a bunch of Dystopians out from the library TO read.  I'm going to start off with Nothing by Janne Teller, which sounds AMAZING (Plus, John Green is hoping it will win the next Printz!) and Truancy (and the prequel, Truancy: Origins) by Isamu Fukui (he was FIFTEEN when he wrote it!!).  I also took out, um, Unwind by Neal Shusterman, Skinned by Robin Wasserman, Witch & Wizard by James Patterson, and Gone and Hunger by Michael Grant.  I posted a tiny bit about why I chose each here on my book review blog the other day (along with mentioning your ARC...and I'll have a review up later, yay).

I'm also REALLY looking forward to Matched by Ally Condie, which comes out on the 30th.  It will be my present for getting through NaNo (if I get through it...).  I'm also really looking forward to Delirium by Lauren Oliver, which comes out in February.  She was also a First Look author (and the first one I did)!

I seriously LOVE this genre right now.  There are so many awesome books coming out next year, too.  I had to start a wish list to remember them all!

(Do you think you'll write a Dystopian at some point down the line?)

[Alnilan]

First of all, thank you for the opportunity and for sharing with us your creative process when writing this book.

I feel the timeless challenges young people face growing up, specially young women's identity crisis can be devastating and potentially dangerous. All the female characters seem to teeter on that edge and I would like to know which of the female characters is closer to someone you have known.

Another question, did any Jazz musician inspire you to craft Jerome (in my opinion the most free character so far), if so who?

[Atreyu59]

Jillian,

I simply love the utube trailer about the book & the facebook page.  

1.  Do you feel this is the opportune time to be in your business with the explosion of electronic media able to reach out and touch everyone?

2.  Has the book writing business been easy for you with the internet and social media roar currently happening?

You can get a novel out within such a quick turn-around time, especially when your customers are waiting, some impatiently, for the next series.

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Jillian stated:             Hi again! There's currently a Flappers Facebook page, where you can see the absurdly beautiful trailer for VIXEN:

[Atreyu59]

dclement04  you are too effecient! !  ! 

wow.  I thought about posting my review two weeks ago yet I didn't get to it because I ended up reading all the post and got distracted.

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Danielle stated:

             PS- I already posted my review!

[babzilla41]

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Jillian-Larkin wrote:

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DSaff wrote:

Wonderful! Thank you for your reply, Jillian. One last question, will a "Vixen" website be up soon?

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Hi again! There's currently a Flappers Facebook page, where you can see the absurdly beautiful trailer for VIXEN:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Flappers/107526909291138

I believe a website is in the works as well and should be up closer to publication.

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Jillian: 

Thank you for the link to the trailer for Vixen.  I agree, it is a beautiful trailer - full of mystery and intrigue!

b

[dclement04]

@Atreyu59...it was one of those things because the book was too good I had to share it with everyone else and start to get other readers who aren't as fortunate as us to get an ARC to start liking it as well!

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Atreyu59 wrote:

dclement04  you are too effecient! !  ! 

wow.  I thought about posting my review two weeks ago yet I didn't get to it because I ended up reading all the post and got distracted.

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Danielle stated:

             PS- I already posted my review!

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[Vermontcozy]

Thank you Jillian for your Agatha Christie recommendations..I am still trying to locate the "Edith Wharton " book you mentioned yesterday..I hope The Vixen Series Continues" Ingenue and Diva..are not enough for us.....Who knows Jillian,you can bring them to "Tuxedo Park"Upstate NY and even Paris.,such endless possibilities....I am sure you have plans for all the characters..I am reading 'Vixen" on schedule,sort of,intend to finish by Saturday...Hope to see you again next week if you can come back..Much Success...Susan..Vtc

[Atreyu59]

I too feel that I want to share the experience - which is what I would think you, Jillian, as a writer hope that readers do - share the experience & pass on good reads so others may buy and follow the writers books, as we seem to be all doing here.  Do you find most of the readers you run into are recommended by others or by bookstore visits & booksignings, publisher events?

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dclement04 stated:

I feel like I have the POWER because I have the book and no one else does LOL! 

[pmsmrsmoose]

Jillian,

          First and fore-most I love this novel. I can truly tell that you put many hours of your life into the conception of this beautiful time piece. But I have a few questions.

`1. Did the locations in this novel actually ever exist and if so were they in Chicago?

2. Were the characters you listed, in the case of the gangsters of the time period, actually real? Did they actually reside in Chicago at the time?

Thanks for this wonderful novel and the picture you painted!

Nikki

[Superbookworm]

Hi Jillian,

I love the cover Vixen.  What was the idea behind the cover and who is shown on the cover?  Gloria?  Clara?  Thanks for sharing your book with us!

[DSaff]

I love Agatha Christie too. You will probably enjoy her character Hercule Poirot too. 

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eadieburke wrote:

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Jillian-Larkin wrote:

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melissas wrote:

Hi Jillian!

I really enjoyed reading your book, and will eagerly recommend it in my store. I know in the back of the book, it states that your interest in the 1920s began at childhood. What is it about this time period that attracts you? This is the first time I've read a book that takes place in this era, and it definitely brought something new to my literary table.

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Hi Melissa! Yes, the Jazz Age had been a lifelong love affair for me. Partly, it's the clothes and the music. I'm continuously in awe of the amount of work that went into clothing back then. There were entire Houses in Paris, filled with seamstresses and designers working themselves to the bone over gorgeous, intricate beadwork. And the music--Bessie Smith, Marion Harris, Jelly Roll Morton, Paul Whiteman, Louis Armstrong, and so many others. My dad's a big fan of jazz and the blues. I definitely inherited that from him.

I also just find the time period so interesting. I think the tagline of the HBO show, Boardwalk Empire, says it well: "Atlantic City, 1920. When alcohol was outlawed, outlaws became kings." Since something illegal was being done by so many--drinking alcohol--I think it helped to shake up a lot preconceived notions about how American Society should be. Suddenly women felt the freedom to hike up their skirts and set their own terms.

And now some classic 1920s book recommendations for a newcomer to that era: Both The Great Gatsby and The Beautiful and the Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Mrs.. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh (it's highly satirical and not everyone's cup of tea, but I love it), and Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis.

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I just recently started reading Agatha Christie and would like to suggest checking out some of her Tommy and Tuppence books. Better yet, try to get some of the movies. They feature the 1920's era and the mystery adds some spice to the mix.

Agatha Christie's Tommy & Tuppence: Partners in Crime, Set 2

  

Partners in Crime (Tommy and Tuppence Series)

  

Good luck with Vixen and the series.

I am really enjoying Vixen and wish you the best!

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[DSaff]

The FB page is great, and I loved the trailer.  

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Jillian-Larkin wrote:

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DSaff wrote:

Wonderful! Thank you for your reply, Jillian. One last question, will a "Vixen" website be up soon?

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Hi again! There's currently a Flappers Facebook page, where you can see the absurdly beautiful trailer for VIXEN:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Flappers/107526909291138

I believe a website is in the works as well and should be up closer to publication.

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[Jillian-Larkin]

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gackie wrote:

Hi Jillian,

First off I have to say what a wonderful book and thank you for letting all if us have a First Look.
I was wondering which character is the most fun to right about? And if you could be one of your characters which one would you choose to be?

Thanks,

Jackie

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Hi Jackie,

Thanks for the kind words. I have a great time writing about each of the girls for different reasons. As I said in my first letter to you all, I used to want to go into musical theater before I realized I wanted to write. So writing from Gloria's perspective is a nice way to keep my passion for singing alive, even though it's not what I chose to do with my life in the end. Lorraine is epically silly and I can make her say the ridiculous things Gloria or Clara wouldn't be caught dead saying, so that's a blast too.

Clara is so much fun as well: she's witty and is able to look at Gloria and Lorraine's lives from an outside perspective, adding that bit of satirical humor. Clara's who I would probably want to be. I wish I had been anywhere near that confident and self-assured at her age.

[Jillian-Larkin]

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SSDailey wrote:

Hey Jillian, my question deals somewhat with Vixen, but I was just wondering how you went about getting published after you finished writing your novel. Did you get an agent first and then start submitting? I've been working on editing some of my own novels for a while now and I've started really looking into submissions, etc. I even bought myself the 2011 Novel & Short Story Writer's Market. Do you have any advice for hopeful future authors?

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Hi there! I'm unfortunately not the greatest person to ask about this since I got very, very lucky on my road to publication. My senior year at NYU I was interning at a children's literary agency and got up the guts to tell the agent I was working with about my idea for VIXEN. He was happy to look at what I had written and liked it. He and another agent at the agency gave me a lot of great advice then went out on submissions with the book. So I got to skip a lot of the horror stories of searching for an agent that I've heard from my writer friends.

If I can offer one bit of advice from my experience: do internships if you can at a literary agency or a publishing house. Learning more about the publishing industry is so important for a writer and internships are great ways to meet people who could give you some advice and critiques. I highly recommend attending writing workshops too. It's so helpful to hear critiques from other writers on your work, and to form your own opinions about the work of others. 

And most importantly, write every day. Sometimes I force myself to sit down and write whatever comes into my head, just to get my fingers flying over the keys. I personally like working on multiple projects at time. I'm a bit of a restless soul so having the freedom to put my main project aside and move onto something else (usually something very different in setting and tone) for a day or even just a few hours takes a lot of the stress off. Then when I move back to THE FLAPPERS, I can see it with a new sense of distance.

[pen21]

Jillian,

During this piece of the process in getting a book on the shelf, today what is the part you like best? In your posts I see you are working on your next book. And I know you are here with us.

I am sure there is a lot to the process I know nothing about. Give us some hints please.

Luanne

[Jillian-Larkin]

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literature wrote:

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The trailer is phenomenal!  I don't know how many times I watched it already.  I love your writing, it just flows, and I am able to picture everything as it is happening.  Watching the trailer just convinced me that I pictured everything pretty accurately. 

Now you gave me more to ponder.  I've been trying to find clues in the story to come up with the true identity of the vixen and I've posted my thoughts about the prologue.  Lorraine tells Gloria that she keeps a flask in her garter and the trailer showed the flask in a garter.  The woman seemed too poised to be Lorraine.  She almost reminds me of a very loose version of The Three Faces of Eve.  I keep going with Gloria because of the green eyes and the transformation that she is going through but I never pictured Gloria as the type that needs an instant alcohol boost.  I will just have to keep reading.  Lorraine has dull hazel eyes, maybe the light refracted off something green and her eyes looked green?

I know I'm writing this backwards, I should have welcomed you first.  Welcome to our group and hope you are having as much fun being part of it as we FL'ers do.  The past few months I've had a strong urge to read The Great Gatsby and recommended it for reading at one of my book clubs and now I'm reading Vixen.

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Thanks so much! I am having a ridiculous amount of fun on here. It gives me a nice break from tackling changes to the INGÉNUE draft before my lovely editor Wendy gets to see it in a few weeks.

Some interesting predictions ... I guess you'll just have to wait and see I love The Great Gatsby so, so much. Like if someone forced me to choose my favorite book that would probably be it. I'm very curious about the adaptation Baz Luhrmann is planning to do of the book. On the one hand I love his directing style and I'm sure the parties will look amazing. But it's not really a plot-driven novel, and those kinds of books are always so hard to adapt.

[Jillian-Larkin]

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SeaLue wrote:
Hello Jillian, Haven't finished Vixen yet, but I'm loving it so far. I have a silly question- which girl is depicted onthe cover? I'm guessing it's Gloria. Also, I agree that this is very much a YA book. These girls are definetely going through emotions that all girls go through. I think that's why books like these are important. It helps to know you're not the only one dealing with these issues.

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Hi there, and thanks so much for the compliments. That's not a silly question at all! It was actually the most common question I received on my pre-publication tour a few weeks ago. I actually tackled this question on a separate board so I'm going to be lazy and copy and paste that exchange below :

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Sarah-W wrote:

It's funny you should mention the cover. I thought it was reminiscent of Anna Godbersen's The Luxe (Luxe Series #1). I kept wondering which character it was supposed to be. If we judged by the hair-color it would be Lorraine. But I'm guessing the cover might supposed to be more evocative than it is a particular character or person. We'll have to ask Jillian about it when she joins the discussion next week.

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Hi, Sarah.  Thanks so much for doing such a great job moderating the discussion.  And for the comparison of VIXEN's cover to the LUXE covers.  Those are some gorgeous, gorgeous covers. When I was recently on a pre-publication tour for VIXEN, I was surprised that the most common question I ran into was: Which character is it on the cover?

I, of course, can't take any credit for the beautiful cover. It was shown to me, I squealed at how amazing it was, and that was that. But you're exactly right, Sarah, when you say that the girl on the cover is "more evocative than it is a particular character or person." The young woman on the cover is whoever you want her to be. Your favorite character, perhaps, or a woman that embodies the listless-yet-wicked attitude so many of the women of that era were beginning to find within themselves.

Instead of sitting up straight like a proper lady, this woman is feeling the freedom to recline and look into the distance. Maybe she's looking towards a different future. A future that won't have to revolve around marrying well and teaching her daughter to be the demure young lady her own mother wishes she was.

Or maybe she's just bored.  Either way I think she's going to start searching for some excitement.