Interview with Josh Berk Part II

by Jodi Webb

Today Jodi and Josh pick up on their conversation from Wednesday...

BDWN: Can you give us the 30 second story of your road to publication? Agent? Sending directly to publishers? Winning a contest? Friends in the business?

JOSH: I started out extremely clueless in the business! I sent a manuscript to one agent at a time and waited to hear back. (This was on my previous, unpubbed manuscript.) One of them was kind enough to say "you write well, so even though I'm going to pass on this project, let me know when you write something else." When I finished the ms. that would become HAMBURGER HALPIN, I promptly sent to to her and just waited. It turned out that she wasn't an agent anymore! I felt crushed, but was advised by a writer-friend to send it to a bunch of agents at once. It seems like obvious advice now! So I used agentquery.com to find any agent interested in YA and polished up my query letter. I got a lot of interest, and coincidentally ended up signing with a young, new agent at the agency that sent me that original "let me know when you write something else letter" on the first manuscript. He then submitted it to editors he thought would like it, and found me a good home.

BDWN: So you do have an abandoned manuscripts hidden in your desk drawer?

JOSH: HALPIN was my third attempt at writing for teens. My first, technically, was an adult novel that I tried to morph into a YA book after taking a class on teen lit. (And, after realizing that the part about the young people in the book was the strongest part anyway.) Then I decided to start out writing a teen novel, and it was better, but not really ready for publication. Then HALPIN was my third one. Sometimes I fantasize about digging out those old ones, but they're probably hidden in desk drawers for a reason.

BDWN: Can you tell us the biggest obstacle you faced when trying to get your book published? If you could share one tip about publication what would it be?

JOSH: The biggest obstacle for me was my own internal struggle. I so often felt like a "faker" like I wasn't a "real" writer and that all published authors had some magic something I didn't have. I was afraid to even send things out. Once I bucked up and realized that authors are just people, and once I realized that publishing is more or less like any other field, it became less scary. You just have to be professional, courteous, and even though you might hear "no" a lot of times and feel like crumbling into a pile of tears, you just have to keep that vibe of professionalism while you submit your next one and your next one and your next one...
I'd also say to do your research on agents and make sure you find one who is dependable, reliable, and a good match for you. An offer of representation can be so exciting that you might be tempted to jump at any agent who comes along, but the goal should be to find the "right agent." It's a business partnership as well as a creative partnership and should be treated as such. The business side of it can be very stressful, exciting, etc., but ideally the agent should handle most of that stuff so we as writers can focus on what we're here to focus on: the writing.

BDWN: And our final question...what's next?

JOSH: Thanks for asking! I'm very close to finishing the revisions for my second YA novel. It's another funny/crime/high school story, albeit with totally new characters and setting. It's called GUY LANGMAN: CRIME SCENE PROCRASTINATOR and tells the tale of a guy (named Guy) who joins his high school forensics club and stumbles on a real crime scene. He also crushes on girls, fights with his friends, and comes to terms with the loss of a loved one in his family. So it's crime/comedy/coming of age. All the things I love!

And then I recently sold the first two books in what will (hopefully) be a long series for younger readers (ages 9-12 or so). These books are also mysteries, with a sports focus. Lenny Norbeck and his goofball friends ("Mike" and "Other Mike") solve a series of baseball-related crimes and have a lot of fun along the way. I'm an obsessive Phillies fan, so this is a dream come true.

Josh Berk photo by Olaf Starorypinski

Interview with Josh Berk

by Jodi Webb

Josh Berk is the author of The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin (Knopf, 2010), a young adult mystery that combines ghosts and murder with teen angst, all set in a high school in the coal region. Berk’s second teen comedy/mystery novel is slated for release in 2012. According to Berk’s website, his past vocations have included journalist, playwright, and a guitarist for a punk band. Currently a librarian, Josh and his family live in Allentown, Pa. At the Write It Right conference, Josh will be giving 2 sessions: Writing for YA Audiences, and Getting Your YA Novel Published. In the first of a 2-part interview, Jodi Webb talked with Josh about writing for teens and 'tweens, developing an audience, and the publishing process.

BDWN: I just finished reading The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin, your first YA book, and it was full of the thing that intimidates me most about writing for a YA audience--teenagers communicating. Did you lurk in dark corners spying on teens talking to one another, hire teens consultants to OK your dialogue?

JOSH: Yes, I lurked in dark corners! Well, not quite. But I was working at a public library frequented by teens. Despite it being a library, they were never very quiet and it was pretty easy to "spy" on them. Also, I managed a crew of teen workers. I must not have exactly projected managerial authority because they soon pretty much talked to me (and emailed me, and texted me) like I was a peer. Some of this definitely influenced the voices of my teen characters. Also, being naturally immature helps.

BDWN: Your book is unusual because Will, who is deaf, and his hearing friend Smiley communicate mainly through the written word...IMing, emailing, writing on paper. Was it easier to write that "dialogue" or the oral dialogue between hearing characters?

JOSH: This is a good question! Dialogue is always my favorite part to write. It tends to flow for me whereas I struggle with other parts of writing at times. I like to get the characters talking and just set them loose. The texting/IM dialogue didn't really feel any different than spoken dialogue to be honest. Will and Devon got into a good flow and the words came fairly naturally.

BDWN: Obviously you're no longer a teenager, but at least you can remember what it was like while writing your characters. But what about your main character, Hamburger Will Halpin who is deaf. I know you aren't deaf but is that something you have life experience with?

JOSH: I started writing the book knowing pretty much nothing about Deafness! I wrote the first draft pretty much just wondering "what if?" and "what would such-and-such be like" for a person who couldn't hear. Then I did research (not sure why I did this backwards) -- reading books by deaf authors, hanging out on Deaf websites, and interviewing some deaf people who I got in touch with. Some of the jokes came from this research and some of it just came from my desire to portray Will as a "regular" adolescent. One deaf reader pointed out that the sort of "earthy" humor Will has is very common in the deaf world, and then gave examples of jokes that I didn't think of as "deaf" jokes but rather plain old teen-boy humor.

BDWN: From my point of view, writing about teenagers is a nightmare simply because they're so trendy. What's in today is totally lame tomorrow. Does anyone still say totally lame? Did you ever worry that by including certain details...IM ing, gold name necklaces, etc, you would date your book? Or did you hope readers would look past details to the great plot?

JOSH: This is a good point. Youth culture moves so fast and publishing moves so slow! I actually wrote the book in 2007 and it didn't come out until 2010. I did worry about things becoming out-of-date and my editor helped pick things that we could alter to be less likely to be outdated. For example, in the first draft everyone in the book had MySpace pages, then I changed it to Facebook, then I just put something vague like "social network page" because I figured that something like that would last, whatever it might be called. And I made up a fictional device ("The Crony") rather than name a type of handheld device that would be replaced by something newer (like, the iPhone, for example, which hardly existed way back when I wrote the book but now is everywhere). My editor also had me pull references to current movie stars and rock bands who she feared might date the book.

So I'd say, yes, it is a concern when writing contemporary YA, but certain things transcend all eras. Youth culture changes, but adolescents are pretty much the same as they've always been. Maybe my book will seem hilariously out-of-date in a few years, but I was just trying to write honestly about a moment in time as I saw it. I think readers will appreciate that. And gold name necklaces will never be lame! (Haha. Maybe they already are?)

Check back on Friday for Part II of Jodi's interview with Josh!

Josh Berk photo by Olaf Starorypinski