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My Bio:
Carolyn Mackler is the author of the award-winning teen novels, The Earth,
My Butt, and Other Big Round Things (A Michael L. Printz Honor Book), Vegan
Virgin Valentine, and Love and Other Four-Letter Words. Her latest novel, Guyaholic:
A Story of Finding, Flirting, Forgetting…and the Boy Who Changes Everything,
came out in August 2007. Carolyn’s novels have been published
in several countries, including the United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, France,
Italy, Korea, the Netherlands, Denmark, Israel, and Indonesia.
Carolyn has contributed to magazines including Seventeen, Glamour, CosmoGIRL!, Girls’ Life, Storyworks, and American Girl. She has a short story in Thirteen, edited by James Howe, and in Sixteen, edited by Megan McCafferty.
Carolyn lives with her husband and young son in New York City. A graduate of
Vassar College, she is currently working on her fifth novel for teenagers.
My Life Story:
I was born in Manhattan, on Friday, July 13, 1973. When I was one, my parents
moved us from Greenwich Village to Syracuse and then to Brockport, which is a small village in Western New York (and the setting for many of my novels and
stories). I did K-12 at Brockport Central School District. Things were okay
from kindergarten through fourth grade, when I lived in a creative oblivion,
building tree forts, riding my bike, and starting a newspaper with my best friend.
This is me, at four, playing dress-up
Here’s me hanging out in a homemade house. My parents used to
let me keep these up for weeks at a time!
Stephie and me, summer after sophomore year
From the beginning, I loved to read and write. When I was four, I would tell
stories into a tape recorder (I still have the tapes!). I also dictated stories
to my mom. She’d write down my words, I’d color the pictures, and
then she’d stitch them together. I read obsessively. My first real chapter
book was The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum. From there, I read every book I
could get my hands on – the Beverly Cleary books, the Judy Blume books,
The Great Gilly Hopkins, Tuck Everlasting, The Witch of Blackbird Pond, The
Girl with the Silver Eyes, Homecoming, the Great Brain books. Sometimes I felt
like I lived in those worlds more than my own. But it was okay. In elementary
school, people didn’t catch on that I lived in fiction more than reality.
In fifth grade, everything changed. I was going through this phase of wearing
plaid boarding-school dresses, my hair in long braids and ribbons. But suddenly,
as if there were a special summit to which I was not invited, all the other
girls started wearing cute lavender tops, designer jeans, feathered hair. I
was still playing with dolls – and they were spending their time gossiping,
whispering, and clustering together in the school yard. It was official: I was
a misfit.
Needless to say, junior high sucked. It helped that my parents loved me even
though sometimes, at home, I wore a straw flowerpot on my head. Also, I had
a best friend, Stephie, who lived three doors down. Stephie was a year younger
than me, so we weren’t together in school. But the second we got home,
we were inseparable. We played violin together. We wrote notes on balloons and
released them in a giant field near our houses. We took vacations with each
other’s families. Sometimes, on a warm summer morning, I’d carry
my cereal through the two backyards separating our houses, and Stephie and I
would eat breakfast together. Even though my school life was awful, my home
life was happy, much thanks to Stephie’s friendship.
Things got better in high school. Stephie started hanging around with some boys.
That meant, by default, I got to hang around them, too. My parents took me on
a shopping spree and I picked out some clothes that might help me fit in a little
better. I joined ski club. I got my first boyfriend. I became obsessed with
George Michael’s Faith album. I started putting together a group of friends
and, at some point along the way, my confidence bounced back from its all-time
junior high low. Sophomore year, I made friends with Jen, who had long blond
hair and drove a black Trans Am. Senior year, I met a wannabe rock star on an
airplane and he wrote a song for me. I got cast in the school musical. I fell
in love for the first time and, yes, I had my heart broken for the first time,
too.
Even so, I was still haunted by those feelings of being a misfit. Even
though things looked okay on the surface, I often felt like no one really understood
what was going on in my head. That’s where I turned to young adult novels.
I read and re-read all the Judy Blume books. I read A Summer to Die so many
times I can still remember passages by heart. I devoured every other book by
Lois Lowry. I loved the M.E. Kerr books because the characters often seemed
so alone and I could relate to that. And the Norma Klein books. And, actually,
every other YA novel I could find in the Seymour Library.
At fifteen, sneaking in a book between my knees
People often ask me now why I write novels for teenagers. Lots of reasons.
One of the biggest reasons is that I honestly believe that, along with certain
friendships, I was saved by the books I read during those years. They spoke to me in a way that nothing else did. They helped me feel less alone. They made
me laugh. They made me feel like there was a world bigger than my high school.
In the fall of 1991, I went to Vassar College and majored in Art History. I
worked in a café on campus, which I loved. The summer after my freshmen
year, I went bicycling through Europe with a friend. The summer after my sophomore
year, while I was on a hiking trip in Utah, my parents split up. I got the news
when I called them from a hotel in Salt Lake City. I remember sitting on the
staircase, sobbing, feeling like my childhood was over. I started out junior
year lost and confused, but then I spent a semester in Paris, where I met Jenny,
one of my best friends in the world. Jenny and I spent five months talking nonstop
and, by the time I returned to the United States, I was a new person. As I said,
friendships have saved my life, over and over again.
After I graduated from college, I had no idea what to do with my life. I’d
been keeping a journal since I was fourteen, and I’d also begun writing
poetry and short stories. So I thought maybe I’d like to write novels.
But how do you even begin? Jenny told me she was going to move to Seattle and
get a job at a restaurant and experience real life a little bit. I decided to
follow her. I bought a used seafoam green Toyota Tercel and drove cross-country
by myself, camping and staying in youth hostels the whole way across. Jenny
and I got an apartment and jobs in Seattle, but after a few months, I was restless.
I missed the east coast.
I drove back to New York City in December 1995. It was cold and gray and wet.
I put together a resume. I went on job interviews. No one would hire me. I temped
for a lawyer. I licked envelopes for a nonprofit organization. I slept on my
mom’s futon and pounded the pavement, hoping something would click. Finally,
the following spring, I landed an internship at Ms. Magazine. From there, I
began learning more about the writing business. I wrote some (very small) articles.
And, over the next few years, I wrote larger articles for Ms. and for other
magazines. All along, I still wanted to write young adult novels. So in the
fall of 1997, I took a class at NYU called “Beginning Your Novel.”
It was in this class that I began a first draft of Love and Other Four-Letter
Words. For the next year and a half, as I struggled to pay rent by writing magazine
articles, I worked on this story whenever I could.
Finally, in the spring on 1999, I sold Love and Other Four-Letter Words to
Random House Children’s Books! I cannot even begin to describe how much
I began hyperventilating when I hear the news. Love and Other Four-Letter Words
came out in 2000, the same year I began dating Jonas.
Here's Jonas and me, right before we got married
In 2003, Jonas and I got married AND my second book came out. The Earth, My
Butt, and Other Big Round Things went on to win the Printz Honor (insert more
hyperventilating here). The following year, I published Vegan Virgin Valentine.
My latest novel, Guyaholic, came out on August 14, 2007.
My life now is relatively calm. I live with my husband, Jonas, and our young
son, in a lovely apartment in Manhattan. Three days a week, Jonas goes to work,
our son goes to preschool, and I work on my fifth novel. My desk is situated
in a corner of our bedroom, next to the windows. As I’m writing, I often
rotate my chair toward the windows, which overlook the rooftops and water towers
of the Upper West Side. I’m still enchanted by New York City and how,
in this city of misfits, I’ve finally found a place where I belong.
Random Facts about Me:
Birthday: July 13, 1973
Hometown: Brockport, NY
Adopted Hometown: New York City
Family: My husband, Jonas, and our young son. My huge assortment of parents,
stepparents, step-siblings, parents-in-law, stepparents-in-law. And, of course,
my friends, who are totally family to me.
Favorite Color: Blue, all shades
Biggest Quirks: I’m a picky eater. I’ve been a vegetarian since
I was four. Actually, I frequently joke to my husband that I’ll eat anything
as long as it doesn’t include meat, fish, or goat cheese.
Favorite Savories: Potato chips and onion dip, Southwest sourdough bread, toasted
with butter, from Ithaca Bakery in Ithaca, NY. A pear salad from Alice’s
Tea Cup on the Upper West Side. Tofu scramble and a biscuit from Old Devil Moon
in the East Village.
Favorite Sweets: Chocolate (the darker, the better), Ben and Jerry’s
Chubby Hubby ice cream, strawberry shortcake, fresh raspberries by the gallon
Favorite Things to Do: Spend time with my husband and son, read novels, write
novels, walk in Central Park, swim in lakes (not in Central Park), eat sweets
and savories, take road trips in the summertime.
Favorite Music: Dar Williams, Kimya Dawson, the Garden State Soundtrack, Dave Matthews, Amy Rigby, REM, Ani DiFranco, U2, The Nields, the Cowboy Junkies
Favorite Movies: Juno, A Walk on the Moon, Love Actually, Garden State, Annie Hall, When Harry Met Sally, You’ve Got Mail, Waitress
Favorite Television Shows: It used to be Gilmore Girls, but now that that’s
ended, I’m boycotting TV. Seriously.
Favorite Books: This Lullaby, Summer Sisters, Forever…, Gingerbread,
Looking for Alaska, America, Boy Meets Boy, Rats Saw God, Hard Love, The Jessica
Darling Books (Sloppy Firsts, Second Helpings), Stargirl, Elsewhere, A Summer
to Die, Caucasia, Shopgirl, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Marjorie Morningstar
Favorite Authors (and their sites):
Megan McCafferty
Judy Blume
Rachel Cohn
Gabrielle Zevin
E.R. Frank
Wendy Mass
Justina Chen Headley
Lois Lowry
M.E. Kerr
Sonya Sones
Rachel Vail
Ellen Wittlinger
Meg Cabot
John Green
M.T. Anderson
Sarah Dessen
David Levithan
Jerry Spinelli
Rob Thomas
Stephen Chbosky
James Howe
Mariah Fredericks
K.L. Going
Ann Brashares
Jennifer Donnelly
Want to know anything else? Email me at carolyn@carolynmackler.com
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