Interview with Krysten Lindsay Hager #2

About the Author

Besides mining her teen years and humiliating moments for her novels, Krysten is also a book addict who has never met a bookstore she didn’t like. Krysten writes about friendship, self-esteem, fitting in, frenemies, crushes, fame, first loves, and values. She is the author of True Colors, Best Friends…Forever?, Next Door to a Star, Landry in Like, and Competing with the Star (The Star Series: Book 2). Her debut novel, True Colors, won the Readers Favorite award for best preteen book. Krysten’s work has been featured in USA Today, The Flint Journal, the Grand Haven Tribune, the Beavercreek Current, the Bellbrook Times and on Living Dayton.

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Interview

1. What did you want to be when you grew up?  Did becoming an author ever cross your mind?
I always wanted to be an author and/or create my own TV show. I was obsessed with books and liked creating my own stories.

2. Who are some of your favorite authors?  Do they inspire your own writing?
I love F. Scott Fitzgerald, May Sarton, Judy Blume, Kim Wright, Cathy Hopkins, Sylvia Plath, and Francine Pascal. Reading Judy Blume and Francine Pascal’s Victoria books as a kid made me want to be a YA writer.

3. How did you become involved with writing for Clean Reads?
I was in a group for freelance writers (I got my start as a journalist) and I became familiar with the publisher through the group.

4. What inspired the idea for Dating the It Guy?
I was watching a TV show about JFK Jr. on TV when I started wondering what it’d be like to date someone like that back in high school. From there I started getting ideas about what the Brendon character would be like and what we might not know about the challenges of being that guy. Then I started thinking about the situation from the girlfriend/main character’s point of view. I filled a journal up with notes and ideas for dialogue that first week.

5. What do you want readers to take away from reading Dating the It Guy?
I saw this comment in a review from YA and Wine that said, “…I felt like this book had a great underlying message about the importance of self love.” And that’s exactly what I wanted readers to come away with from reading Dating the It Guy. All my work is about learning to love who you are and appreciating your own uniqueness.

6. What is your current WIP?  What can you tell us about this project?
I am working on a series now called The Cecily Taylor Series about a teen who ends up getting cast in her favorite singer’s music video and they find they really have a deep connection. Book one, Can Dreams Come True? Book one will be out early 2018 and I’m working on book two right now.
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7. When you are not writing, what other “hats” do you wear?
I was a journalist, but now I just do creative non-fiction and humor essays along with my novel writing.

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