Interview Update with Jerry Spinelli

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Interview Update with Author Jerry Spinelli

By Debbi Michiko Florence

About EGGS: David mostly lives with his grandmother, but tries to spend as much time away from her. His mother died last year and his father spends the week working away from home. When David meets Primrose, they form an unlikely friendship. He’s 9, she’s 13. He doesn’t have a mother and wants her back, she has one she wishes would go away. Together through nighttime forays of scavenging for junk, they discover they have more in common than they thought – and try to fill the missing space in their lives.

Can you share the story about the publication journey EGGS took?

Over a decade ago I wrote a book. My editor turned the ms back to me with many issues and problems. I attacked them. After a month I began to lose my zest for a job that figured to continue for many more months. So I put that ms aside and started a new one--which became WRINGER--and never went back to the old one. Ten years later my wife Eileen said "Let me see that old manuscript you never finished." I found it, she read it and said it looked good to her. I sent it to Alvina Ling at Little, Brown and over ten years after I wrote it EGGS was finally published.

My heart ached for David and Primrose. What was the spark for their stories?

No particular event or person. I've just always liked to put contending characters together and see what happens.

I love all the little details – David’s talent with the yo-yo, Primrose’s special room in a broken-down van, and Refrigerator John’s lifestyle. How do you get to know your characters?

Well, in this case it was a matter of situation. David's situation was a dead mother and a resented grandmother; Primrose's was a mother she almost wished were dead. Many paths led naturally from those two situations.

The title, EGGS, is perfect – since David and Primrose both have experiences with eggs early in the story and because their emotional lives are as fragile as eggs. Do you come up with your book titles before or after you write the story? Do they come easy to you? (I ask because I struggle with titles.)

Sometimes a title is the first thing to come, sometimes the last. Ten years ago the problem ms was called WHO CARES. I was never crazy about the title. What that happens, one approach is to look back into the story itself for the title. That's where I found EGGS.

What’s your favorite way of eating eggs?

In descending order: poached--pickled--sunny side up

I haven’t had a chance to read LOVE, STARGIRL yet. As a huge fan of STARGIRL, I’m thrilled. Did you have a sequel in mind when you wrote STARGIRL?

No, I had no sequel in mind. Then Eileen suggested I write a short, gifty, holiday book about Stargirl. I tried, but it ran away from me and became a full-length sequel.

Any other news you’d like to share?

In September I'll be doing a three-week national book tour for LOVE, STARGIRL, from San Francisco to Boston. Check my website jerryspinelli.com for details. And we have a new film deal for STARGIRL.

What are you working on now?

The first book to be co-authored by Eileen and me. It's non-fiction and will be published by Random House.

what's new?

For more information about Jerry and his books, see his web site:

www.jerryspinelli.com