Please welcome Linda Oatman High with an Interview all about her new release December !!
It’s All About the Book…
Please tell us about
your current or upcoming release. (Title & Blurb)
DECEMBER is
a cautionary tale, a dark young adult novel about a new girl in town who gets
drawn into a dark vortex of violence. Lake Millay has hopes and dreams . . .
until she moves to Lancaster County, PA, and makes friends with the wrong
people.
What is this book’s
genre? Is this the genre you usually write in? Are there any
genre’s you haven’t written that you’d like to try?
DECEMBER is
realistic fiction/drama, which is the genre in which I usually write. I’d like
to try my hand at a mystery one day, along the lines of “Gone Girl” or “The
Girl on the Train”
What inspired you to
write this book?
The
bullying/stalking murder of my cousin’s 16-year-old daughter Laurie Show, which
happened in December of 1991 in Lancaster County, PA. Laurie was stalked and
bullied for months before she was killed by three teens.
How did you pick its
title? Did it come first or did you have to write the story first?
The title
came easily. Laurie was killed on December 20th, 5 days before Christmas,
and the cold dark of December always makes me think of her. I can’t hear the
first Christmas song of the season or see a lighted tree without being flooded
with grief for my cousin Hazel, Laurie’s mother. December has never been the
same since 1991.
How did you create your
characters? Did you use any real life people in their making?
I created my
characters from my feelings about the real crime that took Laurie’s life. They
are fictional, but based upon a true crime. In creating the protagonist Lake
Millay, I wanted to be sure to make her a sympathetic and likeable character,
which was a challenge. Also challenging was writing about the killers, Brit and
Seth, who come across as pretty evil in the book. That was unavoidable, I
think, because of my own connection to the story and my still-strong emotions.
In the end, I believe that writing the story turned out to be a lesson in
forgiveness for me.
Who is your favorite
character of this book and why?
My favorite
character is Holly McGinnis, who is based upon Laurie Show. She is love and
light and all that’s good.
What is your favorite
part of this book? Can you share an excerpt from that part?
My favorite
part of DECEMBER is probably near the end, when Lake has been in prison for 20
years and she is reflecting upon her life.
There
are things I especially like to remember: the old silver gazing
globe, flowers exploding in blooms of color, the clanking of wind chimes, trees
in breeze, driving, petting dogs and cats, Jesus bugs walking on water, the
clucking of chickens, bird song. Picking cherries, mowing grass,
swimming in the cool creek, catching fireflies and lettting them loose
again. Setting them free. These are the good memories.
I
open The Life Book of Lake Millay, and there’s the flower that Brit gave me on
the day we met. If only I could have known when she handed me the
red flower that it was the beginning of the downfall of the almost-once-normal
life of Lake Amanda Millay, things might have been different. I wish
that gazing globe had been a crystal ball showing me the future. This
future.
I take
out that dried flower, now brown, and I remember how it was once bright-red and
fragrant. I lift the flower to my nose, and of course it has no
smell.
When the
wind blows just right, in the spring and summertime, I can smell flowers. When
I get out of here – if I get out of here – I’m going to plant flowers in honor
of Holly. Yellow, the color of hope. I’ll plant some
yellow flowers and I’ll get some ducks and a dog and I’ll live my life, because
that’s what people do . . . if they’re lucky.
I
crumble the dried-up flower from Brit between my fingers, turning it to dust on
the floor of this frigid cell. I’m 37, and it’s December . . .
again.
What was the hardest
part of this book to write? Can you share an excerpt from that part?
The book
opens with the murder scene, which is very much as it really happened. It was
the hardest part to write, and I literally felt physically ill while doing so.
Brit has
a knife. A knife, not scissors but a knife, a sharp knife, a long
knife, silver and black-handled, pointy and hard in her red-nailed hand, and
holy shit, Brit has a freaking knife flashing out of that backpack she carried
in to Holly’s house when we pushed through the door and into this house and
pinned Holly to her bedroom floor. I thought we were coming here
just to cut her hair, to chop Holly’s shiny red hair that’s still wet from her
morning shower and smells like shampoo, but Brit has a knife, a knife, her
knuckles are white. Seth is trying to hold Holly’s ankles but Holly
kicks hard and she’s fighting and kicking and beside Seth Brit is
screaming. I’m pregnant, hold her legs, she’s kicking my
stomach. Seth’s pressing his whole body against Holly’s legs,
her kicking legs in pink flannel pajamas. His head is bent,
and his earring – a silver cross – falls out and it’s on Holly. Hold
her head her arms she screams at me, and Brit leans forward with the knife and
her eyes are wild weird crazy blue, wide, and there’s spit on her lips and it
drips and I’m frozen, so frozen. I scream STOP but it’s inside
my mind and it won’t come out and my throat and my heart and my skin melt melt
melt and I’m numb and I wonder is this really happening is this real or is it a
dream and how can this be. Get her head Brit screams again and
I can’t move but I do I do and I get Holly’s head and there’s blood.
Did you have any
special rhythm or quirks while writing this?
DECEMBER was
my creative thesis at Vermont College of Fine Arts, so my rhythm was that of
the semesters of earning my MFA in Writing. I’m quirky all the time (so my
family would tell you), so there are no special “writing quirks” that I can
share.
v Is
this a stand-alone book or is it part of a series? If so, we want to hear
about it and what’s next in the series. If not a series, what comes next
to be released? DECEMBER is a stand-alone book. It was difficult to dive back
into the memories and emotions of Laurie Show’s death, and I would not want to
write a sequel. The story is over; Laurie’s life on earth ended with the crime
of December 20th, 1991, and my goal in writing the story was to prevent
bullying/stalking from happening to other teens. It is indeed a cautionary
tale, without a typical plot arc or happy ending.
* * * * *
DECEMBER
Linda Oatman High
Contemporary YA Romance/Bullying, 54k
~Editor's Pick~
Lake Millay has goals, hopes, and
dreams...until she moves to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania and becomes ensnared
in a vortex of violence.
Bullying and stalking become Lake’s
life, and ultimately the destroyer of her dreams.
A cautionary tale based on the true
story of Laurie Show, murdered by three teens in 1991.
Excerpt:
“This gazing globe’s really old, like from the
1800s. People believed that a witch couldn’t sneak up on you when you
were looking into the dome.” The voice comes from nowhere and from
everywhere, and an electric bolt of fear buzzes through my body. My heart
thunders, filling my chest and ears. I’m dizzy, numb with shock, not able
to move.
Then a face appears––a face––blurring
and blending into my own in the rounded silver of the globe. I
scream, filling my body and my heart and my ears, and I leap and fall
backwards, banging hard into flesh and bone: a person.
I scream again and fall on my knees
in the mud.
“HELP! NO!”
“Man. You’re jumpy. Sorry
if I scared you.”
It’s a girl, just a scrawny
anorexic-looking girl, about my age, fair-haired and pale, with fake-looking
cobalt-colored eyes. She’s one of those girls with an upturned little
nose and perfect teeth. Flawless complexion. Makeup.
Teeny-weeny, clean white shorts. Tanned cheerleaderish legs.
I gasp, trying to catch my breath.
“You scared the crap out of me.”
“Man, you scare easy.” Knuckles
on hips, she cocks her head to the side, pale hair falling over those bright
blue eyes.
I press my hand to my heart.
Puke climbs up my throat, and then slides back down again.
“What are you so jumpy about?
There’s nothing to be scared of around here. Not like it’s an epicenter
for crime.”
There are definitely shades of
cheerleader in this girl, yet none of that high-pitched perkiness. Clouds
of sadness seem to be leaking from her eyes and her smile and her voice,
despite the faultless exterior. A tiny diamond-like chip glints on her
nose.
“We don’t even lock our doors around
here,” she says.
I heave myself to a standing
position. My heart’s still racing in a marathon of terror.
“What did you think I was?” the girl
asks and I shrug.
“A wacko. Weirdo.
Murderer. You never know.”
She barks out a laugh.
“All of the above,” she says. “You
better run.”
I try to smile.
“Here,” she says, reaching down to
pluck a flower. “Peace offering.” She holds a red-nailed hand toward
me––her thumb and finger, daintily holding the stem of the red flower.
I take it. Our fingers
graze.
“Servants also used these
gazing globes to be sneaky and watch their bosses,” the girl says.
“Pretty far-out, huh?”
I’m still shaking, but I nod.
“Cool shirt. I can tell that
you’re not from around here.”
I look down, suddenly super-aware I’m
about fifty pounds bigger than this chick. This makes me irritable, and I
shove the red flower into the pocket of my shorts.
“What are you doing here,
anyway?” I ask. “Don’t they have laws about trespassing around here?”
“Just checking out the new
neighbors,” she says with a shrug of bony shoulders. Her voice is like
cornhusk: raspy and rough.
“Where’d you come from?”
“Over there.” She points with
her sharp little chin. “Through the field and to the left. When the
corn’s down in the winter, you can actually see our place.”
“Okay.”
“I’m Brit Dannon,” she
says. “Brit with one T, not two. You’re the new preacher’s
kid, I presume? Got any pot?”
“What?” I almost laugh.
“Got any weed?”
“No, I . . . don’t smoke.”
“Man. You really aren’t from
around here. What’s your name, anyway?”
“Lake Millay.” There’s a final
feeble clank of thunder, like beaters in an empty metal bowl, and then the sun
comes out, shining. Brit Dannon seems to shimmer: shiny hair and
makeup and nails and that perfect-girl sparkly shirt, with sequins spelling out
the word Princess.
“Welcome to Badger Gap, Lake Millay,”
she says. “The Center of the Universe! The most happenin’ location
on the planet! The place that’s going to freaking change your
life!”
About the Author:
Linda Oatman High is an author/journalist/playwright
who lives in Lancaster County, PA. She’s published more than 20 books for
children and teens, and her books have won many awards and honors, including
VOYA (Voice of Youth Advocates) “Perfect Ten” awards. Linda also writes for
adults, and her short story NICKEL MINES HARDWARE, based upon the Amish school
shootings of 2006, was honored in England in 2012 with the Sunday Times EFG
Short Story award shortlist. Linda holds an MFA in Writing for Children and
Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts, and she presents at schools
from K-college both nationally and internationally.
Giveaway: $10 Evernight Teen Gift Certificate and 1 Signed Print Copy
a Rafflecopter giveaway
