Young Adult: When did you decide to start writing?
Kim Purcell: I’ve been writing since I was a kid, always making up stories. Professionally, I started out as a journalist, but I always wanted to change the story, make it more dramatic, so I started writing novels instead.
YA: Tell us a little bit about your latest work.
KP: TRAFFICKED is about a seventeen-year-old girl from Moldova who comes to America to be a nanny but instead is forced to work as a modern-day slave for a family in LA. The only person who can help her is the boy next door, but he doesn’t know she exists.
| Did you enjoy this article? Leave a comment below! And check out all of the great new content from YA Magazine on young adult books, top teen novels, young adult TV shows, movie casting news, young adult literature, and more! Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. |
YA: What are some of the qualities in your latest work that set it/you apart from what’s currently our there on the market?
KP: There’s no other contemporary YA novel about modern-day slavery in America on the market right now. I hope this book will help give some insight into the people who are locked away in our neighborhoods and could, in fact, live next door.
YA: What attracts you to the Young Adult genre specifically?
KP: I think the books you read when you’re a teenager have a way of sticking with you and informing your beliefs and values. Besides, I love talking to teenagers and hearing their particular insights about fiction and life.
YA: Who would you count among your strongest influences for your latest work, and why?
KP: Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden was very informative because it’s a beautiful story about the struggles of a different type of slave. Also, I traveled to Moldova. If I hadn’t interviewed girls there and experienced it firsthand, I never could have written this book.
YA: Who or what do you hope not to be compared to?
KP: I suppose I don’t really want to be compared to anyone or anything. I have my own voice and I wouldn’t want anyone to say my voice is like someone else’s. I guess I like to think I’m unique.
YA: Do you have pursuits outside of young adult fiction?
KP: I’m a kundalini yoga instructor and I’ve found that the more yoga I do, the more joyful I am. I also love to do anything in the water: swimming, body surfing, sailing, water-skiing. If I’m in the water, you’ll always see a big smile on my face.