Lynn Joseph is the author of many children’s books about her island home of Trinidad, including A Wave in Her Pocket and The Mermaid’s Twin Sister. Flowers in the Sky is her second novel about the Dominican Republic, following her acclaimed The Color of My Words, winner of the Américas Award.

YOUNG ADULT:  What made you decide to start writing?
Lynn Joseph: I began writing at 8 years old. I wrote mostly poems, then short stories. I cannot recall if there was anything in particular that triggered my desire to create through words. Perhaps it was the overall atmosphere of my home life in Trinidad. We had many books in our home, music was always playing, and stories were constantly being told at beach parties. My mother is an avid reader and I became one too. She took me to art museums when we traveled and musicals and plays. In high school I began writing and entering literary contests and I won, so I was encouraged. Plus my mother was always willing to type up anything I wrote longhand in notebooks and legal pads, so she made it all come together for me.

YA: Tell us a little bit about your latest work. What is different about Flowers in the Sky?
LJ: Flowers in the Sky is the first novel I have written that is set in the United States. The book starts off in the Dominican Republic when we meet Nina before she immigrates to Washington Heights, New York.  All of my other books were set in Trinidad or the Dominican Republic, so depicting big city life was a first for me as an author. Furthermore, I have not come across many books, if any, that portray a Dominican teenager’s life in the Heights. Considering the increasing population of Dominicans in New York/New Jersey and throughout the Northeast United States, I wanted to give Dominican teens something to read that they could connect with a bit.  

YA: How did the idea for the book arise? What are your major inspirations?
LJ: I spent years traveling to the D.R., and I hung out with my Dominican family and friends in the Bronx, Washington Heights and Queens. I’m enthralled with the Dominican culture: their music, foods, and their commitment to family and country. But no place is perfect. Amidst the beauty, I saw the darker sides of the culture, such as the sex tourism in some Dominican cities. Also there’s an unflinching belief that life is always going to be better in the United States; particularly in Neuva York. So, I wondered, what if there was a teenage girl whose mother believed she might become a puta (a prostitute), and to avoid that, she sends her daughter to New York, where she believes life will be better for her? And what if in many ways it isn’t? Life in New York has its own set of problems. How does the teenage girl cope then?

YA: Take us through a typical writing day for you?
LJ: I have a Pinterest board for books I’m working on. I pin up pictures of my characters, where they live, what their bedroom looks like, their hobbies. This is a great visual inspiration for me to begin. Then I revise the last chapter I finished, or start working on new scenes. I keep a notebook to jot down ideas and research notes. I email whatever I finish to my teenage son Brandt, saying, read this!! Urgent! He tells me what he thinks, though not as quickly as I’d like. I take breaks and sit on my porch looking at the water. Some days I write longhand at the beach. There’s this deserted beach near my home and I lay down on top of a picnic table and scribble away. I listen to music when I’m writing tough scenes. There are two songs I play over and over again.

YA: Besides the classic ‘never give up,’ what advice would you give to aspiring young writers today?
LJ: I wish someone had told me to believe I could be a published author and to take writing classes. I am currently in the MFA Writing for Children and Young Adults program at Vermont College of Fine Arts. After all these years of struggling to write, I am learning so much about the craft of writing, and I am developing the skills to write more powerful stories. I wish I had not waited so long to do this. So, my advice is that if you love writing, if you know it is what you want to do, do not beat around the bush. Jump in, take writing workshops and grow!  Craft skills is one aspect though, the other part is your heart—feel everything, don’t hold back!

YA: If you hadn’t become an author, what path would your career perhaps have taken?
LJ: Well, I am an attorney. I went to law school two years after college and I practiced law for over twenty years. The thing is that I wrote books all the time. It was something I did even when I was in law school. I loved law school for the stories in the cases. And being a litigator was all about telling a story from your client’s point of view. But at the end of the day, what I love doing more than anything else is writing stories for children and young adults. I read almost only YA and MG books.  I am committed to being a writer. I have already gone down that “other” career path and found my one true love: writing!

YA: What’s next for you?
LJ: I am so excited to be finishing up a new YA novel called Like for a Truth Is. I am writing it with my son Brandt. We started it when he was 17 years old (he’s 18 now) and it was his idea to write a book about a popular teenage boy who gets caught up in a cyber-romantic hoax that wreaks havoc on his life and the community. The protagonist, Max Fairchild, is a competitive surfer who lives in Long Beach, NY and is clueless about his true feelings about relationships. The title comes from a Facebook game. Whoever clicks the Like button under the post “Like this status for a truth is” gets to hear the truth about themselves. 

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