Enthusiastic and dedicated, self-published author Arthur J. Gonzalez gives us The Photo Traveler, a world in which it’s possible to travel into a photograph and relive a memory. Sounds pretty neat!
YOUNG ADULT: What is your earliest memory involving writing?
Arthur J. Gonzalez: Every year since I was 7 or so, I’d write my mom a Mother’s Day poem. I’d prepare a month or two in advance, to make sure it was perfect, and then have it printed on some tacky Word certificate.
I would always be so nervous before I gave it to my mom because I wanted desperately for her to love it; more than the year’s prior. I’d put so much of my heart into it. I did this, literally, until I was 16…until I was too “cool/old” to write poetry for my mom.
What meant the most was seeing my mom read it and then cry from happiness. I began to realize the effect words could have on emotions, and I wanted to do this forever. Make people feel things, even when they weren’t expecting to. I considered it my own super power.
YA: Tell us a little bit about your latest work. What is different about The Photo Traveler?
AJG: Okay…let me be honest – we all know time travel has been done over and over again. But I wanted an idea that everyone would hear and think, “Oh my God. I wish I could do that!” or “Hm…that sounds awesome.” And what better way than to time travel back and relive memories?
We live in a particular age where we document and photograph nearly everything we do. It’s a huge piece of this younger generation’s culture. I wanted to make sure whatever I did was relatable. There are no time machines, but there are millions of photos that anyone can pick up and travel to.
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From the Book:  
YA: Take us through a typical writing day for you. Let me also say, that I’m extremely lazy when I write; however, I like to consider myself ultra-dedicated, only not wanting anything to interrupt my writing. So…If I am lucky enough, I will have some hostage-friend in a nearby room whom I can text (hence, the ‘lazy’ aspect) and beg for coffee (which I am obsessed with, btw.) When my brain has exhausted itself of ideas I’ll go for a run, stopping along the way to notate new ideas on my phone. Sometimes I’ll run for so long, caught up in a fog of ideas, until the pain in my legs brings me back to reality. YA: Can you describe the path to getting this work published? What were the challenges? What was easy about it? |
YA: What were your specific influences for this book? Films, literature, other stories?
AJG: One of the most important people in my life was facing a difficult time when his grandmother passed away. It affected him in such a deep way that it consequently affected me. I remember him crying, staring at an old black and white photo of his grandmother in Havana, Cuba. He held it, staring at it like she was talking back to him.
He said, “I’d give anything to travel into this picture right now and hug her.”
I jumped off the couch, my mind spinning in every direction. “What if you could?”
And from that moment…The Photo Traveler was born. It was perfect. It was as if she and my late father plotted in the Heavens to gift me this story.
YA: If you hadn’t become an author, what path would your career have perhaps taken?
AJG: I hate to even think what else I could possibly be if I wasn’t creating stories. I’d have to be doing something that is creative. Producing in film and television, possibly directing.
But if that wouldn’t have panned out, I would have done something where I can talk to people, because (insert warning alert!) once you get me started….good luck to ya! I won’t shut up.
Seventeen-year-old Gavin Hillstone is resigned to being miserable for the rest of his life. Left alone in the world after his parents died in a fire when he was four, he was placed in foster care, which for him meant ending up in an abusive home with an alcoholic adoptive father.
Gavin’s only escape is in taking and creating images. His camera is his refuge from the unending torture and isolation of daily life in his “family.”
Until he learns by accident that he isn’t alone in the world after all. His father’s parents are still alive and living in Washington DC.
When he takes the plunge and travels 3,000 miles to find his grandparents, he learns that they—and he—are part of something much bigger, and more dangerous, than he could ever have imagined. Something that has always put his family at risk and that will now threaten his own life, while forever changing it.
He learns that he is one of the last descendants of a small group of Photo Travelers—people who can travel through time and space through images. But his initial excitement turns to fear, when he soon discovers that he and his grandparents are being pursued by the fierce remnants of a radical European Photo Traveler cult, the Peace Hunters. What Gavin has, they want!
His adventure will take him to past eras, like The Great Depression and the Salem Witch Trials. Gavin will have to discover who he really is and must make choices that spell the difference between life and death for himself, for the relatives he now knows and loves, and for the girl he will come to love.
For Gavin Hillstone, life will never be the same