Loosely based on Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park, Claire LaZebnik’s delightful The Trouble with Flirting is a YA novel with no vampires, ghosts or nasty government agencies…just good old-fashioned teenaged heartthrobs and the girls who love them.
YOUNG ADULT: What is your earliest memory involving writing?
Claire LaZebnik: I have the absolute worst memory in the world, so I can’t remember much past last year, but fortunately I just found an ancient card I made for my grandmother. I must have been pretty little, like six or seven, and I had written her a card in “chapters,” all about how much I loved her. Chapter three is my favorite: “Do you rember (sic) who saved you when the Cookie Monster tried to eat you? I think I did.”
Pretty exciting stuff, right? Edge-of-your-seat action. Of course, back then I illustrated my work. Sadly, no more . . .
YA: Tell us a little bit about your latest work. What is different about The Trouble with Flirting?
CL: Well, both EPIC FAIL (my previous YA novel) and THE TROUBLE WITH FLIRTING are loosely based on Jane Austen novels, but I’ve taken a lot more liberties with the storyline in FLIRTING–not on purpose (I adore Austen and try to be respectful), but just because my version wasn’t working when I stuck too closely to her ending. So I changed things up. FLIRTING takes place at a summer acting program, which is a pretty great setting for a novel–people live life so intensely during the summer, falling in and out of love, careening wildly from one emotion to the next, feeling happy, scared, homesick, crazy, excited, disappointed–basically everything you can feel in an entire year gets compressed into a few short weeks.
YA: Take us through a typical writing day for you.
CL: There’s really no such thing in my life. I have a husband, four kids, a dog, two cats, and two aquatic frogs. The frogs are pretty self-sufficient, but keeping up with the rest of the household takes up most of my time. I’m likeliest to get writing done in the morning, after the kids have left for school (I have two in college now, so that’s simplified things) and the pets have been fed, and I’ve cleaned up the kitchen from the night before. But my free hours get used up quickly: I often have errands to run and I like to have lunch or coffee with friends when I can, and I try to take the dog on a longish walk every day, and I have to pick my daughter up at school and meet my son at the bus and I usually make dinner . . . Writing gets squeezed between everything else in my life–and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
| YA: Can you describe the path to getting this work published? Was it a challenge to sell a ‘straight’ teen romance, with no paranormal or dystopian angles? CL: Well, this particular novel was the second of a two-book deal so that made it a very smooth process (although I had some tortuous moments with the writing)–but my previous book, EPIC FAIL, actually sold because it fit the “realistic fiction” genre–my editor felt the market was inundated with paranormal books and that it was time for the pendulum to be swinging back. Timing’s everything I guess: I was lucky to submit at a time when people were ready to read realistic fiction again–six months earlier, and I might never have sold it.
YA: What were your specific influences for this book? Travel experiences, films, literature, other stories? |
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YA: What do you hope young adult readers will take away from The Trouble with Flirting?
CL: My books are always more about entertainment than education, but I do have a strong theme in this one about not judging people too quickly. I don’t want to give anything away: let’s just say that Franny makes some assumptions she shouldn’t and learns the hard way that people’s actions are more important than their appearance.
“Franny’s supposed to be working this summer, not flirting. But you can’t blame her when guys like Alex and Harry are around?
Franny Pearson never dreamed she’d be attending the prestigious Mansfield Summer Theater Program. And she’s not, exactly. She’s working for her aunt, the resident costume designer. But sewing her fingers to the bone does give her an opportunity to spend time with her crush, Alex Braverman. If only he were as taken with the girl hemming his trousers as he is with his new leading lady.
When Harry Cartwright, a notorious flirt, shows more than a friendly interest in Franny, she figures it can’t hurt to have a little fun. But as their breezy romance grows more complicated, can Franny keep pretending that Harry is just a carefree fling? And why is Alex suddenly giving her those deep, meaningful looks? In this charming tale of mixed messages and romantic near-misses, one thing is clear: Flirting might be more trouble than Franny ever expected.”