Today, Olivia from YA-Mag had the chance for an in-depth conversation with Evan Roskos, author of DR. BIRD’S ADVICE FOR SAD POETS!
Olivia with YA-Mag: Evan, welcome to the Young Adult Magazine! I’m so glad to have a chance to chat with you about DR. BIRD’S ADVICE FOR SAD POETS.
YA: Let’s get to it! James Whitman. How did you two meet? How did you know that James, specifically, was the one to tell this story?
Evan Roskos: DR BIRD started as a different project that author Matt Quick and I worked on back in 2010. Quick and lived in the same town and started meeting for coffee weekly. We discussed writing, mental health, MFAs, life, the universe, and everything. We wanted to write a novel with intwined narrators who were dealing with mental health issues. James came to me as a voice. I started writing this exuberant, Whitman-esque chapter about a kid who tried to get himself pumped up simply to face the day. While our project had to be put on hold, for reasons I explain on Quick’s website, I kept writing. I retained the opening chapter, changed the idea for the plot, and just let James talk.
To me, but also to Dr. Bird.
YA: What sets James’ story apart from other contemporary YA novels about mental health, like IT’S KIND OF A FUNNY STORY by Ned Vizzini or I DON’T WANT TO BE CRAZY by Samantha Schutz? What will readers find here that they can’t find anywhere else in YA books?
ER: James talks to an imaginary pigeon therapist named Dr. Bird. I haven’t seen that anywhere else!
Aside from that, I feel like every book can offer something new. The adage that there’s nothing new under the sun ignores that there are always new readers. Readers respond differently depending on their culture, their age, the cover, the character’s behaviors, the sunlight, etc. So, readers who want a book that will make them laugh but also root and fear for a character and his sister will enjoy DR. BIRD.
YA: Walt Whitman’s poetry is featured throughout the book. So two-part question: what do the uninitiated in Whitman need to know about him and his work going in? And what other poets do you enjoy?
ER: People who know nothing of Walt Whitman or dislike Whitman have nothing to fear: everything one needs to know is in the book. Fans of Whitman will, of course, be more excited by the various ways Whitman’s poetry shows up in the text, but no decoding is necessary.
Basically, James is a Whitman fan on behalf of the reader. In fact, I wasn’t a fan of Whitman in high school; it took until I was a graduate student and read a fantastic cultural biography called Walt Whitman’s America by David S. Reynolds that I finally ‘got’ his work. James is a fan because he needs to celebrate something and Whitman, to me and James, is an optimistic, forward-thinking, all-embracing poet.
I read poetry as a teenager, but I’m very picky about the poets I return to time and again. Some are obvious (e.e. cummings, Mary Oliver, Li-Young Lee, William Carlos Williams). Some are less obvious. For example, Edgar Lee Masters’s Spoon River Anthology is a very simple, beautiful collection. I also love BJ Ward, a NJ poet who demonstrated that a poetry reading didn’t have to be dull. And that NJ was a perfectly good setting for art. I enjoy Charles Bukowski’s poetry, though he falls into that “horrible person, good artist” category made famous by the likes of T.S. Eliot. Most recently I’ve found Saeed Jones (a fellow Rutgers Newark MFA alum) to satisfy my poetry reading needs. Also, like William Carlos Williams, Saeed’s not a horrible person. So that’s nice.
YA: When you were younger, you were diagnosed with anxiety and clinical depression. You wanted to write a book to draw attention to these issues. First off, thank you! I know and care for many people who deal with depression, social anxiety, and panic attacks. Second, what is the most important thing you hope that teens and other readers take from your novel?
ER: I feel fortunate that I was finally diagnosed with clinical depression and anxiety in my twenties, but when I think about how much time I spent trying to “treat” myself and basically just suffering, I get a bit sad.
I didn’t really know something was seriously wrong with me when I was a teenager. Sure, I could say I was depressed, but what did that really mean? Didn’t other people have realdepression? Didn’t people actually attempt suicide with razors and pills? I didn’t know I could be treated for depression, either. I absolutely didn’t know what a panic attack was. When Social Anxiety Disorder started to appear on TV ads, I wasn’t even sure it had something to do with my reality.
Readers — teens or adults — who suffer (or think they might suffer) from a mental health issue, hopefully, will understand that someone can hear them. Feeling less alone and feeling heard are crucial. If you can say out loud: “I need help” or even “I feel depressed,” it’s such an achievement. It’s not the end of the work necessary to manage mental health issues, but it can take forever just to say the words.
For readers who don’t suffer from these issues, I hope they understand that a friend or family member or student or employee who says “I think I’m depressed” or “I need to see a therapist” out loud is not saying it easily. The statement has likely been in that person’s head for months or years. The best response is not to take on the person’s suffering or dismiss the statement. “What can I do to help?” is so much better than “Everyone gets depressed.” or “Get some rest” or “What do you have to be depressed about?”
Regardless, I hope readers laugh, because this novel is funny.
YA: One of my favorite characters in this book is James’ older sister, Jorie. Her expulsion is shrouded in mystery, which James uncovers throughout the book. I’ve totally been in Jorie’s position—home life, fleeting jobs, crappy, bug-filled apartment and all! It was like you were writing my life, geez! So for all the Jories out there: tell us a little more about her, where she came from for you, and what she brings to the story?
ER: Jorie is so fascinating to me. She’s a presence even though she’s not present outside of a couple of scenes. I worried that she’d seem like a cypher to people, but I managed to do something right because a number of readers have told me she feels real.
I needed James to have external pressure in the story. He could talk to himself or to Dr. Bird, but I didn’t want to write a novel with an entirely internal conflict. Still, James is a kid that sorta avoids situations and has to be corralled or led (by Derek and by Beth for instance), so I brainstormed about something, the one person in this case, who would inspire him to act.
My sister and I have a strong relationship and I used that as the foundation of James’s connection to Jorie. For James, though, the sense of guilt and responsibility defines how he sees her and by the end of the novel it was important to me that Jorie be revealed as different from what James has perceived. (That’s as spoilery as I’ll get.)
Jorie had to be in a precarious position, one that might not be as bad in reality as it seems to James, but still with the weight of a crisis. And, when James snoops in Jorie’s room and finds the secret she’s been hiding, he ends up using it to reach the illogical thought that he needs to save Jorie by bringing her back home. Essentially, he’s trying to save her even though he doesn’t really understand the nature of her true crisis.
YA: What non-book influences (films, television shows, music, plays, etc) helped spark this story?
ER: I can’t say for sure if there was a spark that originated from anything other than Walt Whitman and my talks with Matt Quick, as I describe above.
In general, I’m inspired by the films of the Coen brothers (The Big Lebowski, Fargo, Barton Fink, etc). Their movies can be funny or serious or both. Great dialogue, great story structure, and they work with one of the best cinematographers for most projects. I’m a fan of TV that doesn’t take itself seriously, so cartoons, Supernatural and a variety of BBC comedies would be on my list. I also grew up quoting The Simpsons at any opportunity, a show that could, especially in the early season, make people laugh and feel.
YA:When you were a teen, what was your favorite book (YA or otherwise)? Now that you’re an author for teens, what is your favorite contemporary YA?
ER: Picking one favorite is tough. When I was in ninth and tenth grades, I loved science fiction and horror. By my senior year I loved pretty much all of John Steinbeck’s work, with The Grapes of Wrath being, of all things, the book that initially knocked me over.
Because I teach college literature courses, my reading list is all over the place. In terms of contemporary YA, I love Matt Quick’s work (not because we’re friends), especially his upcoming Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock (August 2013), a novel which partially originated in the project I previously mentioned. I also love: Everyone Sees the Ants by A.S. King, Me, Earl, and the Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews and both of Nina LaCour’s novels. Each of these authors is different but at the core is a sense of humor and a realistic portrayal of serious issues. Nothing is neat and tidy, but nothing is grueling, mean, and grim.
YA: Sometimes a title sticks from rough draft to published novel; sometime the author works with their agent or editor to find the perfect title. What is the story behind DR. BIRD’S ADVICE FOR SAD POETS?
ER: The working title for the book was This Hour I Tell Things in Confidence. It’s literary (and it’s a Whitman line) and while realistic YA titles can be sentence-length, I felt like it was too wordy. So I changed it to Yawp!. This proved to be a clever, fitting title that suggested an upbeat book (heck, it’s got an exclamation point!). But then people kept asking me to repeat myself when I said the title. So, when my editor and agent asked me to change the title, I wasn’t surprised. I researched other titles in realistic YA, including past award winners. I noticed that genre fiction had tons of one word titles whereas the stand alone titles had sentence-length titles.
I brainstormed for a few days and the new title was the second one on my list. It struck my agent and editor immediately as a winner.
The best part is that it put Dr. Bird front and center, which has been a huge benefit for marketing purposes. Not only did my cover designer use a pigeon but my web designer found a great stock image that I’ve used for everything. Plus, the title still has that quirky, upbeat quality but also suggests the plot’s serious undertones.
YA: If you could cast the Dream Film Adaptation of your work, who would you cast for James, Jorie, Derek, and Beth? Do you have any voice actors in mind for Dr. Bird? 🙂
ER: I didn’t always think the novel would easily translate to film but now I know it will. Plus, it offers great possibilities for teen performers to be both funny and emotionally vulnerable. Here’s hoping someone out there agrees!
Still, young actors and actresses seem to come out of nowhere, so I don’t have any names to offer. I could cheat and look at who’s in the sequel to Kick Ass or just steal the cast from Perks of Being a Wallflower, but that would make me look horrible.
Derek reminds me of Ryan Hansen’s characters from Veronica Mars and Party Down (though without the perfect dull-wittedness he uses there).The voice for Dr. Bird would have to be Jane Lynch, most famous now for her work on Glee, though her roles on Party Down and in various films by Christopher Guest are what spring to mind for me. She’s confident and brings a very precise emphasis to her lines. She can sound smart and caring and still be gruff (see: Best in Show).
YA: Do you have any secret pet writing projects waiting the wings? What can you tell us about them?
ER: Why, of course I do! Muhuhuhahahahahaha!
YA: Evan, it has been an honor to chat with you! I hope DR. BIRD’S finds its way into the hands of many excited readers. I wish I could ask a million more questions, but we’ve go to the end! All right, last one! If you could spend a day with James, Jorie, Beth, and Derek, what would you do together? Where would you go? And what would you want to tell James?
ER: The five of us would go to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, check out the Marcel Duchamp pieces in the Modern Art wing, then take some photos of us making pretentious faces at art, and then go out for some delicious burritos or Indian food.
I would tell James that he should remember that someone hears him, not just Dr. Bird.
YA:Thank you very much, Evan! And again, from YA Mag, congratulations on your debut! We look forward to hearing a lot more from you in years to come!
ER: Thank you!!
Sixteen-year-old James Whitman is trying to navigate high school and a tough home life while wrestling with depression and anxiety. James recites Walt Whitman, hugs trees, and talks to an imaginary bird therapist as he tries to figure out why his sister, Jorie, has been kicked out of school and out of the house.
His parents won’t talk about it and act as though their family is better off now that she’s gone. But James feels guilty for failing to defend Jorie over the years, and one day while snooping through his sister’s room, he stumbles upon a box that reveals some of Jorie’s secrets.
In his quest to try to bring Jorie back home, he ends up battling with his parents, the principal, his best friend, and even himself, as he tries to figure out what part he played in Jorie’s exile and discovers that some of Jorie’s secrets aren’t that different from his own.
Readers, be sure to check out Evan Roskos at his website www.EvanRoskos.com. Or follow him on Twitter @EvanJamesRoskos.
DR. BIRD’S ADVICE FOR SAD POETS, published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, is now available at your favorite retailers and local independent bookstores!
Olivia Hennis is a transplanted New England girl dropped by a tornado into the magical Land of Jersey. For more info, follow her on Twitter or at her blog, Olivia’s Secret Reading Room.