Victoria Strauss’ truly distinctive novel Passion Blue sets the stage of its story in Renaissance Italy, which is a bold and unique choice for a work in the Young Adult sphere. Here, Strauss discusses the road to finishing her story, the origins of astrology, and her fascination with earth science.
YOUNG ADULT: What made you decide to start writing?
VICTORIA STRAUSS: I wrote poems and stories as a child, but never had any thoughts of becoming an author until I took an English class in high school where I had to write several short stories. I realized how much I enjoyed pulling things out of my imagination and putting them on a page. After graduating, I wanted to take a year off before college–which my parents were OK with as long as I had some kind of educational project to keep me busy. I decided to write a novel. I wasn’t sure I could actually finish it–mostly, I just wanted to see what would happen if I tried. But before I was halfway through I was hooked, and knew that writing wasn’t just something I wanted to do–it was something I had to do.
YA: Tell us a little bit about your latest work.
VS: Passion Blue is set in Italy during the Renaissance. It’s the story of Giulia, the illegitimate daughter of a nobleman, who learns she’s being sent to a convent against her will and buys a magical talisman that’s supposed to save her. But the convent isn’t as horrible as she expected, and her artistic talent is discovered by a workshop of nun-artists who produce gorgeous paintings using a mysterious paint called Passion Blue. Giulia is torn between her growing desire to paint and a forbidden romance with Ormanno, a handsome young man who promises to help her escape. But Ormanno has his own secrets, and Giulia begins to suspect that the magic of the talisman isn’t taking her where she thought she wanted to go.
YA: What are some of the qualities in your latest work that set it/you apart from what’s currently out there on the young adult market?
VS: That’s a really tough question–I think that in many ways writers are the worst judges of their own work. The setting of Passion Blue isn’t one you encounter a lot in YA–Italy in the 1400s was an amazingly rich and vibrant place that produced some of the most incredible paintings ever made, and I think readers will be fascinated by the details of a Renaissance painter’s workshop, where artists manufactured their own paints and color recipes were as valuable as industrial secrets are today. The magic in the book is different too–it’s based on astrology, which in the 1400’s was not at all like present-day astrology, and had much more influence over people’s lives.
YA: Can you describe the path to getting this work published? What were the challenges? What was easy about it?
VS: Passion Blue began life as a fantasy with a dual storyline–one story set in the Renaissance, the other in the present day, both about girls struggling to follow their artistic talent and linked together by a magical talisman. But the editors who saw it all loved the Renaissance story and didn’t like the contemporary one. So I decided to scrap the contemporary plot and go with just Giulia’s story. It was a very tough decision, and a major challenge to take half of a story and turn it into a complete, and completely different, novel. There were times when I wondered if I’d made a huge mistake by pulling my original idea apart. It did turn out to be the right choice, though, and the re-worked book did find a home. Now, of course, I can’t imagine it any other way!
YA: What were your specific influences for this book? Films, literature, other historical fiction?
VS: An editor I’m acquainted with mentioned that she’d love to see a novel about the origins of astrology. That got me thinking, and I did some research, and became fascinated with Renaissance astrology, where horoscopes weren’t silly paragraphs in newspapers but real, serious guides for people’s lives. I also adore Renaissance art, which I studied in college, and for a long time I’ve been interested in the techniques of Renaissance painters, which are very different from those in use today. All those things together became Passion Blue.
From the Book:
YA: If you could cast the Dream Film Adaptation of your work, who would you cast?
VS: So many choices! For Giulia, I’d choose the girl who’s on the cover of the book–I don’t know who she is, but she has such a strong face and I love her expression, which is both determined and questioning–just right for Giulia. Lucas Till would be a good Ormanno–he has the right blend of charm and roguishness. For Angela, I’d cast Saoirse Ronan, one of my favorite young actresses. Kathy Bates would be perfect as Suor Humilità, and as Matteo Moretti, John Noble would bring the right combination of authority and menace.
YA: If you hadn’t become an author, what path would your career have perhaps taken?
VS: This may sound weird, but I think I’d have liked to be a geologist. I love rocks, gems, minerals, fossils, strata, all that kind of stuff. I’d still be s storyteller–I’d just be telling the story of the earth.