(Author The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise)
*During the summer of 2016, I added this feature to the blog which was called "Season #ONE". This first season ran from June of 2016 to March of 2017.
*I started up the interviews again in June of 2017. It was great to get back to Season #TWO. This season ran throughout the summer.
*Season #THREE ran during the school year of 2017/2018.
*The next season (season #FOUR) of interviews took place during the summer and fall of 2018. With each interview I became more and more impressed with the authors I was having interactions with.
*I started up the interviews again in June of 2017. It was great to get back to Season #TWO. This season ran throughout the summer.
*Season #THREE ran during the school year of 2017/2018.
*The next season (season #FOUR) of interviews took place during the summer and fall of 2018. With each interview I became more and more impressed with the authors I was having interactions with.
*It has been such an honor to connect with authors and "chat" about their novel, characters, and thoughts about the story.
*This is the FIRST interview of what I'm calling Season #FIVE.
*Thank you to Dan Gemeinhart for being the Seventy-Second author that I've had the pleasure of interviewing. I truly appreciate it.
*Here are links to the first Seventy-One interviews…
SEASON #ONE
SEASON #TWO
Interview#38 with Terri Libenson (Author of Invisible Emmie)
Interview#39 with Tony Abbott (Author of The Summer of Owen Todd)
Interview #40 with Rob Buyea (Author of The Perfect Score)
Interview#39 with Tony Abbott (Author of The Summer of Owen Todd)
Interview #40 with Rob Buyea (Author of The Perfect Score)
SEASON #FOUR
Interview #54 with Jonathan Auxier (Author of Sweep: The Story of a Girl and Her Monster)
Interview #55 with Sharon Creech (Author of Saving Winslow)
Interview #56 with Stacy McAnulty (Author of The Miscalculations of Lightning Girl)
Interview #57 with Kelly Yang (Author of Front Desk)
Interview #58 with Jennifer A. Nielsen (Author of Resistance)
Interview 59 with Christina Collins (Author of After Zero)
Interview #60 with Eric Walters (Author of Elephant Secrets)
Interview #61 with Phil Bildner (Author of The Rip and Red Series)
Interview #62 with Erin Soderberg (Author of Milla in Charge)
Interview #63 with Laura Shovan (Author of Take Down)
Interview #64 with Donna Gephart (Author of In Your Shoes)
Interview #65 with Alan Gratz (Author of Grenade)
Interview #66 with Barbara O'Connor (Author of Wonderland)
Interview #67 with Lindsey Stoddard (Author of Just Like Jackie)
Interview #68 with Katherine Marsh (Author of Nowhere Boy)
Interview #69 with Dusti Bowling (Author of 24 Hours in Nowhere)
Interview #70 with Christina Uss (Author of The Adventures of a Girl Called Bicycle)
Interview #71 with Adam P. Schmitt (Author of Speechless)
*Not to play favorites, but I must say that Dan's novels are some of my favorite middle-grade stories I've read. I was thrilled to receive an ARC of his latest work of fiction. To me, it is his best and most emotional story written. I devoured the story and felt quite a range of emotions.
*Dan was kind, gracious, and giving with his answers to the questions. It is an honor to post his responses here on the blog.
*Here is a link to my review of the book...
*Thank you Dan Gemeinhart for writing this book...
The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise
by Dan Gemeinhart (January 8, 2019)
Boy, I wish I could give a good answer to that question, but it’s a delightful mystery to me. Sometimes you have to work really hard to “find” your character, to get to know them inside and out - but Coyote was real and alive to me from the first line. Her voice was always ready to start talking, and I never had to decide what she would do or how she would react. I laughed out loud a lot when I was writing this book, surprised by something funny that Coyote “said.” Honestly, having been done with the story for awhile now, I really miss her. If I ever write a sequel (and I’m thinking about it!), it’ll be at least partly just so I can spend more time with this amazing girl!
What do you think is Coyote's most admirable quality?
I think Coyote’s most admirable quality is her empathy. She pays attention to other people, she sees what they want and what they need, and she tries to help them. She truly wants to be a good friend, a good daughter, a good person, and she tries to do that by caring about and helping the people around her.
Is there anything you wish Coyote would have changed or done differently in her story?
Yes! As kind of the flipside of her admirable quality from the previous question, she sometimes cares too much about what other people want and need, especially her dad, and doesn’t fight enough for the things that she needs. She finally figures this out by the end, though, and I was cheering out loud for her when she finally started sticking up for herself.
What do you think Coyote can offer to other children that are experiencing similar situations to what she went through?
I think that, by the end of this story, what Coyote has discovered or achieved is a kind of balance. So, her and her dad are still struggling with the deaths of her mom and two sisters five years ago. That drives all their actions and choices, sometimes in destructive ways. Healing from profound loss and grief like that is so hard. I hope that what struggling kids could see in this story is the balance she finds: that it is okay and important to let yourself be sad and to cry but it can also be okay to deal with your feelings in your own way, that you can care for other hurting people in your life while also caring about yourself, that you can hold on to the past and to important memories while still allowing yourself to move on and keep living.
How did you research Coyote and the circumstances she found himself in?
This whole story came out of a dark daydream I had one night when I was home alone with my middle daughter (I have three daughters, just like Coyote’s family). I thought: what would me and my daughter do if something awful happened to the rest of our family on their way home? How would we hold ourselves and our lives together? How could we move on together, after a loss like that? So, emotionally, I just drilled deep into the daydream until it felt real to me...and, yeah, I did lots of ugly crying just thinking about it. So, all the emotional and familial stuff in the story, even though it’s fiction, came from a very true and authentic place. It was a tough, harrowing story to write in a lot of ways...but so rewarding and fulfilling when it was all done.
Do you and Coyote share any similarities?
She’s a much bolder, better person than I am! :) We both love our families, though, and we both love books (which play an important part in Coyote’s life and in this story), and we both love traveling, and we both love food (which also plays an important part in the story). I think Coyote and I would make fantastic road trip buddies.
What was the hardest scene to write about coyote?
How did you research Coyote and the circumstances she found himself in?
This whole story came out of a dark daydream I had one night when I was home alone with my middle daughter (I have three daughters, just like Coyote’s family). I thought: what would me and my daughter do if something awful happened to the rest of our family on their way home? How would we hold ourselves and our lives together? How could we move on together, after a loss like that? So, emotionally, I just drilled deep into the daydream until it felt real to me...and, yeah, I did lots of ugly crying just thinking about it. So, all the emotional and familial stuff in the story, even though it’s fiction, came from a very true and authentic place. It was a tough, harrowing story to write in a lot of ways...but so rewarding and fulfilling when it was all done.
Do you and Coyote share any similarities?
She’s a much bolder, better person than I am! :) We both love our families, though, and we both love books (which play an important part in Coyote’s life and in this story), and we both love traveling, and we both love food (which also plays an important part in the story). I think Coyote and I would make fantastic road trip buddies.
What was the hardest scene to write about coyote?
Oh, the flashbacks. When Coyote remembers her mom and her sisters, and remembers losing them. For the story, I used actual memories and events from my family’s life, and in the rough draft I even used our actual names, so it felt like writing about losing my own wife and daughters. Honestly, I was kind of a wreck.
Who do you think was Coyote's biggest supporter and why?
Tough question! When the story starts, the only person in Coyote’s life is her dad - and he’s a mess. He loves her more than life itself, but he’s too heartbroken and haunted to see what she wants and to be the father that she desperately needs. He doesn’t know it, but he’s incredibly selfish. So...not a big supporter. Along the way, though, she makes some new friends - including a boy her own age, Salvador. They bond, quickly and truly, and I think he definitely becomes her biggest supporter. I absolutely love their friendship.
Why do you think some adults “run” from their grief while young people, such as Coyote, seem to deal with it head on?
Quick answer: because running is easier! It’s almost always easier - or feels easier, anyway - to avoid a problem (or pretend there isn’t one) than to deal with it head-on. Coyote goes along with the denial for years - her transformation in this story is realizing that she’s done running, that she wants to grieve and cry and hurt, because she lost something huge and important and she needs to grieve and cry and hurt. I think young people are truer in a lot of ways, more in line with their own feelings and needs, than adults are.
What do you think Coyote is doing at the present time?
Who do you think was Coyote's biggest supporter and why?
Tough question! When the story starts, the only person in Coyote’s life is her dad - and he’s a mess. He loves her more than life itself, but he’s too heartbroken and haunted to see what she wants and to be the father that she desperately needs. He doesn’t know it, but he’s incredibly selfish. So...not a big supporter. Along the way, though, she makes some new friends - including a boy her own age, Salvador. They bond, quickly and truly, and I think he definitely becomes her biggest supporter. I absolutely love their friendship.
Why do you think some adults “run” from their grief while young people, such as Coyote, seem to deal with it head on?
Quick answer: because running is easier! It’s almost always easier - or feels easier, anyway - to avoid a problem (or pretend there isn’t one) than to deal with it head-on. Coyote goes along with the denial for years - her transformation in this story is realizing that she’s done running, that she wants to grieve and cry and hurt, because she lost something huge and important and she needs to grieve and cry and hurt. I think young people are truer in a lot of ways, more in line with their own feelings and needs, than adults are.
What do you think Coyote is doing at the present time?
Oh, that girl. I don’t have a good specific answer to that question, but I do know this: she’s no longer running from a past, she’s journeying toward a future. She’s looking for a home and a life that works, and she’s doing it with her mom and her sisters right there in her heart where they belong. And she’s almost certainly reading a book, and petting her cat Ivan, and thinking about what she wants to eat for lunch. And, right now, she’s whispering in my ear, “Hey! You ready for a sequel yet, man, or what?”
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