Once Upon an Interview: Carrie Jones

Welcome to a brand-new segment on Sarah's Journal: author interviews! But these won't be your run-of-the-mill author interviews. In keeping with the fairy-tale theme of INTO THE WILD, these will be author interviews with a fairy-tale twist. Today, for the very first interview, I'm very excited to welcome Carrie Jones.

Carrie Jones is the author of TIPS ON HAVING A GAY (ex) BOYFRIEND, coming from Flux/Llewellyn on May 1, 2007.

ONCE UPON AN INTERVIEW WITH CARRIE JONES:

What is your favorite fairy tale?
Puss in Boots, with the Master Cat as a character, because:
1. It’s a cat.
2. It inspired the title for a Crash Test Dummies CD.
3. I like to say "Meow."

Do you (either consciously or subconsciously) use fairy-tale themes or motifs in your writing?

Well, I think Stith Thompson said there were 40,000 different motifs. Yes, 40,000! So, you have to figure everyone who writes must be using some. Sure, it might not be the obvious glass slipper, but how about the evil stepmother? The lowly girl snagging the high born guy? And if you go by Katherine Briggs' definition of motifs as "strands that make up the tale" it seems every writer has to have them. How can you have a tale without strands?

In TIPS ON HAVING A GAY (ex) BOYFRIEND, there's evil, there's good, there's a quest to figure out which is which. There's a blue guitar, which may not seem magical to most people, but I think it falls under the motif "magic object received from a fairy." Sure, it was given to Belle, the main character, from her dad when she was a baby, but her dad's dead, so I think that counts.

If the protagonist of your most recent novel met Cinderella’s fairy godmother, what would he or she do/say?

Belle would say, "I'm hallucinating aren't I? Or you're punking me, right? Because you can not exist. Although, oh, maybe you can exist, because who am I to say what exists or not. I mean, it's not like I know everything, the sum total of everything in the universe. But... I mean fairy godmother? Cinderella's fairy godmother? No offense or anything, but that's so weird."

She would then pause.

Then she would say, "Those are some really nice shoes."

What would your protagonist do/say if he or she met Little Red Riding Hood's wolf?

"Why are you so angry? Is it just low blood sugar? Because, I mean, there's a McDonald's right down the street and they have take-out. I'll buy."

What would you do/say if you met a fairy godmother or talking wolf?

"Hi. Would you like a fudge bar?"

This is pretty much how I greet everyone.

If you could be any fairy-tale character, which one would you want to be?

Well, I couldn't figure out how to answer this. So I went to the internet and took a quiz, which doesn't say which fairy-tale character I want to be, but which fairy-tale character I am.

So, according to the internet I am a fairy.
I've got to say I’m cool with that.
Magic mushrooms sprouting up where I walk? Sounds good.
Ability to do magic? Yep, I'll take that.
Sparkly dresses? Sign me up.
Now, which fairy to be......

What does your (or your protagonist's) happily-ever-after look like?

Happily Ever After looks like a place where everyone tries hard to be kind. There's a lot of guitars and fudge bars. If you're a bigot or you're mean, you get booted out. There's a really big boot that does this, it's that same boot from "There was an old lady who lived in a shoe, she had so many children, she didn't know what to do." Only, it's a boot, obviously. How could you fit that many kids in a shoe, or a flip flop or a stiletto heel? It has to be a big, warm boot, preferably UGGs.

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Carrie Jones is a founding member of the Class of 2k7, a graduate of Vermont College's MFA program, and a Maine resident. She's also super-sweet (which may or may not be related to her professed fondness for fudgicles). For more about Carrie, please visit her website at: www.carriejonesbooks.com

And if you'd like to know more about TIPS ON HAVING A GAY (ex) BOYFRIEND, here is the description from Amazon: "It isn't every day that my high school boyfriend, Eastbrook High School's Harvest King, tells me he's gay. It's not every day that the Harvest Queen is dumped in the middle of a road with the stars watching the humiliation and the dogs barking because they want to come help tear my heart out and leave it on the cold gray ground. It isn't every day that my entire world falls apart. Belle believes that Dylan is her true love-maybe even her soulmate. Until one cold night when Dylan drops the ultimate bomb: he's gay. Where, Belle wonders, does that leave her? Should she have some­how been able to tell? Is every guy that she loves going to turn out to be gay? This beautifully-written debut explores what happens when you are suddenly forced to see someone in a different light, and what that can teach you about yourself."

Thanks so much for appearing here, Carrie!