Uma Krishnaswami is a New Mexico based author who has written several books for children, set in USA or India. Her latest book, The Grand Plan To Fix Everything, was published recently. Le Loop got a chance to learn more about this interesting writer who considered books to be her friends in her nomadic childhood and also her new book Uma is now being promoting as part of her blog tour. (Scroll down to find details on how to participate in the grand giveaway !!)
Meena: Did you always intend to write for children or was the journey accidental?
Uma: Completely accidental or completely predestined, one or the other, I’m not sure which. I was a writer as a child, and an avid reader as well. I did all the things that I know now to be the habits of writers—I wrote to express myself, I made up stories, I spent time in my head trying to connect the dots in the patterns of my life. I even submitted work for publication. I just didn’t know then, or for many years after, that I could ever consider things like that to be real work.
Meena: Your new book is an interesting combination of Bollywood, moving to a new place, friendships. What was the inspiration for this book?
Uma: It’s a humorous romp with an underlying story of friendship and shared dreams. It mixes reality with fiction in an eccentric way, and raises questions about what’s real and what’s not and what matters. Okay, so it’s also about a kid who worships a Bollywood movie star, not in a romantic way but as a kind of ideal, a role-model. She dreams of meeting her and in the process she forgets about paying attention to things right under her nose.
Inspiration’s a deceptive concept because it implies that a single event or moment can spark a story and then you’re off and running. That’s not how writing fiction works for me. It’s more like a slow simmering of many ideas all coming together and then suddenly the spark seems to catch. Many story sparks don’t catch at all, so I distrust inspiration. As a result, I can’t think of one single moment that sparked the idea for this book. It came from many sources. The premise came from an article about Indian-Americans moving back to India. The characters came from wherever it is that characters reside—some subterranean place in my unconscious, some mix of my unresolved doubts and fears. That’s always the good stuff that needs to be tapped, even for a book that turns out to be funny. Well, I hope this one turned out to be funny.
Meena: Reading The Grand Plan To Fix Everything, I could identify with the part where Nandini has to move to a different country. It was very similar to what my 10 year old daughter experienced. Yet there is a sense of excitement. Did you draw from your own personal experiences to portray that change?
Author: Uma Krishnaswami
Uma: We moved a lot when I was a child. My father worked for the Government of India and they’d post him to a new place quite reliably, every four years. So yes, that part is from memory. It’s also from the time that my husband and I decided to move to New Mexico. I think our son resented that quite a bit, at first anyway so some of Dini’s mixed feelings come from that time as well.
Meena: How does your audience, i.e. kids react to your books. What would you say has been the most rewarding moment/compliment/feedback you received that you cherish?
Uma: Well, I have many audiences, because my books are written for a fairly wide age range from very young children to almost-teens. So some of my feedback comes from kids in a school calling out the refrain in Out of the Way! Out of the Way! or being able to see the story turn in Monsoon. I once got a letter from a young girl who had lost her grandmother to Alzheimer’s. She’d read Naming Maya and she wrote, “When I read your book, I understood how Maya felt about Kamala Mami. It made me sad but when I finished it I wanted to read it all over again.” That’s it, really. That’s why I write for kids, because when they engage with a book in this way, they’re making real-life mental and emotional connections, even in physiological terms, with their brains firing and new synapses developing. It’s a privilege to play some small part in someone’s life in that way, especially because I know what books meant to me when I was young. That’s why, when Kipling addresses his readers in some of the Just So Stories—“O my Best Beloved”—those words are more than a rhetorical flourish. For those of us who write for children, our readers of now and tomorrow must remain our “best beloved.”
Meena: Among children’s and YA books published in the last 25 years, name 3 that have changed your thinking about the craft of writing for young readers.
Uma: Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie,Stripes of the Sidestep Wolf by Sonya Hartnett and The Underneath by Kathi Appelt.
Meena: How easy or difficult was it to publish your books? Can you share your journey with us?
Uma: It’s been up and down, much like life, in a way. I talk at length about that, and all the steps in the journey, in this interview with Cynthia Leitich Smith at Cynsations: http://cynthialeitichsmith.blogspot.com/2011/05/author-interview-uma-krishnaswami-on.html
What’s clear to me, looking back on the last 20 or so years of doing this work, is that the journey has to be its own reward. Publication is wonderful, but I can’t predict when I begin a new project whether it will ever sell or not, or even if it sells, how it will turn out. And that’s not even talking about book sales, another subject altogether. So to people who want to hurry up and get published, I’d like to tell them to cultivate the fine art of slowing down. Publication isn’t the hard part—the hard part is getting the work good enough to be worth publishing.
Meena: How would you classify the stories and poems you have published? Cultural, adventure? Would you call it mainstream? Most Asian children stories are usually relegated to “niche”.
Uma: I suppose I would call all my writing culturally grounded in some way. Apart from the odd short piece, most of my work has some India/South Asia connection. If that’s niche, well, so be it but it’s who I am. As for the mainstream, I suppose much of my writing career has been dedicated to trying to erase the boundaries between “us” and “them,” “mainstream” and “other,” “here” and “there.” The Grand Plan does that too in its own way, placing a Bollywood dance camp in Maryland, and making fans out of Dini and her good friend Maddie, even though only one of them has any cultural connection to the movies. Similarly it was a considered decision to set Dini’s parents up as slightly disapproving of these movies. I don’t like it when people make assumptions about what I might like or dislike based on how I look or on the sound of my name, so I try to mix up such things in my characters as well.
Meena: What genres or forms do you think you might want to explore next?
Uma: I’m still quite excited about the possibilities of humorous fiction, so I’m sure there will be more of that. And perhaps nonfiction. I’m thrilled to see how much fabulous nonfiction is being published for children these days, and I have a couple of projects that I’d like to develop further. Out there on the horizon, what do I see after that? Maybe mystery. I’ve long been a mystery fan, but I’m not sure my messy writing process would lend itself to the fine, tight plotting that a good mystery calls for. But who knows? It’s always an adventure, seeing new possibilities turn up.
Meena: Lastly, what would be your message for aspiring authors, children and adults?
Uma: Don’t aspire to be an author. Authorship is about publication, not about writing. It’s a necessary thing, don’t get me wrong; it can even be a good thing. But it’s not the real thing. So first, become a writer. Adopt the habits of writers. Read a lot. Write a lot. Prepare to throw a lot of it away. Learn how to revise. If the bug’s bitten you badly enough, you will write, and write more, and you’ll get progressively better over time. Read. I know I said that already but it bears repeating. Read some more. You can’t write unless you read.
And when you feel like giving up (as any sane person would) ask yourself how important this writing habit is to you. What would you be willing to give up for it? Test the urge, in a way, because for some people it won’t last, and that’s all right. Some other creative passion could take its place. But if you are truly a writer, then you will write. And if you get good enough, publication will come in its own time, in its own way. Like any other art form, writing demands a great deal of trust.
Le Loop wishes Uma the very best for her blog tour and future endeavors.
A Grand Giveaway! Three lucky Grand Prize winners will each receive one copy of THE GRAND PLAN TO FIX EVERYTHING along with a starry assortment of bangles and trinkets that Dolly Singh, famous famous Bollywood movie star, would adore! An additional 3 runners-up will receive a copy of THE GRAND PLAN TO FIX EVERYTHING. To enter, send an e-mail to GrandPlanGiveaway@gmail.com. In the body of the e-mail, include your name, mailing address, and e-mail address (if you’re under 13, submit a parent’s name and e-mail address). One entry per person and prizes will only be shipped to US or Canadian addresses. Entries must be received by midnight (PDT) on 6/30/11. Winners will be selected in a random drawing on 7/1/11 and notified via email. Hurry!!!!!
Watch the book trailer on http://www.umakrishnaswami.com/ or on Uma’s blog: http://umakrishnaswami.blogspot.com/
