Ask me...

By: Joelle Charbonneau

As I said last week, one of the greatest things about my foray into the young adult world of publishing has been getting to connect with the readers of that genre.  WOW!  They are passionate and enthusiastic and send lots of e-mails with thoughtful, fun and often unexpected questions.  I do my best to answer every question that I get via e-mail because I love talking to readers. More important…that reader took the time to look up my e-mail address and send me that question.  It only stands to reason that I should take the time to answer them.

I also get questions via twitter and facebook and I do my best to answers those as well.  Because I’ve gotten so many in the last few months, I thought it might be fun to list the top five most frequently asked questions and the answers to those questions here.   And for any of you who has questions you like for me to answer, ask them in the comments section and I will do my best to satisfy your curiosity.  (And if I don’t have a real answer I’ll make one up.  After all – I make stuff up for a living…right?)

 1)  Where did the idea for The Testing trilogy come from?

Well, if you’ve been to any of my events you’ve already heard this, but the idea for The Testing sprung from my teaching high school voice students.  The stress of college admittance as well as all the auditions they have to go through to get into theater and music programs has gotten more and more intense over the years.  During one voice lesson, that tension boiled over a bit and the distraught student began to worry for her younger sibling because if the process was this stressful now think about how stressful it would be when he had to apply for college.  I, of course, said not to worry.  The system couldn’t get any more stressful. 

Ha!  Well, I couldn’t help wondering what would be a more stressful college admittance process.  It was at that moment that The Testing trilogy was born.

2)  Can I get a free book?

Authors get this question all the time and I get questions about free copies of books as well as requests for advanced reader copies all the time.  Sadly, as an author, I don’t get an unlimited supply of books.  I only get a small number of author copies, which means I can’t give free books to everyone.  I use most of those copies as contest giveaways on blogs like this one (and I try to keep at least one or two copies for me and for my son’s collection that he has no interest in now—which considering the subject matter is good).  The same is true of advanced reader copies only most of those go to bookstore owners who haven’t gotten a copy from the publisher or reviewers who put in their request forever ago.  (Oh – and I tend to have one advanced copy that gets a bit tattered and torn from being passed from family member to family member…so that one is spoken for!) 

3)  Can you get me an audition for The Testing movie?

This question shows up a lot.  And I haven’t a clue if the movie will really happen let alone how they will go about casting.  BUT – if the movie does move forward, I will post whatever open casting information I get to my Facebook page and to my website.  And I plan on being at that casting call right alongside everyone else.  Because – well – being in the movie would be fun!

4)  Do you still teach voice lessons?

Yes…although not as much as I used to.  I have a small group of students that I am very invested in and am thrilled that I get to continue to watch them grow as singers and performers.  But I am not actively looking for new students because I  don’t want them to feel as if I’m abandoning them when I am on tour or have to take a week off of teaching to meet a production deadline.

5)  Do you still perform?

Does singing Frozen music with my 6 year old count?  Currently, the only performances I do are at schools when I talk writing and books with students.  More often than not, the first question in the Q&A section is if I’ll sing for them…so I doJ  Now that my writing schedule isn’t as crazy as it was for the past two years, I’m hopeful that I might get a chance to squeeze in some stage performing again.  But first, I have to finish this manuscript and get the kid into first grade.  Once that happens…well, we’ll see!

Do you have any other questions that you’d like answered?  Now is your chance.  Ask away!