No Stranger To Fiction: Interview With Author Steve Brezenoff

Today we have author Steve Brezenoff, a New Yorker living in exile in Minnesota. He’s a member of the Tenners because his first Young Adult book debuts in 2010, but he’s no stranger to publishing. In fact, if you look him up on Amazon you’ll find a whole page of books he’s written and co-written. In addition, Steve used to work as a production editor at Simon & Schuster and he has an agent with a name that I precede with “Count” in my mind every time I read it, because Edward Necarsulmer IV just begs for a title of continental nobility. Oh, and his book deal was inked in Italy! So yeah, Steve is fancy in every possible way.

Here’s Steve’s deal report from Publisher’s Marketplace:
Steve Brezenoff's untitled book, about four Long Island teens whose lives unravel suddenly and dramatically (and with a fair amount of pot), to Andrew Karre at Carolrhoda, for publication Fall 2010, by Edward Necarsulmer IV at McIntosh & Otis (NA).
(Note: The working title is SPLINTERS, but that will probably change.)

Hi Steve! Welcome. So, can you tell us how you met your agent?

I haven't actually met my agent yet, Edward Necarsulmer IV at McIntosh & Otis, though I did see him on a panel at SCBWI NYC conference earlier this year. I liked the cut of his jib; he was the only one up there in a suit, which for some reason struck me as awesome.

So I submitted it to him and he was mind-blowingly enthusiastic about the partial, and just as enthusiastic with the full. I was flattered and there was much stammering on both our parts, and some disagreement on JD Salinger's best work, and the Grateful Dead's best work, and we agreed we ought to work together.

Can you tell us how your book deal happened?

I joined SCBWI in 2007, I think, and went to the local (Minnesota) chapter's conference in the fall of 2008. There, I went to Andrew Karre's presentation on YA--he contrasted Kurt Cobain and John Cougar Mellancamp to great effect. Riveting, naturally. Afterward, I approached him with this wacky resume thing I made (at my wife's suggestion!): it was on one side my work-for-hire writing experience, of which there is a fair amount, and on the other my WIPs, summarized in snappy little blurbs. I don't know how much value that resume had; it may have been enough that my name and email address left with him. Either way, Andrew emailed me pretty much right away, asking for fulls on all the WIPs on that resume. Little did he know, that was essentially impossible, since none of my WIPs were actually finished. Rookie mistake FTW!

I banged through my YA WIP, realizing it was the stronger MS (I'd been working on it, on and off, since around 1999), sent it along (though it was WAY too short) and he liked it. If I can pat my own back a little, he read the whole thing in one night! Granted, it was much shorter then, but still. I was over the moon.

Six months later, after I'd nearly doubled the length of the thing, Andrew was ready to make an offer. That's when I decided to get an agent (see above). What was the inspiration for your 2010 debut book and how long did it take you to write? The initial inspiration for the novel was a short story I wrote in a college creative writing class in 1995 (yikes). The protagonist was a few years younger than the one in Splinters, but his obsession with death and his closeness with and admiration for his older sister were already evident. After my own father passed away, it became very obvious that the protagonist's father would die as well. From there, the bulk of the novel wrote itself. What's your publication date and where in the process are you now?I'm on the schedule for fall 2010 at Carolrhoda. Right now, I'm waiting for my editor's first official round of notes so I can get started revising. He assures me it will be a fairly light series of revisions. I hope he is right.

If you could choose any writer or writers to blurb for your debut, who would you choose?

Since we're strictly fantasizing here, I am free to choose JD Salinger. However, more realistically, I'll say Blake Nelson (author of Girl, years ago, and Destroy All Cars, this year) and Sara Zarr (author of Story of a Girl and Sweethearts). Both of those writers are masters of YA voice, in my opinion, and I would be beyond thrilled to have even a drop of respect from either or both of them.

What are you working on now?

I always have a few work-for-hire jobs going on, about which I usually can't say much. They're almost always hella fun to write, and I think of them as my day job. (That and being a stay-at-home dad, both of which are pretty awesome!) In my spare time, I'm working on another YA novel; this one has one foot slightly in urban fantasy, but is still mostly about a foul-mouthed teen. I like writing foul-mouthed teens.

Do you have any words of wisdom for writers trying to get published?

Go to conferences! Meet editors and agents and writers at those conferences. Practice your elevator lines, and if you're just not that good in person, write them down, so you just have to introduce yourself and put a piece of paper into editors' and agents' hands.
Oh, and, ummm, don't do that until your WIPs are no longer IP. Have something finished.

Where can we find out more about you on the web?

I blog at http://stevebrezenoff.blogspot.com/, and my twitter is @sbrezenoff.

Thanks, Steve! Great interview. As a seasoned professional, we’ll be looking to you for advice when 2010 rolls around...

Eyes Up Here, Please

Some nice things have been happening over at the home of my forthcoming books. Publisher’s Weekly just ran a story on how well Flux is doing, with sales up 30% over last year and publicists are “fielding calls recently from Hollywood agents and producers looking to tap into popular teen reading trends by adapting Flux titles for television shows.” In this sh**y economy, I’d call that more than a ray of sunshine. That’s full-on sunspot action.

When you look at their list, it’s hard to believe that Flux is just three years old. The much respected Andrew Karre is responsible for those first great years and now Brian Farrey, the new acquisitions editor (and former senior publicist at Flux), is adding his own flavah. I’ve really enjoyed working with him so far—he’s the perfect blend of smart and irreverent. One of the things he’s changing up is the blog, which is moving in the direction of podcasting. Check out the newly redesigned Flux blog for details. Brian is a big fan of musicals and I’m hoping he brings that love to a few of his podcasts. Can you see it? The stage is dark, the audience is hushed, Brian sits alone in a chair framed only by the gilded proscenium. Then a small, soft light floods his face as he delivers the latest news, a cappella, about Flux books and authors. Quiet at first, then…wait for it…wait for it—there it is! He hits the money note!

(To be clear, there was no mention of these podcasts becoming musicals, but one can hope.)

And lastly, the bitchin’ Flux covers are not going unnoticed— Publisher’s Weekly Shelftalker columnist Alison Morris even went so far as to award a gold star in this article. Can't wait to see what they do with my covers.

Yay Flux! You make me proud to be in your stable.

Avalon!

I was pretty bummed about the Andrew Karre news; he was the main reason I signed a two-book contract at Flux. It was announced just a couple of weeks after I signed my contract and I have to admit, I wondered if I were partially to blame. I imagined him waking up one morning and thinking of the work necessary to get my books to print; in my mind he drops his head in his hands and says, “That’s it, I’m out.”

Okay, so maybe it’s not all about me. Maybe it’s because he was offered a bigger job at a bigger house.

Anyway, today his successor was announced: Brian Farrey. My first reaction was, holy sh*t, have things really gone that far south since Roxy Music disbanded? Then I noted the spelling variation. I very quickly put my finely honed web-stalking skills to work and have decided, after just a few minutes of perusing, that I love him already. Here’s what I know: he’s a writer, he was the senior publicist at Flux, and he’s just returned from traveling the highlands of Scotland.

Look at all our common ground: I’m a writer, I worked in book marketing/publicity for years, and the Scottish highlands are one of my favorite places on earth! We’re like twins except he would be the way smarter, way funnier one. He’s probably cuter, too. Alright, alright maybe not twins but I love him like a smarter, funnier, cuter sibling already. I doubt he’s heard of me but I suspect once he gets hold of my manuscript he'll even start kicking my a** just like my real sibling did.

Speaking of getting his hands on my manuscript, after reading a few of Brian’s book reviews for Amazon.com and other sites, I’m a little scared. This guy is the very definition of perspicacious. He’s good in that seems-like-he-has-a-Masters-in-Literary-Criticism-but-also-watches-sitcoms way. He nailed “Mission to America” by Walter Kirn, reviewed it exactly as I would have. (You know, if I could write a really good book review, which I can’t.) Anyone who knows me knows I’m a sucker for academic types who also have their arms elbow deep in the cultural zeitgeist—but it’s one thing to admire that and it’s another to have it unleashed on your manuscript.

This may turn out to be painful but I hope the end result will be much greater for it. Can’t wait to get started.