(June 25, 2008) PCM's Ashley got a chance to talk to author Jennifer McMahon, who wrote the New York Times Bestsellers Promise Not to Tell and Island of Lost Girls. She also penned the young adult novel My Tiki Girl. Jennifer was nice enough to share some of the experiences that she brought to her work, particularly a job she had as the Easter Bunny! Keep reading to find out more about her writing process and what she is working on next.

Ashley: Hi, this is Ashley from Pop Culture Madness. How are you?

Jennifer: Hi Ashley. Good, thanks, how are you?

A: Wow, I'm so glad we could schedule this interview. I read Promise Not to Tell and I really liked it, so then I just picked up Island of Lost Girls and I finished that a couple of weeks ago.

J: Great. Terrific.

A: So I was wondering if we could start off with how you actually got into writing in the first place?

J: How I got into writing in the first place. I've been writing for my whole life, it seems like. My first story was in third grade. I've pretty much been writing since, writing this and that. When I was in college I studied philosophy, and then I studied poetry for a year in grad school, in an MFA program. After that I was writing a poem and my poems were getting sort of more and more complicated and I wanted to tell longer stories in them.

A: Uh-huh.

J: The poem I was working on kind of turned into a prose poem and then it kept getting longer and I said, "Oh my God, I'm writing a short story." And then it kept getting longer and I was over a hundred pages into it and I'd only just begun and I said, "Oh my God! I'm writing a novel; what do I know about writing a novel? Nothing."

So I sort of had an identity crisis. I decided to take a leave of absence from the poetry program and see where the novel writing took me, and here I am now.

A: Yeah, that would have been a really long poem (laughs).

J: (laughs) Yes it would have.

A: How hard was it making that switch?

J: Well, it felt like a natural sort of progression, it was like where my writing wanted to take me. It was difficult because I, when I actually sat down and tried to write fiction, I really didn't know that much about plotting. That was the biggest thing, figuring out I could do you know, I could write about characters and I had the language down, I could describe things really well - but you can that really well and if nothing's happening in your book, it's not really going to take off, regardless (laughs). So that's something that I still struggle with, but I'm learning as I go, I think.

A: When you're actually starting to write your books, do you sit down and plan out what's going to happen first?

J: With Promise Not to Tell and Island of Lost Girls, I did not. I had no idea, I just started both of those from a single idea. With Island of Lost Girls I had stopped at a gas stationat a little town near a state park in Vermont and seen a mom leave a little girl in her car. I was pumping my gas and watching, thinking what the worst case scenario could be. I was watching and I was absolutely positive something was going to happen to this little girl. And I'm waiting and I'm waiting and I'm thinking, "What will I do? What will I do if it's a big guy who tries to kidnap her? What'll I do if it's several guys? What'll I do if it's something really weird, like what if it's Santa Claus, or what if the Easter Bunny comes along? And of course by this time the mom had come out and she drove off and they were totally fine.

But I couldn't get it out of my head. That's how Island of Lost Girls started, just from that, and I had no idea where it was going to take me. The way that I work is I just sit down and write and see where the story goes. But the novel I'm working on now is the first thing I've ever done from an outline, which has been a whole different process.

A: Uh-huh.

J: I think it took me almost as much time to write the outline as it would have to write a rough draft of the novel (laughs). It was a really hard, slow-going process, the outlining. And I felt sort of constricted, but then when I gave myself permission to stray from it - like, I wrote an ending that was not in the outline and I showed it to my agent and editor. They were like, "Wow, that wasn't in the outline!" I said, "I know, isn't it great?"

A: (laughs)

J: So it's kind of exciting letting the work take me where it wants to.

A: I read in your biography that you've had a lot of jobs, like a pizza delivery person, and you were once the Easter Bunny. So I was wondering if that was why you chose for the kidnapper-

J: I think probably that had something to do with it. Yeah, I did do that for awhile. For an Easter season I was working at a farm and they put me in the rabbit suit out front. It was a bizarre experience because I wasn't speaking and then I was in the suit and it was really hot and I was looking through these little screen eyes. Kids for the most part were really trusting and just thought that I was the Easter Bunny. Some of the little toddler kids were just completely freaked out. But it's a bizarre thing because I could have been anyone. It could be anyone in the suit! It was weird how trusting the kids were. So I hid that somewhere in the back of my brain as an experience and I definitely came back to that when I was writing.

A: One of the things that really interests me about your book is that the main characters - they have a lot of similarities. In some ways they have sort of childhood trauma or things in their childhood that they can't get past, and they've been outcasts. So how much of that is from your own experiences that you bring to your characters? (Yes, I really did just ask if she was an outcast as a kid who can't get over her childhood! I hope she wasn't offended...)

J: Oh God, I hope not much. (laughs). Not a whole lot, I hope. Probably not much. I think that everyone when they're growing up goes through a period of feeling like an outcast, whether they're not invited over to play or they're not fitting in at school for whatever reason or they just switched schools. Everyone has had some experience with that. I haven't to the extent that my characters have.

Some of the things that I'm sort of obsessed in my writing and why I write - I think about some of the kid stuff that I do. It's that time of the switch between childhood and adulthood and that moment when everything changes. It's a time when the freedom to play make believe is lost. That's kind of what happens.

A: So, I know Promise Not to Tell and Island of Lost Girls - I haven't read My Tiki Girl yet - I know that both of your two adult books take place in Vermont, and that is where you live. Is that just because you are writing about what you know, or is there really a sense of intrigue and mystery about where you live?

J: I think both. I definitely think both. I've lived here on and off for like 20 years and I consider it my adopted home. I think there's something really magical about Vermont, and the old adage of 'write what you know' - it is a setting that's really familiar to me that keeps showing up when I write. Vermont is so beautiful and quaint and rustic, and I like the idea of trying to imagine disturbing events take place here and what sort of happens if you peel beneath the surface to some darker things that might be going on. But My Tiki Girl takes place in Connecticut, where I grew up.

A: Okay, so that's also a place that you're familiar with, as well.

J: Yup.

A: The villain in Island of Lost Girls - without giving anything away in case readers haven't read the book yet - but you sort of describe [the villain] in an almost compassionate manner. I know you sort of wrote that one on the fly; you didn't have notes planned out. How far ahead of time did you know that [that person] would be the killer? (Question and answer have been edited so they do not reveal the plot or the ending?

J: Um, not very far ahead of time at all. Pretty far into it, actually. Maybe halfway through? I'm not real sure; I can't remember exactly when I realized it would be [the individual]. But then I went back, building up the character and thinking about [the villain] and thinking about [the killer's] motivations... A lot of characters in the book, and in Promise Not to Tell, also, are just normal people who made bad choices. I don't think that's necessarily the case [for this individual]... but [the villain] made some bad choices, definitely.

A: Yes, they're definitely very real, flawed characters.

J: Yeah, that's what I go for. I try not to do over-the-top villains and bad guys; I try to make them human. Another character in the book whom my editor sort of wanted - when she first read through, her first instinct was that [the character] should be the villain and [is a] monster and does these terrible things. I didn't like [the character] like that, so black and white.

A: How long does the writing process take you? How long does it take you from the beginning to the end to get it done?

J: Umm, probably about a year. But I'm only saying that because now my goal is a book a year, so I'm telling myself, "I can do it in a year, no problem!"

A: Was it different doing your first book, as opposed to your second and third?

J: Promise Not to Tell was actually the fourth book I wrote.

A: Oh, okay.

J: Yeah, so it was the fourth book but it was the first one I had published. And actually, Island of Lost Girls I wrote before I wrote Promise Not to Tell, so that was book number three, and it was sort of a long, rambling mess and I didn't know what direction I was going in - see what happens when you don't write from an outline sometimes?

A: (laughs)

J: I actually shoved it into a drawer and didn't know it to anyone until we got the deal for Promise Not to Tell, and then I finally got up the courage to send it to my agent.

A: Uh-huh.

J: And My Tiki Girl was book number two, although at the time it was clearly a completely different story.

A: Was that just you learning how to write a novel?

J: Yeah, it had potential I guess. I looked at it and thought it could become a young adult mystery kind of thing. So I kind of thought about it and said, "Who knows, it may be in the future."

A: When you were growing up, did you read a lot of ghost stories, suspense-type books?

J: I read a lot of Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys. I read mystery kind of stuff like that, like kid mysteries. And before that I read Encyclopedia Brown. Afterwards I read a lot of S.E. Hinton like The Outsiders. All of her stuff is really great.

A: Do you think that's what drew you to this particular genre?

J: Gosh, it's amazing; I don't think so on a conscious level. I didn't really intent to write suspense or mystery books. When I set out to write Promise Not to Tell I decided I was going to write a ghost story. It became a mystery sort of by accident. I knew who I wanted my ghost to be, I had a complete image of Dell and I was like, I know what I want her to be like. She's a little girl and well, how does she die? She's murdered of course. Well then if she's murdered then who kills her? And it sort of just became a mystery and I was afraid that I was in a little bit over my head. I thought, "Oh, you can't write a mystery. What do you know about writing mysteries? You haven't read that many mysteries."

A: Well, you definitely straddle genres.

J: You just learn as you go, apparently.

A: Yeah. Your first book that was published, Promise Not to Tell - that book was very well-received, and I haven't really heard anything negative about any of your books. Were you sort of surprised by that reaction?

J: Yeah! (laughs)

A: What were you expecting?

J: Yeah, I'm still - I continue to be completely surprised by how well that it's going and hearing from all the people that I hear from how much they're enjoying the book. A few weeks back it was number 17 on the Trade Paperback New York Times Bestseller List. I thought, "My book?" I'm still kind of in awe. I wasn't expecting it. I was thinking that friends and family would buy it. You always keep your fingers crossed that your book is going to do well, but I wasn't prepared for how well it's done. I'm so in awe. It's wonderful!

A: I know that My Tiki Girl turned into a young adult book, and it's actually about a homosexual romance. (In retrospect, I meant to say that it includes a homosexual relationship. The book itself seems to focus more on the friendship between two girls and how it helps one of them heal from her mother's death). Was that how you were planning on writing it when you first wrote it, in your first draft?

J: Yeah. Well, my first draft was actually written from adults and I wanted to tell a love story, sort of a first love story. But the first draft I did was definitely not for young adults and it ended in a much more dark way. And then I showed it to my agent who suggested making it a young adult book, and I started reading some young adult stuff and thinking, well I'll try that market.

A: Were you worried about the reaction to it? Or that you would get pegged into a certain niche as a writer?

J: No, I write the books that I want to write and hope people will like them. If they do, that's great and if they don't then, I'm sorry, maybe you'll like my next book. I don't know.

A: So, did you consciously make the romances in Promise Not to Tell and Island of Lost Girls heterosexual, or was it just what developed when you were writing?

J: It was what developed when I was writing and who the characters were.

A: Mmhm. You said you're working on a new book now. Can you tell me a little about that?

J: Sure. The current working title is Dismantled, and it is about five college friends who form sort of an outlaw art group called. Instead of being about putting things together and painting and creating sculptures, it's about taking things apart. They spend the summer after graduation together in a cabin and some stuff happens. Most of the action in the book will take place 10 years later when it seems someone from their past does not want them to forget, to bring them back and remind them of what they've done.

A: Uh-huh. Does it take place in Vermont?

J: It does take place in Vermont.

A: (laughs) That was a lucky guess.

J: Maybe I need to move, I don't know (laughs). I couldn't move, though, I'm very happy here. But it does take place in Vermont.

A: So this one is also going to be a ghost story-suspense book?

J: Um, it is a suspense book and it does have a possible supernatural aspect to it.

A: Do you have any idea when we can see that on shelves?

J: Um, next spring, they're saying maybe May 2009.

A: Oh, excellent. In your future writing, are you thinking about doing more young adult books?

J: It's certainly possible.

A: Can you see yourself doing any non-fiction writing?

J: Oh, I'm terrible at non-fiction! Probably not. I'm not very good at it, but who knows. I never say never.

A: Right. Well, I really enjoy your writing and it's been great talking to you.

J: Well, thank you so much. Thanks for including me.

A: Great, well thank you very much.