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| photo: Elliot Ross | |
Danya Kukafka is a graduate of New York University's Gallatin School of Individualized Study. She currently works as an assistant editor at Riverhead Books. Girl in Snow, due to be published in August by Simon & Schuster, is her first novel.
You began writing novels when you were just 16. What is different about this, your first to be published?
I was writing pretty straight YA before. I wrote my first full novel--it was very bad--for a 10th grade project, and I gave it to my mom for Mother's Day. And she said, "Honey, this is about a dead girl!" And after that I dabbled in some Peter Pan fan fiction, and then I wrote a paranormal YA novel when I was in college that was rejected by about a billion agents. And then after that I decided to go a little bit older. When I first wrote this book, I thought it was a YA novel until someone told me that it was not. So, I think as I got older my writing sort of naturally got older, too.
I had read a lot of straight YA when I was in high school, and a lot of it deals in the paranormal. One of my favorite series is Meg Cabot's Mediator series. It's about a girl who can talk to a ghost. I loved those books, and I took a lot of what I thought paranormal books could do from that. But I've definitely moved away from that, probably for good. I'm happy that this is the one that caught. Looking back, I'm glad it wasn't those earlier ones that published.
How did you choose this setting in (fictional) small-town Colorado?
I grew up in Fort Collins, Colorado. It's actually not a small town, it's a pretty large city; but surrounding it are all these really small suburban enclaves, and I think they're really interesting. They're so insular. And the landscape of that part of Colorado is also really interesting to me. It's the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains, so you have these huge mountains looming over you, and to the other side you have open plains. You're just kind of tucked into the base right there.
Why three characters' voices? Did they all come to you at once, or did one come later than the others?
Oh, this is a good one. No, they did not. The first character that I had was Cameron, and I thought the book was only Cameron's book, when I started it. I wrote an entire draft of only Cameron, but I could not get to the end. None of the endings made sense, and I couldn't figure out what to do. I was taking a writing class at NYU with Colson Whitehead, and there was a story that I had written, that had a very, very early version of Jade's voice. It came out really naturally, and everyone in the class really liked it, and I sort of thought, well, what if there's a way to fit her into the story? So I had this draft, a full draft of the novel, and I went back and I wrote all of Jade's chapters into that draft in about six months. And I had what I thought was a YA novel in my hands. But then I signed with my agent, Dana Murphy at the Book Group, and she said, this is not a YA book. This is adult writing and about adult themes, so let's write in an adult perspective. (It was also very short.) So that was where Russ came in. We sort of thought up Russ together. And it was amazing how much he opened up the book for me: it felt so much bigger and richer and more expansive. But... I wouldn't do it that way again.
Why not?
Since I had basically fleshed out the whole plot from one perspective, it was actually pretty easy to go in and add these people in terms of structure, because I already had the opening and the middle and the end. I knew generally what needed to happen. So it was actually really fun to go in and find out the little ways I could put these characters into the world that I had built. It was definitely messy for a while, but at the same time I always knew that it was making this world bigger, which I really liked. But it was very accidental and--well, maybe I will end up doing it this way again! But I hope to go into it with a little more intention and a little more knowledge next time.
Do you have a favorite among the three protagonists?
Cameron has to be my favorite. He's the little dude of my heart, my little brain child. I love Jade for many other reasons--I loved writing Jade because she's so angsty and such a teenager, and that was really fun to write. And as Russ came along I got to be more of a grown-up, which I also really enjoyed. But yeah, my favorite's Cameron and I won't hesitate to say it. Sorry, guys.
How has your day job (as an assistant editor at Riverhead Books) affected your writing?
I think I've become much harder on myself, which is a good thing. Also, I'm reading all the time, which is really good for my muscles, I guess. Just being able to read other people's work as it's coming in, and see how even really successful and amazing authors need revision--that's been really inspiring for me, because I realize that everyone goes through this kind of horrible process of writing a book. But I've also had a really great experience learning to discern what stories I find necessary and interesting. Working for an editor and as an editor has helped me become pickier as a reader and a writer. Of course, I also find it a little bit scary sometimes, just seeing the volume of amazing work that is out there and knowing that you're going to have to fit into it somewhere.
And what's next?
I'm working on a new novel. I can't say much about it yet but I will say it's going to be set in upstate New York, about a family. I'm working on a draft, it's messy right now, but it's been really freeing to start something new and be out of the story I've been with for so long. I can play around now. I can do something totally different. --Julia Jenkins