Meet Your Neighbor / June/July 2011
Meet Jay Asher
In this installment of our “Meet Your Neighbor” series, SLO LIFE Magazine sits down for an afternoon with New York Times bestselling author, Jay Asher. His book, 13 Reasons Why, has been a runaway hit with teens all over the world. It has been published in 31 different countries to-date and Universal Pictures is adapting the story for the big screen in a movie starring Selena Gomez. Jay lives in San Luis Obispo with his wife, JoanMarie, a songwriter, and their new baby, Isaiah. Here is his story...
Let’s start from the beginning, Jay… how did you end up in SLO? I moved to San Luis the summer before eighth grade, just before I turned 13. My parents wanted to get out of L.A., but they didn’t want to be too far away because we still have a lot of family there. At the time, my parents had never been to San Luis, but they had heard good things about and it and my dad had an opportunity to transfer to the Post Office here. So, the four of us - my parents, my younger brother and me - decided to drive up here on a whim one day to check it out. As it turned out, it was the same weekend as Poly Royal, and all of the hotels were booked and we didn’t have a place to stay. So, we parked over where Scolari’s is now, I think it was a Safeway then, and all of us slept together in the car that night. Within a few months we moved up here.
That’s can be a difficult time of life to make such a big change. How did you handle it? It was a tricky age, but I made some good friends here really quickly. I remember driving up to San Luis in our U-Haul, and I was a totally shy kid back in Arcadia, but I thought to myself, nobody in this new town knows who I am, so if I go to school the first day acting really confident then people will treat me that way and I can make my own reputation and my personality could be whatever I wanted it to be. It didn’t quite work out that way because, despite my best efforts, I was still really shy.
And what about high school? I went to SLO High - Class of ’93 - and the experience was pretty normal really, which surprises a lot of people considering the subject matter of my book [teen suicide]. It wasn’t traumatic, I mean I wouldn’t want to go back to it, but it wasn’t bad. I was really into music and was involved in some rock bands, but I wasn’t into sports. I was on the newspaper staff for a year. I wasn’t totally into school, but I didn’t mind it. People usually think I’m going to say, “Oh, it was horrible!”
How was your experience with the school newspaper? Honestly, I wasn’t a good journalist, so they stuck me doing music reviews. And I had to review the Vanilla Ice album. I gave him a good review and became the laughing stock of the school because it just wasn’t cool to publicly admit that you liked Vanilla Ice, even though most of us couldn’t get that “ding-ding-ding-da-da-ding-ding” out of our heads at the time. So, one day the newspaper advisor pulled all of the staff together to read an anonymous letter to the editor. It basically said, “Based on Jay’s review, I decided to be open-minded and I bought the Vanilla Ice album and listened to it and liked it and Jay was right, it was really good.” It was signed, “Sincerely, a new Ice fan.” Our adviser went on to lecture all of us young reporters about how, when you write something, it has the power to shape opinions… but, what she didn’t know was that I wrote that letter to the editor! Nobody ever found out it was me – I must have been sitting in the class blushing – but I always share that story when I speak whether it’s with other writers, or schools.
Wow, I wonder what Vanilla Ice would have thought of that story? It’s funny that you ask because recently I was in Michigan speaking at a writer’s conference and Vanilla Ice happened to be performing in town that night. I couldn’t go to the concert because I had an early flight the next morning. But when I was in the airport I ran into him and asked him to take a picture with me and told him that I had written a positive review of his CD back in high school… but I didn’t tell him the rest of the story. He was actually really nice, an extremely nice guy.
What happened after you graduated from high school? I wanted to do some sort of writing, but I enrolled at Cuesta College thinking that I would become an elementary school teacher. My first semester there I took a class called Children’s Literature Appreciation, which was basically how to use children’s books in classrooms and it was in that class, for my final project, when I wrote my first two book texts. And so, even though I didn’t go into college wanting to do children’s writing, the second I did it, I sent the manuscripts off to New York. They never sold, but one of them generated some interest. That’s when I really started to focus on children’s books.
What next? I ended up transferring to Cal Poly where I dropped out midway through my senior year to really focus on my writing, thinking it was right around the corner… but it was still a few years away from happening [laughter]. I decided teaching was not for me and at the same time, even though none of my books had sold, I won some writing contests and was getting some confirmation that maybe I can do this. So soon after that my wife and I got married and I started getting jobs at libraries and bookstores and I just decided, “Okay, this is what I am going to do, I’m just going to stick with writing until I make it.” From the point where I first took that children’s literature class to the time I sold my first book, it took me twelve years.
What was it like when you were writing 13 Reasons Why? During that time I had several jobs. I was working at the SLO Public Library and I had a job at the bookstore in the Pismo Outlets. I also got a job at Barnes & Noble. I stayed at the library for five years. Generally I would go to Linnaea’s Cafe usually right after work, after five, and then stay there for as long as my inspiration lasted. Sometimes until they closed and other times I would go there and get a couple of sentences down and that was it. I always sat at the table at the back, next to the garden window. And that is actually where Clay [one of the main characters] sits in the book when he listens to the tapes.
About those tapes, your book has a pretty unusual format with a dual narration… one of them coming from a set of cassette tapes. What inspired the concept? Of all places, the idea came to me in King Tut’s Tomb at the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas. I went on a self-guided walking tour there with a Walkman and a cassette tape. I’ve always been drawn to books with unique formats and I kept the audiotour idea in the back of my mind for years. I wanted to write funny books for young kids, and that’s what I still like to do, but the format just didn’t work for that genre.
Of all subjects, what compelled you to take on suicide? One of the main reasons for the book was that a close relative of mine had attempted suicide. But, the main thing for most readers is that it’s not just about suicide, but a larger, hopeful message in general. As Hannah [one of the main characters] says in the book, “You don’t know what is going on with anyone’s life but your own.” So when you treat someone a certain way, you can’t be in control of how they take it. It’s not that we need to be walking on eggshells all the time, we just need to be aware. It’s a very basic, simple idea but sometimes approaching it in a different way makes it stand out to people in a way they can understand. One of the things that made being an adult, or growing up in general, easiest, was just being able to let go. And it’s something you have to learn to do. You have to make a conscious decision to not let things bother you. And, there was no way as a teen that I would have been able to do that. So, one of the things I had to do when I wrote the book was to speak specifically from the teen point of view.
We were wondering how in the world were you able to get into the head of teenage girl? Mostly by talking to my wife and female friends… asking them what high school was like for them. They talked a lot about how rumors and gossip affected them during that time. Those conversations definitely changed where my book was going as I was brainstorming it. It was clear that rumors and gossip were so much bigger for them than they were for me and my guy friends. It was actually fascinating. And when I’m speaking at schools and I share this part of my story, I look out at the audience and I see the girls all nodding their heads in agreement.
When reading the book it becomes clear that so many of the settings are local. The book is basically set in San Luis, even though I don’t give the name of the town. I changed the name of the Fremont [Theater] to the Crestmont, Monet’s Café is actually Linnaea’s. And it’s fun, because I’ve heard from some teens around town who try to figure out some of the other spots. Like, they think Blue Spot Liquor is Manuel’s Liquor and they all pick up on the details from SLO High, like the trophy case at the entryway and the steps out front.
Do you ever just sit back and say, “Man, this is so cool!”? Actually, the most meaningful thing for me is when I hear about a parent and child reading the book together. Usually it begins with a concern over, “Why is my child reading this?” So the parent will read it too. And, sometimes they will contact me afterward to tell me that the book really opened the door to having some amazing discussions with their child. They realize the conversation should have taken place a long time ago, but it is so hard to talk about. And I’ve heard from some psychologists who actually use the book in their practices with teens. I think it’s so much easier to have these conversations through the discussion of fictional characters. It’s a strange feeling to have written a book that helps with those discussions. I mean, it’s amazing and it’s an honor… but it’s weird.
It has to be incredibly rewarding to hear from people that are affected by your book. I love going to high schools to talk about the book – for me, that’s the best part of being a writer. And that was a complete shock for me because I used to have major stage fright. I just thought that would be hell for me, but from the very first time I did it, I absolutely loved it. I love speaking to teens. Even though the book itself is very serious, I try to put together an entertaining presentation and I usually share some of the rejection letters that 13 Reasons Why received - which is always a surprise to them. And I share some different letters I have received from teens to show them that there are sometimes different ways to interpret the same book. And, best of all, when I speak I get to hear from teens and talk with them face to face and I learn so much from them. A lot of schools now make the book mandatory reading, so it reaches a lot of people. I think that will expand quite a bit when it goes into paperback this summer.
On to the big news… your book just got picked up by Universal Pictures to do a movie. Teen star Selena Gomez will be playing the part of Hannah, the lead role in the story. Your thoughts? I’m really lucky as an author to be able to be as involved as I am in the movie development. Selena actually contacted me to talk about the book. She had been looking for some role to take her from being a Disney star to a serious actor, and she felt that this was the one. I met with her and her mom and learned that their vision for the movie matched exactly what I hoped it would be.
How are you feeling about the whole experience? It has to be a bit surreal. It’s been fun. I’ve gone down there [to Universal Pictures] for meetings where everybody’s sitting in a room and it’s weird because they are discussing this book that I wrote and talking about it as a movie. And it’s just so weird.
What advice can you offer an aspiring writer? The best advice is to get into a critique group with other writers. They don’t have to write the same stuff that you write. There’s a difference between writing just because you like writing and writing to try to get published. I think it’s important to have someone read your work and then tell you honestly what they thought of it. And you have to train yourself to not defend your work and say things like, “What I meant by this was this or that” you have to let the writing speak for itself. My writing improved so much even after I left [the critique group] because, even afterward, I can still hear some of those group members in my head as I write now. Also, one of the main tips I give is don’t ever go with your first idea, whether it’s a solution for a scene or a direction for the plot because, usually, your first idea is the first idea anybody would have had, so it’s probably not the most creative – it’s just the most obvious.
What’s next for you? I’m on contract with Penguin Publishing to write three more books. My next book, The Future of Us, will be out in November, and is not nearly as heavy as 13 Reasons Why. It’s more of a fun book, but it still deals with, I would say, complications in every day human relationships. You know, misinterpreting things. Basically, there are two things that will tie all my books together - complicated relationships and suspense. I turned The Future of Us into my agent the day my wife went into labor and it was a real big relief to be done with it at that time.
Congratulations on your new book, the movie, and the new baby. Now, go get some sleep! Thank you – that’s good advice!
