Author Interview: Jacquelyn Stoles and Asterwood Giveaway

 Happy Monday, Everyone! Today, I’m excited to have Jacquelyn Stolos here to share about her middle grade fantasy, Asterwood. I like that it addresses environmental issues and has a hidden world. I’m looking forward to reading it. 

Here’s a blurb from Goodreads: 

Madelyn has always been satisfied with her life of cozy meals, great books, and adventures with her father in the woods behind their farmhouse.

But when a mysterious child appears and invites her down a forbidden trail and into a new world, Madelyn realizes that there’s far more to life than she ever allowed herself to realize.

This new world, Asterwood, is wider, wilder, and more magical than she could ever imagine. And somehow, it’s people know who she is—and desperately need her help.

Accompanied by new friends—one ​who can speak the language of the trees and one with a mind as sharp as her daggers—and her calico cat, Dots, Madelyn embarks on an epic quest across a strange and sprawling forest world whose secrets just might help her save her own.​

 Hi Jacquelyn! Thanks so much for joining us. 

1. Tell us about yourself and how you became a writer. 

Hi Natalie! I’m so happy to be here. Thanks for inviting me to talk about Asterwood! 

Like so many of us authors, reading and imagining has always been an enormous part of my life. As a kid, I spent my summers either chain-reading library book after library book on my porch until it was too dark to see the pages or playing pretend by myself or with my sister and our neighbors in the woods behind our houses. The leap from a summer day immersed in reading and imagining to a summer night scribbling stories in spiral notebooks at my childhood desk was all very fluid and natural. So, I was a writer from the moment I could be. I think most kids are writers if you give them the right tools and encouragement. It’s keeping that spark and creative impulse and confidence alive past the age of imagination and play that seems to be the tricky part.  

2. Where did you get the idea for Asterwood? Also, what made you decide to write a middle grade story given that your other published book, Edendale, is for adults? 

Madelyn, Asterwood’s protagonist, was born from in image. I saw her lying on a mossy rock in the woods behind her house, staring up at the undersides of leaves, very clearly from the start. I followed her from there! Of course, it took years of dreaming and drafting and revision to discover what her story would be. For me, if there’s a moment in the writing where I feel like I’m consciously making a decision instead of discovering or unearthing something, I need to immerse myself more completely in the character or the world. I believe deeply that intuition is an artist’s best friend. If I use my daytime logic brain to write, my stories end up feeling stilted or engineered. 

Shifting to middle grade felt like coming home. My tween years were some of my most magical, formative reading years--I’m made of my favorite middle grade books at the cellular level. (Hi there, Sharon Creech!) Additionally, I teach creative writing to kids at this reading age, so I’m immersed in what’s alive for them daily. Before I wrote Asterwood, I’d been working on a speculative adult novel that asked questions about parenthood during environmental crisis. As soon as Madelyn appeared to me, I understood that I wanted to explore these questions for the kids, not the parents. 

Your Writing Process 

3. It’s great that writing a middle grade story felt so right to you. Once you came up with your story idea, how long did you flesh it out before writing your first draft? What does this process entail? 

Oh gosh. I wish it was a process. I fiddled with the opening moment and some initial images and feelings for years, handwriting disconnected snippets over and over and living scenes in my mind while walking, running, on putzing around the house. I guess daydreaming is a big part of my process. I put together some pages to show my writing group in 2020 after a few years of the aforementioned fiddling and dreaming. Still, I didn’t feel like I amassed enough material or momentum to write a full story until 2022, when, pretty pregnant, I challenged myself to sit down and write a full draft in the months before my daughter was born. I wrote 1,500 words or more a day for a period, which is a lot for me. I’m generally pretty slow. But I was terrified I’d never write again once I was a mom balancing day job and her family and felt a ticking clock. I revised that draft in the first months of her life, usually with her sleeping on my lap or in her carrier against my chest, then queried when she was five months old. 

4. I’m a slow writer too. Your story deals with the environmental issue of deforestation. Why was it important to you to include this in your story? How did you develop this theme without sounding preachy? 

Since the novel sort of sprang forth from environmental concerns, I never felt like I was including it in the story, I felt like it was the heart of the story. And I think that, in order to preach, a person needs to feel like they’re at least a bit of an authority on a subject. I never felt that way while writing Asterwood. Instead, I was asking and exploring, following characters who were struggling through some tricky ethical questions, and doing my best to stay curious and open to see what the narrative delivered. In my writing, I’m much more interested in questions than answers. 

5. Share something that you found really fun about writing your story? Why?

In Asterwood and in my first novel, Edendale, I loved writing the unsettling, disturbing, and gory scenes. As a reader and just a human moving through the world, I’m mesmerized by everything uncanny and horrifying. As a writer, I love to really zero in on those dark details or moments. I know this element of my work can take readers by surprise—structurally, you wouldn’t categorize my work as horror—but exploring fear, including the icky and gruesome, feels important and authentic to the human experience, which is something I strive for in my work. 

Your Journey to Publication 

6. Tell us how you got your publishing contract for Asterwood. 

Once I queried, I got an offer from Alex Slater at Greenburger Kids within a few weeks. This was a huge and delightful surprise! I’d done quite a bit of querying to no success with Edendale, my first novel, eventually selling it to a small press without representation, so I hadn’t expected things to move so quickly. Or at all. With Alex, I did a round of revisions before we went on submission. My editor, Wendy Loggia at Delacorte, made an offer and we accepted! 

7. That’s a cool, painless way to find your agent. What was your experience like working with your editor? How did it make your story stronger? 

Wendy is amazing. She has so much experience in the industry and manages to be simultaneously incisive and caring. It was wonderful to have Asterwood in such capable hands. First, Wendy helped streamline Asterwood’s worldbuilding elements. This was my first speculative novel, the draft Wendy bought was bursting with A LOT of ideas, and I needed help making sure the rules of the world added up to something that felt cohesive and real. We also changed the ending. Coming from the world of adult literary fiction, I’d originally crafted a narrative that ended on a much bleaker note. Wendy helped me toward an ending that was more hopeful but still felt authentic to the characters’ emotional journeys and the themes of the novel. 

Wendy’s assistant, Makena Cioni, was a gift throughout the editorial process. A secret weapon if you will. Makena was particularly helpful in teasing out the best from the environmental threads of the story.  What a team! 

Promoting Your Book 

8. How are you planning to celebrate the release of your book and market it afterwards? 

Once Upon a Time Bookstore in Glendale California is hosting my launch. For readers in Southern California, if you haven’t been in, they’ve got a beautifully curated selection of children’s literature. A real treasure! 

I’m looking forward to more interviews and some school and library visits. Mostly, I can’t wait to connect with readers. A strange thing to me about publishing a children’s book is that before publication, all a book’s readers are outside it’s intended audience. Penguin Random House doesn’t employ child editors or proofreaders! So, aside from the class of a generous teacher friend who offered to test an early draft out on her students for me, I haven’t yet heard from any kids about Asterwood. I’m dying to know what they think! 

9. What are you working on now? 

The thing that’s capturing my imagination the most right now is my next middle grade novel, which is a sea-faring adventure full of friendship, magic, and a little bit of spookiness. I also have a few picture books in the works. And, because I’m stubborn, I keep returning to that adult manuscript exploring parenthood during environmental crisis I was hammering away at when Asterwood came to me. It’s still to be determined whether that one’s a book or a millstone. 

Thanks for sharing all your advice, Jacquelyn! You can find Jacquelyn at: 

https://www.jacquelynstolos.com/

@jacquelynstolos  (Instagram) 

Giveaway Details

Jacqueline’s publisher is generously offering a hardback of Asterwood for a giveaway. To enter, all you need to do is be a follower of my blog (via the follower gadget, email, or bloglovin’ on the right sidebar) and leave a comment by January 24th. If I do not have your email (I can no longer get it from your Google Profile), you must leave it in the comments to enter the contest. Please be sure I have your email address. 

If you mention this contest on Twitter, Facebook, or other social media sites and/or follow me on Twitter or Bluesky or follow Jacqueline on her social media sites, mention this in the comments, and I'll give you an extra entry for each. You must be 13 years old or older to enter. This book giveaway is U.S. 

Marvelous Middle Grade Monday is hosted by Greg Pattridge. You can find the participating blogs on his blog. 

Upcoming Interviews, Guest Posts, and Blog Hops

Wednesday, January 14, I have an agent spotlight interview with A.J. Van Belle and a query critique giveaway 

Friday, January 16, I’m participating in the Winter Wishes Giveaway Hop 

Monday, January 19, I have a guest post by Leslie Vedder and a giveaway of her MG The Labyrinth of Souls and The November Beast 

Wednesday, January 21, I have an agent spotlight interview with Alexandra Levick and a query critique giveaway 

Monday, January 28, I have an interview with Tracy Wolff and a giveaway of her MG The Aftermyth 

Sunday, February 1, I’m participating in the Heart 2 Heart giveaway hop 

Monday, February 2, I have a guest post by V.T. Bidania and a giveaway of her MG A Year Without Home 

Wednesday, February 3, I have an interview with Alichia Dow and a giveaway of her YA Until the Clock Strikes Midnight and my IWSG post 

I hope to see you on Wednesday!