I was a thinker from a young age. So I resent the suggestion that young people don’t think. Or have irrelevant experiences. Or just need to grow up. Because those very tender and vulnerable years are when I learned so much about myself. My needs. My fears. My dreams.
Allow me to introduce you to my friend and co-author at Playlist Fiction, Laura Anderson Kurk. She gets teens. But not only that, she’s a superb writer who has a gift with words. She’s taught me so much in a short amount of time. On top of giving me a story that will stay with me forever. Glass Girl is an incredibly beautiful story of how something new can come of something broken. Life after loss. Love that shows up when you least expect it. But need it most. Meg’s story will take you by the hand and walk you through her journey of pain. And healing. And hope. A story that continues in the sequel Perfect Glass, which I am just as eager to pick up this June. On or around the same time as Swimming Through Clouds, my first YA Book. Ever! Yikes!
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Without further delay, meet YA Author, Laura Anderson Kurk.
Rajdeep (Raj): Where were you during Columbine?
Laura: I was home that day in The Woodlands, Texas, holding my 2 ½-month-old baby girl. It happened just after noon (central time) and I had the news on in my living room. I remember picking Amelia up and standing in front of the TV, rocking back and forth with her while I felt sick for the kids at Columbine and for their parents who couldn’t get to them. I was sick.
Raj: Immediate reactions?
Laura: I felt scared. I was a new mom and my mind immediately fast-forwarded to what the world might be like when she gets to high school. It felt like the ground was moving. I think like every American who watched it play out in real-time, I thought about the vulnerability of our most precious resource—our children.
Raj: Did you know right then, you’d someday want to write a story about survivors of school shootings?
Laura: It didn’t cross my mind immediately, no. I would never have felt adequate enough to tell this story. I hurt for them, yes, but I felt immediately like theirs was a private grief that no one could understand who hadn’t been there and walked those halls.
The germ for the idea of including a school shooting in Meg’s story came from an interview I saw of Rachel Scott’s brother, Craig. Rachel was the first victim to die at Columbine and her family has done tremendous good with focusing on the incredibly inspiring parts of Rachel’s life. Craig watched his two friends get shot and die and he helped get others to safety, even running past his sister who had already died in the hall. At the time, he didn’t realize it was Rachel. He made it home and waited for Rachel to return and she never did.
With all the media focused on Rachel’s parents, I wondered if Craig was getting the kind of support he needed. I’m sure he was because the Scott family is amazing . . . but it was something I wondered about. The way the media and our culture recognizes sibling grief is vastly different from how parental grief is recognized. This made me curious about the behind-the-scene story of a sibling who has herself been a victim of a school shooting while also losing a brother in the same shooting. Meg’s story was born.
Raj: Have you ever spoken to teens about losing a friend their age?
Laura: I have, unfortunately. On too many occasions. Our community has lost teens from car accidents and illnesses, and our church family has lost teens. I’ve always been fascinated by how young people handle loss and grief and how the adults around them often assume they’re okay because they keep the business of life going. I have found that when I sit in a quiet, still place with kids who are grieving, they have much to teach me about acceptance and living with doubt and fear after a loss. Teens are often quiet about grief because it’s new to them and they’re not sure how normal their reactions are. But the fact is, we all grieve differently. It’s a personal journey, regardless of our ages. Teens, especially, need to hear this and they need reassurance that they can feel what they feel safely and that their world can wait for a little while until they’re ready to move forward again. Teens who have lost a friend, or a loved one, do not want to hear platitudes or clichéd reasoning. They want honesty. They want respect. They want the adults in their lives to recognize their pain. I think adults are wrong when they assume teens will move on more quickly. We need to respect the individual who is hurting and find personal and meaningful ways to speak to them.
Raj: Did you experience a similar loss as a teen?
Laura: Like most people, I lost acquaintances to suicides and accidents and illnesses. I remember how raw and vulnerable you feel when it happens. Like it could happen to you any second. It’s a very scary place to exist when you’re trying to figure life out. I’m an introspective soul that ruminates on things to obsession, so I thought about these things a lot as I matured. I dealt with serious illnesses with my parents when I was young, as well, so my nature was to think through all the emotions and implications of life and death.
My outlook, though, is hopeful that even life’s most difficult moments are meaningful and are creating within us characters that are strong as steel. I know immediately when I’ve met a person who has dealt with hard times. They’re different. They see the world very clearly. I gravitate to them and love that they don’t skim the surface on conversations. They go very deep, very quickly. Small talk is hard for them and it’s hard for me, too. When you’ve walked some hard miles, you notice everything. You’re a noticer.
Raj: How do you feel about the heightened security around schools across the country?
Laura: I am sad about it. I feel very unsettled about it. I want to make sure we’re doing things correctly and approaching it from the right direction. I want to make sure we’re identifying kids who are struggling and being bullied and I want to help them. I want to make sure parents who are raising children who are at-risk for psychological trauma are getting the support they need. They need the information and the tools to help their children before it’s too late.
I also want our children to feel safe at schools and our parents to feel safe leaving them there. If that means we have to be more vigilant with all levels of security, then so be it. We must, above all, protect our children. I won’t comment on the hot button of guns in schools because there are people who are much more capable than me of making those decisions, and I will trust that the right decisions were made for the right reasons. I just feel like we need to address mental illness so much more aggressively than we have in the past. People suffer a great deal with this and it can escalate quickly.
Raj: Especially after Sandy Hook?
Laura: Sandy Hook was every American’s nightmare. This was a school that had done everything right, security-wise, and still the worst happened. There was nothing available to stop this young man from shooting his way into a locked school and doing unspeakable harm. I’m watching, like we all are, to see how other campuses react. Will we arm guards in each school? Would that have stopped this tragedy? How can we insure this will never happen again? I know there are intelligent people working through these issues, trying to find the best answer. I pray for them and their work and I’m glad I don’t have to make the decisions.
Raj: Do you feel like kids go to school with more anxiety now than ever?
Laura: You know, I only really know how my own kids feel. I sheltered them from Sandy Hook and from other worldwide tragedies in schools. I do know that on days they practice lock down drills at our schools, my kids come home with questions. “Why would someone come in our school with a gun?” “Why would a stranger want to come in my school if he doesn’t have kids there?”
But I tend to think that my parents’ generation dealt with as much anxiety at school as they went through their drills during the Cold War. I think the fears of bombing and nuclear annihilation probably were as (or more) terrifying than a stranger with a gun.
It’s part of living in this world where we balance danger with beauty every day. And while I talk a lot about how this feels in my books, I also want my readers to know that I believe we have way more beauty than danger. This is an interesting, intriguing, captivating, glorious place to live, filled with fascinating people. Get out there and get to know them! See the world and talk to every person you can. Find out what’s in their hearts. We only get one chance at this life, so make it as full as possible.
Raj: Your character leaves her hometown at the start of your book? Are you suggesting that sometimes you have to move in order to move forward and move on with your life?
Laura: This is an interesting question to me because I talk in my books a great deal about what home means. The book I’m writing now deals with how we develop identity based on where we’re from. And who are we if we hate where we’re from? I left home at seventeen and, although I longed for my family, I didn’t feel nostalgic about my hometown until I was an adult.
To answer your question, I don’t, in any way, believe that to heal from tragedy one must physically move. I believe we must move emotionally, though, and that’s at the heart of Meg’s story. Meg moves emotionally. It just so happens that a change in scenery was the impetus. The book deals with how it feels to leave behind a town where a brother/son is buried. Are you turning your back on him by leaving? Have you rejected him? That’s how Meg’s mother feels, but Meg develops the emotional chops to realize “home” is not a place and it can “happen” anywhere. It happens where you feel most yourself and where people who really see you and love you surround you.
Earlier I said that everyone grieves differently. Meg’s father did want to leave the place where Wyatt died because the constant reminder of the son he missed was too difficult for him. He was someone who needed to make a fresh start, but deep down, even he knew that a change in place would be a small thing compared to the emotional change that needed to occur.
This family needed room to breathe and think and a move started that for them.
Raj: What do you hope will happen with Glass Girl in terms of the thousands of kids who survive school shootings?
Laura: Wow, that’s a humbling thought. I hope if survivors read this book, they will know that I’m on their side. They will say, “Ah, this author gets it.” That would be an honor. If survivors read it and they’re struggling with how the world views them or how to get past this event that defines them, I want them to see that Meg struggled, too, and that she moved forward and backward but eventually got enough momentum going that life got better. Maybe Meg’s story will, in some small way, resonate. But I would never dare to say that I’ve written a handbook on survival for these kids who have dealt with such heartache. I haven’t walked in their shoes, so they have much to teach me, not the other way around.
On the other hand, I hope that all my readers see themselves in Meg and Henry and Thanet. I tried really hard to create characters who are flawed but trying. Who are good kids but still make mistakes. Who just want some help with the big things in life. This book can mean something to kids who are dealing with a lot of difficult trials—not just the loss of a loved one. It’s ultimately a book about finding one’s source of strength, and learning to walk the right path.
BONUS:
Raj: You have a character whom I totally fall in love with Cerebral Pulsy (CP.) Is this an issue close to your heart? Bullying with regards to special needs kids, in particular?
Laura: So, yes, Thanet has my heart completely, too. And in the sequel, he takes on a really important role in Meg’s life. Thanet is, in part, a friend of mine from high school who had CP. My friend’s CP was more pronounced, though, making life incredibly difficult for him. Peers at school often abused him and, looking back, I chastise myself for not taking a real, ferocious stand against it. He was a manager for our football team, like Thanet, and this was something he loved dearly. The life of my friend with CP turned out dramatically different from Thanet’s, though. The truth of what happened to my friend haunts me, and I think I tried, in some way, to rewrite his story through Thanet. I wanted him to have a happy ending.
I do think schools do a better job today of lessening the bullying of special needs kids, although, the onus is on us as parents to teach our children about recognizing the gifts that each person can bring to the table. This world is a much more colorful place because we all have different abilities and gifts. Thank God for that. I am really proud of Meg’s friendship with Thanet. And Henry’s love for Thanet figures into a big part of the plot, too.
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Wow! Thanks so much for sharing your journey and some deep insights to how Glass Girl came about, Laura!
So now that you’ve met Laura Anderson Kurk, what are you waiting for? Click on over to www.playlistfiction.com and pick up your copy of Glass Girl. Diamond in the midst of millions of books fell into my lap. And I’m willing to share! 