Angela Morrison

This week, we’re celebrating Angela Morrison’s debut! Angela Morrison grew up on the wheat farm in Washington where TAKEN BY STORM is set. She graduated from Brigham Young University and holds a Master’s of Fine Arts in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College. She and her husband recently returned to Arizona after eleven years abroad in Canada, Switzerland, and Singapore. They have four children and the most beautiful grandson in existence.

Here’s a little bit about TAKEN BY STORM (Razorbill).

Seventeen-year-old Leesie Hunt has rules: No making out. No sex. And definitely no falling for a non-Mormon. She pours all her passion into poetry, thoughts of escaping her tiny town and getting into her dream school, BYU.

Then scuba diver Michael Walden arrives in Tekoa and everything changes. He survived a storm that took his parents’ lives, and the world as he knew it.

Leesie and Michael couldn’t be more different. His dreams are tied to the depths of the ocean and hers to salvation above. Yet they are drawn to each other, even when jealousy, unbearable rules, and haunting memories threaten to tear them apart.

Michael is drowning in tragedy, and Leesie knows it’s up to her to save him. Somehow. But when temptation becomes too strong to resist, who is going to save her?

TAKEN BY STORM by by Angela Morrison

If you had to give your book a movie rating: G through Rated R, which one would you give and why?

PG-13. In my novels, readers will find a frank discussion of teen sexuality, lots of great kissing scenes, but nothing explicit. And no vulgar language. Penguin rated it for readers 12 and up.

What topics, issues, or themes does your book address? What drove you to write about them?

Several years ago, my husband and I were scuba diving off the coast of Cozumel, Mexico. Halfway through the trip the weather turned nasty. Dark skies. Rain. We still dove. Darker than usual, but nothing stops divers.

In between dives, we huddled on the boat getting rained on. To the south of us, a thick band of wicked clouds blocked up the sky. A newsy guy informed us our rain and those clouds were what was left of a hurricane that had just hit Belize. He told us the hurricane capsized a boatload of divers and most of them drowned. None of us believed him. Divers don’t drown. He insisted–and he was right. A large live-aboard yacht docked in what they thought was a safe port. They were wrong.

Over the next several months, I followed the story closely. I found news articles on the internet and watched the memorial grow on the website of the dive club who chartered the boat and lost so many. I felt a kinship with those dead divers. The clouds that killed them rained on me, too.

I began asking myself, “what if?” What if the only survivor of a similar fictional accident was a guy whose parents drowned? How did he survive? What happened to him after? Who would he live with now? Where would he go?

And, most important, who would love him?

When I started my MFA, Michael’s voice emerged during a free-write. I stirred around the pieces of my life in my memory, and picked up my Grandmother’s house in my tiny hometown. I sent Michael there and introduced him to the only Mormon girl in town who was living in my old farmhouse. They started talking in my head all time. I scribbled as fast as I could to keep up. It’s really their story, not mine.

What I did was revise, revise, revise–with the help of my MFA advisors, critique pals, editors who rejected me, and at last the editor who fell in love with Michael and Leesie just like I did.

TAKEN BY STORM deals with several subjects vital to teens—loss, grief, suicide, intimacy, love, faith and spirituality. On the very basic level, it explores the human need we all have to help someone who is suffering and the love that develops when we give of ourselves.

Leesie is a unique character in trade YA. She is the only authentic, faithful Mormon girl created by an insider—a Mormon author who knows what she’s talking about. Readers curious about Mormons will become intimate with Leesie and experience what it’s like to be part of an often misunderstood and misrepresented religion.

Name three examples of readers who would identify or like your book.

• Teen girls (and their moms) who like to cry over a good love story.
• Anyone curious about scuba diving or Mormonism.
• Anyone who has lost a loved one.

List a few statistically improbable phrases or sentences one might find in your book. These are phrases or sentences you might never find anywhere else.

staring chick
pants quilt
sweet banana mango shampoo

How can your book be used in the classroom?

The story unwinds through Michael’s dive log journal entries, poems from Leesie’s “Most Private Chapbook,” and internet chats. This collage format makes the text accessible and enjoyable for readers at all levels of achievement. Creative writing teachers can use Leesie’s poems as springboards for their students own free verse narrative poems and Michael’s entries to inspire journal writing.

TAKEN BY STORM is a classic tale of star-crossed lovers. Students studying Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet,” will enjoy comparing the subtleties of a modern story with the bard’s classic drama.

In homes, classrooms, and reading groups, TAKEN BY STORM can stimulate deep felt discussions, opening up areas teens and adults are often uneasy about discussing.

Now tell us about other already-published books that readers of your book might enjoy.

• Young adult fans who enjoy TAKEN BY STORM will love exploring the Norma Fox Mazer’s classic YA novels like After the Rain and Silver.
• Several reviewers have noted that TAKEN BY STORM has the same “romantic chords” as Stephanie Meyers Twilight saga.
• Penguin advises that readers who enjoy Nicholas Sparks’ Walk to Remember or The Notebook will find a similar tragic love story in TAKEN BY STORM.

Now whet our appetites with a teaser.

The world spins, the stars shift,
and I can’t see anything except his smoky
gray eyes gazing into mine.

You scare me, whispers
from my mouth across his

Good, he breathes into me.
I need you to save me.

Are you offering authors visits to schools, libraries, or other organizations?

Yes.

Are you willing to speak nationally?

Yes.

List a few example titles of presentations, talks, or workshops you might give for an author visit.

• Write What you Know
• From Faith to Fiction
• Revision: A Workshop

This concludes our interview with our latest author, ANGELA MORRISON. We wish her much success with her novel TAKEN BY STORM. To see what Angela  is up to these days, visit her website at http://www.angela-morrison.com.

*GIVEAWAY ALERT* Angela is giving away a signed copy of TAKEN BY STORM to two winners. Tell your friends and leave a comment for the author! Enter by February 9th, 2010 11:59 PM CST. (U.S. and Canadian residents only, please.)

Your email address will not be displayed publicly and will only be used to contact you if you win! And don’t forget to participate in our other AuthorsNow! giveaways.

TAKEN BY STORM by by Angela Morrison

• Publication Season/Year: Spring, 2009
• Publisher: Razorbill
• Release Date: March 5, 2009
• ISBN (hardcover): 978-1-59514-238-2
• ISBN (paperback): 978-1-59514-274-0

Seventeen-year-old Leesie Hunt has rules: No making out. No sex. And definitely no falling for a non-Mormon. She pours all her passion into poetry, thoughts of escaping her tiny town and getting into her dream school, BYU.

Then scuba diver Michael Walden arrives in Tekoa and everything changes. He survived a storm that took his parents’ lives, and the world as he knew it.

Leesie and Michael couldn’t be more different. His dreams are tied to the depths of the ocean and hers to salvation above. Yet they are drawn to each other, even when jealousy, unbearable rules, and haunting memories threaten to tear them apart.

Michael is drowning in tragedy, and Leesie knows it’s up to her to save him. Somehow. But when temptation becomes too strong to resist, who is going to save her?