Mrs. Thompson Interview

Among Santana High School’s staff is young adult author Karri Thompson. Thompson is a local Santee instructor who has been teaching English since 1993. She grew up in east county and attended Grossmont High School. Currently, she teaches AP Lang and ERCW, a senior English class. As of yet, she has all her books in The Van Winkle Project trilogy published consisting of Mirror X, Ascendency, and Relegation. Recently she published The Grove, the first book of her next trilogy, and has plans to publish the second book of the trilogy on March 8.

On October 26, fellow student Kaylee Burns and I (Rojin Dawood) interviewed Mrs. Thompson in the Santana library. Upon entering the warm atmosphere, I felt instant solace due to the contrasting outside weather. The three of us strolled toward the farthest of the four chaired tables in the middle of the library. Taking a seat, the conversation commenced smoothly. Having already known Thompson prior to the interview, the conversation was not unnerving as we dove right in.

Rojin: What inspired you to become a writer?

Thompson: I was an avid reader, and I used to read like all the time, I used to have a pile of books next to my bed as a kid. And then I would read one and then put them in my read pile. I'd like to see my piles change...one gets lower as the other one gets higher. And so I just loved reading so much that I just came up with my own stories and then I just wanted to write them down.

Rojin: How has being a teacher influenced your writing?

Thompson: Well, initially I wanted to write adult romance, but since I'm around teenagers all the time, I decided to write Young Adult because I kind of felt like even though I was no longer a teenager, I'm still very familiar with the kind of language they use and what their concerns are and what's important to them. And I see a lot of students in and out of relationships. And since my young adults have a little romance in there, I thought that would be the direction to go.

Rojin: How would you describe your writing style?

Thompson: Well, I write typically in first person, so it's always the character telling the story. I

like to be very descriptive, but at the same time, I know just from experience with my own students that they don't like a lot of descriptions. A lot of them tend to say that they skip over that…Even my publisher said that people in our society, we're the information age so we like to get information quickly. And people don't usually want to read really long books. They want to get through something quicker now. That's just kind of the way people are. And so they always say you need to have shorter sentences, because that tends to be what a reader likes these days. So I love Charles Dickens, some of you know, and he writes really long, lengthy sentences and that tends to be my style, but I'm actually trying to write shorter sentences and not have so many complex sentences in my writing, but my style is very detailed and complex, which I try and move away from a little bit.

Rojin: Besides adult fiction, or young adult, is there any other genre you enjoy writing?

Thompson: Well, with my young adult it's primarily been like sci-fi fantasy, which is my love

because I grew up reading the Lord of the Rings novels, and then as an adult, I read all the Harry Potter novels, so I've always loved science fiction. I’m a big Star Trek fan, Star Wars fan. But so one genre that I have been working on in a book but it's not published is contemporary young adult. So just something that takes place in today's time. And that's a genre that I have not published in yet. And so that's what I want to explore more.

Rojin: Who is your target audience?

Thompson: So that would be high school students. But also, a lot of adults tend to read YA these days. That kind of started, I think, when Twilight came out, which is young adult. And so I'm finding my own readers who read my stuff in high school, but I have a lot of adults like probably in their 20s and 30s who read my books too…

Rojin: What's your writing process?

Thompson: Well, writers, we have two different writing processes. They either say

that you're a pantser or a plotter. So what that means is you either write by the seat of your pants, so you don't have any idea other than a basic idea, and you just start writing. And some people are plotters where they plan it out, and they do like a whole outline. And I know writers who are like that, they'll actually write a synopsis for the whole story, and then they'll do an outline for each chapter. But I don't do that. So I'm a pantser. So I have a basic idea. And then I just start writing. In fact, this trilogy that I have, The Grove is the latest one that just got released, and then Perilune, the second book comes out March 8. That one's done and in edits right now. The third book, my publisher already has the cover for it. And I already have the title. And I haven't even written it yet. But I know it's going to take place in Alaska. So when they did the cover, they knew to make the scene to be Alaska, but I don't even have the book written. I have a basic idea in my mind, but when I go to start writing it, which I'll probably start really tackling during Thanksgiving break. I'll just sit down and just start writing and it'll just start kind of coming to me as I go.

Rojin: How is The Grove similar or different to your previous work?

Thompson: The Grove is a fantasy. The Grove is actually like a hidden world, within our own world. That one is this fantasy [about] the main character [whose] name is Laura when she enters that world, it's almost like walking into a fairy tale. My other trilogy, Mirror X, the Van Winkle Project trilogy, with Mirror X, Ascendancy, and Relegation, those take place in the future. So the new series has magic and beings that are not humans, whereas the dystopian just takes place in the future. So there isn't any magic, but the technology obviously is more advanced. There's no magic, there's no creatures, other than humans. So that's the major difference even though they both are under the genre of sci- fi fantasy.

Rojin: What is your favorite book that you've written?

Thompson: Probably Mirror X has to be my favorite. That's not my first novel. That's my second one. But my first one was with a smaller publisher. And I feel because it was a smaller publisher they weren't as professional even though they published it. I didn't have to pay for anything. They did everything. Their marketing, they didn't put a lot of money into the marketing because they were a smaller publisher, but with Mirror X and that trilogy, that's with the bigger publisher, it's not with one of the big top New York publishers but it's a bigger publisher who put a lot more time into it. And with the marketing, that book did really well. In fact, and I'm kind of excited about this, but I can't get too excited because it may not happen, but just two weeks ago, October 11, I remember the day my publisher emailed me to say that they pitched that trilogy to Netflix, and they're interested. And that's all they told me. They said they're talking to Netflix and they're interested in either doing the movie option, which means they get the rights to the books for one year. You don't get any money. That means that they are the only ones that have it for a year to decide if they want to make it into a movie and nobody else can. You can't option it to anybody else. If they decide from that point to buy the rights, and that's where I would actually get some money out of it. And that means that they would actually turn it into something if their thinking of buying it. It would either be like a series or limited series like six episodes because they're interested in the whole trilogy, not just the first book. Or it could just end up being like one movie or three made for Netflix because Netflix has their own production company and their own stuff. And so it's very exciting. But at the same time they could come back and say ‘oh, we changed our mind. We're not interested’...So I'm waiting. You can't imagine how many times I checked my phone to see if I'm getting an email from this lady. So I don't know and it may not turn into anything but at the same time because they were even slightly interested. So that's why that's probably my favorite book.

Rojin: What can we expect from you in the future?

Thompson: Well, I've got Perilune coming out, March 8, and then the last book, which is not even written yet, is called Landaffia, which is actually the...mysterious group of people that are hidden in the forest in the Grove. The Landaffins, they are the assets of the land. And so that book comes out in October. I mean, they already have a date for it and the cover, like I said... And then I do have that contemporary novel that I wrote that I'm still kind of just working on. And I'm hoping that one will get published but you never know. I mean, I could give that to my publisher. And they may say we can't sell it...it can be the best book ever that I've written. And if they don't feel like there's a market for it, because it's all about making money,...they won't take it. So I'm hoping they will. So that's, that's the contemporary that I'm working on. And then I don't really have any other ideas right now because I have those other books to do first, but in the future, it'll be young adults, because that's kind of my love. Now. And I've already kind of grown a little bit of an audience. So to change genres like not to change genres, but to change age groups. Like to start all of a sudden writing adult romance. I'd have to have a new audience so I'm going to stick to Young Adult.

Finalizing the conversation, both Kaylee and I were astonished by the newly gained knowledge. Seeing Thompson strolling around campus, I would never have suspected all the exciting opportunities she has advancing in her direction. Her new beginning as an award winning author might just be around the corner. Be sure to keep up with local author Karri Thompson and her work.