Becoming Books: [Blog Tour] Interview with Screaming Divas author Suzanne Kamata + Giveaway

I'm really excited to have Suzanne Kamata on the blog today to talk about her upcoming release Screaming Divas! A great contemporary set in the 1980s, featuring great music and the forming of a diverse all-girl band. After the interview be sure to stick around (scroll down) for the giveaway and check out the upcoming tour stops for playlists, reviews and other fun features throughout April.

There are a number of girlfriend coming of age stories, what do you feel Screaming Divas adds to the genre or makes the characters unique?

This book is set in a specific time and place - 1980s South Carolina. I think most novels set in the South play up to certain expectations. There are a lot of books about black and white relationships, or about plantation life, or Southern debutantes or whatever, but not too many about Asian Americans in the South, or cool girl bands, of which there happen to be many! The current governor is an Indian-American woman. It’s time for some diversity in Southern fiction, I think.

If you could cast your characters in the Hollywood adaptation of your book, who would play your characters?

Maybe Miley Cyrus could play Trudy. And for Cassie, I’m thinking Taylor Swift. I think Morgan Saylor would make a brilliant Esther, and I can’t think of the perfect Japanese-American actress to play Harumi, but she should be able to do cool and serene like the Korean figure skater Kim Yu Na.

There have been a lot of good decades for rock and roll, what is it about the 80s that stuck out for you?

It was the end of the punk/new wave era. The band in the story is more inspired by the Riot Grrrl movement in the 1990s and the bands that came out of the Northwest, like Bikini Kill, Babes in Toyland, and later, Sleater Kinney, and of course Hole, but I wanted them to be punk. And also to be cutting edge. So they are pre-riot grrrls. :-)

We don't see many modern day girl bands (with instruments!), what inspired you choose this topic?

I’ve always loved girl groups like the Go-Gos and the Bangles and those other bands I mentioned above. I originally wanted to write about a Motown girl group like the Supremes, but not being African-American and not having come of age during that era, I figured that there was a good chance that I would get a lot wrong. And people would tell me about it!

Do you play any instruments? If so, was playing part of your inspiration for writing? If not, what instrument would you like to learn?

Well, I took piano and acoustic guitar lessons, and I occasionally go to karaoke. I’m inspired by people who can do things that I can’t, so I write a lot of stories about artists and athletes. When I was younger, I had fantasies of being a singer in a band, but I’m really too shy to get on stage. I like it better on the sidelines. I guess that’s why I became a writer.

Thank you for these fun questions, and for featuring me on your blog!

Screaming Divas by Suzanne Kamata Publication Date: May 18, 2014 Publisher: Merit Press Pages: 208 Genre: YA Contemporary

At sixteen, Trudy Baxter is tired of her debutante mom, her deadbeat dad, and her standing reservation at the juvenile detention center. Changing her name to Trudy Sin, she cranks up her major chops as a singer and starts a band, gathering around other girls ill at ease in their own lives. Cassie Haywood, would-have-been beauty queen, was scarred in an accident in which her alcoholic mom was killed. But she can still sing and play her guitar, even though she seeks way too much relief from the pain in her body and her heart through drugs, and way too much relief from loneliness through casual sex. Still, it’s Cassie who hears former child prodigy Harumi Yokoyama playing in a punk band at a party, and enlists her, outraging Harumi’s overbearing first-generation Japanese parents. The fourth member is Esther Shealy, who joins as a drummer in order to be close to Cassie–the long-time object of her unrequited love–and Harumi, her estranged childhood friend. Together, they are Screaming Divas, and they’re quickly swept up as a local sensation. Then, just as they are about to achieve their rock-girl dreams, a tragedy strikes.

About the Author:

Back in the day, Suzanne Kamata spent a lot of time hanging out in a club in Columbia, South Carolina, much like the one in Screaming Divas. (The beat goes on . . .) She later wrote about musicians for The State newspaper, The Japan Times, and other publications. Now, she mostly writes novels. In her free time, she enjoys searching for the perfect fake fur leopard-print coat and listening to the Japanese all-girl band Chatmonchy. Her YA debut, Gadget Girl: The Art of Being Invisible was named the 2013-2014 APALA YA Honor Book and Grand Prize Winner of the Paris Book Festival. For more info, visit http://www.suzannekamata.com or follow her on Twitter @shikokusue.