Erzsi Deak

Paper Lantern Lit is a boutique literary development company committed to quality fiction with a focus on novels for teens and young people.

I recently chatted (Q&A with attitude) with Paper Lantern Lit co-founders Lexa Hillyer and Lauren Oliver to find out what they are up to.


1. You two are clearly having a blast turning Paper Lantern Lit into a major force. Any recent high notes you can sing out?

LH: We’re immensely proud of all of our projects! One of the things we value most is cultivating projects that allow us to showcase unique voices. We’ve recently sold our fifth project, so we’re 5 for 5, a nice track record so far, and each one is a little different. There’s FURY, a sexy teen paranormal horror trilogy; POPULAR CLONE, a riotous middle grade story about a boy genius; BUTTERFLY CLUES, a teen literary thriller about an OCD girl who stumbles into a murder mystery; MEANT TO BE, a Shakespearean comedy of errors involving text messages and romantic entanglements; and finally, VENOM, the first book in an enticing and mysterious teen trilogy set in late Renaissance Venice. We love them equally!

2. How does your book development company differ from packagers like Alloy and Working Partners, or even agencies like Upstart Crow, which are also turning ideas into books?

LH: Like all of the above-mentioned groups, we are very involved in the creation of story content, and we collaborate with writers to make those stories come to life. I suppose one difference is that we tend to be a bit less focused on market trends and more focused on stories that we hope will have universal appeal and a lot of heart. We are not particularly interested in “branding” PLL with a certain type of book. We want to continue to be surprising.

LO: Also, we probably spend more time talking about shoes.

3. How do you know you’ve found the “perfect writer”?

LH: It’s like love! Call me cheesy, but with every writer we’ve taken on, we’ve had a moment of “just knowing.” And the reason is that we’re looking for people with distinct, special talents. Since we both have MFAs and a lot of editorial experience, we can help develop our writers in the skills they don’t yet have. So what we’re looking for is that unteachable spark. Sometimes a writer who is super versatile is actually less likely to stand out and impress us.

LO: I agree. We really think of ourselves as match-makers; when the right writer and the right spark collide, they somehow seamlessly integrate, and we can feel that ease as we read.

4. Have you found the perfect writer surfing the web or following Tweets?

LH: We’ve found people in all sorts of places, though truthfully they often find us first. I guess we’ve been lucky in that! We only want people who are excited about how we work. We don’t really need to poach people or wrangle with divas—not when there are so many equally talented people out there who are willing to work hard, adapt and learn along with us. And those tend to be the types who seek us out anyway!

5. You two are the sparkmeisters at PLL, but do you also accept idea proposals from writers?

LH: So far, no. Not because there aren’t zillions of people out there with INCREDIBLE ideas, but because for now we are hoping to keep our business model clean and straightforward. We want to be sure that all of our projects are ones that we’d be willing to really stick our necks out for.

6. When is a manuscript done, in your humble (or not so humble) opinion?

LH: When our brilliant agent says, “hey I think I can sell this now!” Hahaha. Seriously, though: we often have our writers do quite a bit of revision on the proposals before we go on submission, but we also try to be sensitive about not totally exhausting them or ourselves. We try to reread our projects quite a bit, each time with a new “lens”—this time looking for physical detail, next time looking for emotional fluidity, then thinking about the characters’ motives and goals, and so on. Each sentence should serve a purpose but at the same time feel effortless—impossible, right? But we can try.

LO: We do push our writers very hard, because we love to work with writers who are interested in growth and learning. But we also know when to stop obsessing! At a certain point, it’s time to close up the computer, go eat some chocolate, and call it a day. Or, in this case, a finished book.

7. We know you are all over PRETTY LITTLE LIARS, but what do you consider the most memorable scene in a film and why?

LH: Wow. Toughie. I am a big Wes Anderson fan and I love the scene from “The Royal Tenenbaums” where Gene Hackman’s character tells Anjelica Huston’s character that he is dying and she begins to cry. Then he says, “no wait, wait. I’m not dying.” She sobers up and slaps him. He feels badly and then says, “Actually, I am dying.” I am also obsessed with every single line of “When Harry Met Sally” and am a huge sucker for Austen remakes. Love that scene in “Sense & Sensibility” with Marianne on the hill in the rain, looking out at Willoughby’s estate and reciting Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116, “…love is not love which alters, when it alteration finds…”

LO: Um, this is COMPLETELY random, but I’ve always loved the scene at the end of the Planet of the Apes when the escaped heroes come across the half-sunken statue of liberty and realize they’ve been on a destroyed and reclaimed earth the entire time. Gasp! And then one of the main characters sinks to his knees and screams “nooooo!” into the echoing emptiness. SO melodramatic, and so good. I’m also pretty much obsessed with every scene in the Leonardo DiCaprio/Claire Danes version of Romeo and Juliet. I think I cried for three days after I first saw that movie.

8. Lexa, did you complete your MFA in poetry? What was your thesis?

LH: Yes, thanks! My thesis is a full-length collection of poems tentatively titled Black Dress Friday, which I’m currently revising.

9. You’ve started with YA books (FURY comes to mind); are you also developing sparks for younger kids and even adults? What is your sweet spot in literature?

LH: We want to do it all! Teen is certainly where most of my editorial experience lies, although stay tuned for some incredible middle grade books by Lauren Oliver herself in the next couple of years! We are open to all age-ranges. Usually, the spark comes to us and demands a certain audience, so then we follow it in whatever direction it needs to go. We hope to do more middle grade books very soon!

LO: Our commitment is really to finding and developing great stories, wherever they may be and regardless of readership. One of our big reasons for starting PLL was to give ourselves the freedom to explore stories in a variety of genres and for a variety of demographics.

10. Can you discuss some recent projects that are in-the-works?

LH: Nope! That would take away the SURPRISE! Besides, we have to protect our babies until they are ready to go out into the world on their own… They often change A LOT before we end up going on submission.

11. Are Apps part of PLL’s future?

LH: If by “apps” you mean appetizers, then yes: part of our past, present, and future! We are also absolutely aware of all the awesome opportunities afforded by cell phone technology and are certainly interested in exploring interactive story development. So, we’ll see!

12. You both chose Disney boys for your secret cartoon crushes (interesting…). But answer me this, Edward or Jacob (or, okay, Ron)?

LH: Ron??? Um. Hm. I have to say I would have been all over Edward in high school, but Jacob would probably have been my college crush of choice. Now I prefer real men/ werewolves to those on the big screen.

LS: Definitely Ron. I don’t like boyfriends who might be trying to kill me! I prefer boyfriends who are very nice and buy me flowers.

13. How do you come up with the perfect pen name for your writers? Is there a Ouija Board involved?

LH: I love that idea! Hahaha. Maybe our next writer will be called Ouija Smith. Actually most of the names are selected or in some way suggested by the writer. We want it to be something that the writer can celebrate and promote. We go for something simple, something that rolls off the tongue, and isn’t too obviously fake. So, no Priscilla Featherbottoms for now.

LO: What? No Priscilla Featherbottoms?? I quit.

http://paperlanternlit.com

Illustrator-author Sergio Ruzzier (http://www.ruzzier.com/) is making a list and he's inviting anyone who's passionate about picture books (for folks ages 0 to infinity) to list their favorite picture books from any time and and from any country.

If you'd like to join other authors, illustrators, editors, art directors, booksellers, agents, and readers, please send him your top 10 at sergio(at)ruzzier.com


The lists will be posted on his blog: http://www.facebook.com/l/4dd330ya_lS5NazKFS6nGIX4sNQ;sergioruzzier.blogspot.com

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(Try to ignore the hot Russian chicks at the top of this site: http://www.hotflick.net/celebs/esmee_buchet-deak.html)

Signed: StageMama

Post-Frankfurt meanderings. What's your flavor? Apps or dystopia? These two "words" were and remain on a lot of people's minds at Frankfurt (of course, "digital" was huge, too, especially with the likes of Google Books holding court in Hall 8). But, until the end of the world, well, ends, we can look forward to more titles [yes, there are others coming down the pike in addition to ACROSS THE UNIVERSE by Beth Revis (Razorbill, Jan 2011), MATCHED (Dutton, Nov 2010) and DELIRIUM (Harper, Feb 2011] and apps getting more sophisticated. On the dystopian front, Blogger "Presenting Lenore" did a nice intro to upcoming dystopian books awhile back, MEMENTO NORA (Angie Smibert, Marshall Cavendish, April 2011) included, and guides us to The League of Extraordinary Writers, debut dystopian novelists banding together for "airtime." Since dystopia isn't for everyone and paranormals have their own universe or blood source, those seeking a more realistic focus have The Contemps (YA Authors Keeping It Real), authors that offer an alternative to the paranormal and dystopian spins of story in the form of "real" contemporary fiction, often scary and dysfunctional as well as funny and poignant. And all too real (mysterious death, suicide, sharks, drugs, boys, girls, cupcakes, kidnapping, cults -- you know, fun stuff!).

If you've some great genre sites or blogs, send'em along to me at Erzsi [at] ErzsiDeak [dot] com.

On the Apps front, this latest version of publishing looks very exciting. The task is to remember story and to keep the apps different than "mere" games. (For anyone interested, the SCBWI looks to be honing in on Apps at the Midwinter Conference in January.)