by Amy Bright
3. Hunter is a compelling character, but some of the secondary characters in Swimmers are also pretty interesting people. Was there a character in Swimmers you found yourself rooting for especially, someone whose story you really hoped would have a happy ending?
Bridget and Hunter’s Aunt Lynne were two of my favorite characters to write, and I think I imagined much more background material for the two of them than almost any other character. I love writing about siblings and sibling relationships and, initially I wanted Bridget to play a much bigger role in the story. In an early, early, early draft, Bridget was actually the main character of the story, and she was watching her brother Hunter deal with what had happened to Niall. That draft didn’t make it very far, because I think it was always Hunter’s story, first and foremost, and he had to be central to it. But I liked Bridget as the older sister who was there for her brother, even when he didn’t want her to be, and trying to figure out her own life, and leaving home when so much of it was with her parents and Hunter in Victoria.
I felt a similar way about Hunter’s Aunt Lynne, in that I was really interested in what her life looked like before, after, and during the time that Hunter had come to stay with her. I kind of felt that she would have loved the opportunity to have her nephew come to live with her for a few months, and I liked that idea that she had room in her life for him. I felt like it would have changed her just as much as it changed him.
4. How important do you think happy endings are, or aren’t, in books for young people?
This question makes me think of a throwaway line in the movie Silver Linings Playbook, where the main character Pat finishes Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms by saying: "He survives the war after getting blown up. He survives it and he escapes to Switzerland with Catherine. You think he ends it there? No! She dies, Dad! I mean, the world’s hard enough as it is, guys. Can’t someone say, Hey, let’s be positive? Let’s have a good ending to the story?" I love happy endings in young adult books. It’s a unique type of ending, because the ending to a young adult novel is never a solid ending to what happens to the teenage characters. Young adulthood is so much about moving on, toward adulthood and away from childhood, that endings aren’t permanent and stable. So when they’re happy, it’s like a bit of optimism for what happens next in their lives.
That being said, I also think that unhappy, sad, or ambiguous readings are so important for teenagers to read as well. Books that aren’t wrapped up perfectly at the end, and are, instead, ambiguous and unstable, can also teach teenagers that they aren’t alone, reflecting a more bleak reality that might be closer to their own lives. That happy ending doesn’t always reflect a teenage reader’s own version of reality, and might not seem as genuine as something much bleaker. Especially in high school English classes (where books like Wuthering Heights, Hamlet, Macbeth, and others with their doom-and-gloom endings seem to always be on the reading lists), I think it’s so important to have a mix of happy ending and not-so-happy ending books, in order to really reflect the reality of teenage readers and their understanding of how stories and endings happen. It can be hard to handle the unhappy ending.
5. What was your favorite scene in Swimmers to write?
There are a couple of party scenes in Swimmers and, though both of them were really fun to write, one sort of stands out more than the other. The exchanges between Lee and Hunter were probably my favorite to write (outside of the ones between Hunter and his psychologist), and you really get to see them throughout all stages of a relationship. And my favorite part of their relationship happens at a party near the beginning of the book. I remember reading a book by Jaclyn Moriarty when I was younger, where a group of teenagers from Ashbury High School get locked in a walk-in closet for the night, and what happens inside of the closet is told from about three or four points of view. My favorite scene to write was when Hunter and Lee get stuck in an attic at a house party with a bunch of other people.
6. Who would you say are your favorite writers (or books), and how do you think they have influenced you as a writer?
I read constantly when I was younger, both adult books and young adult books. Now that I’m working on my PhD in English, which is on young adult literature, I have a built-in excuse to read YA literature. It’s my job! It’s for my dissertation! But really, I’ve always loved YA books and the authors that write them. I absolutely love Australian writer Jaclyn Moriarty and her Ashbury/Brookfield series, Libba Bray for Going Bovine and The Diviners series, Terry Pratchett’s Tiffany Aching books, The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black, and the steampunk/paranormal/romance series (there’s an adult one and a YA one) by Gail Carriger. I’ve really loved being able to read YA books by authors like Moriarty and Bray as a teenager, and then their newer publications as an adult. I think reading constantly has been the biggest influence on me as a writer, and reading YA books about teenage characters, both as a teenager and as an adult. It’s so neat to watch the way stories for teenagers change, and then write along with other authors.
TV probably also plays a big part in influencing my writing because I watch a lot of it. The stories being told on TV are so good, complicated, and appeal to teenagers just as much as YA lit does. And then I’m really influenced by trashy reality shows and WWE, which might not show up too much in Swimmers, but it definitely formed the background noise of much of the drafting process.
7. Who do you see as the "swimmers" in this book?
I saw Poppy and Hunter as the "swimmers" in this book. And oh, man, swimming can be hard. If you haven’t done it for a while and then you jump in a pool and try to swim a couple of laps? It’s instant sink-to-the-bottom-of-the-pool. I’m more of a flutterboard and flippers swimmer. Also, it can be insanely disorienting and terrifying if you don’t know how to swim, and no matter how hard you kick your legs or tread water, you can’t do that forever. Poppy and Hunter have both been treading water for a long time. They’ve been working so hard to stay in one place, heads just bobbing above the water, that they haven’t even worked out how to go forward yet. I saw their stories as the hardest work ever, both of them having to relearn how to work at their normal lives and find a way to flail themselves forward toward that. Maybe swimming’s like riding a bicycle—you never forget how to do it—but it still takes a long time to get good at it again.
Copyright © 2014 by Amy Bright
Published in Canada by Red Deer Press, 195 Allstate Parkway, Markham, Ontario L3R 4T8
Published in the United States by Red Deer Press, 311 Washington Street, Brighton, Massachusetts 02135
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews and articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Red Deer Press, 195 Allstate Parkway, Markham, Ontario L3R 4T8.
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Red Deer Press acknowledges with thanks the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Ontario Arts Council for their support of our publishing program. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund (CBF) for our publishing activities.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Bright, Amy, author Swimmers / Amy Bright.
Issued in print and electronic formats. ISBN 978-0-88995-513-4 (pbk), ISBN 978-1-55244-332-3 (pdf). ISBN 978-1-55244-331-6 (epub)
I. Title.
PS8603.R542S95 2014 jC813’.6 C2014-902881-4 C2014-902882-2
Publisher Cataloging-in-Publication Data (U.S.)
ISBN 9780889955134
Data available on file
Edited for the Press by Kathy Stinson
Design by Daniel Choi
Cover image courtesy of iStock
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