American - Writer | 1973 -
I worked at a job where 90 percent of my coworkers were Spanish-speaking, and some of them were only Spanish-speaking. My rule was if someone came into the office needing something - I worked in HR at the time - they had to bring a Spanish word to teach me. That was the deal.
Rae Carson
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I was a Social Science major in college, with an emphasis in secondary education. I took as many courses on the American colonial era and westward expansion as I could. This turned out to be wonderful preparation for writing fantasy novels.
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I miss my family and friends from Cali a lot. I also miss late-night business hours, hiking in the Sierra Nevada, and house boating in Gold Country. But in Ohio, housing is cheaper, everything is green year-round, and we get glorious thunderstorms. In California, I lived in a place that was infested with black widow spiders.
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I saw 'Star Wars' for the first time when I was four years old. Sure, I thought Princess Leia was awesome. But the character I identified with most was Luke Skywalker. I left the theater certain the Force was strong with me, that I could train to be a Jedi and wield a lightsaber just like Luke.
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The common thread in all my projects is 'girls being awesome.' Can we make that a genre?
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I was a teenage girl once. I was not an overweight teenage girl, but I had really bad acne when I was 11 or 12 years old. It was heart-rending, and people made fun of me. People whispered when I walked by in the hallways, and I was sure they were whispering about me. My adult perspective is maybe they weren't.
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I do confess to being the exasperated, bossy, know-it-all, overachieving big sister.
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I've had a love affair with the desert ever since I can remember. No matter what I wrote - contemporary romance, spy thriller, high fantasy - it was going to have a desert in it.
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I must be honest here; I don't think there's such a thing as 'unconventional' when it comes to YA. YA readers are the most open-minded in the literary world. They'll read anything.
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Competing in pageants made me hyper-aware of the unfair expectations society places on women in terms of youth and beauty. But it also gave me empathy for women who use beauty as a creative exploration. When expressed healthfully, dressing up, doing hair, crafting makeup, etc., is an art form.
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The message was always, 'It's good to be pretty, but don't look like you're trying to be pretty!' Inherent in that is a lot of misogyny, I think, because the implication is, 'You must work hard to achieve a feminine ideal for which society has nothing but contempt.'
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Some of the most common pitfalls I see occur when authors don't check their privilege. Billions are living in a personal apocalypse right this second, so a little research and empathy can go a long way toward developing a convincing world.
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