The Nerd Daily contributor Mimi recently had the pleasure of talking to Jeff Zentner, award-winning author of The Serpent King, Goodbye Days and Rayne & Delilah’s Midnite Matinee. We got to ask Jeff about his latest release In the Wild Light, a compelling exploration of grief, found family and young love, his writing process and his love for the South!
Hi, Jeff! Thanks so much for taking the time to chat with us! Why don’t you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
Thank you! Well, I used to be a musician. That’s what I spent the latter part of my teen years, my twenties, and the first half of my thirties doing. I recorded some albums and had a great time, but I eventually realized that I was never going to make it big as a musician, so I gave up the dream and started volunteering at Tennessee Teens Rock Camp and Southern Girls Rock Camp, teaching guitar to young adults who might be able to go further than I did. Through this experience, I came to love the way that young adults connect with the art they love, and I resolved myself to make art for young adults. Having long since passed the expiration date for making music for young adults, I turned to writing. I wrote three young adult novels mostly on my phone on the bus to and from my day job and got them published. Now I have a fourth coming.
Lightning round: What was the first book you remember reading, the latest book you couldn’t put down and the one you wish you’d written?
That’s a tough one because I’ve been able to read for longer than I’ve been able to form long-term memories. I’ve been able to read since I was three, but I really have no memories older than age four. So instead I’ll cite the first true novel I ever read—Child of the Owl by Laurence Yep. I read it in fourth grade and it was my first experience reading a book that quiet. It wasn’t about jet fighters or Vikings or killer whales or trucks or any of the other things I loved at that age. It was a coming-of-age story about a Chinese-American girl who goes to live with her grandparents. And I found it compelling. It’s the book that taught me that I could care about the lives of imaginary people.
The latest book I couldn’t put down was Open Water by Caleb Azumah Nelson, a gorgeously poetic novella written in second person, about young Black creatives falling in love in London.
I have a very hard time answering the “book I wish I’d written” question because to have written one of my favorite books means I would be deprived of the pleasure of reading them. So let me answer this question in a roundabout way: I would love to have the mastery of language and poetry that let Ocean Vuong write On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, that let Jesmyn Ward write Salvage the Bones, that let Michael Ondaatje write The English Patient, and that let Cormac McCarthy write The Road.
You’re quite the multitalent – you are a writer, guitarist, songwriter, poet and much more. What would readers be stunned to learn about you?
That I’ve never had a formal guitar lesson, a formal creative writing lesson, a formal songwriting lesson, or a formal poetry lesson. I learn by watching, doing, taking critique, and befriending people I admire and picking their brains.
You’ve been quite open about writing most of your stories on the bus on the way to and from work. How do you manage to stay immersed in your story in these small spans of time? Do you have any recommendations for fellow busy aspiring writers?
The beauty of writing on my phone is that it ties up my phone so I can’t go looking for ways to waste time online. After my first book, I tried to switch over to a little tablet and keyboard setup. But I found I was less efficient that way because then my phone was available to screw around with.
It’s actually the small amounts of time that help me to stay immersed. When you know you have a very limited window of time each day to put your words on the page, you try not to spin your wheels. To that end, every day when I would get home from work (in the days when I used to commute to work—no longer) I would walk my dogs and think about where I wanted my writing to go the next day. That hour or so of thinking time each day was a huge help to using my limited time efficiently.
That’s my advice for the busy writer—plan ahead. It’ll help you use those scraps of time better. Also, don’t beat yourself up if you don’t have time to put words on the page each day. As a writer, you’re on the clock, doing good work, if you’re thinking about your story. You could have a breakthrough while you’re waiting in line to pick up the kids at school or folding laundry. It all counts.
Now, onto In the Wild Light! What can readers expect?
Readers of In the Wild Light can expect to see the cumulation of lessons I’ve learned in my first three books—what works, what doesn’t, what elements need to be turned up, what need to be turned down. They can expect to see Easter eggs to all of my previous novels, some quite significant. I’m told readers can expect to laugh and cry. Readers can expect to see characters I love deeply, which was true of all of my previous books. So if you loved those characters, there’s a good chance you’ll love these.
But then there are some things you’ll see in In the Wild Light that have never appeared in my previous novels. For example, much of In the Wild Light takes place in Connecticut, even though my characters are from Tennessee. Also, in previous novels, I went out of my way not to try to reproduce art-within-the-art, such as song lyrics written by my characters. But in In the Wild Light, I put actual poetry on the page.
Someone once said that authors leave a piece of themselves and what they love in the books they write. What piece of yourself did you leave in your four published novels?
Every one of my books is a referendum on the things I love and that fascinate me at that point in my life. They all go in the book. Also, while none of my characters are me on the page, almost all of my characters grow from a little piece of myself and my personality.
In the Wild Light is incredibly atmospheric – even though I’ve never been to the South, I feel like I have after reading the book. What does Tennessee mean to you and why is it such a focal setting in your novels?
Tennessee is my home. It’s the place I love. It’s the place I’m supposed to be. It’s not a perfect place, but no place is. It’s the setting (or part of the setting) for all of my books because there’s nowhere I know better or love better. And that means that the setting element of my stories is something I don’t have to worry about too much. I like to write what I know. There’s incredible richness in a place and its people. I could live a 1,000 years, publishing a book a year about people from Tennessee, and never write the same story twice.
In the Wild Light is your fourth novel and there are a few cameos from characters from your other released novels that will make readers smile. Do you imagine the future of your protagonists from other books or does their story “end” for you when you’re finished with writing?
I absolutely imagine the lives of my characters continuing after their story ends on paper and nothing about the writing process delights me more than when I find the perfect “in” for them to jump back into a new story and interact with new characters and continue their story just a little bit. I love when new characters interact with old. It’s like the intense satisfaction you get when a high school friend hits it off with a college friend.
In the Wild Light partially takes place at a boarding school. What drew you to the concept of a boarding school and were you inspired by any stories featuring such a setting?
I’ve always loved boarding school stories—“Dead Poet’s Society” and Looking for Alaska are a couple of all-time favorites. I loved school as a kid and it frustrated me to be with a bunch of kids who hated it. I always dreamed of going to school in a place with no parents and a bunch of other kids who loved school like I did. That was always the dream. Instead, I went to the most public of public schools.
With In the Wild Light now available, are you already working on another project? If so, can you share a tidbit about it with us?
I’m working on a verse novel. I’m very excited about it and I hope to be able to share more details in the days to come.
Last but not least, do you have any book recommendations for our readers?
My perennial young adult recommendation is The First Time She Drowned by Kerry Kletter, an exquisitely written and emotionally resonant book. My favorite young adult book.
Now, I’ll recommend a book from each one of the people who so kindly blurbed In the Wild Light
Emily Henry— Everyone on Earth knows and loves Beach Read and People We Meet on Vacation. So I recommend checking out the book she co-wrote with Brittany Cavallaro (another one of my favorite writers and poets), Hello Girls. It’s dark, witty, hilarious, and sharp. Think of it as a YA “Thelma and Louise.” It’s just brilliant.
Randy Ribay—Patron Saints of Nothing is one of my favorite YA books. It’s beautifully written, intriguing, takes on important topics, and is centered on a compelling mystery. It richly deserved its many accolades.
Silas House—The greatest writer of Southern Appalachia alive and maybe ever, in my opinion. He writes the people and culture of Southern Appalachia to nuanced, loving perfection. My favorite book of his is Clay’s Quilt, with Southernmost coming in a close second.
Ocean Vuong—He only has one novel out, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, and what a novel it is. I’ve never read anything that more powerfully displays the possibility of language. Once you’ve read that, read his poetry volume Night Sky with Exit Wounds. It’s perfection.
