A tuba player without a tuba and his jellyfish-imitating sister cope with their father’s disappearance in this hilarious and moving novel by the author of The Mortification of Fovea Munson.
We had the pleasure of chatting with author Mary Winn about her new release, The Losers at the Center of the Galaxy, writing, book recommendations, and more!
Hi, Mary Winn! Tell our readers a bit about yourself!
Hooray! Thanks for having me! I live in Chicago, although I grew up in South Carolina (and, for a couple of years, Indonesia). I studied theater and anthropology at Wesleyan, and then later got an MFA in writing for kids at Vermont College of Fine Arts. I definitely took the scenic route to becoming a writer—I’ve also been a high school teacher, a public radio reporter, a bartender on a train in Alaska, and a board game developer. I worked in a cadaver lab for a while (which became the subject for my first novel), and I’ve been a barista in all the coffee shops in all the land. Writing is perfect for me, because I can live all of the different lives I want to live, but just stick with one actual job.
After the chaos that was 2020, have you set any goals for this year? If so, how are they going so far?
Lolsob. I mean, yes, yes, I have lots of goals. I have some work goals—I’m working on a series with my pal Chad Sell, and we’re deep in that. It’s the most fun. And I have another story about a very angry girl, and I love working on that when I’m not pandemic-wrecked. But then I also have goals that are just about trying to find small everyday joy. I bought a cookbook with 100 cookie recipes and I’m determined to make them all—so far, I’m at number 14. I bought some bonkers wallpaper from Spoonflower. I’m also trying to learn dances from music videos! That will definitely not be for the general public.
Quick lightning round! Tell us the first book you ever remember reading, the one that made you want to become an author, and one that you can’t stop thinking about!
- Maurice Sendak’s Outside Over There. Deeply unsettling. Totally gorgeous. Teeny tiny Mary Winn read it over and over. It is probably why 1) I have always needed to look after my brothers so intensely and 2) I wound up playing the French Horn in band. Ooh—this is hard. I feel like they ALL made me want to become an author? Sorry to punk out on this question, but I’d be betraying so many books if I just picked one.
- I know I’m late to this party, but I recently finished The Magic Fish, and I’ve been obsessing over how masterfully Trung Lê Nguyen dances between the real and fairy tale worlds.
When did you first discover your love for writing?
Probably in third grade or so, I wrote a story about my cousin getting her legs chopped off (she still has both legs, she’s a very nice cousin, I have never told her about this story). But it gave me a thrill to invent a world in which a thing so far from reality could happen, and I think I chased that feeling for a long time. (Family fanfic, I guess?)
Your new novel, The Losers at the Center of the Galaxy, is out March 16th 2021! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Dirtbag Fabulism with a heart.
What can readers expect?
An infamous dad gone missing, a pair of siblings dedicated to their absolutely terrible coping mechanisms (the tuba and chemistry, respectively), a first crush, a bear that needs saving, a pop star with an alter ego who is a cat, a complete teacher conspiracy, and the halftime show to end all halftime shows.
Where did the inspiration for The Losers at the Center of the Galaxy come from?
I got the idea for a scene between a kid and a bear that just felt like electricity. I didn’t understand who the kid was, why the bear was in a cage, or what they were doing on a football field, but I knew that if they were going to survive, they needed each other desperately. It became the seed for the whole story. And as I peeled back the layers and realized it was a sibling story, my relationship with my two younger brothers gave me a lot of material. The intensity, you know, and that sort of outrageous care we have for our siblings that sometimes misfires? I remember one time my brothers and I went to a David Copperfield show when I was juuuuuust old enough to look after them without an adult. When DC “accidentally” cut himself in half with a giant circ saw and the audience was going wild, I made them put their heads down and just kept yelling, “It’s ok! It’s ok!” because I didn’t want them traumatized. (I’m sure my reaction was way more traumatizing than the magic act.)
Can you tell us about any challenges you faced while writing and how you were able to overcome them?
This book was the hardest thing I’ve ever written. I was doing some real life grieving at that point, and a lot of times, it was hard to be in the story. The upside is that I found comfort in structure, and this story turned me into an outliner. Now I outline all my stories, and to my great surprise, I freaking love it.
If it’s not too spoilery, were there any favourite moments you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
The football team! I started with that scene of the kid and the bear on the football field, but I didn’t know much about real football and I didn’t want the team to be the Chicago Bears. So, I came up with a whole alternate dimension football league. I needed to keep the bear, so I named the Chicago team the Ursus Arctos Horribles after the scientific name for the bear. And of, course, I called them The Horribles for short, which just generally made me laugh (and also, I’m totally bracing myself for Bears fans who will think I’m being snarky. I’m not! But also…I mean…) So, I didn’t stop there—I came up with alternates for the entire fake league. I had the Detroit Knights, who were allowed to play while riding horses; The Buffalo Williams, who were all in costume as different Williams throughout history; the Seattle Orcas (the only other team that made the cut into the book), who had these enormous whale costumes on, so their running game was slow, but it was almost impossible to take them down. Zero passing game, of course. I ended up using about 1% of what I came up with (there isn’t that much actual football in the book), but it was a blast.
What’s the best and the worst writing advice you have received?
I struggle with advice. I love notes on any particular manuscript, but I really balk at advice that acts like it applies to everything I write. (When I read craft books, I fight with them a lot in my head.) So, I’m going to say the worst advice I’ve gotten is any advice that said I had to do something. And the best advice I’ve gotten is that all I can do is write the next thing. Publishing is a sprawling, messy industry that will never do exactly what I want it to do—but what I can do is write the next book, the next draft, the next idea.
What’s next for you?
The project with Chad is my main focus right now—I’m writing and he’s illustrating—and it’s just a blast. We started the project about two weeks before the first lockdown, so we’ve been meeting over Zoom, and those meetings have been the highlight of this last year. It feels like we make one bigger, smarter, funnier brain.
Lastly, do you have any book recommendations for our readers?
I just finished Amari and the Night Brothers by B. B. Alston, and holy cow it was absolutely thrilling—I’m already impatient for the next in the series. I practically inhaled All Thirteen: The Incredible Cave Rescue of the Thai Boys’ Soccer Team, by Christina Soontornvat. In adult reading, I recently read N.K. Jemisin’s collection, How Long ‘Til Black Future Month, and it reinforced my theory that Jemisin is a genius. And just this week, I have become fully obsessed with the Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells. All I want is all Murderbot, all the time.
