I recently had the opportunity to interview Stacie Ramey, author of It’s My Life! It’s a story of a young woman with cerebral palsy who finds out her condition was caused at birth by medical malfeasance, and her parents and uncle have kept it a secret from her all her life. As her parents begin pushing for another difficult procedure, she feels control slipping from her fingers. Then her old friend and neighbour Julian comes back to school, and when she sees him struggling, she reaches out anonymously to help. She begins falling for him, but will he return her feelings if he knew who she really was?
You’ll definitely want to pick up this sweet story of a young woman who wants to have some control over her life, especially where it counts the most.
Can you tell us how It’s My Life came to be?
It’s My Life was actually the first book I ever wrote and rewrote and rewrote and ….well, you get the idea. Sometimes it takes a really long time to get a book right and I was willing to keep working on it until I felt like it stayed faithful to my vision. I am a speech language pathologist and work with many kids with disabilities. This is my love letter to them, to let them know I see them, I understand their struggles, and I want them to have every single thing they desire.
Which character in the book do you most relate to and why?
Jenna, definitely. Like Jenna, I have two siblings-a brother and a sister, who are so incredibly supportive of me and always have been. I do not have cerebral palsy but I do have some invisible disabilities and as a result have always been the one who got sick a lot-big dramatic sicknesses, too, like pneumonia-a lot. To the point where I was the one who cut family trips short, who got out of almost any kind of yard work, and who famously cancelled my parents’ trip to Rome. I was always cared for, never made to feel bad about the chaos I caused, but still, I wanted to break away from being so dependent and in the end became super independent-making major mistakes along the way. Also like Jenna. Actually way worse than Jenna did. But that’s another story. Lol.
Music plays a really big role in this book, did you listen to any music while writing the book? What are some of your favourite bands to unwind to?
Music has always held a big place in my life. I always listened to it ridiculously loudly when I was cleaning or setting the table, when I was Jenna’s age. I blasted it in the car. And when I turned forty, I got an mp3 player and blasted it even more. Now I don’t hear so well-note to former self-turn the music down! My husband has over 1500 albums (he prefers vinyl to CDs) and many more CD’s. I’ll tell him the mood I need, and he flawlessly puts together a playlist that tracks in our house as I write. I am very lucky that way.
What are some details about Jenna that might not have made it into the book?
So there was this whole other thread in the book about Jenna and Julian. It was that they were obsessed with this woman who lived in their town who everyone thinks is a witch. They follow her and sneak into the woods to find her house. I loved that part of the book-it’s actually based on a woman who lived in my town- but my editor believed it was unnecessary to the overall arc of the book. I will most likely use it in something else because I loved that part.
This is your fourth novel (please correct me if I’m wrong!), how has your publishing journey changed between The Sister Pack and It’s My Life?
You are absolutely correct-this is my fourth book. I wish I could say it gets easier to write-I keep waiting for that to happen, but it doesn’t. I had one editor for the first three, The Sister Pact, The Homecoming, and The Secrets We Bury, so I had one process for working with that editor. She left before TSWB came out leaving that book sort of orphaned (that’s a publishing term) and also leaving It’s My Life to a new set of eyes to determine if they still wanted to move forward with that book. Enter Eliza Swift, my new editor. Thankfully she shared the vision for the book and we moved forward. It doesn’t always work out that way and I’m really grateful to her for loving a book she didn’t choose.
If the characters from your books could meet, what kind of interactions do you think they might have?
Well some of the characters in The Sister Pact continue in The Homecoming and some from The Homecoming have cameos in The Secrets We Bury so they have already met! But I guess if I had to think about it, I believe Allie, Jenna, Dylan, and John would all get along just fine. I am proud of my characters and how they’ve grown-they’ve all been through something and I think that makes them more likely to gravitate toward others who also have gone through grief of some sort.
Julian and Jenna’s brother play hockey, which isn’t a sport that I often see talked about in books! Can you tell me a little bit about why you chose that sport, and if you have any real-life favourite teams?
So I went to Penn State and my dorm was right next to the hockey rink where the Penn State hockey club played. I love watching sports-I say watching because I have zero athletic ability, myself. I loved watching those games and when the hockey players would see me on campus (because there were very few hockey fans and I was probably the only one who didn’t know someone on the team) they would flirt with me. So fun! One night my husband(who was my boyfriend back then) and some of his friends went ice skating on the outdoor rink the hockey players worked as part of their scholarships. Well, they saw me and started flirting and I guess John did the math pretty quickly and realised he couldn’t out-skate a hockey player(altho he’s pretty athletic) and he pretended he couldn’t skate so I’d have to hold him up the entire time. Talk about funny when I found out years later he knows how to skate!
Jenna is the first character that I’ve seen in contemporary YA romance with Cerebral Palsy. Could you tell our readers what led you to write about this medical condition in particular?
Well, I am a speech language pathologist and used to have a pediatric therapy clinic. This book was actually written about one of my favourite clients. She didn’t have cerebral palsy, but had different mobility issues-much more severe than Jenna’s, actually. I loved her. She was funny and fiesty and at times pissed off and annoyed at the people who doubted her. She was this really interesting and bright soul and I always knew I wanted to write a book for her.
Can you give us any hints about a scene you’re particularly excited for readers to get to in the book?
I personally love the scene at the hockey homecoming dance. I hope they do, too.
Finally, what are you currently working on? Anything you can spill the beans on yet?
I am currently working on a retelling of a Jewish fairy tale. It’s a complete departure- but so fun!
