Book Divas

Pam Bachorz, author of Candor, spends some time with us in this interview to talk about life, developing book ideas, and balancing work and writing.

You have stated that you based Candor off of the town of Celebration, FL where you lived for six years. Why did you and your family decide to move there? Why did you leave?

We moved to the Orlando area for our day jobs, and we wanted to find a place where we could walk to get ice cream and to see a movie. That narrowed our choices considerably! We also wanted to find a place with good schools and playgrounds. Celebration was a good fit for us. We left because our day jobs took us up to the DC area, closer to family and SNOW!

How did you come up with the idea of using music to brainwash people?

I really, really dislike background music in stores, so I think that’s probably where the kernel of the idea came from. I have always wondered whether there are hidden messages in the supermarket music, telling me to spend lots of time in the cookies aisle! (well… I’d at least like to blame hidden messages for that behavior of mine!) Also, Celebration actually plays music in the downtown area, using outside speakers, and that helped me to develop the idea.

On that note, do you have any sort of “playlist” that would be the soundtrack to Candor? Or any particular songs you listened to while writing the book? If so, could you share with us some selections from it?

I do actually have a playlist on my website at http://www.pambachorz.com/candor-music/. Probably the 2 most significant songs on it are “Yellow” by Coldplay and “Little Boxes” by Malvina Reynolds.

Before Candor, did you do any writing?

Sure. Candor is my third novel (and first published one). I also have written short stories and picture books. I published a short story, PLAYING LIKE PA, in the February 2007 edition of SPIDER Magazine.

Were you influenced by any writers in particular when writing Candor? While reading I thought a bit about the world of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 or the planet of Camazotz in Madeline L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time.

I believe writers are influenced by everything they read—that we are truly what we “eat”. So it’s hard to pin down just one, but if I did I’d say that Lois Duncan’s suspense books probably have wormed their way into my creative brain—I read them a million times as a teen. I am a little embarrassed to admit that I never read A Wrinkle In Time until my bookclub read it a month ago! I agree, Candor and Camazotz have some things in common. I wouldn’t want to live in either place!

Outwardly, Oscar is supposed to be a well-behaved young man, but since we, as readers, are privy to his thoughts, he often comes off as a cynical, surly, and girl-obsessed – like most teenage boys!  I found this inner persona to be quite refreshing, and found the dichotomy between his inner and outer personalities to be interesting. Did you spend any time with teen boys to try to get Oscar’s portrayal “accurate?”

Thank you! I’m glad you enjoyed Oscar’s portrayal. I didn’t really study teen boys but I am the only chick in my house, does that count? I swear that my preschooler is already teaching me things about “boy think”. I even dedicated my book to him (as well as my husband) as thanks for “inducting me into the world of boy”.

Is Candor’s rejection of the arts, and the scene in which the students trade in their art supplies for calculators in any way a poke at the public school system’s treatment of arts programs?

Perhaps a bit! I do worry that arts are getting pushed aside in favor of testing and other priorities in public schools. Every student benefits from exposure to art, theater, music, and good books, and for some students arts are a survival mechanism (I know they were for me).

I read somewhere that, in addition to being a writer, you have a full time job. What do you do, and does this inform your writing in any way?

I do indeed have a full-time job; I license photographs to use in textbooks. I think that working with images helps me to be a more visual writer, and it also preserves my creative writing energy for when I sit down to work on my books.

What do you hope that readers will take away from Candor?

Most importantly, I hope they enjoy it. I hope they react to it. And if they’re feeling ambitious, it would be nice if Candor made readers think about what messages bombard all of us, every day, and how hard it can be to find what you believe versus what you’ve been told to believe. But if they just have fun with Candor, I’ll be happy.

Are you writing anything new now? Any hope of a sequel?

I am just starting edits on my next YA book, due out with Egmont in Fall 2010. It’s not a sequel at all. I wouldn’t rule that out, though; I just have to find a story for Oscar and Nia that gets me fired up enough to write it. In the meantime I love that readers get to make their own decisions about what happens next.

Thank you for this interview!
Thanks for having me!