The other author of the Miracle Girls series, May Vanderbilt had just as much to say as Anne! May graduated from Baylor University and has an MA in Fiction from Johns Hopkins. Here is what she had to
BTB: Has writing always been a passion of yours?
May:Always. Some of my earliest memories involve writing little stories by the closet light when I was supposed to be asleep in bed.
BTB: If you weren’t writing, what do you think you would be doing?
May: Like Anne, I have a day job and I love it. I help my company give back to the local community and take good care of the earth. Truthfully, writing is the only thing I ever dreamed of doing—but being a professional do-gooder is a dream come true for me.
BTB: Where/How did the Miracle Girls series begin?
May: I’m giving Anne all the credit for this one. She read a magazine called Sweet Sixteen, and they often featured incredible stories of teens who miraculously survived near-death experiences. From that small idea, our four main characters began to take shape and soon the series seemed to be writing itself.
BTB: Which of the girls most resembles what you were like in high school?
May: Riley, no doubt about it. I am blonde and was a cheerleader for six years, but like Riley, I wasn’t that caught up in it. I was in the “nerd program” at my high school, I was a total goody two shoes, and spent my days dreaming of when I would graduate and leave my small town far behind. Now I wish I could go back and tell my younger self, Enjoy today! Tomorrow will come soon enough.
BTB: Did you ever find yourself in detention as a teen?
May:My parents were way stricter than my school so detention was never really a concern. However, I was once grounded for NINE WEEKS for getting a B on my report card. And during junior year I got in a fender bender in the Subway parking lot and had to spend the whole summer working at my dad’s company to pay him back for the repairs. Whoops!
BTB: What messages and life lessons do you hope your readers will walk away with after reading this series?
May: There are so many lessons I hope they learn. We tried to make each Miracle Girl very different and show her dealing with her own set of pressures. From Ana, you can learn how to be a strong leader and that bending the truth can catch up with you. From Christine, you can learn that someday, somehow healing will come. From Zoe, you’ll see that being an adult is harder than it looks. And from Riley, you’ll come to understand that sometimes finding your way in the world is a rocky path.
BTB: What has it been like working with Anne- how is it working as a team as opposed to working solo?
May: Working with Anne is amazing. I have always felt she makes me a stronger writer and that the writing process goes faster when you have someone to bounce ideas off of. Writing solo is like fumbling in the dark much of the time. When you’re working together, you light the way forward for each other.
BTB: What are you currently working on? Any new books in 2010?
May: Love Will Keep Us Together publishes in April 2010 and I can’t wait. It’s finally Riley’s turn to tell the story.
And beyond that, I’m working on relaxing and seeing a bit of the world. At the end of last year, I took a volunteer vacation to Peru. We lived with poor children from the surrounding villages and it changed my life. I’m hoping to take another volunteer vacation this year, but first, I have to decide what corner of the world I want to give back in. There’s so much need.
To learn more about May Vanderbilt and Anne Dayton, be sure to check out their website!
*Interview questions by Jessica Fisher and Meagan Anderson