Michel Prince, author of The Amalgam
Young Adult Literature Category, sponsored by Expedition Credit Union
Each week leading up to the 34th annual Minnesota Book Awards Ceremony, we are featuring exclusive interviews with our 36 finalists. You can also watch the authors in conversation with their fellow category finalists here.
Would you tell us one or two things about your finalist book that you are particularly proud of, and why?
When I was first published my son was 10. Although my first book was Young Adult book the series crossed into adult and was romance based. By the time he was 12 he asked if I would please write a book for him and I started, and stopped many times. When Fire and Ice put out a call I reached out to them to make myself finish the book. Between world building, researching and keeping it in the YA fandom I learned more with this book than I have with most.
What do you hope that your audience learns or takes away from your book?
More from the series, though it is touched on a lot in this one, we see classism fought throughout it, ranking people’s value on something they have no control over.
What advice would you give to an aspiring writer with an interest in your category?
Don’t write down because it’s for teens. Teen readers as just as savvy as adult. Always give a touchstone, the best fantasies and paranormals to me are the ones that make you think it might actually be happening in the shadows.
Tell us something about yourself that is not widely known.
I’m a pretty open book… I don’t know. I was two the first time I was in the Star Tribune because I had convinced a bunch of my mother’s in house daycare kids to eat deadly nightshade with me and we all had to get our stomach pumped. What can I say, the first time I was in print it was to warn people.
Minnesota enjoys a reputation as a place that values literature and reading. If this sentiment rings true for you, what about our home state makes it such a welcoming and conducive place for writers?
Writers groups in the Twin Cities, book clubs across the state and many places to get away to actually focus without distraction. Friend’s cabins have put many words on pages for me.
Since the onset of the pandemic in early 2020, virtually everything about our lives has changed in some way. Has COVID-19 (and its fallout) impacted your writing habits and preferences? Has the unique zeitgeist of the past two years influenced your writing output in any other ways that you can pinpoint?
Absolutely, in various ways. Being furloughed for a few weeks in 2020 I thought I’d write, but didn’t, I had the worst block ever. Barely scratching out words at all if not for previously finished projects I’m not sure what I would have put out in 2021. My husband went from traveling to working from home via virtual meetings which took my quiet time away. While the end of 2021 I finally ratcheted up and focused, I’ve started this year with firm adjustments around my writing and writing time.
Michel Prince is a USA Today best-selling author who writes young adult and adult paranormal romance as well as contemporary romance.