Gadget Girl: The Art of Being Invisible Blog Tour + Interview & Giveaway

Gadget Girl:

The Art of Being Invisible

by Suzanne Kamata

Publication: May 17th 2013
Genre: YA Contemporary

Synopsis:

ANNA AND THE FRENCH KISS meets STONER AND SPAZ

Aiko Cassidy is fourteen and lives with her sculptor mother in a small Midwestern town. For most of her young life Aiko, who has cerebral palsy, has been her mother's muse. But now, she no longer wants to pose for the sculptures that have made her mother famous and have put food on the table. Aiko works hard on her own dream of becoming a great manga artist with a secret identity. When Aiko's mother invites her to Paris for a major exhibition of her work, Aiko at first resists. She'd much rather go to Japan, Manga Capital of the World, where she might be able to finally meet her father, the indigo farmer. When she gets to France, however, a hot waiter with a passion for manga and an interest in Aiko makes her wonder if being invisible is such a great thing after all. And a side trip to Lourdes, ridiculous as it seems to her, might just change her life.

Gadget Girl began as a novella published in Cicada. The story won the SCBWI Magazine Merit Award in Fiction and was included in an anthology of the best stories published in Cicada over the past ten years.

~ Goodreads ~ Amazon ~

Interview:

Hi Suzanne, welcome to my blog! Could you tell us about yourself, where do you live and why your surname sounds like Japanese?

Hi! Thanks so much for having me! I’m an American, born and raised in Michigan, but I came to Japan after college to teach English for a couple of years. I met a Japanese guy, married him, and wound up staying. We now have two kids. I still teach English, including creative writing. I live in Tokushima, which is famous for Awa Odori, the biggest summer festival in Japan (think Mardi Gras with summer kimono!). Tokushima also has an annual anime/manga event, where fans dress up as their favorite characters, and lots of anime movies are shown.

What is your passion in your life besides writing?

I love to travel. My most recent trip was this past March. I took my daughter to Paris, which is sort of a case of life imitating fiction.

How many books have you written so far?

I’ve written three other books – a novel and a short story collection for adults, and a picture book for kids. I’ve also edited three anthologies.

What is the reason that you write Young Adult, why not write other genre(s)?

I do write other genres! I write all kinds of things! Over the years. a lot of my characters have been teen-agers or young women. I used to think I was writing coming-of-age stories for adults, but I realized that maybe these stories were supposed to be for young adults.

How did you come out with the title Gadget Girl: The Art of Being Invisible for this book?

The Art of Being Invisible was my original title for this book. I liked the way it combined different themes of the book like not wanting to stand out, and art. But there are a lot of The Art of… books on the market right now. My publisher let me keep my title as a subtitle, but she wanted to go with a title that was a bit more unusual. Gadget Girl refers to the manga character created by the main character, Aiko, but it can also refer to the various gadgets and devices and adaptive tools that people with disabilities sometimes use.

Who did the design for Gadget Girl cover?

My publisher hired the designer. All I know is that her name is Suzanne, same as mine. J Her company is called Night & Day Design.

The heroine in this book has cerebral palsy, can you tell us about her condition and what gave you the idea about this?

The idea came from my daughter, who also has cerebral palsy. Cerebral palsy is a form of brain injury typically caused by a shortage of oxygen to the brain, often at birth. This covers a wide range of disabilities, depending on the extent of the injury. In some people, it’s barely noticeable. Others are barely functional. Like my daughter, Aiko can use the right side of her body better than the left side. She has problems with things that require two hands, but she can draw well with her right hand (like my daughter!). She also walks with a limp.

Aiko, the heroine has a dream of becoming a great manga artist with a secret identity and being invisible, have you had an experience like this?

Sometimes I wish I were invisible. As a big white person in Japan, I stand out, and sometimes I’d like to blend in. I’m not good at drawing, so I’ve never attempted to draw manga, and I’d rather have people know that I’m the one who wrote my books. At the same time, because I write in English, most of my neighbors and the people around me don’t know that I’m a writer. I’m just the weird foreigner who goes out to the get the newspaper in her robot pajamas! In that respect, I guess I sort of do have a secret identity.

What are the messages you want your readers to convey through Gadget Girl?

Art is empowering! Travel is liberating! Your dreams can come true! Also, I’d like for readers to understand that girls like my daughter have various abilities, common interests and rich inner lives. Having a disability is not all doom and gloom.

Have you experienced a writer’s block and how did you handle it?

When I’m feeling stuck, I use writing prompts. I’m a big believer in prompts! There are many sites and books available which offer ideas for writing, but I sometimes make up my own. One idea is to take a sentence from someone else’s book and continue writing, Or put your characters in a strange situation – in a boat in the middle of a lake, for example – and see what happens. Or retell a well-known or obscure folktale from a different point of view, or set it in a different time or place. I’ve also started collecting headlines from the Internet, like “Princess a suspect” or “Cows help rescue lost dog.” Now wouldn’t that be a fun story?

AUTHOR BIO

Five-time Pushcart Prize nominee Suzanne Kamata is the author of the novels Gadget Girl: The Art of Being Invisible(GemmaMedia, 2013) and Losing Kei (Leapfrog Press, 2008), and editor of three anthologies - The Broken Bridge: Fiction from Expatriates in Literary Japan, Love You to Pieces: Creative Writers on Raising a Child with Special Needs, and Call Me Okaasan: Adventures in Multicultural Mothering (Wyatt-Mackenzie Publishing, 2009). Her short fiction and essays have appeared widely. She is the Fiction Co-editor of literarymama.com.

Author Links:

Website: http://www.suzannekamata.com/

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/303669.Suzanne_Kamata

Twitter: https://twitter.com/shikokusue

Follow the tour!

May 15th

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May 16th

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-Sab The Book Eater >> Review