Heather’s Bookshelf: Author Interview with Naomi Ulsted

What inspired you to write “The Apology Box”?

Ulsted: In 2017, the Mount Hood National Forest suffered the Eagle Creek Fire, which burned over 50,000 acres and was active for over three months. At the time, I was the director at a Job Corps campus, where we provided residential training for under-served teens and young adults. My campus was located at the base of the Mount Hood National Forest and we had to evacuate for several weeks. It turned out the fire had been caused by a fifteen-year-old boy who threw a lit firecracker into the woods. I thought a lot about that because I worked with teenagers, many of whom had made some poor choices. But those choices didn’t sum up the whole of who they were. They were so much more than those choices. I wanted to write a story that looked into how a person takes accountability for their own poor choice, but also looks at their behavior in a wider context. And how to do they find a pathway forward through the guilt? So although the book is not biographical at all, it is in inspired by that event.

How did you come up with the names of your main characters?

Ulsted: Great question! I’m not actually sure, come to think of it. Tessa was easy – I knew I wanted her to named after the tesseract from A Wrinkle in Time. It was important for her to be named after something big to live up to. Effy was named “Aileen” for a long time, after my late grandmother, but then I decided I didn’t want to use my families’ names directly. I wanted it to be something short and sassy. I actually named her Effby and then later decided it was “F.B.”, short for Frances Belinda. And I’ve just always loved the name Diego.

Is there anything that you want readers to know about you, your writing process or your book?

Ulsted: I’d love to see more multi-generational friendships like Tessa and Effby’s in written work and movies. That friendship was a key component to this book from the very beginning.

When you encounter writer’s block, what do you do to break yourself out of it?

Ulsted: I had a serious bout of writer’s block when I was writing this book. It was meandering and I felt like I wasn’t doing the topic justice. It’s a book that deals with some really important topics and I wanted to tell it the right way, and everything that was coming out of my head felt shallow and well, lame. So I put it down for several months. I wrote some other unrelated material and I read a lot of young adult fiction. Then, I decided maybe it should be a screenplay. I love the screenplay format because it really forces you to pare down your story to what really counts. You have to fit your plot into very tight constraints and there’s no space for meandering. I went as far as outlining the major plot points and listing out the scenes. By that point, I realized what the story I wanted to tell was really about. That jumpstarted me back into the novel. 

But I would also say that I’m not a subscriber to the theory that you have to write every day. Maybe you think about writing. Maybe you read something. Maybe you write. Maybe you watch people. Maybe you take your kid on a roller coaster. If I get stuck, sometimes I just need to let myself breathe for a minute. I talk to a lot of authors who are beating themselves up because they’re not writing every day, not making their word count goals, not happy with any of the sentences that come out. I just don’t think this self-flagellation is good for us as writers or humans. It wasn’t for me. So sometimes I think it’s okay to take a few days, clear your head and then pick it up again with a fresh perspective.

What is your favorite genre, book, and/or author?

Ulsted: My two favorite genres are YA contemporary and memoir. Unsurprisingly, those are my primary writing genres as well. I don’t have any specific book or author, but I can tell you about a few books I’ve read and enjoyed lately. I really enjoyed The Astonishing Color of After by X.L. Phan. It’s a beautiful book. Sad, serious, and full of magic. I also loved, loved, loved Ziggy, Stardust & Me by James Brandon. It’s set in the 1970’s and deals with prejudice, homophobia and violence, but it’s also really funny and tender and made my cry, which is a great sign. On the memoir side, my favorite recent memoir is Alisson Wood’s Being Lolita. It’s tough to read, but brutally honest and raw. I really appreciate her for telling her story because it’s all too common and we need to talk about things like that instead of hiding in shame.

What are you working on next?

Ulsted: I’m actually spread a little right now with several things, but I’m also trying to let myself just play a little and have fun. I’m revising a TV script I wrote a couple years ago ago that centers around an accidentally good principal of an alternative high school. I’m toying with the idea for another YA book and am in the beginning stages of playing around to find my characters and their voices. In the fall of 2023 my memoir, FINDING HOME, will be published through SheWrites Press so I’m super excited about that. I wrote that book before I wrote The Apology Box, so it’s been a long time coming, but I can’t wait to share that story.

Learn More About the Author and the Apology Box here:

Website: www.naomiulsted.com

Twitter: @NaomiUlsted

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