I had the privilege of getting to sit down with Morgan Matson for an interview in conjunction with YALLfest this year. She has been one of my favorite YA Authors for years, and it was amazing that I got to interview her one-on-one . She was super sweet, and we talked everything from Save the Date to how she discovered YA to some of the cool places she’s traveled for book events. Hope you enjoy reading it as much I enjoyed getting to do it!

Q: What authors did you read growing up, and how did they inspire your writing?

A: I remember reading a lot of Baby-Sitters Club books. They were set in Connecticut, and I was from Connecticut, so I liked that connection. YA like we have it now didn’t really exist when I was in high school, so at some point you just made a leap into reading adult books. I read most of Stephen King and John Grisham’s books when I was like 12, but I was also reading the Baby-Sitters Club, so there was this weird dichotomy. But then when I was in college, I worked at a bookstore, and that’s when I started reading all this YA that had come out that I hadn’t known about. That was a big influence because I was reading people who were writing stuff that I felt like I could write –  like Sarah Dessen, Ann Brashares, Meg Cabot, and John Green. So it was like getting to discovering a treasure trove of authors I hadn’t known about.

Q: Have any of the characters in your books been inspired by real people?

A: I feel like everyone is, at least a little bit. The person’s that’s probably based the most on real people is the character of Sloane in Since You’ve Been Gone. She was sort of inspired by the friend that I dedicated the book to, but that was more about our relationship and not necessarily her characteristics. We were very, very close best friends, and we did everything together, and then I moved to LA and she moved to London, and so I wanted to write about that friendship and learning to be friends separately. So that’s probably what was inspired the most, but like I always say, she only inspired the good parts and none of the flaky, bad parts. Although she did have a boyfriend named Sam who I hated, so I put that in there.

Q: What kind of research did you do for Save the Date?

A: I’ve been to so many weddings at this point that I feel like I pulled a lot of that detail from those. I definitely was reading about cartoonists, and what that is like, and the mechanics of putting out a newspaper cartoon. I did a little bit of research on the various siblings’ professions –JJ is a quantitative analyst for the Pittsburgh Pirates, so he does the sabermetrics. I’ve been interested in that ever since I watched and then read Moneyball, but then I did a little more research just so I could feel like I could speak to it. I think that’s all the research I did. It was sort of fun to not to have to do a ton of research.

Q: Where did you get the idea to have Emily Grant be a famous comic strip artist?

A: There is a comic strip that I grew up with called “For Better or for Worse,” and it ran for almost 30 years. It was very much one of the inspirations for Charlie’s mom because Lynn Johnston based it on her family and her kids, and unlike a lot of newspaper comics, she let them age in the strip, so they went from being kids in the strip to having kids of their own by the time the strip ended. I loved that strip growing up; you were basically following a comic strip soap opera because you were following these characters through the years. I was always interested when I read interviews with her children where they would talk about how when she wanted them to do something and they didn’t, she would make their character do it instead. I always thought it was such a weird thing to have an alternate version of your life [where the comic strip version of you] made choices that your mother wanted you to make. There was a lot going on there. Of course she can make whatever choices she wants, but how does that affect her family? I feel like I was thinking about that, and that was sort of a big inspiration. I had a bunch of ideas for this book: I wanted to write about a big family, I wanted to write about a wedding, and I wanted to write about a short time period, and then when I thought about also having the mom be a cartoonist it all kind of came together.

Q: What was your process for finding someone to bring Grant Central Station to life?

A: It was really fun, actually. Before I wrote a word of this book, I’d been thinking about it a lot. I tend to think about my books for a few months before I write anything. So I’d been thinking about it, and making notes, and then I was meeting with my editor in New York, and I said, “Here’s this idea,” and then I said “I’d love to show comics in the book; is there any way we could do that?” I was really worried he was going to say no, but he said “sure.”  So he had me write up a sample comic or two as a script and then descriptions of the characters, and then we had this cartoonist that he knew about do a sort of audition for it. He did some character sketches for what it could look like, and what the vibe of the strip could be, and it was perfect. It looked so much better than I ever thought it could, and I loved it.

Q: Which of your characters would you most like to be friends with and why?

A: That’s a good question. I feel like it would be really fun to be friends with Sloane, because I feel like it would be exciting.  I feel like it would be an adventure; she’d be like “We’re going here and we’re going to do this,” and it’d be really fun and really exciting. And I think it would be fun to be friends with JJ, just because I think it would be funny and dramatic, but I also think it would be fun to be friends with someone like Frank, because he’d watch out for you, and he’d be on top of everything.

Q: Which of your books would you most like to see as a film, and why?

A: Either Save the Date or Amy and Roger because they’re the most inherently cinematic. Amy and Roger just because you’re literally crossing the whole country, and so you have so many different visuals and constantly changing characters and changing landscapes. So many of my books take place in the same town with a limited cast of people, so I feel that could really break that open.

Q: Could you talk a little bit about switching your focus from theatre to writing in college?

A: I had been an actor all through high school, and I’d been writing plays in high school a little bit, but I was mostly focused on acting. I went to college in Los Angeles so I could audition while I was in school. Then maybe about halfway through, right after my sophomore year, I thought, “You know, I’m auditioning, but I don’t really love it, and I’m not sure it’s what I want to do anymore.”  I wanted to take a step back, which I think is really important. I think some people feel like you have to get on this train and stay on it, but sometimes you need to pull the brake, take a step back and get some perspective. So I took a year off from college, and I worked at a bookstore, and that’s where I discovered YA and found that I loved it. I started writing my own YA, which was terrible. So when I went back to college, I added an English major and changed my theater focus to a playwriting focus instead of acting. It was  good to get a little perspective, and I believe that if I’d just stayed in school, I would never have found YA. So sometimes you just need to hit pause for a minute, and there’s nothing wrong with it; it’s just getting some perspective.

Q: How do you get inspired to write the romance aspect of your books?

A: I feel like for so many of them it’s just baked into the story. In each book, I want to do something slightly different; I never want to repeat myself if I can. Since You’ve Been Gone  was really about friends who realized that they like each other, and then that changes. Then, for Unexpected Everything, I actually wanted to write a relationship, which I hadn’t done before. It’s not like they’re kissing on the last page; let’s actually show fights and ups and downs and all that stuff. What I don’t like is writing the fights and when everything falls apart—that’s not fun at all—but I love writing the super swoony, fun stuff. The romance in Save the Date is probably the lightest; there’s not that much of it, just because it’s only three days and there’s so much family stuff going on. So it was interesting to write a book that wasn’t super romance-focused and much more family-focused. I think I went into that thinking that there would be more romance and then just realized “Oh there’s not room for that in this story; that’s not what this is about.” This is about a girl and her family, and sort of discovering herself within that family.

Q: Who has been the coolest person you’ve had a chance to collaborate with in the YA world?

A: I love doing writing retreats with other writers. I was just out [on stage] talking to Carrie Ryan, who I hadn’t known at all before we were on a writing retreat together two years ago in Italy.  I hadn’t seen her since then so it was so fun to catch up with her again; so many people live in all different parts of the country or the world. So it’s really nice to connect with people you wouldn’t meet in your everyday life at events like this or writing retreats or being on tour. 

Q: What YA Author would it be your dream to collaborate with on a book?

A: Probably J K Rowling. I feel like she’d say, “What do you think?” and I’d say, “Whatever you think. I have no idea. You tell me all the ideas.” I feel like that would be the dream.

Q: What is the coolest place you’ve  traveled to because of your books?

A: I mean, I’ve been so lucky. Last year I went to the United Arab Emirates to do a festival. I got to see Dubai and Abu Dhabi, and the festival was in Sharjah, which is one of the Emirates, and that was amazing. I did a book festival in the Philippines, which was great. It’s really amazing to get to have people fly you across the world to talk to people. I’m so grateful.

You can check out Morgan’s website here.