What is your writing process like?Įliot Treichel: For me it’s more solitary. It was just as hard and maybe harder because to really put yourself back into the mindset of a teenager and really empathize with teens today is a really challenging thing to do, versus putting yourself in an adult mindset, which is more relatable. So I thought, ‘Well, I could write a YA novel, that’s got to be easier.’ I don’t think it was easier. I had already written a short story collection, and the traditional trajectory is you go from short story collection to novel, and I was really intimidated to write an adult novel, for lack of a better term. Do you find people take YA seriously? Or do they think it’s easier to write a kids’ book than an adult book?Įliot Treichel: I think people do think (it’s easier to write YA). They were stories about kids in the wilderness and the outdoors, and so those two things sort of converged to get me to start writing YA. I wasn’t a strong or natural reader and I didn’t gravitate to books, except for at some point Gary Paulsen’s novels entered my life. That got me thinking that I wanted to write a narrative that offered an alternative to that, and I began also thinking about who I was as a reader around that age. I was bringing her from the library and buying lots of young adult novels that were receiving critical attention and being recommended, and I would check out some of them and this recurring narrative showed up-boy saves girl, and that bothered me. “Writers are constantly struggling with confidence and being able to replicate what you did before.” Did you set out to write a YA novel, or did it just sort of happen?Įliot Treichel: It was something that I set out to do in part because when I started the book my daughter was about 13. And it does help with confidence,” he said. “It’s a wonderful recognition, and I feel really humbled and grateful for it. That is your only cause.” That’s Treichel’s mantra after his young adult novel, A Series of Small Maneuvers, won the Oregon Book Awards’ readers choice award in April. On Eliot Treichel’s desk is a quote from Wild writer Cheryl Strayed: “Your cause is to write a great book and then to write another great book and to keep writing them for as long as you can. Oregon author Eliot Treichel adds gravity with his writing for young adults written by Sheila G.
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