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Emery Lord on When We Collided, Mental Health, and her Top-Choice Vespa
If you’re a contemporary YA fan, there’s no question Emery Lord is on your radar. Renowned for writing strong friendships, swoony romances, and words that just might bring you to a tear or twelve, Lord just may have outdone herself with her newest release, When We Collided. The novel alternates between Vivi, a passionate artist who’s new to town and struggling to deal with her bipolar disorder, and Jonah, an aspiring chef who’s busting his butt to help raise his younger siblings through his mother’s depression, while the whole family grieves the recent loss of his father. It’s a powerful, romantic, beautiful read, and clearly required I pick the brain behind it, so please welcome Emery Lord to the blog!
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Mental health is obviously at the forefront of When We Collided, and it’s also something you’re very passionately outspoken about. What do you wish someone had said to you about dealing with mental health issues when you were a teen?
That my health could be improved upon. I thought having panic reactions to things both real and existential was just…how life was.
On a related note, for the other authors out there who write through mental health issues, what have you found to be some particularly helpful methods of dealing?
I think a key method for dealing is the realization that my relationship with my mental health is like any other relationship: dynamic. Sometimes you have to shift your approach, and for me that involves a lot of checking in with myself: What do I need to make this day, this week, this month work?
Best friendships are a huge staple of Emery Lord books, though in When We Collided, Vivi’s just left her besties behind in her recent move. In your mind, what’s the strongest friendship of this book and why?
In this book, I challenged myself to step back a little from my beloved female friendships. As much as those bonds are key to me as a person and writer, I wanted to showcase some other kinds. Specifically, intergenerational friendship, the friendship between siblings, family friends, and a falling out between friends. Still, the strongest friendship for me FEELS like Vivi’s with her girl friends—but that is probably because I know a lot more about them than is on the page 🙂
There are so many strong secondary characters in When We Collided, from Jonah’s family to Vivi’s mom to everyone involved in Jonah’s family’s restaurant. If you were writing a spinoff, what and whose story would be at the heart of it?
I think Ellie, to focus on her experience as a Mexican American working-class girl in a predominantly white vacation town that she wants out of. She’s loving and capable and no-BS. Also…Jonah would likely still appear in that story. A lot.
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The paperback for your second book, The Start of Me and You, released just last month, with some adorable bonus material at the end. For those who haven’t seen it yet, what can we find in there?
I included emails between Paige and Max the summer after the book ends—she’s in New York for some of it, then he’s in Italy. It includes Paige meeting characters from Open Road Summer, the girl Tessa’s dating, and Max getting drunk at a pub. You know—the usual.
Lightning round! I’ve got some questions relevant to When We Collided; let’s get some fast answers:
What dish is your specialty? Cheesecake
Have you ridden on a Vespa? Yes!
If you bought a Vespa, what color would it be? Mint with a tan seat.
Indoor or outdoor seating at a restaurant? Outdoor
What three emojis would you use to describe the book?
Only 3?! You’re a monster. Paint palette, Sunrise over ocean, and Explosion.
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You’ve pretty quickly become a huge contemporary YA author favorite over the past couple of years. What do you find to be the biggest differences between the experience of releasing your first book—Open Road Summer—versus now, releasing When We Collided, which is your third?
Um, just a lot less anxiety of my own making. I know who I am as a writer, and I know what I care about within the industry. (The latter is not complex: Working hard and prioritizing my relationships with/supporting people.) While I’ve never done things that feel inauthentic to me, now I don’t stress for a second that I’m not doing them.
You’ve got a pretty great squad yourself IRL, from what I hear. (And, you know, see on Instagram.) If you were gonna build a YA around one event from your teen life, what would it be?
Oh, man! This is…not uplifting, but the one event would be getting myself into (and out of) a very unhealthy relationship. But it would mostly be about the girl friends who got me through it, how epically loving they were even after I ignored their concerns.
And finally, of course, the thing we all wanna know: what’s up next for you?
Faith (or not), cancer (or not), and a motley crew of camp friends to get you through. Out Spring 2017!