A Spectacular Holiday Surprise: A Guest Post by Marissa Meyer and Joanne Levy
Let It Glow is The Parent Trap for a new generation — when a pair of estranged identical twins meet, they decide to secretly swap families and wacky winter schemes ensue. When author Joanne Levy began writing Let It Glow, she quickly realized she’d need a co-writer, and Marissa Meyer was the obvious pick. Read on for Joanne and Marissa’s exclusive essay on the ins and outs of their collaboration process.
Paperback $9.99
Let It Glow
Let It Glow
By Marissa Meyer , Joanne Levy
In Stock Online
Paperback $9.99
A pair of estranged identical twins secretly swap families in this charming tale of sisterhood, family and holiday cheer.
A pair of estranged identical twins secretly swap families in this charming tale of sisterhood, family and holiday cheer.
LET IT GLOW, our new middle grade book about adopted twins who meet and secretly swap homes for the holidays, has been pitched as The Parent Trap wrapped in a holiday Hallmark movie. And just like our protagonists – Holly and Aviva – who must work together to create a spectacular holiday surprise for their families, writing the book felt like a magical collaborative experience. But it didn’t start out that way.
Joanne: I first began writing the book as a solo project, but it didn’t take long for me to realize that while I am an adoptee, I didn’t have the lived experience to know what people really love about celebrating Christmas. Raised in a Jewish home, I knew about playing dreidel, the delicious smell of frying latkes, bringing family together to light candles on the menorah, and yes, eight days of gifts. But what makes Christmas joyful and meaningful for those who celebrate it? When it came to writing Holly’s perspective, I was out of my element, and quickly realized I couldn’t write this book on my own. But who to approach to co-write it with me? I needed to find someone who could easily portray the Christmas experience and also understand the dynamic of a family that includes adoptees (and maybe even twins!).
The answer was a no-brainer: Marissa Meyer.
Marissa: A no-brainer indeed! I’m not shy about proclaiming my love for the holiday season – the twinkling lights, the cheesy movies, the matching PJs, the absolute overload of traditions! And the holiday season became even more special for me when we adopted our twin daughters, who were first delivered to our family on Christmas Eve, no less.
So when Joanne first approached me about co-writing this sweet middle grade together, I was very intrigued. Adopted twins separated at birth? Loads of holiday shenanigans? I immediately fell in love with the concept, plus I’d been wanting to try my hand at writing middle grade for years and felt that dipping my toe in with Joanne at my side was an incredible opportunity. Joanne has been my author assistant for years, helping me with the administrative side of being an author and a podcaster, and though we’d never written anything together before, we already had a wonderful working relationship.
Months went by in which we were both working on other book projects, but once we were finally able to sit down and start working on this idea together, it felt like kismet. Or maybe it was holiday magic!
Though we’d love for our readers to picture the two of us sitting by a roaring fireplace in thick, cozy socks, drinking eggnog and eating jelly donuts while we drafted the book side by side… that’s not exactly accurate. (Have we mentioned that Joanne lives near Toronto, Canada, and Marissa lives in Tacoma, Washington, on the other side of the continent and, as of writing this blog post, we still have never met in person?) Instead, we had many discussions on Zoom and in Google docs to create our characters and put together a working outline. For the most part, Marissa wrote Holly, the bookish and introverted sister, and Joanne took on Aviva, the spotlight-loving, vivacious sister. Fun fact: Marissa is more like Aviva in personality and Joanne identifies as more like Holly!