An Author Interview with Linda Joan Smith, Author of ‘The Peach Thief’

Hey, guys!! Isabelle Knight here again!! I’ve been basically missing in action for a few days because of a Very Bad Cold, which had me sniffling, sneezing, coughing, hacking, half-deaf, and bedridden for a LOOONG time… 0_0 (sighs) It was my fault for getting up way too early (or sleeping way too late) before the interview with Elle McFadzean. I’ve had to reschedule two other interviews, BUT luckily, I do have a written interview for you guys!!!!! With the author of one of my favorite books!!!!! And that author is…

Linda Joan Smith!!

So, I was an ARC reader for her new book, The Peach Thief, and it’s a middle-grade historical book set in 1850s England, and I feel so lucky to have been able to read this book beforehand!!! It’s amazing, it’s fun, it had me laughing and crying at the same time towards the end!! So, yeah. I loved the book so much that I reached out to Linda to do an interview, and she agreed!!! So I sent over some questions, and down below you will find her absolutely fantastic answers!!

1. What was your favorite part about writing The Peach Thief?

My favorite part about writing The Peach Thief was getting to spend so much time in Scilla’s world: the vast kitchen garden of an English earl’s country estate. It was blissful to be there in my imagination, dreaming up all the different settings for scenes, imagining the ripening fruits, the weather, the birds, even the insects. And of course, the young gardeners! These gardens were anything but boring—there was always so much going on, and so many challenges to overcome! For Scilla and the garden boys, it was like school in many ways, with similar dynamics. There’s a lot of drama!

2. Is there anything you’re grateful for that came out of writing it?

Working on this book, through many revisions, has made me a better writer, and I’m grateful for the help of all the people who had a hand in that: the editors, agents, and other writers who reviewed parts of the story at writing conferences or workshops; the generous readers who read and commented on entire drafts; my agent and editor; and the authors who wrote books I studied on all aspects of the writing craft. At lindajoansmith.com I have a list of writing books I found to be particularly instructive or inspirational.

3. What was your least favorite part?

I still don’t have an ideal system for keeping track of my research, so that the historical facts I’ve unearthed are easy to access (and check) while I’m writing. I hate wasting time looking for information I’ve tucked away somewhere!

4.  In The Peach Thief, Scilla has to learn a lot about gardening, especially as she starts growing to actually care for those plants. Did you have to do a lot of research to write this?

Before writing this story, I wrote three books and a lot of magazine articles about gardening. I’ve also done a fair amount of gardening on my own, though I’m far from an expert. But I still had to do a lot of reading in books and periodicals from Scilla’s time in order to understand how these particular gardens worked, learn about the lives of the gardeners who worked in them, and uncover facts about the challenges they faced.

5. How did the character of Scilla come to you?

The setting of the story came first. But once I knew I wanted to set a story in one of these amazing gardens, I needed a character who would be as stunned by their richness and beauty as I was. A character who had no home, or family to rely on. A character who was hungry. And because I also wanted to write about people who were locked out of these gardens, I wanted that character to be a girl, who would have to jump through all sorts of hoops in order to get herself a job there. Eventually, Scilla began to emerge as the right protagonist for the story I wanted to tell.

6. What did the first draft of The Peach Thief look like and how many drafts did it take to get to the final, published version? How long did it take you to write this book?

There are some parts of the story that have stayed exactly the same, from the first draft to the very, very last. And other parts of the book that are so, so different! In the original first chapter, Scilla is huddled up at night in a dank alley, just thinking about how she can climb the wall to steal the peach she dreams of. In the published book, she climbs the wall on the very first page. There are new scenes that I didn’t write until the final drafts, characters that I added (or cut), chapters that I moved around or radically altered, and nearly 20,000 words that I trimmed along the way. Through all the changes, though, I have always known how the story would end.

As for how long The Peach Thief took to write…that’s hard to say, as there were big chunks of time when the book was out of my hands. Believe it or not, it took nine years, once the story was pretty well developed, for me to find the right agent, revise the manuscript a few times for her, go through the long submission process to find the right editor, revise the story again for her, and then see it through to publication. Not every book takes so long at these later stages, but patience and perseverance are definitely virtues in the world of traditional publishing! The process can be frustrating, but there are changes I made during all of those revisions that I’m so, so glad are in the published story.

7. Who’s your favorite character from The Peach Thief?

Besides Scilla? Definitely Mr. Layton, the head gardener. Even though he has experienced such tragedy in his own life, and guards his heart because of that, he still sees the best in people and is willing to give them what they need to succeed and grow—and to grant them second chances even when they make horrible mistakes. When I’m facing difficult decisions (or even easy ones) I sometimes find myself thinking, what would Mr. Layton do or say or think about this? I think he represents my own inner moral compass.

8. Are there any childhood books (or even books you’ve recently read!) that helped inspire The Peach Thief?

The inspiration for this story, came, in part, from reading and loving The Secret Garden as a child—the book that introduced me to walled gardens and their magic. David Copperfield and Oliver Twist, by Charles Dickens, also influenced me in writing this story, although I didn’t read them until I was an adult. Aside from those older books, beautifully-crafted historical fiction, like Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan, or Chains by Laurie Halse Anderson, have also been an inspiration.

9. Do you have a secret pen name that no one knows about? Just the sneaky question I ask every writer… ;D

No, but I will have to come up with one!

10. What’s your advice for young writers (or writers of any age!) who are just starting out and really want their book to be a huge success?

As many authors advise, I would say read—both for pleasure, and to examine how the authors you love put their words and stories together. I had no idea how much I still had to learn when I began writing this story, particularly about structuring scenes and about the shape of a story as a whole. I still have a lot to learn!

Then write, and write more, trying to put into practice what you are learning, as best you can. If you can, get feedback from people you respect.

I don’t believe you have to “write what you know,” which is common advice. But you do need to draw on your own past feelings and experiences, both good and bad, to write characters that feel true to life. When have you been embarrassed or felt shame? Been fearful? Had to summon courage? Been overcome by joy or wonder? Use those feelings—in all their messy glory—in your writing.

Also, be willing to revise to improve your work. Read it with your ears, if that makes sense. Listen to the sound of your writing, the rhythms of it. Does it please you? Does it feel clunky, or overdone? Could it be simpler? More to the point? Does it add to the story, or detract from it? I enjoy revision more than the initial writing itself.

As for success… no author can control that. But we all can put our hearts into what we write, persevere when facing obstacles, and keep learning, practicing, and working to make our stories the best they can possibly be.

~ ~ ~

Annyeong!! Ni-hao! Bonjour! Hello!!! Isabelle here! Yeah! So, this interview was so much fun to put together, and Linda’s answers are absolutely fantastic! I definitely agree with her on the last question – she gives fantastic tips! Linda Joan Smith, if you’re reading this, thank you so much for agreeing to do this interview!! I’m so incredibly grateful, and it was so much fun to hear your answers (and read your book!).

So, yeah! I guess this wraps up this interview! Thank you guys so much for coming, and I really hope you enjoyed reading this interview and learning a bit more about Linda Joan Smith’s writing process, and her book, The Peach Thief! I also really hope you’ll go and read The Peach Thief (it’s an amazing book), and I shall see you guys soon! Hopefully after I’ve defeated this Very Bad Cold!

Au revoir, mon ami!

Isabelle

P.S. If you wanna check out more fun stuff, like giveaways and book reviews, check out Marvelous Middle Grade Monday! It’s fun! And bookish! 🙂

P.P.S. Also, hope you guys don’t mind me saying this in this post, but… I’m doing a virtual author event!!! With one of my best friends!!! It shall be live, on YouTube, on March 31st, 10 AM EST, so if you’d like to see Journey and I rambling on about books, writing, and everything in between do keep an eye out for it? I’ll probably post about it in the next post.