Author Interview: Gwenda Bond
Friday, June 19, 2015
Gwenda Bond is the author of the young adult novels Lois Lane: Fallout and Girl on a Wire, among others. She has also written for Publishers Weekly, the Los Angeles Times, and the Washington Post, among other publications. She has an MFA in Writing from the Vermont College of Fine Arts, and lives in a hundred-year-old house in Lexington, Kentucky, with her husband, author Christopher Rowe, and their menagerie.
Superman
is original superhero, the first and still the most recognizable of them all.
Lois Lane has been right there since the beginning too (and always ahead of her
time!). The characters both made their first appearances in Action Comics #1 in
1938. These are special characters—characters who stand up for people who can’t
stand up for themselves, who are committed to truth and justice, and who are
really fascinating fictional people at the same time. And whose relationship
with each other also has achieved that iconic status. Young adult fiction seems
like the perfect venue to give us a new perspective on how Lois becomes the
Lois we know and love. She deserves her own origin story.
Here
is a secret: I am terrible at video games. I might, might be decent at the early levels of Katamari Damacy or something
super-primitive like the Atari game Adventure (little square boxes, represent!)
or Wii tennis or Ms. Pac-Man (with which I am semi-obsessed; I dream of one day
owning my own Ms. Pac-Man machine). And I seem to lack the patience for getting
better at them. But I am fascinated by the technology and the possibilities as
it gets more sophisticated and goes in more of a storytelling direction. So
while I’d probably be better at Unicorn University, I’d enjoy poking around the
less battle-heavy parts of Worlds War Three more. I want to go on a Worlds
space ship, so I guess I’d be an alien.
Beginnings
are always the hardest for me. They take a lot of fine-tuning on my part to get
right. So, definitely the beginning, plus trying to make sure I wouldn’t
disappoint long-time fans of the character.
I’m
a long-time fan of Lois as a character, but I did revisit some of my favorite versions
of her from various media. I re-watched the first two Christopher Reeve
Superman movies, for instance, which introduced me to the character as a child.
I also read some writing about her and how she’s tended to reflect cultural
attitudes toward women in various eras. Oh, and to your earlier question, I did
some research on video game design.
I
should make something up, shouldn’t I? No, I won’t. Does reading count as an
awesome hobby? I read a lot. I’m always resolving to learn how to dance or do
the scary complicated yoga poses or fence or do magic tricks or walk the wire,
but I seem to read about those things and put them in books instead.
Lois
is the most fun. Second most fun: her chats with SmallvilleGuy. But I also
really enjoy writing Maddy, Devin, and James. And everyone. I love them all.
Read
as much as you can, and read outside your comfort zone. Never let anyone make
you feel small or wrong for what you love, whether it’s in terms of your
reading or writing. Find your peers and friends, and support each other. Be an
enthusiastic participant in celebrating their successes.
I
can’t say a word or a dragon will appear and eat me.
Thank you, Gwenda Bond, for visiting the blog today!
Click here to read my review of Lois Lane: Fallout.
Click here to check out Gwenda Bond's website and here to follow her on Twitter.
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