Carrie Ryan, author of the award-winning* The Forest of Hands and Teeth, was a recent panelist on a Post Apocalyptic YA Fiction panel in an uptown New York city Barnes & Noble. She, along with authors James Dashner (The Maze Runner), Scott Westerfeld (Leviathan), and Michael Grant (Hunger), spoke about the origins of their books, what it is like to write post apocalyptic fiction for a young adult audience, and more.
Of course, this is the kind of event that Suvudu simply can’t pass up the chance to attend, so we were there and were able to record Carrie’s answers. Below, you’ll hear her talk about The Forest of Hands and Teeth, writing zombie YA fiction, and about writing YA in general. Carrie has some wonderful stories to tell regarding this book, so give a listen and I think you’ll be in for a treat.
Carrie Ryan Introduces The Forest of Hands and Teeth
What inspired you to write a Post Apocalyptic novel?
What compromises do you consider when writing YA?
At the end of the panel, Carrie displayed the following book trailer for The Forest of Hands and Teeth. This video was a finalist in the Kirkus Teen 2008 Video Awards and has since been selected as the official book trailer.
So there you have it, a brief introduction to The Forest of Hands and Teeth by none other than the author herself. If you’ve been holding out on this one, or if you’re new to it entirely, I’d recommend that you pick this book up somehow, someway and give it a read. I couldn’t find a place in this book that I was prepared to put it down, so I ended up reading it over the course of one weekend. For a slow reader like myself, that’s saying something. Carrie’s fiction captures what’s best about post apocalyptic fiction, set a character in to a hopeless situation, and see if hope blossoms. I won’t give anything away, but I think that if you pick this book up and give it a read, you’ll see why was awarded an “Inspired Recommendation for Kids from Indie Booksellers.”
And you might want to go ahead and read it now so that you’re ahead of the curve when the movie appears. There’s no solid news, but a report out of Publishers Weekly suggests that a film version has been greenlighted and is on the fast-track to production. From the article:
“Nevins said the book, a post-apocalyptic zombie thriller about a girl who lives in a religious community in the woods and is equally worried about a zombie invasion and her planned marriage, is in line to “do for zombies what Twilight did for vampires.” Supposedly Seven Star is developing the project for an-as-yet-unnamed A-list starlet, and fast-tracking the project with a first draft of the screenplay already in the works.”
Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
And, to help facilitate you in your reading efforts, I’ve included our Insight Preview Widget for The Forest of Hands and Teeth! Just click on the book cover to the right and (assuming you’re not blocking JavaScript), a book preview will appear. If you’re so inclined, you can even grab the embed code for that widget by clicking the + button and post the preview widget on your own site.
Happy Reading!
* WINNER 2009 – Kid’s Indie Next List “Inspired Recommendations for Kids from Indie Booksellers”
