Interview with author Heidi Ayarbe + Giveaway (CLOSED)!

One Book At A Time Would like to welcome Heidi Ayarbe to the blog.

I worked with Heidi when she was promoting her last book Compulsion!  I was really pleased to be able to help promote her latest book Wanted.  I sent Heidi a list of three top 10 things to choose from and she provided answers for all 3!   I couldn't pick just one...so I've included them all.   And just to make sure you're reading....there's not 1 but 3 giveaway's at the end!!

My Top Ten Things About Being a Bookie (Michal):

10. The challenge. It’s not easy to set odds and work out the intricacies of the bookie world. It feels like I’m part of a secret world.
9. Reading The Gambler right before bets are placed – finding the perfect passage. English teachers are totally going about motivation the wrong way. I’ve got some of the biggest school morons reading 19th Century Russian lit and asking for more.
8. I’m needed. None of these guys would have the brains, or balls, to do this. They need me.
7. I make people uncomfortable. I don’t fit in, but they can’t ignore me. I’m not a wallflower to anyone.
6. I can, with one bet, take my clients on the ride of their lives. I’m totally not into the babying, boo-hoo-I-lost-my-money stuff. But when shit hits the fan, or when things go great, I’m the first one to get a phone call.
5. Taking bets and cash right under every adult’s nose is a rush.
4.Sanctuary:  Gathering in the cold mornings before school. There’s an intensity when we meet. A purpose.
3. It makes sense.
2. Power.
1. Money. (Well, I don’t dress like I do because I work at Dominoes Pizza.)

My Top Ten Anti-Bullshit Division Feats (Josh):
Keep in mind, this is all stuff I’ve heard about. 

10. Holding a huge community money raiser for the Boy Scouts of America and giving the funds to LGBT student association.  (Hey. Some kids’ delinquency begins young.) There’s no LGBT badge for the Scouts, by the way. (Oh. And that kid’s Dad had to pay all the donors back. Oops.)
9. Organizing the “dog shit of America” day in which all those who bring their dogs to the park and don’t clean up the crap get a flaming surprise on their lawns the next day. I heard the sheer logistics of this was phenomenal (tracking the errant dog owners and gathering the necessary materials.)
8. Putting hair removal cream in the Lacrosse team’s shampoo bottles.
7. Placing impossible bets … putting it all on the line depending on some running back’s yardage.  But I always win.
6. Streamlining porn into our flat screen TVs at mass one morning. It gave a whole new meaning to hallelujah.
5. Disabling the school’s PA system control center, and playing over the loud speaker, all day long, Pink Floyd’s We Don’t Need No Education. It took the principal and teachers three hours to find the new control center.
4. House robberies. It’s freaking insane how much adrenaline can pump through someone’s veins, I’ve heard, when he’s stealing from an empty house.
3. Being real, totally and completely no bullshit, with Michal.
2. Trusting Michal.
1. Saying “I love you.” With that, you can lose everything.

Top ten reasons I enjoy writing darker contemporary fiction  (Heidi).

10. I love the SCBWI community and community of children’s writers, bloggers, librarians, reviewers and more. What wonderful, open people that inspire me and keep me going.
9. I think “real” people are extraordinary. Teens don’t need special powers or to be swept away by vampire love to find purpose.
8. I love “what if” … the basis of all great stories. What if, for example, a high school bookie starts to gamble … and lose? What if a high school soccer star had OCD, and was trying to keep the secret from everybody? What if a young girl’s father is sent to prison, and her only hope of not going into foster care is finding a long lost aunt? What if a 15-year-old boy shoots and kills his best friend?
7. I hope many readers can relate to the characters I create.
6. Reading has been one of the greatest joys of my life – getting lost in the magic that unfolds between the covers of a book. And I always have loved contemporary fiction the most.
5. I love creating people in words that I wish I knew in real life.
4. I love the challenge. I haven’t had to work my brain so hard ever. Writing, I believe, is learned – a skill we have to work on every day to get better. I don’t believe in that whole muse-inspirational thing. I do believe that some people have a vocation for it, but to write, you need to work your tail off and become a master of the skills needed to pull a novel together.
3. I learn every day because everything … I mean EVERYTHING … has to be researched from the time the sun rises in Nevada in October to how many steps it takes to run one and a half miles if you’re a 5’10” adolescent boy running approximately seven-minute miles.
2. I love words. The difference between vehement, fervent, passionate and intense matters to me.
1. The characters. It all comes down to the characters.

HAPPY WANTED RELEASE DAY!

In honor of release day, Heidi is giving away 3 prizes on the blog

PRIZE: 1. SWAG + signed copy of WANTED! 

2. SWAG + Colombian treat 

3. SWAG + a signed copy of one of my other novels (surprise)

Contest ends May 31st and is open to US and Canada.
Prizes will not be shipped until July.  Heidi lives in Columbia and it is insanely expensive to ship from there.  She will ship when she visits the states in July