This week our featured author is Eugene Fairfield. He’s relatively new to the Middle Grade world, but he can write a great book! Let’s get on to the interview.

What made you decide to become an author?
I have always been a storyteller. I think most kids are storytellers. Telling stories is fun. The weird thing about me is I didn’t stop when I grew up. But if you want to know the moment when I decided I wanted storytelling to be my career, I’d have to go back to when I was a college student studying in Japan. One day I was sitting in the rock garden in back of my homestay, reclining on a zabuton (this is kind of like a cross between a butt bucket and a futon). I was working on story ideas when I fell asleep in the sun. I woke up, looked down, and saw I still had my pen in hand. I decided this must be a sign.

What made you want to write middle grade?
My daughter is a voracious reader. When she was ten years old, she complained to me about how so many of the great adventure stories were about boys. How come there weren’t more girls having adventures? I decided to do something about it. After I’d written my first one, The Flying Ems, I decided writing for kids was much more fun. You can get a little crazier writing for kids. You have to be good though, all the time. Kids won’t slog through a dull part of your book, they’ll drop it. They don’t stand for nonsense and they won’t be talked down to. Writing for kids forces me to do my best.

If Hagrid and Mrs. Oleary (the Hell hound from Percy Jackson and the Olympians) were in a hot dog eating contest, who would win?
How about Hagrid vs. Miss Lupescu (the werewolf from Neil Gaiman’s Graveyard Book)? It wouldn’t actually be much of a contest. Miss Lupescu would fix Hagrid with a steely eye, and say something along the lines of, “Do you consider those suitable clothes for a formal contest?” Hagrid would then spend the next few minutes with his hands in his pockets and his face toward the ground.  Miss Lupescu would eat ten hot dogs in two bites., wait a polite length of time for Hagrid to get over his embarrassment, then say, “I guess we’re done here.”

Are you working on any new books right now? If so, what is it called, and what’s it about?
I’m just finishing a manuscript called Dante’s Infernal Field Trip. It’s several stories in one. It’s the tale of sixth grader Dante’s field trip to Hell, complete with Angel and Demon chaperons, an officious vice-principal, and an indomitable secretary. It’s also the story of Dante’s cousin, Taylor Taylor Taylor, who dies and is mistakenly sent to eternal torment in Hell. It’s also the story of Wormgas, a lowly demon, responsible for tormenting souls in Hell’s Poo Pits, who dreams of helping Hell become the best it can be. It’s also the story of Saint Peter’s short-tempered efforts to wade through Hell’s bureaucracy and fix the mistake with Taylor. When Dante decides he must rescue Taylor… (sorry, I can’t resist) all Hell breaks loose.

What other books have you written?
My other Middle Grades book right now is The Flying Ems, a tale of identical triplets who run away to the circus.  They wind up as target girls, caught between a crazed ringmaster (“Children in danger is always good”), a jealous contortionist (“I’ve got a drawer full of bus schedules, I can get you home from any city in the hemisphere”),  an irritable unicyclist (“Never come between a clown and her vices”), an autistic knife-thrower (“–“), a pair of humorless detectives, and a traitor. Imagine the Baudelaire orphans meet Willy Wonka.
I also have an epic fantasy for teens and adults, The Heron in His Vigilance, which is an American take on the genre. Imagine that the Norse settlement of Newfoundland had succeeded, and spread across the continent, and the collision of Europe and America happened centuries earlier.

If you could be any kind of donut, what would you be?
Definitely the hardest question so far. Would I be a filled donut? The kind where you don’t know what you’ve got until you bite into it, and then of course it’s too late,  you’ve already chosen your donut, and maybe its just jam, or maybe custard, or one of those that are basically filled with frosting. But I could be an old fashioned donut, the kind that doesn’t look like anything, just dry brown dough, but it has just that perfect, firm, donut flavor. Or maybe I’m a cider donut, the kind that looks like an old-fashioned, and almost tastes like an old-fashioned, but—wait—there’s a hint of apples!

What book are you reading right now?
Paulo Bacigalupi’s Ship Breaker, which is for Young Adults, and is very grim and dark. So here’s my favorite “Middle Grade story you haven’t heard of”: The Kneebone Boy, by Ellen Potter. It’s full of weird characters, it’s fun, it’s witty. It’s one of those books that is simultaneously “life size,” just regular kids trying to make their way in a hard world, and also “larger than life,” heroic. Thus, it becomes a story of herosim and adventure in the real—but very strange—world.

Where can we find out more about you and your books?
Stop by my website, http://uliante.com.