BELLOWS FALLS — Julian F. Thompson, author of 18 young adult novels, including The Grounding of Group 6, and the newly self-published author of Getting In, says he is one of a small number of adults who actually likes and gets along with teenagers. As such a person, he enjoys writing about and for them.
He founded and ran an alternative high school for seven years, during which he learned more about the demographic he would later write for.
“I started life as a teacher and after teaching here and there, I joined with a group of kids to start an alternative high school, which I directed for seven years with great enjoyment. With one of the teachers from that school, I left teaching, and she became my wife. All during my teaching career, I had written short stories and even a couple of novels that never saw the light of day, but were very useful in helping me to understand what I didn't know about writing,” Thompson said.
From his experience working with adolescents, Thompson was inspired to write what he thought would be a book that might be published.
“I decided I would write about something I knew a lot about – teenage kids. I sent a friend from college who was an agent manuscripts of two novels. He said, 'You've written a young adult novel.' I said, 'What's that?' and he told me. One of those books was The Grounding of Group 6, which became a YA classic. Lately, the YA market is full of books about vampires and zombies; mine tend to be more about regular kids.”
Thompson was inspired to write his latest book, Getting In, about how one ingenious applicant induced a letter of acceptance from America's most selective university, partly by his experience as the director of an alternative high school.
“One of the chores I put on myself was advising kids about college admissions, which colleges might be a good fit for them. When the school had to make up transcripts for kids, I decided to do something very different. I consulted a friend who was then Dean of Admissions at Yale about how they would handle our transcript, which didn't look like any other. He said, 'It's going to stop the process in its tracks; we're going to have to seriously look at what you send us. I think you're on to something.' I wrote to 43 other colleges telling them what we planned to do, and only one wrote back to say they didn't like the idea.”
Getting In centers around Tapioca Strangeways, a girl from Rising Gorge, Vermont who wants to be accepted by the very selective Riddle University. She writes to the admissions director about doing her admissions essay in 10 chapters, each “designed to appeal to an admissions officer at a highly selective university.” Dean Dorman, who reads her letter, is impressed and gives Tapioca permission to send in her unique long essay.
Between its chapters, the book contains the correspondence between Dean Dorman and Tapioca. He becomes interested in her as more than just an admissions prospect.
Thompson describes the book as a “spoof and comic relief.” He understands the stress and anxiety that goes into the admissions process.
“Some kids send out five, six, or 10 applications. It can get pretty hairy,” he says.
Getting In is Thompson's first foray into the complex world of self-publishing, which he describes as being “much more challenging” than regular publication.
“The thing is, once you get your foot in the door with regular publishing, you just send your agent the manuscript and he or she sends it to a publisher who likes your stuff. Then the author gets a call saying 'You have an offer.' And that's it. With self-publishing, there are all sorts of steps that involve a great deal of computer work. Thousands of books are being written that are never seen by publishers. Self-publishing does cost money; we took the cheapest route we could find,” Thompson said.
He's not shy about including strong messages in his books, and that's earned him some criticism from adults who feel that parents are portrayed unfairly in his stories.
“There are lots of things I feel really strongly about,” he said, “ranging from safe sex to kids being misunderstood by their parents. Group 6 has a very big message: Some parents really misunderstand their kids. The book is about six kids whose parents have said 'I could kill that kid!' Though it's basically black humor, it points to the fact that for various reasons, sometimes parents don't like the boys and girls they end up with. There are a lot of good parents in my books, but I don't hesitate to point out that some can be pretty dreadful. In my books, I try to tell the truth about many of the things teenagers have to face and deal with.”
Thompson is now at work on a sequel to Getting In. “I'm working on a book called Getting Out, about Tapioca's senior year at Riddle interviewing for jobs,” he said.
In the meantime, Getting In can be purchased on Amazon.com for $14.95.