Stephenie Meyer chats with BBC Radio 4 about her books. She touches on a lot of different subjects and the interviewer asks some good questions.
She discusses categorizing her books as Young Adult or Adult, her normalcy at home, social media and people’s immediate reaction to everything she does (she does not have any social media accounts), and Googling herself.
She goes into how Midnight Sun was leaked, and it was not a digital technology theft issue. Her email has been hacked in the past and she thought someone had accessed her computer. She believes that Midnight Sun was leaked via an writer’s group she was once a part of, where they would share their stories. Someone probably made a copy and leaked it. She says that she stopped writing it because the Twilight films were cast at that point and could feel the vision of the actors creeping into her work.
She discusses the Church of Latter Day Saints (LDS or Mormon) church and how it influences her work. There are no messages in her works (for example: abstinence). She chooses to write stories instead. She answered very similarly to a question we asked her in the fansite roundtable interview last month.
She brings up that she is criticized for not being a feminist, but she believes she is one. Her books are female-driven. The Host actually has three strong female characters. She discusses submissiveness in the Twilight series.
She touches on Fifty Shades of Grey and fan fiction. She does not read any fan fiction, but if it had existed when she was growing up, she probably would have written some herself. She was actually accused of taking someone’s story once, but the elements were so generic that the suit was tossed.
The subject of obsessive fans and how much detail they want on characters is brought up. Long books are great, and how J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter) helped prove that young adults and kids can and will read long books. She has never met J.K. Rowling.
You can listen to the whole fifteen minute conversation online. I only paraphrased in this post and it is a great interview. Click here to listen to it.
Source: BBC Radio 4
