An Interview with Cherry Cheva

1. What is it like writing YA novels and writing for Family Guy? Is it hard to balance your time?

YES! Sooooo hard. Or arguably not hard, because unless I’m on a deadline I kind of just don’t do it-- I’ll just go to work at Family Guy, come home, mean to work on book stuff, end up watching a bunch of TV instead, go to sleep, wake up the next day, repeat cycle. :) So weekends are when I tend to actually get book stuff done. If there is a deadline involved though, then I definitely will come home after work and do more work. It gets very tiring, as I’m sure everyone else who has a full-time day job and also writes books knows. It sucks! (And also is awesome, but you know what I mean.)

2. How did you come up for the idea of DupliKate?

Mad props go to my very smart editors; we were tossing around a couple different ideas, and someone mentioned something about computer avatars and clones and I sort of took that and ran with it.

3. How does writing for a popular TV show effect your life? Do people recognize you (on the streets) by your YA books or by Family Guy?

HA! HAHAHHHHAHAHAHAHAHA—nobody recognizes me anywhere, ever, are you kidding me? I have been not recognized by people I KNOW if I happen to be dressed differently than usual or something. But if it comes up in conversation that I’m a writer, Family Guy tends to get the bigger reaction from people; it’s a big huge hit show that sells zillions of DVDs, whereas my books have sold, um, less than a zillion. :) Also, several people who work at Family Guy are famous so then people want to know if I know them, whereas in books it’s not like anyone’s ever going, “Oh my god, I love your editor! Are they hot in person? Are they nice?” The answer, by the way, is yes. :)

4. Do you have any advice for aspiring authors?

Sure! Read a whole lot (if you’re an aspiring author you’re probably doing this anyway). Also, be prepared! Do your research. As in, when the time comes around that you’ve written something that you actually want to show somebody, it will impress them more if you’ve already figured out exactly how a manuscript should be formatted, what a good query letter looks like, etc. This may sound like a total no-brainer, but I used to be an assistant at an agency and you’d be surprised at how many people send in something that’s formatted all crazy or whatever.

5. When you were a teen, where you like Kate?

Good lord, no. I mean, I was taking a lot of AP classes and stuff, and I did want to get into a good school and whatnot, so I felt her academic pain, but the similarity ends there. She’s more of the “do EVERYTHING!” type chick whereas I was more straight nerdy. I mean, my main extracurricular was the newspaper, and I certainly wasn’t setting foot anywhere near any sports practices of any type.

6. Is there anything you would like to add?

Thank you so much for this interview! And if you live in/near Ann Arbor, MI or are very motivated to drive, come see me at the downtown library on Dec. 29^th! Details here: http://www.aadl.org/events/list?id=5810 and I’m sure I will be tweeting it to the skies as we get closer (twitter.com/cherrycheva). There will be PRIZES given away, and who doesn’t like FREE STUFF?! :D