An Interview with Brian Rowe

Today I have an interview with Brian Rowe, author of Happy Birthday to Me. You can find Brian at his blog. I hope you enjoy the interview!

1. How did you get the idea for Happy Birthday to Me?

The idea from Happy Birthday to Me came to me in October 2009 about two weeks before my birthday. I was eating dinner in a restaurant in Los Angeles, when the waitress came by and happened to overhear that I was turning 25 in a couple of weeks. At the end of the meal, she surprised me with a giant piece of chocolate cake, and the dessert was marked FREE on the receipt. It got me thinking about people’s obsessions with birthdays, and then the idea hit me: what if you could celebrate your birthday every single day?

2. The covers for the series are awesome. Did you have any input over them, or did you let the cover designer do their own thing?

The covers for these books are designed and created by my good friend Katie Bode (www.katiebode.com) who works as a graphic designer in Los Angeles. I brought the ideas to Katie, and she implemented them better than I ever could have imagined. I love these covers, and I can’t wait to see what she puts together for the third one.

3. If you were in Cameron's place, how do you think you would react?

The fun of these books is putting yourself in Cameron’s shoes. What if you started aging a whole year with every day? What if you started going back a year every day? Thankfullynobody on Earth will ever have to answer that question (unless the physically impossible happens), but if I happened to be in Cameron’s shoes, I’d probably do what he did: try to live my life the best I can until the unthinkable happens. Unlike Cameron, however, I would probably stay away from the library and Mrs. Gordon: that woman means nothing but trouble!

4. Quick! Describe the Happy Birthday to Me trilogy in 7 words or less!

The trilogy is romantic, funny, and exciting.

5. Describe your best birthday.

My best birthday was spent with friends in downtown Duesseldorf in Germany in 2005. Even though I spent my first two months studying abroad overseas essentially able to drink already—in Europe you can start drinking when you’re in your teens—my birthday that year, which was a Friday, was an absolute blast. I drank myself silly and wandered to my guest home late on a beautiful fallnight.

6. Can you tell us 5 random fact about Cameron?

5 Random Facts about Cameron: He is extremely unlucky. His favorite book is The Witches, by Roald Dahl. He loves the red heads. He would choose Zac Efron to play him in a movie of his life. He loves and cares for his sister Kimber more than he ever lets on.

7. If you could tell your teenage-self anything, what would you tell him?

I would tell my teenage self to relax more, to not be so concerned with everydecision and every math test and every person who says something mean. It’s amazing how small your world is in high school. When you graduate college and get out into the working world, life would seemingly become worse. But as those videos have been saying: It Gets Better. If you’re having the time of your life in high school, then it’s possible you’ll be disappointed with the rest of your life. But if high school wasn’t all that, you might find out things get better in your 20’s. I’m only 27, so I don’t know what the future has in store for me. But I would tell my teenage self not to worry: It’s not like I would ever have to start rapidly aging into my 80’s… right?