Reader Meet Author: Sally Weigel

Some of the most passionate and creative times of our lives are spent in high school. I think it is the combination of rapid learning, bottled angst, and ample time, but the downside to youthful creativity can most often be the lack of control and structure. As the student progresses in their education their writing becomes more refined, but their focus and energy may lessen. However, in the case of Sally Weigel, the now student at DePaul, she was able to capture that youthful passion but still show the ability to mold and craft it into a well-rounded novella while still in high school.

Too Young to Fall Asleep was recently released by CCLaP and is available as a free e-book here. Sally was kind enough to answer a few of my questions.

Orange Alert (OA): Too Young To Fall Asleep is your debut novella, what can you tell us about your novella?
Sally Weigel (SW): "Too Young to Fall Asleep" is a story about a seventeen-year-old ,suburbanite girl who chooses to volunteer for the military instead of going off to college with the rest of her peers. Distressed about her surroundings (including both the security of mansions with freshly trimmed lawns as well as the apathetic teenagers she parties with), Catherine immerses herself in Radiohead CDs to find some direction. A year later, at nineteen, she ends up in an outpatient hospital, after a blow from an IED in Iraq leaves her without her own legs. With an motorcycle-riding, antagonistic Neil Young fanatic for a suite mate and a frightening amount of time to simply think, Catherine comes to terms with her role in modern day America as a young affluent female. This "pay what you want" ebook can be downloaded at http://www.cclapcenter.com/asleep/.

OA: I love the Radiohead quote you chose to open the book with. Was that quote just fitting or was it the inspiration for the story?
SW: I love that quote as well. It was included in the first draft of the story. It reads, "Too young to fall asleep, too cynical to speak, we're losing it, can't you tell?" As I was editing, I just kept coming back to those lyrics, thinking they were a beautiful, spot-on representation of the main character's mindset. When I was having trouble titling the novella, I finally decided to pull from that quote to illuminate how much Radiohead did propel the character's decisions. It is a band very much tied to the Millennium, so it speaks to the main character's generation as well. It was just perfectly fitting.

OA: The cover is fascinating, how much input did you have on the cover images?
SW: My editor created the cover, which I later approved. For those readers who don't know, a photo of soldiers in combat is paired with a picture of a crowd at Grant Park. I liked it because I thought the juxtaposition of images had to be intriguing to perspective readers. They were such opposite images that one had to read the book to discover how they correlate.

OA: What was your experience like with cc lap and Jason Pettus?
SW: My experience with CCLaP helped me as writer tremendously. I wrote this novella when I was eighteen. I was unpublished, and had not even taken any creative writing classes. I was just a high school student who spent too much time in her bedroom reading obscure novels and making up characters and underdeveloped story lines in her journal. I worked extensively with Jason Pettus on editing the novella, which taught me how to structure a story so that I was portraying setting and plot and theme to my audience effectively. My writing before working on the novella and my writing after the publication has improved dramatically.

OA: What are your thoughts on ebooks in general? With the popularity of mobile readers and the ability to read books on phone fo you feel that this is the future of the book?
SW: I never thought I would have an ebook. I have actually never read one other than my own. I read short stories online but that's about it. I have to say, I'm incredibly surprised with the success. More than half of my downloads are from feedbooks.com, which means that a majority of my readers are complete strangers. I thought my audience would just be friends and family; if lucky, some extra eyes would come across the novella but that has not been the case. So do I think it is the future of the book? Honestly, I hope not. As a writer, I should be in favor of the medium as a new way to expose my work. But as a reader, I still cherish tangible books that are pieces of art themselves.

OA: I know it has been a short time but how has your expirience at DePaul impacted your writing? What do you hope to get out of your time there?
SW: Chicago has effected my writing more so than DePaul. DePaul has helped me with writing clearly, and English classes have improved how I evaluate a good piece of writing. But in terms of subject matter, being young and living in the city of Chicago gives me daily inspiration. When choosing colleges, I was in between a small liberal arts college in the middle of nowhere and DePaul. Ultimately, I chose DePaul because I knew both institutions provided a similar curriculum. DePaul gave me that extra opportunity to have a less secluded, textbook education.

OA: What's next for Sally Weigel?
SW: I'm hoping to get more short stories published. I just want to keep writing and keep publishing. Eventually, I will need a day job but I don't think I will ever stop writing and stop wanting to expose my writing to strangers.

Bonus Questions:
OA: If you could sit down to coffee with anyone (alive or dead) who would it be?
SW: Nelson Algren. That man is full of stories.

OA: What type of music do you enjoy and who are a few of your favorites?
SW: I will never get sick of Wilco when they tended toward music with a more experimental tone. "Summeteeth", "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot", and "A Ghost is Born". I always come back to those three albums.

For more information on Sally Weigel please visit her website.