By Shannon Presby

Alex Thayer has been writing since she could hold a pencil, but the road to publishing her first novel took longer than expected. For one, she worked as an actor, graduating from Wheaton College and the National Theater Institute at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, which helped strengthen her deep connection with her written characters. But Thayer has also been writing middle-grade books for twelve years, with several manuscripts going on submission before she finally sold her debut novel.

In, Happy & Sad & Everything True, Dee’s school year starts badly when her best friend since forever is placed in a different classroom and finds a new group of girls to sit with at lunch. Dee would rather be lonely by herself than lonely in a crowd, so she retreats to the bathroom and starts giving heartfelt advice to the kids who seek her out. But in some cases, her bathroom counseling sessions end up making things worse.

The Coachella Review caught up with Thayer to discuss the goals she sets for herself, how her acting background helps her character’s voice, and the book that made her cry while reading aloud in sixth grade.

The Coachella Review: In your book, Happy & Sad & Everything True, your main character, Dee, is a sixth grader trying to navigate the changing landscape of middle school. What led you to center your story on this character and on the theme of friendship?

Alex Thayer: I don’t think I thought about it as a theme. I heard her very clearly in my head for quite a long time before I started writing, and sadly enough I think I was quite lonely myself in my own personal life, and she almost came to me sort of like a friend, and it became someone I listened to. So, the more I could hear her in my head, I felt like I needed to listen, and then I also needed to put her in a place that wasn’t necessarily just inside my head, so what better setting than a bathroom? So I put this dear one in a bathroom and I listened, and the friendship theme and all of the things she went through came out just by hearing her voice somewhere inside me.

TCR: Dee has to navigate her mom’s emerging friendship with the gym teacher from her school, too. Why did you choose to have Dee come from a single-parent household?

AT: I felt like it gave her a lot to navigate. Being an only child, Dee knows what it’s like to be alone and have a single parent. That parent also knows what it’s like to be alone. So it gave them a connection but also gives them both a loneliness. And I relate to single moms. I grew up with a single mom in my own life, and I am now a single mom, so in some ways… write what you know and make up the rest.

TCR: Why did you want Dee to confront her mom’s sexuality and her mom’s need for connection?

AT: I think it speaks to the closeness of their relationship. I see it less as a confrontation. I think Dee was curious, and she felt safe enough to ask difficult questions. I think her biggest growth in the book is asking questions. She’s so good at listening to others and giving advice, but I think the thing she had to come to with her friends and her mother is asking those same questions about herself and listening.

TCR: Dee overflows with empathy, and this leads other students to seek out her advice. How did that idea of having Dee be a therapist to these other kids come to you?

AT: I love her. As I said, I’ve always just heard her, and that was what she was good at. I don’t think she tried it. I don’t think she planned it. I don’t think she even knew she was good at it, but she just genuinely liked to listen to people. I don’t think that she even thought that she was able to give good advice, but I think that just by listening to others, she had something to express. I think it was less of a plan but more that it just fit with the person I was hearing.

TCR: We’ve kind of talked about this, but in talking about her own feelings, at one point Dee tells us that she likes helping people because when she’s helping people there’s no room to feel lonely. Loneliness is a deep subject. Can you talk a little about this as it relates to middle-grade readers; why did you want to tackle the topic of loneliness for this age group?

AT: Sadly, loneliness is completely universal, to this age and to adults. I have felt it on both sides. There is something so hopeful about children innately, so what better way to look at loneliness than with someone with everything in front of them. I feel like it makes me able to look at something difficult and uncomfortable in a hopeful way.

TCR: There are some literary critics who can be dismissive of books that are written for younger readers. What led you to write about and for this age group? And maybe more importantly, why do you think it’s important to have books for these readers?

AT: Kids are the best. They’re the most honest, straightforward, intelligent, unaffected—I can’t think of a better person to write for, and I seem to have the odd ability of being a twelve-year-old somewhere still inside. So, I love children, and I’m still in touch with the child inside myself.

TCR: Taking you back to when you were a young reader, was there a book or books that you remember changing the way you felt about reading and books?

AT: Absolutely. Oddly enough, it’s all the books that made me cry. I remember reading Charlotte’s Web as a kid in tears. I remember reading Bridge to Terabithia in tears. I actually had to read that one out loud in my sixth grade class. I was called on, and I had to read the sad part out loud, and I actually cried in front of my class. It was terribly embarrassing. But also, I think it resonated.

TCR: Happy & Sad & Everything True is told in the first person. Did you experiment with the point of view, or did you always know that you wanted to tell it from Dee’s first-person perspective?

AT: The voice has always stayed very consistently in first. I feel like because I heard her so clearly, it felt very natural for it to come out that way.

TCR: In full disclosure, you and I are friends, and I know a little about your journey as a writer, but can you describe the path that you took to getting your first novel published? Was it easy as pie?

AT: [laughs] It sure wasn’t. No. I have been writing my entire life. I have been writing since the age I could form words. I’ve kept journals my whole life. I’ve also been writing stories and poems and other books. It’s been a very long journey, and I think for me, I needed it to be a long journey. I have a bit of a slow process, but it has definitely been a long, long road, to the point of . . . I don’t think I’m able to stop writing, but I have had difficult moments where I never wanted to share my writing again.

TCR: How long ago was it when you had your first agent and your first book out on submission?

AT: Oh gosh, I think about ten years ago, maybe twelve years ago, even.

TCR: And during that whole period of time, you kept writing?

AT: I kept writing.

TCR: How many books do you think you wrote between that first book and Happy & Sad & Everything True?

AT: I mean, I have a lot of messy first drafts. I probably have about seven or eight very messy first drafts, which are resting in a drawer. I don’t know how to not write. I think another thing that really loosened me up and took the pressure off [the questions of] Do I want to show my work to people [and] Do I want to get published, was dipping my toes in other writing genres and being a beginner again. So I’d take a poetry class, or I’d take a personal essay class—anything to break me out of what I thought I knew. It’s so fun to be a beginner, and it’s also wonderful to be around other writers. So I think those two things helped me, probably more than anything.

TCR: I also know that you were an actor in an earlier iteration of yourself. Are there any lessons or techniques that you took from your acting training that influence your writing?

AT: Absolutely. This is a great question. I feel like I never really think about it, but yes. I think acting really helps me with my voice, to the extent that sometimes I think of my character not [as someone] inside my head, but I am my character. On some days to really connect with her, I’ll dress like her or I’ll make a breakfast that I think she’ll have. I also do the technique, the character questionnaires that you often get in writing class—my character’s name is, her favorite food is, her favorite color is—I don’t write it as the writer. I fill it out as this twelve-year-old girl. I am Dee. I’m talking as if I’m her and I think that comes from acting. It feels very natural, and I think it helps with character, but also [think it helps] to really hone the voice.

TCR: Can you describe your daily writing process, when do you write, how long, do you have a set number of words that you try to write?

AT: Well, I wake up and I see a blank page and I don’t want to write, and I make myself write on the blank page every single morning. Oftentimes it’s journal work or idea scrambling. When I’m in the throes of a project, oftentimes more will come out in the journal. But everything I work on is in the morning. It starts out longhand, pen and paper, and then within that same writing slot, if I’m liking what I’m working on, I will put the scene into my computer and edit as I go along. But for me, the hand-head-heart connection works on paper so much better.

TCR: Is there a set amount of time that you work in the morning, or does it just depend on what the rest of the day has in store?

AT: I don’t like to set times because then I’ll just feel horrible about myself and probably not want to keep going. So, I set the bar very low. If I can write something, I typically feel better. I often write more if there isn’t pressure. I think the habit of writing is more important that having these epic writing days. It’s great when they happen, but for me they don’t happen often.

TCR: Talking a little bit more about craft. Do you plot out your scenes? Do you outline before diving in, or how would you describe your approach to the work?

AT: I definitely don’t have a big plot in mind. I take a character and really start with them and try to listen to them. I do usually have some sense of where they are going, but it often changes. I think the thing I love the most is when I’m surprised by the character. I sort of have an idea of what I think they might do, and then that doesn’t happen. I love that. I like going in knowing enough so I have something to work on but then being open to being surprised.

TCR: You mentioned it, but I know in addition to prose, you also write poetry. Do you think that writing poetry influences your prose, or vice-versa, and in what way?

AT: Yes. I’m not exactly sure how. I have such deep respect for poets. The simplicity, the beauty, and the emotion that can come from a few words on the page is amazing to me. Why not try poetry? I think it’s what we are all trying to boil our work down to.

TCR: With respect to writing first drafts, would you call yourself a maximalist—that is, do you tend to put it all in and prune it out later—or are you more of a minimalist, setting down a framework for your story and then building upon it in later drafts?

AT: I think I’m more of a minimalist. I especially shy away from emotionally resonant scenes. I’ll just write a tiny bit and then need to set it down and return to it and add a bit more. I tend to underwrite rather than overwrite, which leads to having to go back into things many, many times. But again, I figure, set the bar low, get out what you can when it comes out, and you can always return to it.

TCR: What are you working on now?

AT: I am working on a book about a bookworm who is forced to become a cheerleader.

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Shannon Presby was born in Los Angeles and raised by beatniks down the street from a Manson crime scene. Shannon got kicked out of UCLA, whereupon he went feral. Later, he became an actor, studied with Stella Adler in NYC, went to law school, clerked for the U.S. Court of Appeals in Chicago, and became a criminal prosecutor. He is currently an MFA student at UCR Palm Desert. His first short story, “Soundtrack,” was published in Kelp Journal, and he won the Golden Quill award for his story “Sounds Like Joni Mitchell.” Shannon likes amber beer, wild places, and words.