In a tiny, bright office overlooking Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Museum of Art and Natural History, I am privileged to meet with Siobhan Vivian, a bubbly, blue-eyed professor at the University of Pittsburgh who specializes in Children and Young Adult Literature.

This is my second time meeting Siobhan, the first occurring after her workshop session at Pitt’s Writer’s Café in September, where she spoke about using Specificity to improve one’s writing. Star-struck and burning to know how she became so successful, it was after that session that I sent her a very long fan-girl email, to which she was kind enough not only to answer many of my naïve questions, but also to suggest several resources that will help me to improve my writing. I was thrilled when she agreed to be formally interviewed for The Original Magazine, and I looked forward to the prospect of talking to her in depth about her experiences in the world of Young Adult writing, hopeful that she would be able to give advice to young writers like me as we stumble through the maze that will hopefully lead to a published novel.

As a student at Pitt and an aspiring Young Adult writer myself, Siobhan Vivian’s incredible achievements in the genre are not only a testament to the fact that it is entirely possible to become a well-known YA novelist, but also prove that it is both a way to make a living and to effectively pursue one’s ambitions. In addition to her experience teaching at the University of Pittsburgh, Siobhan has worked as an editor in New York City, as a screenwriter for The Disney Channel, and has five published YA novels, including The List, which is currently being considered for an MTV series. She has another novel in the works, called The Last Boy and Girl in the World coming out in the spring of next year.

Siobhan’s enthusiasm about my visit, and her excitement over my desire to take her course at Pitt puts me instantly at ease, and we chat for a bit about my own ambitions before getting down to business to talk about her. As I try to find my own way in the labyrinth-like market for jobs regarding writing, I had to ask Siobhan: How did you do it? “I knew I wanted to write for kids” Siobhan replies easily, explaining that when she graduated from school, she was the only one writing stories centered around teenagers, as others concentrated on “film-noir, dark mysteries” which simply weren’t her style. When she had obtained her bachelors degree in Writing for Film and Television, she found an internship with Sesame Street, which led to other jobs in the world of children’s media, including her job with The Disney Channel. However, she found that her preference for stories about teenagers made it hard for her to find a place in children’s media, as the stories they wished to tell were geared toward a younger audience than what she instinctively wrote for. Her “characters were a little too old, the stories too heartfelt, and (children’s TV) just wasn’t the right thing.” While flipping through children’s book catalogs as part of her work, Siobhan stumbled upon synopsis for young adult books, and realized, finally, “that’s it.” She left her TV job in California to earn her masters degree in Writing Youth Literature from The New School in New York City, moving ahead in her pursuit of writing Young Adult novels.  

Now, having accidentally fallen into teaching at Pitt after having several books published, Siobhan’s six-year-old class, “Writing Youth Literature,” is highly sought after among those like myself who plan to earn their Children’s Literature Certificates. When asked about her feelings toward the class, her response is immediate and enthusiastic: “Oh, I love it!” Siobhan worked as an editor for Alloy Entertainment after the completion of her master’s degree, but quit her job when her first book was published, and although she doesn’t regret moving forward with her life, she says that teaching fills the space for her that editing once did. “There is no better way to learn about story and to figure out story and narrative than helping somebody else tell theirs,” she says. “I loved working with writers (in New York) and helping them close the gap between what they hoped their book would be and what was actually on the page, and I derived a lot of energy from that.” Siobhan is able to regain that sense of positive energy through editing student’s stories, and helping them on their way to creating what will one day become the next generation of Young Adult novels.

I myself hope to be one of these up-and-coming authors, and am now officially enrolled in Siobhan’s course for this coming fall, where I look forward to hearing more about how to write a novel. I ask Siobhan this very same question, wondering how she has managed to be so prolific, and what the secrets are to writing and publishing a successful book. “I’ll give you the real answer,” she says, “I have only ever sold books that weren’t written.” Siobhan’s success as an editor and the name she has made for herself in the world of Young Adult literature allows her to sell only her ideas for books, as the publishers are confident that she will create something worth their time and money. She submits the beginning of the story to the editor (usually about seventy pages) as well as a full outline for the rest of the book, and works from there. After these ideas are accepted and bought, Siobhan writes the rest of her story to meet the book’s deadline. This process is helpful to her writing, she says, as the book’s approaching due date is a concrete motivator for her to complete a book, rather than investing years into writing a story with no promise that it will be accepted when complete. Although this is an unusual method, it ensures a level of success regarding Siobhan’s writing, and allows her to publish as many books as ideas she has.

Regarding the writing process while an undergraduate, Siobhan says, “I’m a big advocate of bailing on stuff.” She maintains that undergraduate writers are at the point where they should simply be excited to sit down in a chair and work, and shouldn’t feel pressured to have an entire novel already written. “You should be trying on one-hundred different things, you should be a schizophrenic writer,” she says. She tells me that grad school is when people should really get serious about their writing, that’s the time to buckle down and pick a single idea to run with, a story to take all the way into a complete novel.

Finally, I ask Siobhan what it is that makes or breaks a story, what is it that makes the editor put the manuscript back into the stack or to keep reading. Her response is clear-cut and exact: A story that has a chance involves an interesting voice, a compelling setting, and high stakes. “Editors, agents, everybody is reading to say no,” she says. To be effective, a story has to be working in several ways at once. “Think of it like speed-dating,” she says. This is where the truth is, advice that every prospective writer should take into consideration. As Siobhan so beautifully says, a story has to tempt you, reel you in quickly, and above all else, it has to “make you fall in love.”