2016 Debut Authors Bash ~ Lucy Keating Interview

Hey all! Welcome to this year's Debut Authors Bash.

The Debut Authors Bash is an annual event that YA Reads started in 2013 to promote debut authors through reviews, guest posts, interviews, promo posts, etc. It's an exciting chance to get to know a little more about the year's incredible authors and their brilliant books!



This year's Bash runs from June 1st through June 30th. To view the rest of the tour schedule click here.

The author I'm featuring today is the lovely Lucy Keating!

I got the chance to chat with Lucy about her novel Dreamology (which I read and loved because it is everything!), dream boys, and alpacas. 

Along with the interview is a giveaway you don't want to miss thanks to Lucy Keating and the wonderful people over at YA Reads, so be sure to check that out if you love books and free things I mean who doesn't?!

Now let's get this Bash started!

Lucy is a writer living in Los Angeles, California. She grew up in Boston, Massachusetts, attended Williams College in the Berkshires, and still misses the East Coast very much. 

When she's not writing, Lucy can usually be found obsessing over the latest music, inventing new flavors of ice cream, or having what she feels are perfectly acceptable conversations with her dog, Ernie.

Lucy's first YA novel, DREAMOLOGY, will be published by HarperTeen in April 2016. DREAMOLOGY is about a girl named Alice who has spent her life dreaming about the same boy, Max. Together they have traveled the world and fallen deliriously, hopelessly in love. There's just one problem - Max doesn't actually exist. Until Alice moves to Boston and finds him sitting next to her at school...very much alive and real.

Connect with Lucy via her:

Twitter | Instagram | Goodreads

Booknut: Dreamology is such a fun and unique novel to read – and the relationship between Alice and Max is a big part of what makes the book so enjoyable. What makes Alice and Max different from other YA couples?

Lucy Keating: What makes Alice and Max different, to me, is that while they do have that epic, original love story, and fell in love in their dreams in a really beautiful way, and they do have obstacles getting in the way of that love, their obstacles are actually...themselves. Max is kind of flawed and struggles with how to express himself sometimes... initially he would rather keep control over his world than blow it all up to be with Alice. And Alice is stuck in her dreams, instead of trying to meet Max in reality, and accepting him for some of those parts of himself. But to me this added another complex layer to their love. In some ways it’s like they were almost in some weird distorted love triangle, but WITH themselves. That’s not exactly right, but hopefully you get what I mean.

Booknut: I totally do! The book’s title and cover are everything - how did you come up with them?

Lucy Keating: An extremely talented art director named Natalie Sousa came up with the design, which went through some revisions at HarperTeen. I love it so much! There were a lot of other options, and I really fought for this one. I love how graphic it is, and it really stands out.

Booknut: One of the highlights of Dreamology for me was the hilarious and witty chapter titles. What’s the process for naming your chapters? And which ones were your faves?

Lucy Keating: I had never written chapter titles before, so to go along with the wackiness of the book, I just went through each chapter and I wrote down words or terms that I felt stood out, but that could also, to a degree, stand for the chapter itself. I handed it in and was like “Is this what you want?” And my editors were like, “Sure!”

Booknut: Your protagonist Alice’s ‘dream boy’ becomes a reality (*cue much swooning over Max*). If you could pick 3 fictional characters from books/movies/tv to bring to life, who would they be and why?

Lucy Keating:

Levi from FanGirl - Just like being around him. I want to sit in a dorm room with him and shoot the breeze!

Bee Branch from Where’d You Go Bernadette - What a weird, cool, brilliant little kid. Would also like to be friends with her.

Buffy from Buffy the Vampire Slayer  - What a total badass. I’d choose her to have my back any day!

Booknut: Dreamology is so quotable, I probably bookmarked every second page! What is your favourite line or quote from the book?

Lucy Keating: Oh THANK you!  I really love the line “I have every inch of his face mapped in my brain, all of his mannerisms. I am constantly afraid of forgetting him.” And then baaaasically every line Oliver says :)

Booknut: Dreamology features one of the best animals in the world…alpacas! What made you include these adorably fluffy creatures in your book?

Lucy Keating: I had always intended for Alice and Max to go on a road trip to find Margaret Yang at a small college in northern New England. I myself have only been to Maine in the summer time, so I began to research what they might do at another  time of year, and that’s when I discovered Alpaca farms! My brother had met some recently at a B&B and sent me photos, and I found them to be so ridiculously silly and wonderful! I knew they belonged in the book.

Booknut: What are you most excited for readers to experience in Dreamology?

Lucy Keating: I love being able to show readers the world I grew up in, a part of Boston they may not have been exposed to before. With lots of art museums, and academic institutions, and old buildings!

Booknut: If you could tell readers one message or moral of the story to take away from Dreamology, what would it be?

Lucy Keating: That real love is not always a fairy tale. People take time to reveal themselves to us, and we can’t always expect them to be perfect. Max and Alice had to get to know each other again, and work through things about each other they didn’t initially understand. And in the end, they were both better for it.

Booknut: Thank you so much for sitting down with me - it was wonderful having you on the blog! Congratulations on Dreamology and I wish you the best of luck with all your future writing :)

Lucy Keating: Thanks for asking such great questions, and for reading!

For as long as Alice can remember, she has dreamed of Max. Together they have traveled the world and fallen deliriously, hopelessly in love. Max is the boy of her dreams—and only her dreams. Because he doesn’t exist.

But when Alice walks into class on her first day at a new school, there he is. It turns out, though, that Real Max is nothing like Dream Max, and getting to know each other in reality isn’t as perfect as Alice always hoped.

When their dreams start to bleed dangerously into their waking hours, the pair realize that they might have to put an end to a lifetime of dreaming about each other. But when you fall in love in your dreams, can reality ever be enough?

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