Today we are interviewing B.B. Swann, author of the YA Fantasy, Wooded Discovery.
Welcome B.B.!
BB Swann is a twenty-seven-year retired elementary teacher who writes books for children and young adults. Her issue-driven stories focus on characters who face difficulties most readers can relate to, and how they succeed through perseverance, ingenuity, and hope. She is also a literary agent at FinePrint Literary Management in New York representing a diverse group of authors that write picture books through adult manuscripts mostly in the genres of sci-fi, fantasy, or speculative fiction. You can visit her at Facebook, Instagram and TikTok.
I’ve always been a voracious reader. I think I first started reading when I was three or four and I’ve never stopped. My dad was the same way. He always had a book in his hand. But a funny story I guess comes from when I was about 11 or 12. We would go visit my family on the weekends and I loved going to my Aunt’s house the most because she always had a brown paper grocery bag full of romance novels by the side of her bed. The old-fashioned historical romance ones, with the bare-chested muscular pirate and the saucy woman who stowed away on the ship to get to some faraway place to save her brother/father/sister/dog. I would pick the one with the best cover and sit and read for hours! I probably had no business reading those stories, though. Ha! They definitely gave me some questionable impressions of what relationships were supposed to entail. I’m not sure if my parents knew what I was reading, but I suppose they were just happy to see me with a book.
Can you share the most interesting story that occurred to you in the course of your career?
Funny enough, becoming an author led me to an unexpected new career. Back in 2020, the agency where my agent worked had an opening. One of the agents who had taken parental leave decided not to come back to the agency. I had been a mentor for a while at that point and thought I would give agenting a try. I was still teaching at the time, but the pandemic hit right after I began, and school went online which made it easier for me to start my agent career. It’s a lot different being at that end of the profession! I’ve learned so much about the industry I probably wouldn’t have just as an author. I’m at a new agency now but every day I learn something new. I’ve met some interesting people, too.
What was the biggest challenge you faced in your journey to becoming an author?
The absolute biggest issue is something that I still face; confidence. As rewarding as it is to create a world and the people in it, writing is hard! Some days, I can’t seem to put two sentences together that I like. Then on other days, I write pages and pages and forget to eat. Imposter syndrome is a real thing and I’m guilty of having it for certain. Sometimes I have to talk myself off that ledge and just force my fingers to type until my muse decides to get to work.
What is the main empowering lesson you want your readers to take away after finishing your book?
For sure the importance of the environment is a driving force in Wooded Discovery. I hope that the reader will understand why Zaidyn and Piper fight so hard for it. But mostly, I want young readers to know that their voice matters, whatever the issue is. Just because someone is young doesn’t mean they are powerless. We all need to stand up for what we believe in and fight for this world we live in—even if there’s no magic.
What is the one habit you believe contributed the most to you becoming a great writer?
Consistency. I don’t write every day, but the more a writer exercises that muscle, the stronger it gets.
You are a person of enormous influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?
Tough question. There are so many things I’m passionate about. If I had to choose one thing though, I would start a movement for kindness. There’s so much hate and anger in the world right now. It seems like common courtesy and decency have evaporated and been replaced with selfishness. I think there are a lot of good people in the world though. Those good people need to step up and reach out to make a difference, even when you feel like it won’t do any good. You never know when or where that little seed of hope and kindness will take root.
About the Book
His senior year just turned magical. Now if only he can win his crush’s affections without getting killed.
Seventeen-year-old Zaidyn Mitchell would rather not be weird. But nothing can be stranger than when the self-proclaimed bookworm wakes up one night, floating several feet above his bed. Still desperate to fit in after his parents unceremoniously unlocked his abilities, all Zaidyn wants is to date the girl of his dreams.
With his magic a little uncontrolled, the budding wizard finally makes a move and promises his beautiful classmate to help stop a construction project from destroying the nearby woods. But when an unknown force attacks and tries to separate them, Zaidyn fears this supernatural world is about to send them to their doom.
Can the teen would-be hero find a way to save them both?
Read sample here.
Wooded Discovery is available at Amazon.
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