We’ve featured author Tara Kelly on the blog before as a contributor, so we were delighted when reviewer Mary Wilson read and loved Tara’s debut novel Harmonic Feedback! We invited them both to the blog to discuss the book.
Mary Wilson: If you could change one thing about the book, what would it be? Would you change anything?
Tara Kelly: I wrote Harmonic Feedback almost 7 years ago now. (Wow—I can’t believe it’s been that long.) I’ve grown a lot as a writer since then. So, if I re-read it now, I have no doubt there would be lines I’d want to rewrite—or delete from existence 🙂 But I wouldn’t change the story or the characters. After all, the characters tell me what’s up, not the other way around.
Mary: Have you been happy with the feedback Harmonic Feedback has received?
Tara: Overall, yes! Drea’s story really seemed to speak to the teens who read it, especially those on the spectrum. Their response was everything I could’ve hoped for and more. One teen even spent her entire summer making a movie out of it with her friends. I guess my only disappointment was that the book got lost in the shuffle of paranormal titles at the time. I wish more teens knew about it and were able to read it.
Mary: What was the writing/editing process like?
Tara: The writing process for Harmonic Feedback was a breeze compared to more recent books I’ve written. That was back before my internal editor wanted to edit every line I wrote 🙂 I believe I wrote the first draft in two months and my editor requested only minor edits. It was just one of those books that came out the “right” way the first time. That doesn’t happen to me too often…
Mary: If you could write a sequel to Harmonic Feedback, would you?
Tara: So far the characters haven’t insisted on a sequel to Harmonic Feedback. If I was given the option to write a sequel today, I’d probably say no. But tomorrow is a different day. When it comes to sequel potential, I never say never.
3 Comments
I really enjoyed Harmonic Feedback as well, and thank you two for the interview! I hate it when good books with characters on the spectrum get lost in the shuffle — it happened to me too. I also think that critics were looking for books “all about” autism, and characters on the spectrum who are just going about living their lives with all their passions and messiness, like your Drea and my Kiara, didn’t get the love. On the other hand, the kids themselves have really appreciated these young women.
I’ll be first to say how good Harmonic Feedback was. I loved it, my review is here: https://tvbookfilmreviewers.wordpress.com/2015/08/24/harmonic-feedback-by-tara-kelly/
but now, I have to say making a sequel for Harmonic Feedback wouldn’t really make sense, but I’d still read it. 🙂