So, if you read my review of Past Perfect, you know I loved it. Which is why I'm so excited to present this interview with its awesometastic author Leila Sales. Since this is my first interview, I'm not entirely sure how I'm supposed to preface it, buuuut here we go! Hope you like. :)

1)      First off, I should let you know: Past Perfect is one of my favorite books ever. Like I mention in my review, I love Chelsea’s voice so much. Did it come to you naturally, because you are so witty, like her, or did you have to hone it (like I do with my characters, since witty I am not)?

Thank you! I love that you loved it that much.

Overall, Chelsea’s voice came pretty naturally to me, but of course I rewrote and rewrote individual paragraphs, and sentences, and words. Sometimes I would read something over and say to myself, “This is not funny. How do I make it become funny?” It takes a lot of fussing. The smallest thing—a wrong word or a grammatical decision—can make the difference between a funny part and a non-funny part.

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2)      The reenactment part of the book was one of my favorites. A TOTAL delight to read. There’s a photo of you on your website in which you are dressed as what I’m pretty is a historical interpreter, so you must have been one once. Otherwise there’d have been plenty of FARB-y material throughout the book, methinks. So is the book based on your own experiences as a historical interpreter, or did you just take that experience and make an awesome story out of it?

My summer job after my freshman year in college was historical interpretation. I worked in the Granary Burial Ground on the Freedom Trail in Boston. That’s why I had Chelsea work in a burial ground—because it’s a part of Colonial history that I actually know a fair amount about!

My job was similar to Chelsea’s in that tourists always asked me if I was sweating to death in my petticoats, and sometimes I would see cute boys but they would ignore me because I was in historical costume. However, I didn’t have a whole community of historical interpreters, like Chelsea does. The parts about her relationships with her fellow interpreters are more based on my experiences as a summer camp counselor. And of course a lot of it, I just made up!

3)      So far you’re published two contemporary young adult-books. I haven’t read your debut book, Mostly Good Girls, mostly because I haven’t gotten a chance to read it, but I have no doubt I’ll love it just as much. Do you plan on branching out into different genres—paranormal, dystopian? I’d love to know about your future projects, if you can tell us!

I just finished a middle-grade project—still contemporary, but for somewhat younger readers. But I’m not ruling out all other genres forever. I like a little bit of magic in stories. I wrote a number of unpublished (and unpublishable) novels before writing MOSTLY GOOD GIRLS, and many of them involved supernatural elements (mind-reading, time travel, etc.), so I may do that again.

4)      What is your favorite part of writing? And…which is the worst part, in your opinion?

Favorite part is when I write something good. Worst part is when I feel like I’m only writing crap. Almost nothing makes me feel so happy as feeling like I have said something beautiful or meaningful or funny. And almost nothing makes me feel so bad as feeling like I have nothing to say at all that could ever be beautiful, or meaningful, or funny.

5)      What is one advice you’d give to every aspiring author out there? And yes, I mean ONE very crucial advice.

Write about what feels important to you. Not what is trendy, not what you’ve read in five other books, not what you once saw in a movie. Take an emotion or an idea that’s real and meaningful to you, and capture it on paper. 

And now for the Random Questions Galore:

What is one place you are DYING to visit before you die? (Totally unintentional pun, by the way.)

Cuba! And St. Petersburg during the White Nights, when it’s light for almost 24 hours straight

Snow-cones or ice cream?

ICE CREAM. There’s a reason why the main character of PAST PERFECT is an ice cream connoisseur.

Are you a sugar person or a salt person? As in: do you prefer the dessert before the meal or the meal before the dessert? Or something like that…

Sugar. My dessert-to-real food intake ratio is like two to one. I often have dessert before and after the meal. But don’t tell my mom that. 

Your favorite drink?

Orange juice. When I was in high school I drank a carton of orange juice every day.

Your house is on fire and you have three minutes until it comes crashing down. Quick! Tell us five things you’d get before sprinting out for your life.

My baby blanket, my favorite childhood stuffed animal, my collection of vintage My Little Ponies, my laptop (or at least my external hard drive), and my wallet. Everything else can, if necessary, and with much hassle, be replaced.

If you were not a writer, you’d be…?

Very sad. And very bored.

Isn't Leila AWESOME and HILARIOUS? She totally is, right?! And so is her book. I highly recommend going out and buying her book--it comes out on October 2! :)