Fiction Fridays: Author Interview with Shellie Neumeier
Today we’re interviewing novelist Shellie Neumeier on The Literary Mama. Shellie is the author of Young Adult novel Driven which releases on March 1st. I’m pleased to welcome Shellie to The Literary Mama.
Shellie, thanks so much for taking the time to chat with The Literary Mama. Tell us a bit about yourself.
My husband and I are raising our four wonderful kiddos and two goofy greyhounds deep in the heart of Wisconsin farm country. So deep, my eldest had feared her first vehicle would be a farm tractor. (It wasn’t, she inherited my old minivan.)
My undergraduate degree is in Secondary Education, which means I can teach psychology, sociology, and social studies to sixth through twelfth graders. But after raising my own children (and seeing the horror each expressed when I announced “hey, I can teach your social studies class, isn’t that great?”), I decided to write young adult fiction instead.
Can you tell us what Driven is about?
Robyn Stanley can’t help but notice the handsome new guy at her school. She ignores, however, the arrival of another being at Brookfield Central High School—a demon assigned to destroy her…
Robyn loves her friends, enjoys her youth group, and looks forward to meeting cute Caleb Montague. But when a caustic news reporter challenges her school’s prayer team, Robyn must choose: defend their right to meet on campus and pray for whomever they wish or back down at the principal’s request.
Now she must learn what God wants her to do. And she had better learn fast, because there’s a supernatural enemy in town whose sole mission is to stop her—no matter the cost.
In Driven you address the influence of demonic activity in the lives of human beings. How does the element of the supernatural hinder and/or help the characters in the story?
In Driven, Sebastian is the demon sent to stop Robyn’s purpose at any cost. He thwarts her every decision and leaves her scrambling to learn God’s lessons. However, neither Robyn nor Sebastian realize just how much his efforts help or hinder her until it’s too late.
What led to your decision to write for teens?
What inspired me to write for teens was the desire to encourage the next generation. To let them know that God does have a plan for them and it’s a good one, even though it may not seem that way right now. This generation of young adults has almost unlimited access to their world with the ease of travel and the internet. They have the amazing opportunity to change their world unlike any previous generation, but they’re also bombarded with harsh realism and even harsher dramatized “realism” at a very young age. It would be very easy to forget that they have a purpose and it comes from God.
What do you hope readers walk away with knowing after reading Driven?
Hopefully my readers will come away with a renewed sense of power. A sense of I-can-do-that, whatever “that” God has placed in their lives. And of course I hope they come away having enjoyed a great read.
Do you have any upcoming titles?
I’m currently working in conjunction with another author on a novel that walks through one family’s struggle to overcome grief and loss in order to save their heritage. I also have a young adult novel in the editing stage that deals with a sixteen year-old boy fighting to go home after one fit of rage lands him in a half-way house.
Do you have any hobbies?
I love to hike with my family and our dogs, but when the weather doesn’t cooperate, I prefer to read a great book.
Fun question: If you had a million dollars, what would you do with it?
After tithing and securing my children’s college tuition (I’m a mom, I have to be practical), I’d love to take my whole family on a cruise to somewhere warm and sunny. (It’s March in Wisconsin—I can dream)
How can readers get in touch with you?
They can contact me through my website: http://shellieneumeier.com or email me at Neumeier(dot)shellie(at)gmail(dot)com.
Thanks so much for chatting with us today Shellie.
You can order copies of Shellie’s books at:
Thank you for hosting me, today. It’s been fun:D.
Its great to read about a book that will inform the youth about Gods love.