Hi everyone, today we have the pleasure of talking with Ms. Judy Gregerson, the author of SAVE ME! and Bad Girls Club, two YA books that deal with mental health issues.

Welcome Ms. Gregerson, thank you so much for taking the time out of your really busy schedule to chat with us here at Fallen Angel Reviews.

Thanks for inviting me!

I really enjoyed reading your bio, and it’s very interesting. How did your family feel about being models in Life magazine?

Well, in some ways, it was a great opportunity. I saw it as a way to buy myself a new Schwinn bike and a chance to see New York City. My father saw it as a step up the ladder in his modeling career. I think we were very proud of my father for making it happen for us, but I was eleven at the time and I don’t remember much about how we felt. It seemed normal in a way because my dad had been modeling for a while and his agent would call at ten at night and say, “Get to NYC in the morning at six.” I will tell you this, though. I absolutely HATED modeling.

Was it much of a culture shock for you when you moved to Seattle from New York?

Oh, gosh yes! I felt like I’d landed on another planet. There was no street life and the whole “vibe” of NYC was absent. Compared to NYC, Seattle has a quietness about it that was very hard to get used to.

Please tell the readers about your book Bad Girls Club and how it came to be?

Bad Girls Club is the story of a family that silently disintegrates over a period of five years, but especially during one summer. Like most families where there is mental illness, abuse, or use, the secrets are hidden. No one is allowed to see inside. And the children are the ones who suffer the most. My main character, Destiny, tells the story of how her life fell apart after losing her mother emotionally and also how, in all that, she lost herself.

This story came about after meeting a man who told me about how his mother locked him and his brother in the house, set it on fire, and left. I was so shocked after hearing his story that I began thinking about what kind of mother could do such horrendous things. And then I took it a step farther and wondered what a teenager would have to do to survive with a parent like that. From there the story grew.

With the jobs that you’ve had growing up and after college; which one would you say was the most interesting? Most boring? The hardest?

The job I loved most was learning how to copy edit at a newspaper. I had a natural knack for it, so I felt very good about what I did there. I loved working in advertising, but the pressure gave me an ulcer. Publishing was very slow, nothing happened quickly, and I found that I wasn’t suited for that on a daily basis. I do some editing and I like that. The job I’ve loved most is sales and marketing.

I bet it was great finding out that Psychologist Stanley C. Goldklang PhD. recommended Bad Girls Club be implemented into middle and high school Health Classes. Have you been able to get that to happen yet?

No, not yet. Turning a great review like that into action is going to quite interesting. I am waiting on reviews from the National Association of School Psychologists, many state associations of school psychologists, and UCLA’s Center on Mental Health in Schools. Perhaps these are the folks who need to drive this forward and make it happen if they believe it should.

What was it about children having to deal with their own/parents mental health issues that drew you to write these two books?

Well, although I lived in a “perfect” family, we were also one of those families destroyed by alcoholism. My mother left when I was 13, which devastated me for many years to come. If I sat down and told you all that happened in my house, you’d probably faint. Watching my mother disintegrate and watching her being carried off to a mental hospital – well, it colored my life in many ways. Everything I write has a “crazy” theme. I mostly write books about survival, but my youth was spent learning how to survive and how to keep standing when everything around me was collapsing. I think that the loss of a mother when you’re a child is the hardest thing to survive. And so, it shows up in all my writing (which you’ll notice when you read about the books I’m working on).

How much of yourself do you think is in Destiny from Bad Girls Club?

I would have to say that the deep longing that Destiny has to get her mother back is completely mine. The need to save her is also mine. The strong, stubborn inability to see the whole picture was probably a part of my world at that age. But unlike her, I did not isolate myself from friends. I was outgoing, depended on friends, and I was tough. Destiny is not tough. She is a tender, almost frail, girl.

Most people believe that an author sits down and churns out a book in no time. I read that it took you seven years to write Bad Girls Club. Was it because it’s such a difficult subject or was it your writing schedule?

I think that every book takes whatever time it takes. This book went through twenty-one revisions, some of them huge rewrites. Each time I went through it, I learned more, deepened it, made the plot more complex, and broadened the characters. This story did not come to me fully formed. I had to discover it as I went. If it was up to me, I would have stopped at three or four years, but I kept going back to it and finding that I could do more. So I did. And that took seven years.

What do you and your family, (Ms. Gregerson is married with two daughters), do for fun?

We travel some and we have a place on a lake that we visit every summer. We started going there when my oldest was a newborn and eventually bought our own timeshare so we could continue to go several times a year. We watch movies, we read, we do a lot of talking (which with kids can be a LOT of fun). We like to go out to eat and when my husband and I want to really have fun, that’s what we do. What I’m really looking forward to is traveling around the country with this book. To me, that sounds like the most fun!

How can readers, schools, and libraries get in touch with you to talk more about your books?

My website www.judygregerson.com has all kinds of information about school visits, libraries, assembly programs, etc. All the flyers are in PDF form and can be printed. They can always reach me at judy@judygregerson.com and that email is on my website. There’s also a place on my website where they can leave a comment. I believe it’s on the links page.

Could you tell us about your works in progress and when we can expect it to be out?

I have one YA about a girl who lives in a trailer park and becomes tough to deal with the stigma, only to learn that she’s not that tough. I have another about a girl whose mom left when she was ten and who arrives “home” 6 years later with a baby girl and wants to stay. I have an adult novel I’ve just started flirting with about a woman whose husband had a breakdown. It’s a love story about what happens to love when one person disconnects. I don’t know when I’ll sell these. I’m hoping that Bad Girls Club is so popular that people come banging on my door to buy these manuscripts.

Ms. Gregerson, thank you again for taking time to talk with all of us here at Fallen Angel Reviews and our readers. For anyone who hasn’t read Bad Girls Club, I think you should and then hand it to your children to read.

Thanks for the interview!

Interviewed by: Donna