You already ‘s , this of : “Transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl kills the first person she meets, and then teams up with three strangers to kill again.”
And if you trawl while you’re surfing the Internet, you know that , 50, got his of infamy for an comment that he for icon page. (Takei claims .)
Polito, who lives in , wrote his brilliant “Wizard of Oz” one-liner while working for the , where he honed his as well as his reporting chops. Now he’s written and published (on ) a briskly paced young adult novel set in a bleak post-apocalyptic world filled with mangy vampires, werewolves and zombies. His son, 12, vetted “Dark Shift,” but his daughter, 8, hasn’t read it yet.
Q: From the description, it looks like you nailed every current YA trend, except maybe invisibility. Is there an invisible character?
A: You made me laugh! I think of it as meets at I didn’t want , or that use .
Q: Why did you set it in a post-apocalypse world?
A: When I was a kid, I loved reading about the apocalypse. It gives you that ‘What would I do if …’ inspiration. In science fiction, the apocalypse is either a future, or a future. I’m betting on the . In 100 years, we’re not going to be flying in spaceships. We’ll be living in caves.
Q: What made you decide to write this book?
A: Well, it’s the kind of book I read when I was a kid, and then forgot about until I started reading to my own kids. When I started reading to my kids, I liked the young adult stuff. by Philip Pullman, is incredible. I became a stay-at-home dad in ’07 and found the time to write.
Q: Why did you go the self-publishing route?
A: My agent was excited, but she was unable to sell it. In and , nobody was buying anything. Now, more kids have tablets. More kids have phones, and kids read e-books. It wasn’t that I wanted to be an author and be famous, but I had some writing chops as a feature writer, and thought, what the heck.
Q: What’s it like, taking the route?
A: It’s one moment and depressing the next. I was No. 2 on “hot new releases” after I first put the book up. I gave it away free that weekend, and it was No. 1 for free teen sci-fi. Then it got a bump, gave me a tweet and a good review. Now it needs another bump.
Claire Martin: 303-954-1477, cmartin@denverpost.com or twitter.com/byclairemartin
