Baton Rouge native Missy Wilkinson talks debut YA novel

Photo by Jason Kruppa/Courtesy Missy Wilkinson

Missy Wilkinson is a Louisianan, even if she did finish growing up in Colorado for a few years. Born in Baton Rouge, Wilkinson left Louisiana when she was 13 and returned the first chance she got. She’s been determined to stay ever since and now makes her home in the 9th Ward of New Orleans. Over the years, she’s had many weird and fascinating jobs to support her writing—pizza delivery driver, fireworks saleswoman and movie extra, to name a few. Fun fact (and full disclosure): Wilkinson and I both assisted author David Madden while we were students at LSU. These days, she’s an editor at The Gambit, and now she’ll add published author to her resume with the publication of her debut YA novel, Destroying Angel.

It’s the story of 15-year-old Gates, whose mother has just died. The last thing Gates hears before the neurologist pulls the plug is her mother’s voice, commanding: Find my heart. As she searches, Gates uncovers a world of body theft, interstellar drug trafficking and doctors who double as dealers. Joining her is John Ed, a street-smart 16-year-old recovering addict and together, they’re determined to find the truth.

225: Where and when did the idea for Destroying Angel come from?
Wilkinson: I wrote an early draft in 2004, while I was working on my MFA at the University of New Orleans. Some of the characters went on to appear in my master’s thesis. I also wrote another novel-length manuscript about John Ed. So I have been working with these characters, in one way or another, for more than a decade.

I got the idea from my favorite opera, The Magic Flute by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The music is extremely beautiful; the libretto is extremely weird; and for someone who’s interested in Masonic conspiracy theories, it offers an endless wellspring for contemplation. But at its heart it’s a classic fairy tale: A princess has been kidnapped and a prince goes to rescue her.

Do you think growing up in Louisiana (and Baton Rouge) has influenced you as a writer?
I can’t overemphasize the effect southern Louisiana has had on me as a writer. It is my muse and my identity. It gave me a sense of urgency and made me want to tell stories. Growing up here, I often felt I lived in a paradise that was on the verge of disappearing, whether it was at Christmas time, when we wouldn’t put tinsel on the trees so they could be used to shore up the coastline, or during hurricane season, watching Andrew waylay the city and waiting in line for hours at Schwegmann’s to buy ice while my little sister slept in the grocery cart. These events distilled the essence of dramatic conflict. My Yankee boyfriend thinks it’s funny because if you ask him about his heritage, he’ll say, “Scottish, German.” And I’ll say “Louisianan, Mississippian.” And Cuban, because my maternal grandmother was Cuban. But even that ancestry is steeped in Louisiana’s influence. She settled in New Orleans, she said, because it reminded her of Havana.

Is there any advice you would give aspiring writers?
There are a million different ways to make a living as a writer. You can write erotic short stories and sell them on Amazon. You can blog and sell ads through Google. You can write for a newspaper. You can work in academia and publish with a university press. I encourage writers to get their work out to the public, even if that is a handful of fellow writers in a small workshop or just your Facebook friends. There are no gatekeepers any more. The only gatekeeper is you.

What is the most valuable piece of advice you’ve been given?
Take care of yourself. A panelist gave a lecture to that effect at Tennessee Williams Literary Festival years ago. It may have been 2009. He talked about how it takes 10,000 hours to master a skill, how writing is a really hard road, and how writers in general are prone to isolation, overthinking, depression, substance abuse, all kinds of unhealthy stuff. Among all the other panel discussions where the advice was basically, “read and write a lot,” his talk stood out. I used to think I could write my way out of suffering, thoughts like, “Oh, if I just get this agent or that book deal, I’ll be happy.” It doesn’t work that way. You can’t write your way out of suffering. But you can suffer yourself out of writing. So work on being healthy first, a writer second.

Can you tell us what you are working on now?
I’m writing a New Adult novel called Spore Girl, a sequel to Destroying Angel. It’s about a 19-year-old Bourbon Street stripper whose DNA is half alien, but she doesn’t know that until her manager attacks her.

FIND OUT MORE:

Wilkinson writes about New Orleans and the writing life at her blog, missywilkinson.com, where you can find information about her author appearances for Destroying Angel. She will appear at the Louisiana Book Festival this October in Baton Rouge.