invisible-i-am by Gregg Davis
Harriet Showman
Publication date: August 18th 2015
Genres: Contemporary, Young Adult
An experimental, literary YA multimedia narrative centered on the experiences of 16-year-old Gregg Davis, who undergoes brutal bullying and sexual violence by her peers. Spanning the mediums of the printed page, online social media and the screen, this story offers a wrenching, empathetic look at the experience of bullying through a victim’s eyes, and then extends this theme of oppression, humiliation and violence to address issues of historical and systemic racism in the U.S. today. A picture book.
Read Chapter One for free at invisible-i-am.com.
For updates on Gregg and the invisible-i-am story, follow her on Twitter @iaminvisibleiam, Tumblr via http://iaminvisibleiam.tumblr.com, YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJ3_…, and Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/invisibleiambook.
Goodreads / Amazon
Author Interview:
What inspired you to write invisible-i-am by Gregg Davis?
With respect
to Stephenie Meyer and all Twilight fans, a 21st Century story about a teenage
girl who falls for a blood-sucker promising eternal bliss frustrated me. No
doubt lost a bunch of readers with that one!
When or at what age did you know you wanted to
be a writer?
Golly. As a
creative renegade, limiting myself to writing never appealed to me. (I am an
artist and a filmmaker as well : ) Then there was that pesky reality of having
to earn a living! So I used words to convince people to become child advocates,
to raise money for children’s issues, and to effect social change. My book, invisible-i-am by Gregg Davis, grew from
those passions.
What is the earliest age you remember
reading your first book?
My parents
read to me until I could navigate the words myself. We went to the library once
a week to get more books! My husband and I now use e-readers because we ran out
of bookshelves.
What genre of books do you enjoy
reading?
Everything.
Depends on what’s happening in my life.
A troubling
or challenging event? Find a book with answers.
Release from
tension? A book.
Imagining
other worlds? A book.
Hungry for
chewy words? A book.
Want to
challenge myself? A book.
Fahrenheit
451 would be devastating to me.
What is your favorite book?
There’s way
too much yumminess out there to not enjoy the feast!
But, my
favorite Young Adult book is The
Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart. Gotta love a
girl who subverts the dominant male paradigm! Lockhart also wrote We Were Liars, a story that haunts me.
You know, I think we all have a
favorite author. Who is your favorite author, and why?
Oh man. I’m
a lush and fall in love with different authors all the time!
A.A. Milne,
Lewis Carroll, Louisa May Alcott, Lucy Maud Montgomery, James Michener, James
Clavell, Ray Bradbury, Hermann Hesse. I miss Christopher Hitchens and his crisp
logic. Toni Morrison, Isabel Allende, Alice Walker, Hilary Mantel, Amanda
Foreman, Margaret George, Stephen Hawkings, Daniel J. Siegel, Marie Cardinal
(for her amazing courage), Suzanne Collins, J.K. Rowling, (as mentioned) E.
Lockhart, J.R.R. Tolkien, George RR Martin, Margaret Atwood, Cormac McCarthy,
John Steinbeck, and, of course, Harper Lee. My “writing god” is Elmore Leonard.
If you could travel back in time here
on earth to any place or time, where would you go and why?
To the
meadow of my childhood where gazillions of fireflies sprinkled fairy dust into
my life.
When writing a book, do you find that
writing comes easy for you, or is it a difficult task?
Depends on
the position of the moon and whether or not dogs howl. Joking aside, the ease
of writing comes and goes. Sometimes I’m on fire, and other times, it’s a
struggle to get a good sentence on the page.
Do you have any little fuzzy friends?
Like a dog or a cat? Or any pets?
Does Harvey
count? (Gotta love the imaginary friends!)
What is your “to die for” favorite
food/foods to eat?
Chips &
Queso from Curras in Austin, Texas
Chips from
Chuys in Austin
Chips from
Torchy’s Tacos in Austin
Yeah. At
least there’s a theme.
Do you have any advice for anyone who
would like to be an author?
Find a good
therapist.
Author Bio:
Harriet Showman (born 9 May 1954) is an author and multimedia artist born in South Carolina and raised in Pennsylvania. She returned to South Carolina for university and lives there today. She holds undergraduate and graduate degrees in colonial South Carolina history and has spent much of her life helping children and young adults succeed amidst challenging circumstances, including poverty and abuse. With a strong core of allies, Showman helped to establish a statewide Guardian ad Litem program to provide legal support for abused children; a Cities in Schools organization to serve underprivileged students; and a vehicle for the accumulation of monies to be distributed in grants through the Children’s Trust Fund. As a development officer for South Carolina’s flagship university, Showman attracted resources from major, national foundations to target South Carolina’s most urgent needs. She remains interested in the plight of children, teens and adults who suffer abuse, oppression and the paralyzing pain of invisibility.
