Debut: An Interview with Jennifer Cowan
Liz Danforth -- School Library Journal, 6/3/2009
When 16-year-old Sabine Olivia Solomon gets a half-eaten meal tossed in her face as she bicycles past an idling SUV, she goes ballistic and to the dismay of her family and friends turns into a passionate eco-warrior. That’s the premise of earthgirl, Jennifer Cowan’s entertaining and environmentally friendly debut novel.You’ve written extensively for TV, but earthgirl is your first novel. What prompted you to write it?
I had gone to Whistler in British Columbia and did some TV work in Vancouver. I joined the Whistler Writers' Group, aka the Vicious Circle, and met some fabulous and creative people. I always knew I had a novel in me, but didn't feel I had anything to add to the chick-lit vernacular although my strength as a writer tends toward contemporary, urbane, pop culture things.
I was also reading a lot of YA fiction. I found that books that were issue-oriented seemed heavy handed, and books that were fun and chatty were frivolous and at times a bit morally bankrupt. As a teenager, I hungered for better and more stories I could relate to. Also, I had just won some awards for my writing for a teen series, which was encouraging. So I thought, why not try and do a chatty book anchored in a morality struggle? British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon have very visible environmental and activist cultures, and that really drew me in. I was also working on an idea for a television movie about a group of teens who viciously attacked and killed a neighbor at a small-town house party, and the complexity of the real story and rights issues really drew me toward fictionalizing things inspired by true stories. 
You gave Sabine a real blog at http://sabinetheearthgirl.wordpress.com. Does she have a presence elsewhere on the social media scene?
In addition to Sabine's Wordpress blog, she's on Twitter as @earth_girl and there is a Facebook page. But I have to say, while Twitter is useful and I have stumbled across a few interesting people (including a real life twenty-something very much like Sabine), it takes a lot of time and seems a little indulgent and frivolous. It's also a bit of the antithesis of Sabine since she likes to think of herself as a doer, not a "slacktavist." So she wants to be out there, not online all the time.
From the get-go, I pursued the book as a cross-platform property. That's likely because I worked in television, but also it just made sense given the pace and use of technologies in that age group. As a novel instead of a TV series, I knew I could always build on it as a TV or film concept later.
I do like the blog concept as a means of personal expression, the modern diary, but I am also a little unsettled about the candidness and exhibitionism teens convey online. In the book, Sabine does not really discuss her personal world and life in the blog; it's more about her philosophies on the environment and questions about being a better person. I really believed it was an amazing way to give the novel an extra dimension if the readers were interested in her ideas, so all the URLs are real, as well as all the musicians she listens to.
What do you hope readers will take away from earthgirl?
My goal with earthgirl is to spark a conversation with kids amongst their friends and with their families. I also wanted to write a book that teens and parents could read together. I think (and hope) the book appeals to adults, too.
To me the book is really a first love story and about how you negotiate these delicate matters when you are just coming into your own as a person. It also looks at questions like, what do you do when you outgrow your friends and their ideas? And given the importance of the environment, and modern technical gadgetry and realities, the green context and blogging really seemed to fit.
Are you working on another novel?
I've been sketching out earthgirl 2.0. It takes place about a year and a half after this book ends, as Sabine prepares to go to away to university. I really like Sabine's family life and her relationship with her parents. Plus I have some twists concerning illness and obligation to throw into the mix.
Photo credit: Kevin Konnyu
