It’s been a little while since we’ve done a Take 5 interview, and we’re thrilled to be able to do one with guest contributor Kay Cassidy. Kay’s YA novel for teens, The Cinderella Society, released in April. 

Kay is the founder of the national Great Scavenger Hunt ContestTM reading program for kids and teens and the host of the inspirational Living Your FiveTM web project. In her free time, she enjoys yoga, movies, music, and reading. Lots and lots of reading. She hopes her debut YA novel, THE CINDERELLA SOCIETY (April 2010 – Egmont), will help girls embrace their inner Cindy.

Also, do you like winning things? At the end of the interview, we’ll post information for a fun giveaway contest sponsored by Kay for WU readers! Enjoy this Take 5 mini ‘view with Kay Cassidy!

Q: What’s the premise of your debut novel? 

The Cinderella Society is about an outsider who gets tapped to join a secret society of good populars dedicated to defeating the mean girls of the world. It’s about girl empowerment: getting comfortable in your own skin and being true to who you are. It also deals with the effects of girl bullies and what unconditional friendship really means. And, of course, there are cute guys and lots of kissing. Romance rocks. :-)

Q: What would you like people to know about the story itself?

That covers can be deceiving. :-) I’ve had so many people tell me that if someone hadn’t specifically recommended it to them, they probably wouldn’t have picked it up because the cover looks very chick lit. I’ve even had people tell me they thought it was about shopping! But this book is all about empowerment and what it means to finally decide who you’re going to be in this life, even if that choice means taking the easy road is no longer an option. That’s big stuff, for teens and adults alike.

Q: What do your characters have to overcome in this story? What challenge do you set before them? 

Jess has to overcome a lot of years of being the new kid. She’s moved around for her dad’s job and every time she finally starts to fit in, it’s time to pull up roots again. So she’s developed a habit of trying to fit in rather than trying to be herself. And when she gets tapped to join this secret society that is so much bigger than she ever imagined—and they see things in her that she doesn’t even see in herself yet—it’s a pretty scary thing for her to say, “Yeah, okay. I’ll step up to the plate.”

Q: What unique challenges did this book pose for you, if any? 

I don’t know that this book posed any unusual challenges for me in itself. But the process of writing was very different for me because The Cinderella Society went through half a dozen incarnations before I finally realized the heart of the story is the Cindys vs. the Wickeds and the whole story took on a completely different meaning. That’s when I knew that I was writing something that mattered – the battle of good vs. evil, not in a paranormal way but in the way that happens every day in high schools around the world. Going against the odds to do the right thing when it is a thousand times easier to say nothing and be one of the crowd. I ditched everything I’d ever written on the book and started from scratch, writing to make it as big as I could dream it.

Q: What has been the most rewarding aspect of having written this book? 

My favorite fan mails, hands down, are the ones from readers who say they’ve adopted some of the Cindy ideals in their own lives. The Cindy creed is Celebrate your strength – Embrace your future – Be extraordinary. To have a reader tell me they’re using The Rule of Fives (a Cindy method of keeping your perspective when things get crazy in life) or having a teacher tell me they overheard a girl at school telling another girl “No Wicked chatter” (Wicked chatter is negativity like gossiping, putting people or yourself down)… that is completely amazing and wonderful to me. It’s exactly why I wrote the book – to show there are options in the way we approach life on the brink of adulthood. It’s not all partying and fast living as TV would have you think. :-)

Exclusively for WU readers, Kay would like to give away this adorable glass slipper bookmark. Simply post one piece of advice you’d give to your high school self in our comments. We’ll hold a random drawing for the winner. Contest open only to residents of the U.S. and Canada. Deadline for commenting is Saturday, May 22. Good luck!

And thank you, Kay!

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