The Sowing
K. Makansi
Publication date: August 19th 2013
Genres: Dystopia, Young Adult
Remy Alexander was born into the elite meritocracy of the Okarian Sector. From an early age, she and her friends were programmed for intellectual and physical superiority through specialized dietary regimes administered by the Okarian Agricultural Consortium. But when her older sister Tai was murdered in a brutal classroom massacre, her parents began to suspect foul play. They fled the Sector, taking their surviving daughter underground to join the nascent Resistance movement. But now, three years later, Remy’s former schoolgirl crush, Valerian Orleán, is put in charge of hunting and destroying the Resistance. As Remy and her friends race to unravel the mystery behind her sister’s murder, Vale is haunted by the memory of his friendship with Remy and is determined to find out why she disappeared. As the Resistance begins to fight back against the Sector, and Vale and Remy search for the answers to their own questions, the two are set on a collision course that could bring everyone together—or tear everything apart.
Authors Interview:
By Amira Makansi of the K. Makansi writing team
- Why did you three decide to be an author team and what was your path to publication?
We never really ‘decided’ to write collaboratively—it just worked out that way. We were all passionate about the idea and wanted to be a part of the story. When Kristy first had the dream that was the genesis of the Seeds trilogy, she spent a long walk talking it over with Elena, my younger sister. They wrote out a first chapter together, but the dream fell by the wayside after that. But the idea lingered, and in 2012, Kristy shared the idea with me and the two of us talked it over. She showed me that first chapter, and I fell in love with the story and the characters. So the three of us ended up writing together.
As to our path to publication: the comments we got back from our initial round of beta readers were incredibly positive and gave us a lot to believe in. So as we rewrote that first draft and worked towards a vastly-improved second draft, we discussed different paths to publication. We thought about seeking an agent, but we also wanted to maintain creative control over our story. Both Kristy and Elena are artists, and wanted to involve visual art in the narration of The Sowing. We also wanted to design our own covers. So ultimately instead of seeking an agent and a publishing contract with a mainstream publisher, we decided to maintain creative control and self-publish. We made sure to edit and thoroughly proofread before publication, so that the novel would have the same quality a reader might expect of a traditionally-published work.
- What is it like to write with your sister and mother? Do you divide up certain chapters or book portions, or do you write over each other’s work as you go?
With the first book, Elena and Kristy wrote almost all of Remy’s chapters, and I wrote all of Vale’s. But as we wrote, we all provided editorial feedback about the overall direction of the story and the writing choices we’d made in the previous chapters. And of course, we went back over and edited everything together, so that the narrative voice would be homogenized. We wanted the book to feel as though it had been written by a single author.
- What got you specifically interested in writing about food justice?
Elena and I have been passionate about food justice for years. My own journey of discovery began with Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma, which proved to be a gateway drug into the dark underbelly of the industrial food and drug system in America. The things we unknowingly ingest into our bodies frightens me, and food systems reinforce unjust social structures, poverty, and the economic degradation of entire societies in other parts of the world. I was a vegetarian for two years in protest of the meat industry, and Elena’s been vegetarian for over seven years for the same reason. We both believe that food justice is one of the most important global issues today, as it affects so many other things: health care, income levels, and education, to name just a few.
- What do you enjoy most about writing in the YA Dystopia genre? What have you found to be the most challenging about writing in this genre?
I think the most challenging thing is building a comprehensive world that makes sense and that feels real. There are some incredibly popular dystopian books that have, I think, failed at doing this, and we’ve tried really hard to make our world feel like something that could legitimately exist. Hugh Howey’s Wool and Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games are two dystopian series that pull this off really well. Veronica Roth’s Divergent, while a great story, I think, does not succeed as much in this regard. It always felt artificial to me. (Of course, without giving anything away, that’s sort of the point in her series!) So we’ve struggled to bring the world of Okaria to life without making it feel like a fictionalized construct.
The best thing about dystopia is how exciting it is. Of course no one really wants to be in The Hunger Games, but it’s an extreme survival situation where we, as spectators, enjoy wondering if we would make the cut. It’s the same in the world of Okaria. The fighters in the Resistance have gone through so much and bear a lot of weight on their shoulders, but it’s still fun to imagine yourself in their shoes, running through dark, abandoned cities with a Bolt over your back, trying to save the world. We all have a little bit of superhero complex in us, don’t we?
- What are some books or authors that you would recommend to our readers?
One of my favorite YA series is Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor. It’s very mature for YA, possibly more like New Adult, but the romance in that story feels more real to me than almost any other young adult novel I’ve read recently. The third in the series, Dreams of Gods and Monsters will be out in March, and I couldn’t be more excited. Hugh Howey’s Wool, mentioned above, is a smart dystopian novel with a lot of thrill and a different approach to the genre. I was hanging on the edge of my seat through the whole novel. And finally, neither a dystopian nor a young adult, but one of the most imaginative books I’ve read recently, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland In A Ship Of Her Own Making by Catherynne Valente is a middle-grade book with enough creativity for a lifetime.
About the Authors:
K. Makansi is the pen name for the writing triumvirate consisting of Amira, Elena, and Kristina Makansi. Two sisters and their mother, the three women developed a passionate interest in science fiction as a way to write about issues of food sovereignty and food justice. Elena is pursuing a degree in environmental studies at Oberlin College in Ohio, and will graduate in May of 2014. Amira was a history student at the University of Chicago whose day job working in the cellar of a winery (and constantly being splattered with wine) keeps her busy when she’s not writing. And Kristy owns and operates Blank Slate Press, an independent publishing company based out of St. Louis, and is a partner at Treehouse Publishing Group, a company providing editorial and design services to aspiring authors. When not writing or reading, the three can be found having animated discussions around the dinner table, sharing a good bottle of wine, or taking long walks in the park eagerly plotting out their next book.
Giveaway from my tour stop:
(1) ebook copy of The Sowing. Open internationally.
Tour wide giveaway:
Interesting info about writing together
Thanks for being on the tour, Julie! 🙂
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