Was your road to publication long and winding, short and sweet, or something in between?

That line of thinking led me to gender-swapping this story-making the Phantom a seventeen-year-old girl-so that I could explore some of the things I’m most passionate about when it comes to YA fiction: Showing girls they don’t have to be pretty to have worth and that they don’t have to be likeable to have stories worth telling. Thank you so much! Sing Me Forgotten is a gender-swapped Phantom of the Opera-but with magic! I’ve loved Phantom since I was very small, but I always identified so much more with the Phantom than any of the other characters, and I wanted to know what the story would have been like if it had been told from his point of view. I like to think of it as my “love letter to music.”Ĭongrats on your debut YA novel, Sing Me Forgotten! Tell us about it and what inspired you. That love for and deep background in music really inspired much of the story for my debut novel, Sing Me Forgotten. I’ve also dabbled in some organ as well, though I’ve never been formally trained on it.

I took voice lessons, participated in musical theater productions in high school and then, again, later on as an adult. I’ve played the piano since I was six years old and the flute since I was eleven. It wasn’t until after college that I fell in love with YA fantasy, and I’ve never looked back since! Throughout high school, I wrote sappy contemporary romance books. My very first attempt at writing a novel was a very bad knockoff of Harry Potter. I’ve loved reading and stories since I was a child, and that naturally grew into a love for writing and creating worlds and characters of my own when I was a teen. Hi! I am a YA author and mother of three (soon to be four) living in Fort Worth, TX.

Tell us about yourself and how you came to write for teens. Illustrator: Allan Davey Design: Mary Luna Olson and her debut YA novel, SING ME FORGOTTEN (Inkyard Press), that just came out on March 9! Enter to win a copy! We are excited to feature author Jessica S.

Sing Me Forgotten by Jessica S. Olson