Wired in a Unique Way

Katie Bridges is a full time writer who lives in Vancouver, Washington. By full time writer, she means that she hardly ever stops writing! Whether she’s working on a piece of fiction or composing a letter of encouragement to someone, she’s often sitting at her computer typing away. If she wasn’t writing, she would be hiking, as she loves to be amongst nature. She also enjoys reading children’s science books and is quite addicted! Katie owns a huge assortment she’s collected over the years. In between writing, she spends time with her family, giving a great deal of care to her grandchildren who she has has a lot in common with. Together, they love to star gaze at night and talk about the latest scientific discoveries. To find out more about her life, visit:warriorsoftheedge.com 

Elesia: Congratulations on your writing success! Please give us science fiction fans a short synopsis of Warriors of the Edge.

Katie: Tarek Ortzen wants what any twelve-year-old kid wants, a day to himself so he can play games in his gaming booth. He gets his chance when he signs up for the role of Stone in the latest war game, Warriors of the Edge. He figures the game will help him escape the real world and its troubles. But after one day of nonstop play, Tarek wishes he’d never heard of Warriors of the Edge. The game has brought nothing but trouble into his life.

When the game begins to blur the line between reality and fantasy, Tarek finds himself caught between those who believe in the game and those who oppose it. Is the game trying to warn him of danger or lead him into it? Tarek doesn’t know who to believe.

As Tarek’s home world faces the threat of destruction, he must determine whether the character he plays can make a difference in their real lives.

Elesia: You’ve had a lot of public attention in regards to your book. Tell us about the award you won, plus where we can listen to the interview you recently did.

Katie: The response from readers has been enthusiastic. Several months back I was in contact with a librarian who wanted a copy for every branch of the library in her city, which has a population of 380,000.

So I’m now hearing from readers in that city. The Rising Star is awarded through the Barnes and Noble Rising Star program. I was quite delighted to receive it because it is given to the most promising of books that are eligible for the award. It is rarely given to juvenile fiction, which made it all the more exciting for me to receive. My radio interview is no longer available, but you can read a similar interview on my website under the page titled: About the Book.

Elesia: Have you always been interested in writing? And how long did you work on Warriors of the Edge before it was published?

Katie: I’ve been writing stories since I was seven years old. As a child, all I wanted to do was write. Whenever my mother would ask me what I wanted for Christmas, I would give her the same answer. “I want a stack of fresh, clean paper, a pile of sharpened pencils, and a room all to myself.” That was the ultimate for me. No toy could compare to that. I’ve never let up on writing stories after all these years. Once I began Warriors of the Edge, I spent an entire year writing the first chapter. And that was working on it full time. That’s how long it took me to fully develop my premise. Once I had the premise down, it took another three years to write up the rest of the story. I spent another year in rewrites after an editor reviewed my book and made suggestions.

Elesia: Did it take you long to find an agent? And if you don’t mind me asking, how many rejection letters did you receive?

Katie: For most of my life, I wrote strictly for my friends and family. From time to time I would try to get those works published, which involved sending out a ton of query letters. At that stage in my life, I knew my writings weren’t up to par with publishing standards, so I wasn’t too disappointed when I didn’t get anywhere. I never kept track of the rejection letters, nor did I keep any of them. They went straight into the garbage can. I took solace in the fact that it wasn’t my stories that were being rejected. It was my query letters that were being rejected. I never could get a single agent to read anything I wrote. Warriors of the Edge was the first book I wrote for the purpose of being published. But by the time I wrote it, the publishing industry was undergoing major changes. With publishing houses struggling financially, they were now mostly interested in authors who already had a platform and a reader following. The only way to get a reader following is to put a book out there. So I headed straight for self-publishing without trying to find an agent. Now that my book is up and running, I still haven’t sought out an agent, in spite of the remarkable reviews I’m receiving. Right now I’m waiting until I have all the books in the series written before attempting to go that route. I prefer this nice, slow road as opposed to being rushed to put out a sequel by a publishing house. It allows me to take the time I need to get everything just right.

Elesia: Are any of the characters in your book on the autism spectrum?

Katie: There are bits of me in many of my characters. Since I am on the autism spectrum, you might think that would put my characters on it too. But instead of creating a completely distinct autistic character, I symbolized many of my autistic traits in various ways. The mute machine, which forces my main character, Tarek, into silence, is symbolic of my own struggle with communication. Tarek’s parents are both scientists, thus symbolizing my lifelong obsession with science. His dad is an inventor and his mom is a nature lover, both of which appeal to me. As a child, I dreamed of growing up to wear a white lab coat all the time. That never happened but almost all my stories involve scientists wearing white lab coats. Tarek’s best friend is a loner who gets bullied, just as I did as a child. However, I greatly minimized my own experiences with being bullied so as not to disturb young readers. People on the autism spectrum might come across parts in the story that resonate with them, depending upon their own experiences.

Elesia: Do you have more books planned?

Katie: I have plots I’m carrying around in my head of several more books to come. I am already hard at work on my sequel. Not only is it moving along at a faster pace than my first book, but it seems to be a bit more exciting too.

Elesia: A lot of individuals who are diagnosed later in life feel a sense of relief to discover what it is that has always made them feel so different. How did you take the news?

Katie: I was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome at the age of 40, back in 1998. The news came as a huge relief to me. Not only did it help me feel better about myself, but it changed the way people viewed me. I went from being thought of as odd to being seen as someone with a brain that was wired in a unique way. Whereas people were once leery of me, they were now fascinated to find out more about me, especially as I learned how to communicate the more fascinating parts of me. The diagnosis helped change my image of myself too. I found that having a negative image of myself was more of a deterrent to my growth and development that any problem autism had left me with. I’ve now had 13 years to fine tune the way I see my diagnosis. I no longer see myself in terms of limitations but in terms of what I can do. It’s helped me come a long ways.

Elesia: You mentioned that in-person or radio interviews about your book can be a challenging experience for you due to communication issues. Please explain this further.

Katie: Growing up, I used to write scripts so I could know what to say to people when I met them. But no matter how many times I practiced those scripts, they never were useful to me. That’s because the moment I step into a social interaction, my level of wariness goes sky high. I’m so busy trying to figure out what’s going on that I completely forget about any script I worked to memorize. Everything becomes ablur to me as I try to orient myself to the encounter. I lose words, I lose energy, and I lose my ability to think straight. Afterwards, I can’t tell you what the person was wearing or what they looked like. I would be the worst person to question during a police investigation. It’s even worse when I’m talking to someone over the phone because I have no social cues to go by. I’m not great for picking up on social cues anyway, but to not have any at all leaves me at a loss to know when it’s my turn to talk on the phone.

Since my radio interview was to take place over the phone, I knew I’d be at a loss for words. So I wrote up all the questions I could think of in advance and memorized the answers. I also wrote the answers out on cards and laid them on the table before me, so that I could quickly locate the answer. Now that I’ve memorized answers to so many questions, I’m much better about explaining my book to people. Before I did that, people would ask me what my book was about and I would say, “Uh…it’s about a twelve-year-old boy.” And that’s where I would stop. I wouldn’t be able to think of anything else to say beyond that. Now I have quite a bit I can say about it.

 

Elesia: What kind of accommodations can interviewers provide you with, beforehand, in order to help the interview go as smoothly as possible?

Katie: My best chance for success is knowing what the questions will be before they are asked in an interview. If I have a chance to write them out beforehand, I’ll do better yet. It’s more difficult for me to think up answers than it is for me to write them. Something happens to me when I write that doesn’t happen to me when I speak. I think differently when I put my fingers to my keyboard. It releases a different kind of thought process from my mind.

Elesia: Do you have any favorite authors who are on the spectrum

Katie: Dr. Temple Grandin is my favorite author. Her writings have brought me great encouragement. Before I heard her speak, I thought of myself in the most negative way. She helped me see my potential. Her example has been an inspiration to me. I saw what she was capable of doing and it made me believe that I could achieve great things with my life too. She also altered some misconceptions I had about autism. My thinking was so black and white that whenever I read about a trait of autism, I believed I had to abide by that trait, even if it was negative. In some ways, it became a rule that I adhered to. Her writings broke me out of that way of thinking, so that I could develop as a person.

Elesia: Do you feel barriers exist in the publishing world for people with disabilities? And if so, what can be done to address those barriers?

Katie: The publishing world is changing before our eyes. If someone has a story to tell, they have a greater chance of telling that story now than they did years or even months before. We all know that the publishing industry has set a standard of what is considered punishable material. That standard leaves many writers stranded, unable to break in to their inner circle. But with the rise of readers, almost anyone can get published nowadays, with little upfront costs. I know of writers who don’t write to publishing standards, but their books are selling like hotcakes anyway, simply because they have a great story to tell and can sell it for as little as $.99. All it takes is word of mouth to get that story spread.

People with disabilities are full of stories, both fiction and nonfiction. People need to hear those stories. There has never been a greater time to get those stories out there. The way I see it, the possibilities for breaking past whatever barriers stand in the way will only increase over time.