The seed of the idea for Tin Star came from a night when I was watching the film Casablanca. I was really struck by the fact that in the movie, at that time, World War II, the city felt like this claustrophobic place where everyone was in limbo. It didn’t matter what walk of life you were from, you couldn’t get out without an exit visa because the city was under the control of the Vichy government. And then of course there is the love triangle with Rick and Elsa and Laszlo. I thought, “What if it was a space station? What if Rick was a teenage girl?” You just kind of crack and crack and crack. But that was the seed of the idea. If you’ve seen the movie, you’ll see some nods to the film, but it’s its own thing. I always knew as well that I wanted there to be a change and shift in power. So for Stone in the sky I wanted to echo a gold rush and the way everything changes when that happens. One thing that really inspired me was the pictures that I’d seen of the hundreds of boats abandoned in the San Francisco Bay during the goldrush of 1849. The idea that people would do anything to get to a place for a thing that they thought could make them rich. Of course there are a million other things that go into the seeds of story, but those two things are easy to point to.
Well, I guess I would go to any of the potential habitable Gliese or Kepler exoplanets! Let’s go and see if there is anything there! Point me towards those stars! For a fake planet I’d like to go to, I mean. Whoa. So many. But I’m going to go with Arrakis from the novel Dune.
I think Tin Star and Stone in the Sky are both such different books! It’s hard to figure out which book was easier or harder because they both have such unique challenges to them. Tula is very introspective in the Tin Star. Very guarded. Very alien. She’s shed her humanness in order to survive in a place where she is completely other from everyone else. It’s also a very claustrophobic book because they are pinned in one place. Stone in the Sky has a little bit more breathing room and more action. I think Tula really comes into her own and embraces her place in the universe. She owns her humanity.
Thank you! Since I knew how book two ended when I started the series, and I had a clear idea of what I wanted Tula’s arc to be as she found her place in the universe, I had a star to sail by on that respect. But it was difficult in a sense, because all writing is difficult! And also, because I usually write one and done books, not series, so it was strange to revisit a world. But I mean, I loved the world and Tula so much that I even wrote a tabletop RPG where you can be aliens who interact with her. So I think what was difficult was letting her go. But I feel very confident that her story is told now and I wish her well in her life!
Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! *SWOONS*
Tula Bane. Human colonist abandoned on alien space station at the brink of galactic war. Looking for revenge. Finding her humanity.
*UPDATE*
This giveaway is now open Internationally! As long as The Book Depository ships to you I say GO FORTH AND ENTER!!!
Blog Tour Schedule 2/2 Dear Teen Me 2/20 Read Sleep Repeat 2/21 Seeing Double in Neverland 2/22 Tez Miller Oz 2/23 AMA Reddit 2/24 YA Bookshelf 2/25 Rhapsodacy in Books 2/26 YA Highway 2/27 Christina Reads YA 2/28 The Book Rat
Book 1 Tin Star links: Amazon * B&N * Powells *Indiebound Book Depository * Books-A-Million 
About the Author: Cecil Castellucci is the author of books and graphic novels for young adults including Boy Proof, The Plain Janes, First Day on Earth, The Year of the Beasts, Tin Star and Odd Duck. Her picture book, Grandma’s Gloves, won the California Book Award Gold Medal. Her short stories have been published in Strange Horizons, YARN, Tor.com, and various anthologies including, Teeth, After and Interfictions 2. She is the YA editor of the Los Angeles Review of Books, Children’s Correspondence Coordinator for The Rumpus and a two time Macdowell Fellow. She lives in Los Angeles. Website * Facebook * Twitter
