Author Profile: Fans find plot of gold at the end of the Rainbow

Rainbow Rowell's characters - from a workaholic wife/mother who worries that putting her career first has ruined her marriage, to an introverted college freshman who finds solace in fan fiction she contributes online - talk a lot.

But Rowell, noted for her talent in writing dialogue, will be doing the speaking when she arrives in Cedar Rapids on Friday night as the second author in the Metro Library Network's Out Loud! Author Series.

'When I write I'm by myself and I can spend years working on something,” she says from her home in Omaha. 'So it's really nice to talk to people about my work because I don't get to talk about it while I'm working.”

Rowell is author of four novels, two for adults ('Attachments” and 'Landline”) and two for young adults ('Eleanor & Park” and 'Fangirl”). Her fifth novel, coming out in October, is 'Carry On,” which will continue the fan fiction story she began crafting in 'Fangirl.”

While the audiences for her books vary, Rowell said it's not intentional.

'I don't really think about who is going to read it while I'm writing,” Rowell says. 'I come up with the story and characters and through a conversation with my agent and editors we decide who the book will be marketed to. Because it's really a marketing decision, not a writer's decision. It doesn't feel any different when I'm writing.”

Rowell says she does like writing about teens. 'I think teens are really interesting and thoughtful,” she says. 'As a teen you really have a lot of time to think, which as an adult who is doing, doing and doing, you don't have. People in high school have time to spend with their thoughts. And they don't just set their emotions aside. They focus on them because they feel newer and important.”

Whether they seem to be written for teens or adults, all of Rowell's novels deal with family and love and characters who feel like they have screwed up at life somehow.

'I just want the story to be good and interesting, and I want readers wanting more,” Rowell says. 'I want people to feel like they can disappear into the book.”

Rowell's stories have a way of making people feel just that. Her writing draws readers into the story of her quirky characters' lives.

'When I'm writing I start to identify very strongly with whomever I am writing about,” she says. 'I feel like I am that person when I am writing the story and I stay with them and think about them when I'm not writing.”

'And I'm very compulsive,” she adds. 'So once I start something, I feel a lot of pressure to work on it as I don't like having something sit there not finished. I can't really get away from the story when I am working on it.”

While most readers would agree that the ending of Rowell's novels leave the characters right where they should be, she often gets questions about revisiting characters.

'I never felt like going back to characters from ‘Attachments,'” she says. 'But with ‘Eleanor & Park,' those are characters that probably two or three times I've had a strong pull to go back to again.”

Rowell says her main characters from 'Fangirl,” Cath and Levi, do make a cameo appearance in 'Landline,” which follows a completely different storyline.

'I was fresh off of ‘Fangirl' when I wrote ‘Landline' and Levi, especially, was still in my head. But I won't write about Georgie and Neil (from ‘Landline') again because that story has ended.”

'Carry On,” her new novel, actually continues the story of Simon and Baz, whom readers first were introduced to in 'Fangirl.”

As much as she enjoys all her characters, Rowell said there are new ideas to explore as well.

'I have a list in my head of other things I'd like to get to,” she says. 'An idea will feel strong and persistent for a while, and then I start getting excited about working on it.”

While she is busy promoting her books - something that takes more time than she had imagined - Rowell says she's protective of her time to write and work on new stories.

'Since high school, I've always done some sort of writing,” she says. 'It's the only job I've ever had.”

Rowell spent a decade working as a journalist - writing for the Des Moines Register and the Omaha World Herald - and in advertising, before turning her attention to fiction.

'Fiction is a little bit more compelling. It feels like something you are doing for yourself. And I'm inspired by life. I like to process things I am thinking about and feeling through writing.”

It's likely that Rowell is helping many readers do the same through her novels.

If you go

What: Out Loud! Author Series

Who: Rainbow Rowell

When: 7 p.m. Friday

Where: The Hotel at Kirkwood Center, 7725 Kirkwood Blvd. SW, Cedar Rapids

Cost: Free, but registration required at metrolibrarynetwork.org/outloud