Today we are very excited to share an interview with author Erin Becker!
Read on to learn more about the author, the book, and a giveaway!
Meet the Author: Erin Becker
Erin Becker (she/her) is an author and marketer living in Washington, DC. She grew up in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, was a Morehead-Cain scholar at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and holds her MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Crushing It is her first novel. When she’s not writing, you can find her at the gym, or occasionally playing soccer (though not nearly as well as Mel and Tory). Learn more and connect with Erin at erinbecker.me.
About the Book: Crushing It
From debut author Erin Becker comes an action-packed but tender novel about first romance, queer identity, and learning how to be brave when it matters the most.
On the soccer field, Magic Mel is in her element. She’s ready to lead her team to victory at the city championship in her new role as captain. Off the field, however, is a totally different story. Mel can’t get a handle on her class presentation, her friend group has completely dissolved, and her ex-friend-current-teammate, Tory, is being the worst. The only place she feels like herself is in her text conversations where she shares her secret poetry with BTtoYouPlease.
Tory McNally, on the other hand, is keeping everything together, thank you very much. So what if her mom is more preoccupied with her craft projects and new husband than her, or that she’s down to one IRL friend because of annoying, overly peppy “Magic” Mel? She’s perfectly fine, and even when she maybe isn’t, she’s got NotEmilyD to text with.
As the championships loom closer, everything around Mel and Tory starts to get more and more complicated: the dynamics on the field, the rift between their friend group, and, as they connect anonymously online, maybe even their feelings for each other . . .
~Author Chat~
YABC: What gave you the inspiration to write this book?
Crushing It is an “enemies-to-first-crushes” story with a You’ve Got Mail–style twist, and it’s about Mel and Tory, two girls on the same eighth grade soccer team. But I have a secret: originally, it wasn’t about a crush at all! Early drafts featured the same characters, but the story was initially about a friendship breakup. One day, I was at Vermont College of Fine Arts, listening to a lecture by the brilliant author Corey Ann Haydu, who was talking about how to find the heart of your story. I still remember that moment, when I was sitting in the lecture hall and realizing––wait, I think these two characters might have feelings for each other that go beyond friendship. I rewrote the book to be about a first crush, and it just made everything click. I think the moral there is, if Corey Ann Haydu gives you writing advice, listen!
YABC: What do you like most about the cover of the book?
I feel very lucky to have gotten to work with Ricardo Bessa for this cover. There’s so much action in the illustration, with the characters almost running off the page, and I think that really fits the fast-paced nature of the book. Ricardo did a great job capturing the characters, too. Tory, who’s kicking the ball, is a very intense, organized, and put-together person, and you can see that in her eyes (and in the way her hair still looks perfect, even while she’s playing soccer). Meanwhile, Mel’s much more open, and that’s obvious in her expression and in the way she’s looking at Tory. Mel is also a little messier and can never quite get all her hair back in her ponytail. Ricardo captured that perfectly, too!
YABC: What new release book are you looking most forward to in 2024?
This is YA Book Central, so although Crushing It is for readers 10 and up, I’m going to shout out a YA book just for fun! Charlene Thomas’s Streetlight People comes out in November. I was very lucky to get to read an advanced copy, and it’s so good. The story is about a secret society in a small town, and it’s being pitched as “a little bit Twin Peaks, a little bit Black Mirror,” but really, it’s something all its own. This is the first book in a long while that’s made me stay up almost all night reading.
YABC: What’s a book you’ve recently read and loved?
I have to shout out Redwood and Ponytail by K.A. Holt. In Crushing It, one of the main characters, Mel, secretly writes poetry. But she thinks she can’t be a poet, because everyone knows her as a soccer star. She only shares her poems with one person: an anonymous online friend, who she knows is someone from her school. Mel’s story is inspired by my own love of poetry, and that includes novels in verse. Redwood and Ponytail is one of my favorites. Like Crushing It, it’s a story of two young girls who are different in many ways…and who just might have feelings for one another. While Crushing It isn’t a verse novel like Redwood and Ponytail, it does include quite a few of Mel’s poems, which are some of my favorite parts of the book.
YABC: Which character gave you the most trouble when writing your latest book?
I’ve heard from many authors that there is always one character who shows up and demands much more “screen time” than you were planning on giving them. For me, that was Tory’s stepbrother Terrance. Tory is having trouble dealing with all the change in her life since her mom married her stepdad. This was always going to be a big part of the story, but I wasn’t planning on Tory’s relationship with Terrance being such an important part of it, too. I’m so happy it turned out this way, because their brother-sister relationship is adorable: they bicker and there’s tension, but you can tell they really, really care about each other. So I wouldn’t say Terrance gave me trouble, but he definitely took the story to places I didn’t expect!
YABC: What is the main message or lesson you would like your reader to remember from this book?
More than a message, I hope the book feels like a warm, fuzzy hug. I do explore a lot of themes around friendship, being true to yourself, and knowing it’s okay to not have all the answers, especially when you’re a young person experiencing things like crushes, fights with friends, and family struggles for the first time. But mostly, I want this to be a fun book that makes people happy! I wrote it during a difficult time in my own life, when we were still deep in the pandemic. It was an escape for me, and I’d love for it to be an escape for readers, too.
YABC: What advice do you have for new writers?
Try to take your successes personally, but not your setbacks. In my case, I’d been writing for a long time when I finally sold Crushing It to my publisher. During those years, I did my best to see rejection as just part of the process, rather than a commentary on my talent or skill. But when I did experience success––even a nice rejection letter––I let myself celebrate! (Emma Kress, the author of the excellent YA sports book Dangerous Play, recommends eating cupcakes to celebrate, so I’ll plug that idea here too.) This approach of quickly forgetting rejection while celebrating each little success helped sustain me for the many years it took to get a literary agent and, finally, a book deal.
YABC: Is there anything that you would like to add?
It’s been so lovely chatting with you all! Readers can find me at @beckererine on pretty much any social network and via my website erinbecker.me. Thanks so much for the opportunity to share a bit more about Crushing It and for all you do to help readers discover new books!
Title: Crushing In
Author: Erin Becker
Release Date: 8/6/2024
Publisher: Penguin Workshop
ISBN-13: 9780593523643
Genre: Middle Grade
Age Range: 10+
~ Giveaway Details ~
Four (4) winners will receive a copy of Crushing It (Erin Becker) ~US Only!
*Click the Rafflecopter link below to enter the giveaway*
