+ Is Wilder your first novel?

My first published novel. I wrote a manuscript called Riots For Beginners that has not (so far) found a publisher.

+ Are you working on a sequel to Wilder?

Well, hmm. Here's the thing. I did write most of a sequel, but my publisher isn't interested. I might find a way to share it at some point. And I have letters Meili writes to Jason after Wilder. First one is here.

+ Are you like the narrator of Wilder?

In some ways. I get in fewer fights. But I do find myself on the outside looking in.

+ Why did you choose a girl from Hong Kong with a British accent and a boy from Alabama? [FROM A READER]

Jason is from a northern rust belt state (think Ohio, western New York). He is not from Alabama, though I've heard people say he was, I think because of this exchange:

Meili spoke in her regular voice. “Heads of state. See, that’s nice, actually. That’s the type of phrase you don’t hear in Alabama very much.”

“We’re not in Alabama.”

“May as well be.”

“Snob."

So, why these two characters? For one thing, they showed up: the first image I had of was Meili and Jason sitting in a diner, Meili drinking tea that she hates, and they're joking while something dangerous builds around them. What I liked about writing them was how their differences revealed things about each other, allowed them to see themselves, their strengths, the things they take for granted until the other points them out. It's hard to see yourself till your around someone different from you. And their deep similarities (they are both parentless, mostly raising themselves, sometimes well, sometimes disastrously) build a fierce respect and connection.

+ Why young adult fiction?

I wrote a novel about a 17-year-old, a book I wanted to read as a younger man. Needed to read. When it was done, people called it Young Adult. I didn't know so much about that; when I was a younger, we didn't have that section in the library.

+ What did you do before you wrote Wilder?

I made dances. I had a dance company in Philadelphia for 20 years with my collaborators Amy Smith and David Brick. Changed my life. Maybe saved it.

+ Is writing a novel completely different from making dances?

Much in common actually. Rhythm, flow, voice, action. How one things leads to the next. The peculiar beauty and strangeness of everybody and every body. The biggest differences are process. Dance making is social, lots of people, energies, conversations. There's always someone to generate ideas, pick you up when you stumble. Writing is solitary. No social dynamics to manage, no schedules to coordinate. And it's all on you. That's amazing and amazingly hard.

+ Which is harder, writing a novel or making a dance?

Both are hard. Making dances will always be the hardest thing I've ever done. So complicated. The infinite complexity of the human body plus space plus time plus music. Novels are words only. And they're stable: write a sentence today and it stays exzctly the same forever. Dances are elusive, unstable. A section that works perfectly today can slip and look different tomorrow. And the sprawling scale of a novel is wild to me. A reader spends ten or twenty hours with your novel. It's intense to ask that of anyone.