With the summer Olympics mere weeks away, what better time to read a book about the 1988 Olympic Trials, time travel, gymnastics, and a secret crush? Author Nancy McCabe is not only the author of the new YA adventure, Vaulting Through Time, but she is also the Professor of Writing and Director of Creative and Professional Writing at University of Pittsburgh at Bradford. I had the pleasure of chatting with Nancy about her book, working in the academic field of creative writing, and what it means to write YA.
What is the premise of Vaulting Through Time?
Vaulting through Time is the story of Elizabeth, a competitive gymnast who has developed fear issues, especially about throwing herself over the vault. She has also developed an embarrassing crush on her best friend Zach. But she soon discovers that she has much bigger problems: her mother has withheld from her a secret about her origins.
When she discovers that a watch she and Zach found in an abandoned house is a time machine, she travels to the past in order to find out the truth about where she comes from.
But the time machine malfunctions, and then a thief steals it, threatening to strand her in the past and erase her existence. In the end, the only way for her to put things right is to face her greatest fears and perform a vault that she’s completely ill-equipped for at 1988 Olympic Trials.
What inspired you to combine gymnastics and time travel?
I started writing this story when I was spending a couple of weekends a month driving my daughter to gymnastics meets throughout the region, so I was very much immersed in that world. I was also teaching a class on time travel fiction, and just to entertain myself during long drives and long waits between events at meets, I started musing about how I would combine those two things, gymnastics and time travel.
What was your process of researching for this book?
I read a lot of gymnastics biographies and autobiographies, read about gymnastics and Olympic history, watched gymnastics videos, and read books about the 1920s. Since my book largely takes place in my current home of Bradford, PA, I also read a lot about local history. I spent a lot of time looking stuff up: what slang was common in 1929? When was the word “wacko” first in use? If a child is born at home with no witnesses in Pennsylvania, what paperwork is required to get a birth certificate?
You’ve published books and essays in a variety of formats and genres, but Vaulting Through Time is your YA debut. What is distinct about YA that you don’t see in other genres?
YA is usually, at least on some level, about the search for identity, and that was an important theme of my own adolescence and something I was watching my daughter grapple with. And of course, YA central characters are usually teenagers, and while I've always been interested in reading and writing YA, it was natural that this particular story would evolve when my own daughter was a teenager.
You have an impressive resume, including a Ph.D. in English and you are the Director of Writing Program at the University of Pittsburgh. How has your academic career influenced your writing and what would you say to writers thinking about higher education in the field?
College teaching and writing have a lot in common in that you're facing tough markets with both—and with college teaching, now more than ever before with colleges closing and full-time positions not being replaced. So, honestly, a college teaching career means you have to be tenacious and you have to be mobile. There's lots of part-time work available, but that doesn't pay well and it's very hard to make ends meet.
I love teaching writing—there's nothing better in my mind than spending all of your time talking about writing and literature. Not everyone feels this way, but for me teaching has fueled my writing and vice versa, and directing a creative and professional writing program and teaching in multiple genres has encouraged me to write in them, too—fiction for different audiences, nonfiction, journalism, poetry, plays. I learn a lot from my students and their passions.
The downsides are the academic politics; the fact that in some fields you do have to be very mobile (I taught in four other states before settling into my current job); the way that the job constantly expands with more service work all the time (committees, paperwork, recruiting, etc.); and the fact that you never really get a break—even on weekends, when many of us do our grading, even in summer, when many of us prepare class and do research and writing. If you're a creative writer, you can't get a job or keep a job without being very active in your field. On top of that, I raised my child as a single and solo parent and so every single minute of my day was scheduled for many, many years. To keep on writing and to be a good parent, I had to give up a lot of stuff, including leisure time and a social life, during those years. While most people's situations aren't quite so extreme, you really do have to love what you do when it comes to making a career out of teaching creative writing.
Where can people order your books and where’s the best place to follow you?
My website is https://www.nancymccabe.net. There are links there to order all of my books. As for social media, I'm also most active on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/nancy.mccabe.92)
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