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03/02/2016 07:30 AMMadison resident and young adult (YA) novelist Natasha Friend is following in the footsteps of her heroine, Judy Blume, by writing about tough topics for teens.
Natasha just published her sixth novel, Where You’ll Find Me. R.J. Julia Booksellers will host Natasha on Tuesday, March 8 at 6 p.m. at a free, registration-required event.
Her seventh book is already in production, she says, and she’s starting her eighth. She is also going on her eighth year as a resident of Madison. Her husband, Erik Kuja, works for Pfizer in Groton, and they have three children: Jack, 12, Ben, 10, and Emma, 6.
Natasha says, “I consider myself a mom first and a writer second, so I really only do work when my kids are in school or sleeping. It’s one of the things that keeps me sane. I think if I were a stay-at-home-mom without doing something with my brain, I would feel unfulfilled. This is a way for me to tap my creative energy.”
Natasha grew up in upstate New York with an English professor father and a poet and actress mother.
“She put my dad through graduate school by doing commercials, and she was a Shakespearean actress for a while. She still writes poetry every day,” Natasha says. “So I grew up with parents for whom reading was very important, [as was] writing, and just the power of words. We always played word games. We didn’t have a TV. We played a lot of Scrabble and Boggle and The Dictionary Game. I grew up learning a lot about words. It was almost inevitable that I was going to do something with writing.”
Natasha says she’s been writing as long as she could read.
“My father bought me a little manual orange typewriter when I was younger, and I had a little corner of my room where I would sit and type up my stories,” she says. “I think I always knew that I would write a full-length book at some point. It just took me a while to find the time to do it.”
Spotlight on Tough Topics
Natasha tries to write books with a message about topics with which many teens struggle.
She says, “I’ve tried to write books that I think are important. Judy Blume, who’s my hero, wrote books that really resonated with me when I was younger. She wrote about topics that were really important and a little bit taboo, and there are so many other subjects that she never got to that I wanted to tackle. I didn’t set out to write ‘problem novels,’ per se, but I wanted kids who read my books to feel like they weren’t alone if they were dealing with one of those problems. I’ve tackled eating disorders, alcoholic parents, blended families, and teen pregnancy.”
Natasha adds, “[Where You’ll Find Me] is really near and dear to my heart because it’s about mental illness. The protagonist of this book is dealing with her mom’s depression and suicide attempt. I feel like mental illness is one of the last taboos, and we really need to open the dialogue. I think kids, especially heading into adolescence, need to understand that taking care of your emotions and psychological health is as important as your physical health. It’s just a great, compelling story, but with an underlying message that there are things to think about and talk about that we don’t always. I think adults are afraid to talk about depression with kids. Kids are certainly afraid to talk about depression with their parents, and I think increasingly we need to have a dialogue about how to take care of our whole selves. When it’s a parent who’s struggling, kids often become little adults in that they have to take care of their parents, or they’re forced to take care of themselves, and they really need to be looked after, too.”
Though her books are geared toward teens, Natasha finds her fan base has no set age.
She says, “We can all tap into our younger selves, I think. A lot of adults like reading YA fiction because they can remember what it was like to be that age, and I feel like reading this genre keeps me in touch with what my kids are going through.”
‘Friend’ and Family
When they’re not working, Natasha and Erik spend a lot of time on family activities.
“We’re often on the baseball field with our two boys, and at other sporting events,” Natasha says. “Our kids are really athletic and we go to all the school events. We’re caught up in the kid whirlwind—we’re pretty much following them everywhere they go.”
Soon the family will accompany Erik on a business trip to New Orleans, and Natasha will use that opportunity to promote her book in the Big Easy.
“The great thing about having these two different jobs is getting to bring our kids along when we travel,” she comments. “When I go to the Southern Kentucky Book Festival at the end of April, I’ll get to bring my daughter and she’ll get to experience what it’s like to be a touring author.”
It seems her children have already absorbed some of their mother’s passion for writing.
Natasha says, “My kids started a neighborhood newspaper, The Colonial Times—the old-fashioned kind where they deliver it on their bikes. They do a pet of the month and a neighbor in the news, and they interview people. Our boxer, Beckett, was the first pet of the month. So I hope they absorbed a little of my passion for writing and the idea that writing is fun and not just work that they have to do.”
Fittingly, Natasha and Erik, who have been married almost 14 years, met in a storybook fashion.
“We saw each other on the way to our blind date,” Natasha recalls. “We were checking each other out on the T in Boston, and then it took us a while to find each other when we got to Faneuil Hall. I saw the guy from the T and he saw me, and he walked over and asked if I was Natasha and I said, ‘Yes,’ and his first sentence to me was, ‘I was hoping that was you.’”
She adds, “He was the one who told me to sit down and write a book, and he’s supported me through the decision to stay home and keep at it even though it’s not a regular income. He’s incredibly supportive.”
Natasha’s advice to aspiring writers is “read anything and everything you can get your hands on,” she commands. “You cannot be a good writer without being an avid reader. That’s something I try to instill in my kids.”
As for her R.J. Julia event on March 8, Natasha wants to make sure readers know the following: “There will be cupcakes and swag—and anybody who comes will get to hear the Judy Blume story and how [her endorsement blurb] ended up on the back of my book.”
For more information about Natasha and her books, visit www.natashafriend.com. Register for the upcoming event at www.rjjulia.com/natasha-friend-3816.
To nominate someone for Person of the Week, email Melissa Johnson at m.johnson@zip06.com.