CANR
WORK TITLE: Caraval
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: 1981?
WEBSITE: http://stephaniegarberauthor.com/
CITY: Stockton
STATE: CA
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
LAST VOLUME:
http://www.recordnet.com/news/20170304/sixth-time-is-charm * http://www.jessup.edu/files/alumni/docs/broadcasterFall07.pdf *
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
ADDRESS
CAREER
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
The Horn Book Magazine Mar.-Apr., 2017. Katie Bircher, “Caraval.”. p. 88.
Kirkus Reviews Oct. 1, 2016, , “Stephanie Garber: CARAVAL.”.
Publishers Weekly Oct. 17, 2016, , “Caraval.”. p. 68+.
School Library Journal Oct., 2016. Klose, Stephanie. , “Garber, Stephanie. Caraval.”. p. 110.
ONLINE
NPR, http://www.npr.org (January 29, 2017), review of Caraval
I’m the international and New York Times bestselling author of Caraval.
When I’m not writing, I teach creative writing at a private college in Northern California, where I’ve been known to turn assignments into games and take students on field trips that involve book signings.
To help pay my bills during college, grad school, and the breaks in between, I worked as a barista, a waitress, a bartender, a customer service representative for an energy consulting company, and as a sales girl at Bath and Bodyworks. I also spent years working with youth; I worked as a counselor at space themed summer camp, volunteered at a school for deaf children in Mexico, and I took multiple groups of college students overseas to spend their winter vacations serving at youth hostels in Amsterdam. But out of everything that I’ve done, writing young adult novels has been my favorite job.
My debut YA fantasy novel, Caraval is out now (Flatiron Books/Macmillan—US and Hodder & Stoughton—UK). Caraval has sold in over twenty-five foreign territories and the movie rights were picked by Twentieth Century Fox.
For rights inquires, please contact my agent JENNY BENT.
For interview requests, or if you’d like me to be a guest on your blog, please contact Patricia Cave at Flatiron Books.
To order Caraval, follow this link for available sites.
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Posted Mar 4, 2017 at 3:17 PM
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By Lori Gilbert
Record Staff Writer
Rejected five times, Stephanie Garber gave writing one last shot.
A moon shot, it turns out.
Not only did her sixth young adult novel, “Caraval,” a colorful, magical story about two sisters and a scary, danger-lurking-everywhere game, get purchased by a publisher, it also generated a movie deal with 20th Century Fox.
“It’s one of those things, I’m so happy about; it’s something you don’t need to say it,” Garber said of being a published author. “I want to bottle it up and think about it. I feel really grateful. I know how hard publishing is. Sometimes when I think about it, I just start crying.”
Since the book was released Jan. 31, Garber, a graduate of Bear Creek High School, hasn’t had much time to just think about it and start crying.
She went on a U.S. book tour through parts of California, Oregon, Illinois, Michigan and ending in New Orleans, then spent a week in England.
A whirlwind might be an understatement.
One year she’s living in the home of her parents — her mom is Elise and her dad is San Joaquin Superior Court Judge Bernard Garber — single in her 30s, receiving rejection after rejection from agents with concerned friends sending her information on job openings in higher education, for which she studied, and the next, she has the publishing world fighting for the rights to her book.
She actually landed an agent to push her fifth book, a space opera, but the book didn’t sell. And a week after she’d finished writing “Caraval,” that agent quit.
“I had to find a new agent,” Garber remembers of those early days of 2015. “I moved back in with my parents. I felt the stakes had never been higher. I needed to move on. I was teaching (a college course on the publishing world) part time, living there, and if I didn’t sell the book, I needed to do something else. ‘Caraval’ was going to be the last book I wrote. Over lots of years, I’d joined the Society for Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. I’d been to various conferences. I’d done everything I could. I’d written the best book I can. If it doesn’t sell it’s not meant to be.”
She revised the book and sent it out to agents and in the meantime, attended the book launch of a friend.
“She was thanking everyone and pointing out authors in the audience,” Garber said. “It was hard. I’m friends with all these people and the only one who doesn’t have an agent.”
After a 24-hour “pity party,” Garber sent her book to more agents. Suddenly, eight different agents were interested. Garber selected a woman she’d met at a conference and after working with her for 2½ months on massive rewrites, she sent it to 14 editors.
The next day, her agent texted her. One editor had spent the night reading the book.
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“I woke up my parents,” Garber said. “My hands were shaking. I was crying. The editor read it and loved it.”
Within 24 hours, four editors had read it. Then a few more. She had two quick offers for it. Ultimately, eight editors bid on it over a two-day period, and she chose Flatiron Books, an imprint of Macmillan.
A relatively new publisher, Garber liked the idea of being a big fish in a small pond and not someone who would be lost in a sea of big-name authors.
The film deal came about because an editor had shared the book with a film scout.
Her book deal was completed on June 26, 2015. Garber will never forget the date. It came after seven years of hard work.
“Caraval” is about two teenage sisters in an unspecified time in a made-up location with a tyrannical father. Their dream is to escape their cruel father and the island he governs to attend Caraval, a magician’s annual, by-invitation-only game in which the truth is rarely what it seems and the game’s winner is granted one wish.
Part of the inspiration came from a speaker at a conference Garber attended.
“He was talking about wonder, how children have this amazing capacity to wonder,” she said. “As we grow up, we lose it. I wanted to create a story full of wonder.”
At the core is the story of sisters, told through the viewpoint of the older, protective sister, Scarlett. That was autobiographical. Garber’s younger sister Allison is her best friend, although unlike Allison, the younger sister in “Caraval,” Donatella, she is neither selfish nor foolish.
Writing about teenagers for young adults was important to Garber, who loved the “Twilight” series when she read them as an escape from graduate school studies.
“It’s such an important part of life, when you’re figuring out the world,” Garber said. “I had a really hard time as a teenager. There is not any amount of money you could pay me to relive those years. It’s difficult. I feel for teenage girls. If a teenage girl loves something, it’s not as worthy. If they love music, or movies, it doesn’t have validity. I think teenage girls need to be validated.”
So, she wrote a book about a strong, smart teenage girl in a distant time that judging by reviews on Good Reads, has very much caught the fancy of contemporary teenage girls.
Stephanie Garber grew up in northern California, where she was often compared to Anne Shirley, Jo March, and other fictional characters with wild imaginations and stubborn streaks. When she’s not writing, Stephanie teaches creative writing, and dreams of her next adventure.
Stephanie Garber loves Disneyland because it’s the one place on earth where she feels as if the fantastical stories she loves to write about could actually come to life. When she’s not writing young adult fantasy, she teaches creative writing at a private college in northern California. She’s also a blogger on Pub(lishing) Crawl.
Her debut novel, CARAVAL, will be published by Flatiron Books/Macmillan (US) and Hodder & Stoughton (UK) in late summer/early fall 2016. CARVAL has sold in over twenty territories and the movie rights were pre-empted by Twentieth Century Fox in a major deal.
Caraval
Katie Bircher
93.2 (March-April 2017): p88.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 The Horn Book, Inc.. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Sources, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
http://www.hbook.com/magazine/default.asp
Caraval
by Stephanie Garber
High School Flatiron 407 pp.
1/17 978-1-250-09525-1 $18.99
e-book ed. 978-1-250-09527-5 $9.99
Scarlett has agreed to marry a count she's never met in hopes that her marriage will take her and her sister Telia away from their abusive, manipulative father. The only dream Scarlett has ever truly allowed herself is to attend Caraval, a five-night scavenger hunt with the prize of a granted wish, held in a fantastical city entirely created by the infamous magician Legend. After Telia and intriguing-but-exasperating stranger Julian scheme to get all three of them to Caraval, Telia is separated from the others, and Scarlett grows convinced that the scavenger hunt's clues lead not only to the prize but to her sister as well. Scarlett is enchanted by strange loveliness she discovers while searching: a carousel made of roses; divinatory tattoos that reveal the beholder's future. But Caraval may be as deadly as it is exquisite, and despite the distance from home, it's not as far outside her father's influence as Scarlett hoped. The stakes grow ever higher, and Scarlett is no longer sure what's real or whom she can trust. The suspenseful story is perhaps a bit too twisty-turny, but readers invested in the sisters' fates (not to mention the outcome of steamy will-they-or-won't-they? tension between Scarlett and Julian) will hang on tight and enjoy the ride. Garber's darkly beautiful and brutal magical world is the star here, anyway, full of luscious details that invite readers to linger despite the breakneck pace.
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Bircher, Katie. "Caraval." The Horn Book Magazine, Mar.-Apr. 2017, p. 88. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA485970956&it=r&asid=ad4d2d190008d228e9fa963ebf7b1c5e. Accessed 24 May 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A485970956
Stephanie Garber: CARAVAL
(Oct. 1, 2016):
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 Kirkus Media LLC
http://www.kirkusreviews.com/
Stephanie Garber CARAVAL Flatiron Books (Adult Fiction) 18.99 ISBN: 978-1-250-09525-1
Magic, mystery, and love intertwine and invite in this newest take on the enchanted circus trope. Sisters raised by their abusive father, a governor of a colonial backwater in a world vaguely reminiscent of the late 18th century, Scarlett and Donatella each long for something more. Scarlett, olive-skinned, dark of hair and attitude, longs for Caraval, the fabled, magical circus helmed by the possibly evil Master Legend Santos, while blonde, sunny Tella finds comfort in drink and the embraces of various men. A slightly awkward start, with inconsistencies of attitude and setting, rapidly smooths out when they, along with handsome golden-brown sailor Julian, flee to Caraval on the eve of Scarletts arranged marriage. Tella disappears, and Scarlett must navigate a nighttime world of magic to find her. Caraval delights the senses: beautiful and scary, described in luscious prose, this is a show readers will wish they could enter. Dresses can be purchased for secrets or days of life; clocks can become doors; bridges move: this is an inventive and original circus, laced with an edge of horror. A double love story, one sensual romance and the other sisterly loyalty, anchors the plot, but the real star here is Caraval and its secrets. Immersive and engaging, despite some flaws, and destined to capture imaginations. (Fantasy. 14 & up)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Stephanie Garber: CARAVAL." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Oct. 2016. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA465181907&it=r&asid=0f08fe2b052737f6770267f9e8e3c748. Accessed 24 May 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A465181907
Caraval
263.42 (Oct. 17, 2016): p68.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
* Caraval
Stephanie Garber. Flatiron, $18.99 (416p) ISBN 978-1-250-09525-1
[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]
At the start of Garber's magnificent debut novel, the mysterious Master Legend invites sisters Scarlett and Donatella Dragna to attend Caraval--a magical multiday event that is part spectacle, part treasure hunt. Although their tyrannical father has threatened death if they leave home without his permission, Telia strikes a deal with a roguish sailor named Julian for transport to Legend's private island--a plan that essentially involves kidnapping the conflicted Scarlett, who is weeks away from marrying a man she's, never met. Upon arrival, Telia is taken, and it's revealed that she is the subject of this year's hunt. Scarlett and Julian join forces to find her, but in a game in which secrets are currency and appearances deceive, Scarlett has no way of knowing whether she's a Caraval player or Master Legend's pawn. Intriguing characters, an imaginative setting, and evocative writing combine to create a spellbinding tale of love, loss, sacrifice, and hope. While the search for Telia drives the narrative, Scarlett's quest for self-empowerment is equally captivating. Scarlett and Julian's chemistry intoxicates, and Garber's tantalizing conclusion will leave readers hungry for a sequel. Ages 13--up. Agent: Jenny Bent, Bent Agency. (Jan.)
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
"Caraval." Publishers Weekly, 17 Oct. 2016, p. 68+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA468700091&it=r&asid=0b999d65cc743d24ced64e3a25ae58d4. Accessed 24 May 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A468700091
Garber, Stephanie. Caraval
Stephanie Klose
62.10 (Oct. 2016): p110.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2016 Library Journals, LLC. A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/
GARBER, Stephanie. Caraval. 416p. ebook available. Flatiron. Jan. 2017. Tr $18.99. ISBN 9781250095275. POP
Gr 8 Up--Scarlett and her sister, Donatella, have been raised on a remote island by a demanding and cruel father. Scarlett is about to be married to a man she's never met, and though her long-held dream of receiving an invitation to Caraval, the once-a-year, fantastical, immersive performance, has come true, she believes attending would jeopardize her wedding and destroy her sole chance to get herself and Telia away from their father. When her sister teams up with a sailor to trick Scarlett onto a ship and take her anyway, the heroine plans to stay for a night or two, then return home for her wedding. But then Telia is kidnapped by Legend, Caraval's mysterious mastermind, and the protagonist learns that she can get her sister back only if she plays Legend's game for five nights--and wins. It won't be easy, though. Nothing (and no one) at Caraval is what it seems: time speeds up, clothing morphs according to its own agenda, and players may be called on to pay for things with their deepest fears or two days of their lives. Without knowing whom she can trust, including her own reason and senses, Scarlett must work out where her sister is and how to save her. This twisty, terrifically fun page-turner is ideal for fans of Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus, Neil Caiman's Stardust, and fantasy novels where relationships between sisters drive the plot, such as "The Hunger Games" or Rosamund Hodge's Cruel Beauty. VERDICT A must-have fantasy debut for high school collections.-Stephanie Klose, School Library Journal
Source Citation (MLA 8th Edition)
Klose, Stephanie. "Garber, Stephanie. Caraval." School Library Journal, Oct. 2016, p. 110. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=ITOF&sw=w&u=schlager&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA466166958&it=r&asid=4a1bc204a792b7ee6610a8f4ea2774fa. Accessed 24 May 2017.
Gale Document Number: GALE|A466166958
'Caraval' Is A Dark Circus Where The Clowns Don't Like You
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January 29, 20177:00 AM ET
Caitlyn Paxson
Caraval
Caraval
by Stephanie Garber
Hardcover, 407 pages
purchase
The world of Caraval is one part amusement park, one part Venice, and one part game show, painted in all the colors of a gothic circus. Girls in gowns rustle their way down dark hallways, searching for clues that will win them a wish — but some girls have more need of wishes than others.
Scarlett has led a life made small by abuse. She and her sister Tella dwell in constant fear of their cruel and violent father. Tella beats against the bars of their golden cage, but Scarlett keeps the peace as best she can, desperate to protect them both. She has given up on her childhood dream of attending Caraval, a magical performance that blends theatre with an adventure game, resigning herself to an arranged marriage that will offer her — and Tella — a true escape from their father.
When an invitation arrives from Legend himself, the mastermind creator of Caraval, beckoning the sisters to a mysterious island and offering them a place in the game, Tella forces Scarlett to abandon her plans of calculated safety in favor of an adventure. But it soon becomes clear that Legend has other ideas. He steals Tella away and makes her the prize of Caraval, leaving Scarlett no choice but to win the game.
Scarlett knows that everything she experiences in Caraval is a part of the performance, but the line between fantasy and reality starts to blur, especially when it comes to Julian, a sailor boy who has joined the game. Like everyone she encounters in Caraval, he isn't what he seems — and she can't resist his help or his company. As the nights of the game progress, she sinks deeper and deeper into a story that grows ever darker, and gets further and further from the safe future that was almost within her grasp.
... sadly for me, 'Caraval' the book very closely resembles Caraval the game: A beautiful setting for a hollow stone.
Caitlyn Paxson
Scarlett is an unusual heroine for this sort of YA quasi-historical fantasy. Tella is the more obvious choice, with her rebellious spirit and freewheeling ways. Scarlett's abuse has bowed her, making her doubt every choice and play by every rule. At times she seems prudish, prim, and even resentful of her love for Tella. Instead of saying, "yes, and," to each scenario, she says a determined, "no, thanks." I love seeing this kind of character at the forefront of an adventure story. Her attitude takes her in unusual directions as she explores the layers of Caraval, and I found myself rooting for her to grow into someone who could make confident decisions to shape her own future.
I went into this book expecting it to be a story primarily about the relationship between two sisters, but it's more invested in this challenge of taking charge of your own story when you are the victim of terrible abuse. Scarlett begins as a vessel buoyed along on other people's currents, and at first it seems as though she is beginning to chart her own course. But disappointingly, she succumbs to a series of choices made by other people, and her willingness to forgive and forget makes her seem like a doormat.
Ultimately, the message of Caraval ends up muddled, and Scarlett's acceptance of its final revelations left me uncomfortable. I wish in some ways that we had also gotten the story from Tella's point of view — seen from Scarlett's, she becomes quite monstrous. It would have been interesting to see their divergent paths unfurl at the same time.
Despite this, there is plenty here to enjoy, especially for fans of the very niche romantic carnival sub-genre. The greatest strength of Caraval is the world of the game, which feels like a journey into a dark branch of Disneyland, where the animatronics have feelings and don't like you very much, and the expensive cupcakes may have poison in them. It's a place where I could gladly return, in hope of a story with a more satisfying emotional arc to match the splendid trappings.
But sadly for me, Caraval the book very closely resembles Caraval the game: A beautiful setting for a hollow stone.
Caitlyn Paxson is a writer and performer. She is an editor at Goblin Fruit, and can be found discussing folklore and pop culture on the Fakelore Podcast.