CANR

Tromly, Stephanie

March 3, 2017 by admin

WORK TITLE: Trouble Makes a Comeback
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE:
WEBSITE:
CITY: Winnipeg
STATE: MB
COUNTRY: Canada
NATIONALITY:
LAST VOLUME: CA 386

TROUBLE IS A FRIEND OF MINE by Stephanie Tromly | Author Q&A | Giveaway

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Posted in CAO 3-1-17 | Comments Off on Tromly, Stephanie

PERSONAL

Born in Manila, Philippines; married; husband’s name Lucas (a professor); children: Henry.

EDUCATION:

University of Pennsylvania, B.S.; University of Toronto, B.A., M.A.

ADDRESS

Home - Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.

CAREER

Screenwriter, novelist.

WRITINGS

Trouble Is a Friend of Mine (young-adult novel), Kathy Dawson Books (New York, NY), 2015
Trouble Makes a Comeback (young-adult novel), Kathy Dawson Books (New York, NY), 2016
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SIDELIGHTS

Born in Manila, Philippines, and raised in Hong Kong, Stephanie Tromly earned a degree from the University of Pennsylvania and worked as a screenwriter in Los Angeles. Her desire to write young-adult fiction came from her favorite books as a child. “I read the classic Nancy Drew series over and over and over when I was first learning to read and write in English. I would say that Nancy changed my life in a material way,” she said in an online interview for the Reading Date. She emphasizes that writing for the screen and writing novels follow many of the same rules: “Dramatize rather than explain …, keep everything kinetic and full of movement, let the world build itself, make sure the dialogue is true and utterable.”

Trouble Is a Friend of Mine

In 2015 Tromly published Trouble Is a Friend of Mine, a high-school whodunit reminiscent of Veronica Mars and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, mixed with the BBC’s Sherlock. In the story, sixteen-year-old Zoe Webster’s parents have gotten divorced, and she moves upstate from New York City with her mother. She misses her friends and city life. One day, a strange, fast-talking, suit-wearing classmate named Digby enlists her help to investigate the disappearance of Marina Miller, a wealthy teenager who was last seen at a slumber party. Digby’s own four-year- old sister was kidnapped eight years ago, and he thinks this case might shed light on his sister’s.

Although Digby is annoying, brilliant, quirky, and obsessive-compulsive, Zoe, whom he calls Princeton, agrees to accompany him on his quest. Soon others join the group, including quarterback Henry, cheerleader Sloane, and science enthusiast Felix. Through their adventures they encounter a religious cult that lives in a mansion across from Zoe’s house, a pharmaceutical drug ring, an unscrupulous gynecologist, and concealed weapons. At one point Zoe and Digby rent a limousine to track down a drug dealer and are captured and stuffed in the trunk. While they try to catch the perpetrators, the kids learn about friendship, romance, and determination. Calling to mind the “brat pack” nature of the characters, New York Daily News writer Allison Chopin commented on the way the book “melds a crime novel with a classic teen dramedy [and] makes it a genre- defying work with wide appeal.” However, “the actual crime-solving plotline, while initially enticing, doesn’t end up having as many suspenseful twists and turns as one usually hopes for,” added Chopin.

On the Young Folks Web site, Lauren Wengrovitz said: “What makes this book stand out are the characters. Stephanie Tromly has created a cast of unique and memorable individuals. … Digby’s strange and interesting personality had me hooked.” Wengrovitz added: “The mystery is suspenseful and had my heart pounding in anticipation.” Georgia Christgau in School Library Journal had some complaints about the many irresponsible adults attempting to derail Zoe and Digby from their mission; she said that the book “aims to please a wide variety of readers, but its success is due largely to the authentic portrayal of its two teenage protagonists.” Although Tromly’s Asian American supporting character Felix is presented in a highly stereotypical manner, the other characters are solid, according to a writer in Kirkus Reviews, who also liked the zippy dialog and declared: “Zoe’s sarcastic first-person narration is fresh and funny.”

In the Voice of Youth Advocates, Nancy Wallace observed that Tromly employs contemporary colloquialisms and dialogue for her young characters. “This debut novel sparkles. Absolutely nothing slows down the pace of this outrageous romp. The dialogue is snappy, the plot fresh,” said Wallace. A reviewer online at Teenreads had a similar comment, saying: “Tromly is very creative in her use of language. She can write her characters out of any situation, leaving me mystified by how much she thought she put into the littlest details and every word choice.”

Trouble Makes a Comeback

Tromly continues the story of Zoe and Digby in Trouble Makes a Comeback, published in 2016. The start of the novel finds Zoe enjoying high-school life with her friends and a new boyfriend—a handsome football player who could not be more different from Digby. After an absence of some six months, however, Digby returns. The teen sleuth immediately reenters Zoe’s life, throwing her somewhat carefree existence back into turmoil. The pair resume their search for Digby’s sister and once again encounter both excitement and danger. As with Tromly’s first novel, Trouble Makes a Comeback elicited praise from critics. A Kirkus Reviews contributor praised the author’s skill in crafting intelligent, easy-to-follow action scenes and in the development of her main characters: “here the characters come in to their own, darting in and out of mischief and mayhem at dizzying speeds.” Writing in Voice of Youth Advocates, Elisabeth W. Rauch likewise applauded the author’s effort, concluding that Tromly offers “just enough scheming to make the story exciting.”

BIOCRIT

PERIODICALS

Booklist, July 1, 2015, Erin Downey Howerton, review of Trouble Is a Friend of Mine, p. 60.
Kirkus Reviews, May 1, 2015, review of Trouble Is a Friend of Mine; August 15, 2016, review of Trouble Makes a Comeback.
Publishers Weekly, May 18, 2015, review of Trouble Is a Friend of Mine, p. 87; December 2, 2015, review of Trouble Is a Friend of Mine, p. 99.
School Library Journal, June, 2015, Georgia Christgau, review of Trouble Is a Friend of Mine, p. 130.
Voice of Youth Advocates, August, 2015, Nancy Wallace, review of Trouble Is a Friend of Mine, p. 71; December, 2016, Elisabeth W. Rauch, review of Trouble Makes a Comeback, p. 67.

ONLINE

BookPage, http://bookpage.com/ (August 4, 2015), Diane Colson, review of Trouble Is a Friend of Mine.
New York Daily News, http:// www.nydailynews.com/ (September 2, 2015), Allison Chopin, review of Trouble Is a Friend of Mine.
Reading Date, http:// thereadingdate.com/ (August 4, 2015), author interview.
Teenreads, http:// www.teenreads.com/ (August 7, 2015), review of Trouble Is a Friend of Mine.
Young Folks, http:// theyoungfolks.com/ (August 5, 2015), Lauren Wengrovitz, review of Trouble Is a Friend of Mine.*

1. Trouble makes a comeback LCCN 2015046145 Type of material Book Personal name Tromly, Stephanie, author. Main title Trouble makes a comeback / Stephanie Tromly. Published/Produced New York, New York : Kathy Dawson Books, [2016] Description 298 pages ; 22 cm ISBN 9780525428411 (hardback) CALL NUMBER PZ7.1.T76 Ts 2016 Copy 1 Request in Jefferson or Adams Building Reading Rooms

Reading Date - https://thereadingdate.com/2015/08/04/trouble-is-a-friend-of-mine-by-stephanie-tromly-author-qa-giveaway/
AUGUST 4TH, 2015
TROUBLE IS A FRIEND OF MINE BY STEPHANIE TROMLY | AUTHOR Q&A | GIVEAWAY

Trouble is a Friend of Mine blog tour

Happy Publication Day to Trouble is a Friend of Mine! This book book is witty and quirky and features a teen-Sherlock type who recruits the new girl in town to help solve a mystery. Read on to find out more about the book, read an Author Q&A with Stephanie Tromly, and make sure to enter to win a copy for yourself!

About the Book:

trouble is a friend of mine

Preparing to survive a typical day of being Digbys friend wasn’t that different from preparing to survive the apocalypse.

Her first day not in school (because she cut) in her new hometown that will soon be her old hometown (because she’s getting out of Dodge as fast as she can) Zoe meets Digby. Or rather, Digby decides he’s going to meet Zoe and get her to help him find missing teenager. Zoe isn’t sure how, but Digby—the odd and brilliant and somehow…attractive?—Digby always gets what he wants, including her help on several illegal ventures. Before she knows it, Zoe has vandalized an office complex with fake snow, pretended to buy drugs alongside a handsome football player dressed like the Hulk, had a throw-down with a possible cult, and, oh yeah, saved her new hometown (which might be worth making her permanent hometown after all.)

A mystery where catching the crook isn’t the only hook, a romance where the leading man is decidedly unromantic, a story about friendship where they aren’t even sure they like each other—Trouble is a Friend of Mine is a YA debut you won’t soon forget.
Find it: Goodreads | Amazon | B&N | IndieBound | Penguin

And now, please welcome author Stephanie Tromly to the blog. She’s here to talk about her writing inspirations, favorite Movies, TV shows and Books, favorite scene from Trouble and more!

stephanie tromly trouble is a friend of mine
Congrats on the release of your first novel! You have worked as a screenwriter- how did you decide to write a YA novel and how is writing a novel different than screenwriting?

Thank you so much! I’m very excited.

Surprisingly, I didn’t have to change much of my core process when I started writing YA. I stuck to many of the same rules: dramatize rather than explain (that’s a Henry James rule, by the way), keep everything kinetic and full of movement, let the world build itself, make sure the dialogue is true and utterable…that kind of thing. Of course, these things might be as true for writing in other genres…I’ve yet to find out, I suppose, as I’ve not tried writing any other kind of longform fiction. I suspect, though, that I’d be allowed to ruminate more if I wrote a piece of, say, literary fiction and I think worldbuilding rules for fantasy are different.

I decided to write YA because I needed a break from academic writing. I was in the middle of writing my dissertation when I got pregnant and after I had my kid, sitting in the library for seven hours at a stretch was out of the question. My mind needed something lively and bright and free…Zoe!

Your book has garnered comparisons to John Hughes movies and TV shows like Veronica Mars. What is your favorite teen movie or TV show, and whom would you cast in a TV or movie version of your book?

Favorite?! Only one? Hahaha. Of course I love Clueless, Mean Girls, Gilmore Girls, all John Hughes (including Uncle Buck, by the way),Veronica Mars, old Nancy Drew with Pamela Sue (six year old me sat around for hours with curlers trying to get that flip in my hair), Awkward (the first two seasons especially), Lizzie McGuire (come clean, Hill), anything to do with the Traveling Pants…

You know who I feel like? Drew Barrymore in Never Been Kissed– that’s a teen/not teen movie. But remember Drew Barrymore in Poison Ivy?! And original Scream? I love mean teen movies…

In terms of casting, I suspect that whoever they’ll cast is unknown for now…but when I was writing it, I thought a lot about a young Ryan Gosling as Digby and a young Anne Hathaway crossed with Rory Gilmore (I use the character name rather than the actress’ name on purpose because–sorry, Alexis–ultimately, Amy Sherman Palladino is the one I’m hollaing at).

What was your favorite scene to write or funniest line?

I’ve said before that I wrote a scene in the sequel for Felix that I found disproportionately fun and that’s probably the closest I’ll come to singling out any one thing. I don’t know if it’s going to make the cut, though, so I hesitate to describe it. Cutting it will just be that much harder…

In many ways, I most closely identify with Felix. I’m not a genius but I was more than two years younger than my classmates and I have to say that their reaching puberty scarred me more than when I myself went through puberty. They tried to include me in their conversations but my confusion was laughable – I don’t blame them for laughing because it was funny. Because of this, writing Felix’s misapprehensions is cathartic and that feeling of release makes my time with Felix special.

What books have influenced your life the most, and what books are you reading now?

the clue in the diary assassin's creed renaissance
I read the classic Nancy Drew series over and over and over when I was first learning to read and write in English. I would say that Nancy changed my life in a material way. All the writers who wrote as Carolyn Keene were my first and best teachers.

In terms of books that have changed me emotionally, I’d have to point to Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse and Mrs. Dalloway. I don’t think I knew how to understand my mother until I read Woolf coming to an understanding of hers. The list of stuff that’s excited me intellectually is crazy long…

Right now, I’m in the middle of a few books. Balzac’s History of the Thirteen (I love stories about secret societies) is my current ‘respectable’ book. I am also reading Renaissance, the novelization of the Assassin’s Creed game. I love Florence and while I abhor killing, I love the idea of assassins running on those terracotta rooftops in hooded capes. I read that kind of action-y stuff when I’m feeling sluggish. The other series I’m finally reading is The Diary of a Wimpy Kid. I loved the movies but I’d never read the books until Sabrina, my incredibly cool and withit niece, bought me the book and INSISTED I read them. The writing is awesome.

HOWEVER! If my editor asks, please tell her that I have read diddly-squat since signing up with Penguin as I have been too busy living, breathing, and writing my own stuff twenty four hours a day.

Your secret is safe with us!

The book title always brings the song “Trouble is a Friend” to mind. Did you have any input on the book’s title and what other titles did you consider?

Taking the trouble is my business
I submitted the book under a long title that started with the phrase “Digby 101” followed by a colon and a phrase that sounded like a description from a college syllabus. I think it was something like “An Introduction to Juvenile Delinquency and Other Good Deeds.” I had the notion that I’d have the series progress as college courses would. Everyone (including me) quickly realized it’d be too long and cumbersome.

The song is great but really, the current title is a play on the Raymond Chandler’s Trouble Is My Business. If you notice, Digby’s first name is spelled “Philip” rather than “Phillip,” which is the more common way it appears. This is an allusion to Chandler’s Philip Marlowe. I can’t even begin to tell you about how much I love Raymond Chandler and noir.

Do you have any fun book launch celebrations planned?

To be honest, I’ve been sick with nervousness about the whole thing. I know that it will be anticlimactic in the sense that I won’t physically transform or anything but…I think that when August 4 comes and goes, and I don’t just spontaneously combust, I’ll treat myself to a party sized bag of chips, a stack of magazines, and maybe sit in bed and cry with relief.

Can you give us a little hint about what you’re writing now? Will Digby and Zoe’s story continue?

Oh, yes…they will go on. Trouble will make a comeback.

Thanks so much, Stephanie! You rock!

Trouble is a Friend of Mine is on sale now – start reading!

About the Author:

Stephanie Tromly was born in Manila, grew up in Hong Kong, graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, and worked as a screenwriter in Los Angeles. She is the author of Trouble Is a Friend of Mine and lives in Winnipeg with her husband and son.

Follow Stephanie on Twitter @stephanietromly
Voice of Youth Advocates - http://voyamagazine.com/2016/05/19/wouldnt-you-like-to-know-stephanie-tromly/
Wouldn’t You Like to Know . . . Stephanie Tromly
Tagged with: Author interviews Stacey Hayman Stephanie Tromly
StephanieTromlyPicStacey Hayman
Born in the Philippines, a childhood in Hong Kong, college in the United States, and living in Canada have all helped make our current author a master of observation—a skill that is completely obvious in her fabulously funny debut novel. Not content to be a world traveler, Stephanie Tromly has an equally diverse collection of higher education degrees including a bachelor’s in economics and urban studies from the University of Pennsylvania and a bachelor’s plus a master’s in English literature from the University of Toronto. Stephanie’s experience as a writer of screenplays comes shining through and would make it so easy to adapt her novel(s) onto the screen (hint hint!) Currently living in Winnipeg with her husband and young son, readers can all be grateful for the chilly northern weather keeping the author inside (i.e., we can look for a new Zoe and Digby book in the very near future!)
SH: When I was a teenager, people would describe me as a: (jock, band geek, popular, goth, other, none?)
ST: I think I was more of a floater . . . somewhere near “brain,” maybe? I got in trouble with the teachers a lot, for some reason, though, so my grades had a “come from behind” flavor to them.
SH: The best/worst thing that happened to you in high school?
ST: My answer for Best and Worst Incident I Survived During High School is (dun-dun-dun): the same incident. The deputy principal of my school had an irrational dislike for me and one day, she found a note I’d written to my friend in which I went to town making fun of a bunch of my teachers. The deputy principal called me into her office and threatened me with expulsion (during my junior year when I was starting to think college applications). She tried the same thing with the friend to whom I’d written the note. My friend wasn’t very easily scared, though, and very coolly asked the deputy principal what she was doing reading private notes. I didn’t have that kind of moral courage so I was in agony over my blown future. I hid all this from my parents for a few days until finally, when I couldn’t take the stress of waiting for my punishment anymore, I told them what had happened. I thought they’d get mad at me but, instead, they realized I was being bullied by my insane deputy principal. My father came into school, yelled at her, and then came to my classroom to tell me, “It’s done. I took care of her.” And, yup, that lady left me the heck alone for the rest of my high school career.
SH: Favorite childhood book? Favorite food? Favorite band or album? Favorite television show?
ST: While it pains me to single out any one Nancy Drew from the classic series, I’d have to say that Password to Larkspur Lane was the book I reread the most times. Read that book and then watch Chinatown!
My favorite food . . . that changes all the time. In general, I love Korean food and I love elaborate and unhealthy salads. Chips are my addiction. I celebrate with Flaming Hot Cheetos.
Favorite band . . . that changes all the time, too! Duran Duran is a band I’ve loved for decades, though. And as for picking just one album, well . . . let’s just say, my fingers have been frozen above the keyboard for minutes now.
Like everyone else, I watch Game of Thrones. However! The TV show I’ve been most impressed by recently was The Night Manager. It was such a straight, unfussy plot but the characters were just boom. I don’t have the words.
SH: Is there a story from your childhood that is told most often, either by you *or* about you?
ST: There are a few but the one that stands out is the one about a conversation I had with my grandfather when I was almost four years old. He was leaving for a trip to Hong Kong (we were all living in Manila at the time) and I asked him to stay home with me. He said he had to go but asked if I wanted to go with him instead. I told him that, no, I couldn’t because I was just a kid and I had to go to school. Then, while everyone was laughing at that, I said, “Don’t go to Hong Kong. You won’t come back if you go.” And sadly, he died of a massive heart attack on that trip. He was only sixty years old so everyone was shocked.
SH: Was there any class in high school you regret paying too little, or too much, attention? If you could add one class to high schools across the country, what would be the topic?
ST: I wish I’d continued taking science classes! I went to a British school, so after a series of public exams (on eight subjects which we took when we were the equivalent of high school sophomores), we narrowed our focus to only three subjects for the last two years of school. At the end of those two years, we took exams in those three subjects and then went on to university to take degrees in things directly related to those subjects. I didn’t go to university in Britain and went to a U.S. college instead so I did get a chance to take electives but I wish I’d gotten a more general education at the high school level. Even electives felt too high stakes in college.
As for the one class I wish people would be offered in high school? I will sound so unoriginal here but I think all students should be offered a class on financial literacy. People need to be able to manually work out how much they are spending on interest, for example. May I make a second wish? I wish high schools would offer ethics classes, too. Or, at the very least, a class on social responsibility.
SH: If you could be a character from any book ever written, including your own, who would you want to be? Why?
ST: Nancy Drew. Every day. I wouldn’t wish my mother dead but Nancy Drew “had it all.” I mean, for example, in Password to Larkspur Lane, Nancy not only foiled an elder-abuse-swindling ring, she also had time to win a gardening competition. She had it all.
SH: Is there a book, besides your own of course, that you think everyone should be reading?
ST: I can’t think of any one book that I think of in that way . . . but! The book I will be sure to give my kid if/when I feel like school pressure is getting to him and he’s starting to take the idea of capital S Success too seriously is Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast. I acknowledge that nowadays, there are serious issues of inequality and a total lack of security for people who aren’t firmly in the 1 percent, so, yes, kids today have to hit the ground running. Hemingway’s memoir is a great reminder to young people, though, that they shouldn’t just think about storing financial nuts for their old age and they should also remember to live.
SH: Do you have any favorite family traditions that might need some explanation to outsiders looking in? Do you remember how they started?
ST: My family is Fukienese (Chinese) by way of the Philippines and Hong Kong: these are three extremely superstitious communities and we observe all the superstitions of each of them. One of the ones that other people think is weird is our inability to accept shoes as gifts. So, when we give shoes to each other, the recipient gives the gifter, like, a quarter or something so that the shoes were technically “bought.”
SH: What’s your biggest pet peeve?
ST: I hate when people litter. I feel like that since it’s neither necessary nor enjoyable, why do it?
SH: Is there one moment in your life you’d love to live again? To either change it or to enjoy?
ST: Hands down, it’d be the ten minutes right around when my kid was born. I wouldn’t change a single thing.
SH: If you could have any superpower, what would you choose?
ST: I’d love to wake up one day and suddenly have self-confidence. That isn’t a superpower that would sell comic books but I’ve been wishing for it to no avail for so long, it may as well be the ability to fly.
SH: What’s been your favorite place to live so far, and is there one place you dream of living in the future?
ST: You know what? I love different things about different places and there’s a lot I love about living in Canada but . . . London. I don’t know how happy I’d be actually living there because wealth inequality is basically the bedrock on which the city’s culture is built but as a thing to behold? London.
SH: What three words would you use to describe yourself? What three words do you think other people would use to describe you?
ST: I’m an awkward person and I don’t do well in a crowd. Or with people who I’m not already close with. Actually, let’s be honest, I don’t do well with people in general.
People would probably say, “She’s so weird.” And I would agree. My own three words change with my swinging moods but today, I would use the words worried, ready, and hopeful.
SH: You are sitting down to dinner with five people, living or dead, who you find fascinating. Who is at the table and what are you eating?
ST: I’d call back my grandfather from the grave. No one had a chance to write down his experiences from when he was a guerrilla fighter during the Japanese occupation. Only a handful of those memories survive.
A lot of the people who I’d like to talk to are monsters, but of the non-monsters, I think I’d like to have a conversation about art with Virginia Woolf, Marguerite Duras, and Prince.
My fifth guest would be General (Ret.) Stanley McChrystal, the guy who once commanded the U.S. Forces in Afghanistan. Unlike the rest of us, who would be eating normal stuff like pizza and nachos, General McChrystal would be eating nothing because he famously only eats one meal a day. He also runs eight miles every day and only sleeps four hours. I don’t agree with all his politics but I’d like to ask him about discipline. But then, I feel like he’d learn that my ideal length of sleep time is ten hours a night and he’d slam down his glass of water and walk out on me.
SH: When asked what you wanted to be when you grew up, what did you say? Were you telling the truth?
ST: At times, I told people (and myself, to be honest) I wanted to work in finance or a finance-adjacent job because that’s what I thought I should do to be responsible. I’ve always had daydreams about being a reporter, though, and I wish I had it in me to write at that high a level all the time . . . but, yes, writing has always been my secret dream.
SH: What did you buy with your first paycheck as An Author? Was it a planned or an impulse purchase?
ST: I bought more books! Not kidding.
SH: When you sit down to write, what do you need around you? Do you prefer a certain time of day or is it more spontaneous? How do you approach the creative process?
ST: I like having painted nails for some reason. Bright red nail polish. I hate writing at night because it depresses me but I almost always end up writing all night. I think I need everyone else to go to bed, otherwise, there’s always the temptation of conversation with my husband or kid.
How do I approach the creative process? I ponder failure until my panic makes my fingers move. I know. I need a better way to get going.
SH: Do you have a phrase or motto that inspires you?
ST: I don’t know that I feel inspired all that much . . . I mostly have to work to corral my anxiety and for that, I do have a mantra: enough. That word does it for me.
SH: What one thing makes you feel happiest? What makes you sad? What scares you? What makes you laugh?
ST: Do you know what? My kid makes me feel all these things all at once. Seriously. But I can go door-to-door and give you less sappy answers.
Happiest? Seeing my family—my parents, sibs, my husband, and kid—together at the table. This happens more often that we deserve to expect since we all live in different countries but I’m never not grateful when we can get back together.
Sad? Artists like David Bowie and Prince dying. We’re not really replacing them at the same rate that we’re losing them.
Scares me? That I’ll never be a good writer.
Makes me laugh? Andre Braugher as Captain Holt on Brooklyn Nine Nine. Watch him in scenes with Wunch (Kyra Sedgwick!).
SH: If someone wrote a book about your life, who would you want as the author, what kind of book would it be, and what title would you give it?
ST: If a wretched book like that were to ever exist, it would be a depressing parable by Herman Melville type that would have the title, I Would Prefer Not To.
SH: What is one (or more!) of your favorite features about yourself? It can be anything from an impeccable sense of style to your sense of humor to crazy long toes that can pick up a variety of objects.
ST: Ha! Funny you mention it because my husband has what his family calls a “prehensile” big toe that can “do things.” It’s weird.
My favorite feature about myself? My ability to work (at least) two days straight with no sleep. You asked me before about superpowers; this one is mine.
SH: A series of choices: Coffee, tea, or soda? Cats, dogs, fish, birds, or none? Board games, card games, or online games? Salty or sweet? Morning or night? Elevator, escalator, or stairs? Phone call, hand written letter, or email?
ST: I hate to be that dude but I need coffee (I drink it non-stop) but I love diet soda (I limit my intake). I’m a cat person. I love card games. Salty, salty, salty. I wish I were a morning person but I’m an owl by nature. I take the stairs to offset my awful chip habit. I write everything by hand but nothing beats the immediacy of email. Phone calls? I could do without phone calls.
SH: What’s the best surprising question you’ve been asked so far?
ST: I think the tail of the question “When asked what you wanted to be when you grew up, what did you say? Were you telling the truth?” is great because I was always conscious of never telling people the truth about my ambitions.
SH: Is there any question you wish someone would finally think to ask?
ST: I feel like you’ve asked all the good ones. Seriously.
TROUBLE-IS-A-FRIEND-OF-MINE-by-Stephanie-Tromly
Trouble Is a Friend of Mine
SH: If you ate at Olympio’s—what would be your standard order? What if Henry offered to name a meal in your honor, what would be on the plate?
ST: It’d be a plate of hash browns and eggplant moussaka. I wouldn’t be sad if they made a gyro out of the hash browns and moussaka and doused it in tahini and hot sauce and named it after me. Fries on the side. With more hot sauce. Exactly zero people would order it. I’m getting heartburn just imagining it.
SH: Digby thought Zoe sounded like his grandmother’s cockatoo when its wing was caught in the vacuum. Have you heard that noise before or was it more of an educated guess?
ST: I have heard something almost as awful. The angry and hurt cry of a people-loving parakeet being batted off someone’s head.
SH: I enjoy that Digby successfully referenced The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants in conversation with Henry and Zoe. What inspires you most about that Ann Brashares book? Do you believe there are real pairs of traveling pants for teens to share? Or, more importantly, how about any traveling pants for adults?
ST: I love that book. Sadly, I don’t think actual magic pants exist . . .
Here’s the dark side of the metaphorical pants, though. The people who find out about the magic pants and can see the magic pants but are excluded from the magic pants club (like Effie and Bailey) are kind of . . . sad. I mean, that’s why social media makes people feel bad.
SH: Digby is so wrong in so many ways, it makes him completely right! Do you know a Digby in real life? How can a person (like me, maybe) get invited to hang out with you guys sometime?
ST: Let me save you some tears by telling you that real life Digbys aren’t nice to be around. Trust me. They are interesting but you know . . . they are work.
SH: Digby has a lot of seemingly random knowledge but it turns out to have a purpose. Where did you find some of the serious (child custody laws) and less serious (how many pizzas per car in the driveway) facts?
ST: I always discuss the legal stuff with my sister, who, conveniently, is a lawyer. Things like the pizza approximation, I learned from a lifetime of hanging out with the wrong people.
SH: Was it easier or harder to write the second Zoe and Digby book?
ST: It was painful. I knew them so well so whenever I was having an off day and I wrote something that wasn’t true or consistent . . . those were really bad days, let’s just say.
Books by Stephanie Tromly
Trouble is a Friend of Mine. Penguin, 2015. 334p. $17.99. 978-0-525-42840-4. VOYA August 2015. 5Q 5P J S

Stephanie Tromly
Born: Manila, Philippines
Other Names : Pena-Sy, Stephanie
Nationality: Canadian
Occupation: Novelist
Contemporary Authors Online. Detroit: Gale, 2016. From Literature Resource Center.
Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2017 Gale, Cengage Learning
Updated:July 29, 2016

Table of Contents

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PERSONAL INFORMATION:
Born in Manila, Philippines; married; husband's name Lucas (a professor); children: Henry. Education: University of Pennsylvania, B.S.; University of Toronto, B.A., M.A. Addresses: Home: Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.

CAREER:
Screenwriter, novelist.

WORKS:

WRITINGS:

Trouble Is a Friend of Mine (young-adult novel), Kathy Dawson Books (New York, NY), 2015.

Sidelights

Born in Manila, Philippines, and raised in Hong Kong, Stephanie Tromly earned a degree from the University of Pennsylvania and worked as a screenwriter in Los Angeles. Her desire to write young-adult fiction came from her favorite books as a child. "I read the classic Nancy Drew series over and over and over when I was first learning to read and write in English. I would say that Nancy changed my life in a material way," she said in an online interview for the Reading Date. She emphasizes that writing for the screen and writing novels follow many of the same rules: "Dramatize rather than explain ..., keep everything kinetic and full of movement, let the world build itself, make sure the dialogue is true and utterable."

In 2015 Tromly published Trouble Is a Friend of Mine, a high-school whodunit reminiscent of Veronica Mars and Ferris Bueller's Day Off, mixed with the BBC's Sherlock. In the story, sixteen-year-old Zoe Webster's parents have gotten divorced, and she moves upstate from New York City with her mother. She misses her friends and city life. One day, a strange, fast-talking, suit-wearing classmate named Digby enlists her help to investigate the disappearance of Marina Miller, a wealthy teenager who was last seen at a slumber party. Digby's own four-year-old sister was kidnapped eight years ago, and he thinks this case might shed light on his sister's.

Although Digby is annoying, brilliant, quirky, and obsessive-compulsive, Zoe, whom he calls Princeton, agrees to accompany him on his quest. Soon others join the group, including quarterback Henry, cheerleader Sloane, and science enthusiast Felix. Through their adventures they encounter a religious cult that lives in a mansion across from Zoe's house, a pharmaceutical drug ring, an unscrupulous gynecologist, and concealed weapons. At one point Zoe and Digby rent a limousine to track down a drug dealer and are captured and stuffed in the trunk. While they try to catch the perpetrators, the kids learn about friendship, romance, and determination. Calling to mind the "brat pack" nature of the characters, New York Daily News writer Allison Chopin commented on the way the book "melds a crime novel with a classic teen dramedy [and] makes it a genre-defying work with wide appeal." However, "the actual crime-solving plotline, while initially enticing, doesn't end up having as many suspenseful twists and turns as one usually hopes for," added Chopin.

On the Young Folks Web site, Lauren Wengrovitz said: "What makes this book stand out are the characters. Stephanie Tromly has created a cast of unique and memorable individuals. ... Digby's strange and interesting personality had me hooked." Wengrovitz added: "The mystery is suspenseful and had my heart pounding in anticipation." Georgia Christgau in School Library Journal had some complaints about the many irresponsible adults attempting to derail Zoe and Digby from their mission; she said that the book "aims to please a wide variety of readers, but its success is due largely to the authentic portrayal of its two teenage protagonists." Although Tromly's Asian American supporting character Felix is presented in a highly stereotypical manner, the other characters are solid, according to a writer in Kirkus Reviews, who also liked the zippy dialog and declared: "Zoe's sarcastic first-person narration is fresh and funny."

In the Voice of Youth Advocates, Nancy Wallace observed that Tromly employs contemporary colloquialisms and dialogue for her young characters. "This debut novel sparkles. Absolutely nothing slows down the pace of this outrageous romp. The dialogue is snappy, the plot fresh," said Wallace. A reviewer online at Teenreads had a similar comment, saying: "Tromly is very creative in her use of language. She can write her characters out of any situation, leaving me mystified by how much she thought she put into the littlest details and every word choice."