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Because the setting of my novel is an urban, integrated high school, once I determined the name of the high school, Waverley High, I was set on having this as my title. To me, the high school was both a character and a place. I thought of it as an ecosystem of social bonds and individual relationships as well as a physical space, a container for my story of the late Sixties.
At some point, I began thinking that using only the high school’s name in the title would more strongly attract the YA audience (a secondary crossover audience we did aim to appeal to) rather than the primary adult audience we sought. And I had concerns that adults would see this as a book about a high school with no historical marker. So, we looked for a variation in that title presentation. I thought we should add 1969 into the subtitle, but everyone thought that made it feel like a nonfiction book. My publisher suggested the current title, World News from Waverley High, since the point of view character was a young reporter for the school paper. And she was not just looking at school news but given that the discussions in her Current History class covered the news of the day, her lens was far and wide. That...[read on]
Writers Read: Linda Kass (June 2026).
Writers Read: Linda Kass (July 2026).
Writers Read: Linda Kass (August 2026).
My Book, The Movie: World News from Waverley High.
Q&A with Linda Kass.
--Marshal Zeringue
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