Authors Interviewing Characters: Karen Green

YELLOW BIRDS

Set just before the digital revolution, Kait is a young woman searching for identity and community among the cast-outs, cast-offs, and other “misfit toys” who refer to themselves as the Yellow Birds and follow a band called the Open Road from town to town.

Just as Kait believes she has found her place among a group of Birds travelling together in a messy van, a young man with the eye-roll worthy name of Horizon sits beside her one night and alters her fragile plan for the foreseeable future.

Amidst the whirlwind of the Open Road Tour, their growing feelings for one another soar to ecstatic heights, while propelling them toward an impending reckoning with their troubled pasts.

Filled with sex, drugs, music, and even cults, readers won’t be able to get enough of this bohemian love story, the groupie lifestyle, and the party within the party.

Karen Green Interviews Kait, a Yellow Bird

Karen Green: Kait, thank you so much for sitting down with me today, I really appreciate it!

Kait: Hey, no problem; there aren’t any shows until Tuesday so we have plenty of time to get to Portland.

KG: That’s right, I heard the Open Road are playing there for the first time in a few years. 

Kait: Yeah, they generally stay away from the bigger cities but Portland is different. 

KG: How so?

Kait: Well, have you been to Portland? It’s already full of freaks. A few more won’t make a difference. Their tolerance is higher for Yellow Birds, I guess.

KG: How has Tour been so far? Any highlights on the road or at the shows?

Kait: The shows have been so good. So good. The band is in top form. Not every tour is like that. Some shows are just rough. But they sound great right now. They’ve pulled out a few really rare songs you don’t often hear live anymore. And they’re doing some really funky covers. Every concert is magical. It’s like they want us to know this is a really special Tour. I just wish I was able to get into more of them!

KG: So you travel to all of the shows but you don’t always get in to see the concert?

Kait: Yeah, unfortunately that’s how it goes. I don’t have tickets to every show and it can be hard to come across one. I can try to wish-list—that means get a free ticket—but it doesn’t always work. It’s okay though. Have you seen the circus this place becomes? Even when you don’t get in, you still have fun. Maybe too much fun.

KG: Fair enough. So how is life on the road going, generally speaking? Is everybody getting along?

Kait: It’s great! We seem to have hit that sweet spot. I mean, travelling in a van with five other people is always going to have its tense moments, but it’s been really smooth. Easy and Vivi are such a solid couple; Skate gets along with everybody he’s so easy-going; Jujube—well she does her own thing but she’s no dummy. And Eartha is my ride or die. I don’t know what I’d do without her—without any of them. We’re a family, you know?

KG: So who are the mom and dad? Easy and Vivi?

Kait: (laughs) No way. We’re all just the unruly kids. Mom and dad abandoned us. Who could blame them?

KG: Well you bring up an interesting point: everybody that stays on Tour, all the Yellow Birds, seem to rely on each other, like a family. But the Yellow Birds also seem like they’re connected purely through choice and circumstance. It’s a very deliberate, chosen family. Does that sound accurate?

Kait: Choice and circumstance – exactly. And sometimes it’s through more of one than the other. 

KG: How is it for you?

Kait: It was more circumstance than choice that brought me into this crew. Man, I needed to get away from the people I had been travelling with. They were nuts. But I didn’t really know where else to go. And then, by chance, by circumstance, I met Skate who kind of invited me to hang out and then I met the rest of them and – I don’t know, maybe they could sense that I was desperate. They let me in. They found a place for me. I guess in a way it was my choice to say yes, I’ll stay with you, but I didn’t really have many options at that point. I’m lucky that I ended up somewhere I fit. 

KG: Did you feel like you “fit” before you started following the Open Road on Tour? Before you were a Yellow Bird?

Kait: Did I fit in a conventional suburban society that expects everybody to act the same way, do the same thing, look the same way? (laughs) No. Does anyone?

BUY YELLOW BIRDS HERE

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Karen Green is a writer and author whose editorial and creative work is widely published. Her essays, fiction, and poetry have been featured in several anthologies, and she is the author of two books for very young readers. Karen worked in the music industry for more than a decade and wrote the popular blog, The Kids Are Alright. She lives in Chatham, Ontario with her family and still loves a good road trip. Yellow Birds is her debut novel.

Tags: featured, women writers

Category: Interviews, On Writing