Team Human

What would you do if your best friend fell in love with a vampire?

In vampire-populated New Whitby, Mel and her best friends Cathy and Anna have always co-existed peacefully with vampires - even if they don't actually know any. But when Cathy falls in love with a vampire who shows up at school, and Anna's father goes missing, Mel must take action.

Can she convince Cathy that life with a vampire is no life at all? Should she? Can she uncover what happened to Anna's father? Or will her staunch anti-vampire stance jeopardise her closest friendships? And then all Mel's assumptions about vampires are turned on their head when she meets Kit, a boy who makes her laugh - and who has a very unusual family history.

Justine Larbalestier was born and raised in Sydney. Liar won the WA Premier's Literary Award, the Sisters in Crime Davitt Award and the FAW Christina Stead Award. Magic or Madness won the Andre Norton Award and was shortlisted for the Ethel Turner Award. She and her husband, Scott Westerfeld, live in Sydney.

Sarah Rees Brennan is the author of The Demon's Lexicon Trilogy. She was born and raised in Ireland and did a Creative Writing MA in Surrey, England. After college she lived briefly in New York and somehow survived in spite of her habit of hitching lifts in fire engines. Since then she has returned to Ireland to write and use as an inspiration for future adventures.

Team Human
Allen and Unwin
Authors: Justine Larbalestier and Sarah Rees Brennan
Price: $17.99

Interview with Justine Larbalestier

Question: When and where did the idea for Team Human come to you?

Justine Larbalestier: The idea came to both of us. We were having a conversation about what it would be like if your best friend fell in love with a vampire. We both agreed that it would be most vexing but would make for a great story. We wished someone would write that book and then, somehow, decided that we should be the ones to write it.


Question: How difficult was it co-writing with Sarah Rees Brennan, when she lives on the other side of the world?

Justine Larbalestier: I don't think it made any difference to be honest. Even if we'd been in the same city we'd have done everything via email and IMing. And Sarah never sleeps so the time difference didn't make much difference.


Question: How important, to you, was it to include humour in Team Human?

Justine Larbalestier: Both Sarah and I always have humour in our books and Sarah's blog is well known for being one of the funniest blogs in the history of blogging. I've even written a flat-out comedy before, How To Ditch Your Fairy. There's no way a collaboration between us was not going to be a comedy.


Question: What would you do if your best friend fell in love with a vampire?

Justine Larbalestier: I would do everything I possibly could to separate them. I am solidly with Mel, the hero of Team Human, on that subject. Friends don't let friends date vampires.

Interview with Sarah Rees Brennan

Question: Can you talk about how you went about creating the title, Team Human?

Sarah Rees Brennan: I didn't create the title at all! Scott Westerfeld came up with it, after Justine and I went round and round in circles going 'well, we want it to sound romantic but also funny... like a send-up but making a real point, that we are human and being on the side of humans used to be a default before the monsters got so sexy...' and he suggested Team Human, and we both thought about it for a day and decided we loved it (laughing).

Goes to show that writing is often a collaborative process, even if it's not co-writing: Scott named this book, and Cassie Clare titled my other new book this year, Unspoken.
'Friends don't let friends title their own books'...?


Question: What challenges did you face co-writing with Justine Larbalestier, when she lives on the other side of the world?

Sarah Rees Brennan: The time differences actually weren't so bad. I have a vampiric schedule, so I was always around for late-night phone calls when we needed to discuss plot stuff. Which isn't to say it wasn't occasionally inconvenient: I remember once being at a spa overnight, on the phone outside, and I almost broke my neck walking through the minigolf course by night being like 'I think we need the last bit to be more serious!... Agh, dammit, minigolf is a treacherous game!'

I would often have fun writing when I knew Justine was asleep, so she'd wake up and be like 'new stuff, aw yeah!' (Or 'New stuff, noooo... I can't read her mind.)


Question: Maureen Johnson described Team Human by saying "If you love vampire books, this is the book for you - if you hate vampire books, this is also the book for you" - why is that?

Sarah Rees Brennan: I think for those who hate vampires, we say a lot of stuff that they have been thinking, and it's always nice when books do that. 'Hey, why is this hundred-year-old guy in high school?' That's one of the things books do best, make you feel as if you're not alone and someone else thinks like you. We wanted to make people think, 'Thank God, someone else asked themselves that question too!' and really explore how vampires might work in the real world-that there'd be vampire tourism, and vampire models, and getting take-out food in the vampire district would be so difficult because the pizza delivery guys would be worried about getting eaten.

But both Justine and I never lost sight of the fact we really love vampires and vampire fiction. I can both love and make affectionate fun of something. Actually, that's pretty much my entire relationship with my little brothers... hugging and mockery. I think a lot of people can empathise with that, and not be offended and have fun with us even if they love vampires. Because they can tell we do, too.

The thing we wanted people to carry away with them was: there's something to be said for both teams.


Question: What did you enjoy most about writing Team Human?

Sarah Rees Brennan: Oh, how fun the whole creative process was. We'd build the world together by yelling out cool stuff we thought of. ('So if the Pilgrims came to America in the Mayflower, what if the vampires came to America in the Nightshade!' 'So the tourists who come to see the vampires, some of them would wear T-shirts saying things like "I'm Cherry, Take A Bite!"') It was like a snowball of cool ideas, turning into an avalanche of entertainment for us both.


Question: What would you do if your best friend fell in love with a vampire?

Sarah Rees Brennan: I'd ask a lot of questions 'How did you guys meet... is he still going to school?' 'So he said he was seventeen... did he mention how LONG he'd been seventeen for? That's how they trick you!' 'Tell me about the hickeys. On a scale of 'gently nibbling a cracker' to 'going to town on corn of the cob' how enthusiastic is he?'

Very important is 'Does he make you laugh?'
And if the answer to that question is yes, I proceed onward to logistical questions like...
'If we go on a double date to the beach, do I need to bring like a KEG of sunblock, or what?'


Interview by Brooke Hunter