Ledyard native Erin Jones launches her YA novel "Tinfoil Crowns" in Mystic

May 02, 2019 12:00 am • Last Updated: May 03, 2019 4:32 pm

By Rick Koster
Day Arts/Features writer

Erin Jones

Ledyard native Erin Jones launches her YA novel 'Tinfoil Crowns' in Mystic

At 16, working a summer job at a tourist shop near the drawbridge in Mystic, Erin Jones used to take her breaks down the street in Bank Square Books, where she'd sit and read on one of the customer couches.

"Bank Square shaped my idea of what a bookstore should be, and the people that worked there seemed like people who SHOULD work at bookstores," says Jones, a Ledyard native who now lives in Boston and is an affiliated faculty member in the Emerson College Department of Writing, Literature and Publishing.

Now 29, Jones returns to Bank Square Books Tuesday to discuss and sign her first book, a young adult novel called "Tinfoil Crowns," a story that explores the seemingly disparate themes of YouTube celebrity, mental health, sexual identity, and more.

The narrative focuses on a resilient, lower-middle-class family and 17-year-old Fit, whose comedic online rap videos — featuring various props made of the titular tinfoil — have earned her a huge fanbase that's propelling her to genuine stardom. But her followers don't know that, when Fit was 3, her mother River, in the depths of postpartum psychosis, tried to kill her and her infant brother, Frankie. For years, Frankie and Fit have lived with and been raised by their grandfather. Now, River's been paroled and is returning home, and the delicate family dynamics are jeopardized. And what will happen to Fit's burgeoning career as a YouTube star if word gets out to the maelstrom of social media about her mother?

Jones is very aware that the complex themes and dark background seem a bit at odds with a young adult book. In fact, when she started writing, Jones assumed the book would be aimed at an adult audience. But that "Tinfoil Crowns" ended up published as a YA novel wasn't the only surprise Jones encountered. She scored a book deal after a successful (if long-shot) online pitch to prospective literary agents — and then ended up negotiating the pathway to publication without benefit of a literary agent she was trying to secure to begin with.

While Jones loves Boston and her work at Emerson College, she says Ledyard will always be home. She attended Ledyard High School, and her parents — Elaine Jones, who works in the events department at Connecticut College, and Oliver Jones, a retired mental health professional — still live in the house where she grew up. In fact, Ledyard and its sense of small-town community served as a blueprint for Fit's neighborhood in the book, and its location between the whirlwind activity at Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods casinos provides significant textural elements in the story.

Last week, Jones, who graduated from Southern Connecticut State University and has an MFA from Emerson, spoke about "Tinfoil Crowns" and the upcoming event at Bank Square Books. Here are excerpts.

On postpartum depression and how it came to become a driving part of the narrative:

My very first image of the story was of a depressed mother returning to a teenager after years of separation. That glimpse drew me in, and I started writing about it from the teenager's perspective. I never outline anything before I start writing, and I do a lot of free-range writing by hand. After two or three drafts, I can actually make an outline of what I've written.

But at the time, I wasn't thinking YA or anything in depth about a particular issue; I just had this character and the emotions that I wanted to get across. Pretty quickly, as the mother became more fully developed, I realized I needed to do a LOT of research on postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis because I didn't want River to be a villain.

On the research into the subject and how the material shaped River's character:

I started off just reading tons of scientific material, and that was helpful to a point. But it's clinical information, and I found myself starting to read blogs by mothers (suffering from PPD), and it was so heartbreaking to see their perspectives suffering from this intense depression. It affects them in incredibly emotional fashion. They see Instagram images of mothers with their children who look so happy, and they just think, "What am I doing wrong?"

It's funny; my older sister Abbey is a scientist with the CDC in New York City, and she asked what sort of research I was doing. I told her I was reading a lot of first-person blogs. She said, "Those are unreliable!" And they ARE unreliable, scientifically — but at the same time I wanted to see and learn how these women see and try to understand their world.

Fit unexpectedly begins a rapid ascension to YouTube stardom, which is a relatively new phenomenon in the world of celebrity. On how that reflects trends in modern society:

I'm fascinated by the nature of YouTube culture because the Internet is something of an equalizer. YouTube is great because people can see all these different people creating content. A lot of it's really dumb, but it's also very entertaining — and a person of color and queer can be just as dumb and entertaining as a white person. And it's encouraging in ways that school or live interaction might not be.

The thing is, the stars on YouTube really ARE big stars. It's sort of a culture unto itself, but the people who become famous there are REALLY famous. They develop brands, they write and release content, they're very conscious of a following and work at it. If a YouTube star goes out in public in Los Angeles or New York, they get mobbed.

On whether the speed with which society and pop culture and trends change and whether that was intimidating in terms of keeping the plot current:

At first? Absolutely. I felt like I was writing against a giant clock, and I was trying to keep up with social media. I tried to not mention specific types of social media in the hopes of keeping it a little bit more timeless. Finally, though, I thought, "Let it go. So what?" A lot of my favorite books are dated, and I decided I wanted to capture this moment of teen culture that is so influenced by the internet but also capture a time where teens also have personal relationships. There's an image out there that young people today are absolutely glued to their phones – period. But I've been teaching 18-year-olds for four years, and that is NOT the case. It's just a part of their lives, and they know how to navigate it very well.

Jones tweeted a 280-character pitch for "Tinfoil Crowns" to a quarterly, online publishing industry submission event called "PitMad," where literary agents and editors can request more information or material by liking/favoriting the pitch. On what happened next:

I wasn't expecting anything, really. But three agents and the acquisitions editor at Flux Books tweeted they were interested, so I sent the manuscript to all of them. I got encouraging rejections from the agents first, so I assumed the publishing house would, too. But Flux liked it. My editor, Mari Kesselring, sent an offer email that was really long and personal, and she really got what I was trying to do with the story.

Plus, I love the company's mission: They focus on genre, not reading level, so I saw how the book could work on a YA level. Flux pushes really heavy themes ranging from teens dealing with drugs and sex and realistic personal relationships, and they wanted to explore what I was writing about.

On the presence and influence of casinos in the story:

Growing up, Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods were the equivalent of going to the mall for my friends and me. They were THE places to go. The mix of people was fascinating — all classes and races and demographics. It wasn't until I got to college that I realized not everyone grows up with two huge casinos in their backyards. Ledyard has a small-town vibe, and we all know each other, and yet there are these giant places that were like whole worlds.

On what's next:

(She laughs.) I still don't have an agent. Flux made the experience so comfortable that I'm happy. They have the right of first refusal on my next YA book, and right now I'm working on a collection of short stories for adults that has a theme of climate change running through it. And I am so excited about getting to do a "Tinfoil Crowns" book launch at Bank Square. Who would have believed that could happen?