YA Author Kira Synder On Best Friends

 KIRA SNYDER is the author of the Parish Mail active fiction series

 

Kira Snyder is a writer living in Los Angeles. Her television work includes the Syfy Channel shows ALPHAS and EUREKA and the People’s Choice Award-winning vampire drama MOONLIGHT, which aired on CBS. Kira’s plays have been performed at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, the Circle in the Square Theatre School, the Burton-Taylor Theatre in Oxford, England, the Bay Area Independent Theatre Fringe Festival, and Stanford University. Also a game designer with a Masters degree from NYU-Tisch’s interactive media program, Kira has produced games for Electronic Arts, Purple Moon, Microsoft, There.com, the MIT Press textbook Rules of Play, and Yahoo, including EA’s seminal alternate reality game MAJESTIC. She is a proud geek and loves sci-fi and videogames, reading and playing when she’s not writing or designing

 

 

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Welcome Kira. May I say I love your name and I impressed by your amazing bio? My family loved Alpha. Why did it have to get cancelled? Why? Why? Um sorry. So…did you have a best friend in high school? If you did, are you still in touch?

I actually had a small, tight group of about 5-6 best friends, boys and girls. We're in touch off and on through Facebook and alumni stuff, but not that much. I did see many of them at a recent reunion, which was a lot of fun. We all got together at a friend's house for a party, the same house we'd gather at for parties when we were teens. 

Fun and scary. No offense, but I’m happy to find someone who isn’t still best friends with their high school best friends. What do you miss most about your friends?

As that reunion party reminded us, just being together and talking and laughing was so much fun.   

Yeah. Teen friends really do bring out the laughs. So did you ever have fighst?

As you might imagine, with a group of friends, especially a mix of boys and girls, there was a certain amount of friend and romantic Drama (capital D intentional!). But we always got through it by talking things out.

Ah, the talking. The talking. It is so necessary, yes?? What’s something your friends did for you, that probably no other person would?

We defended each other a lot to other people. My high school didn't have a lot of the bully/mean girl thing going on, but enough so that it was good to have friends who had your back.

Definitely! So where was your favorite hang out?

 
We hung out at that one friend's house a lot, as I mentioned. There was also a funky deli-type diner that we'd go to all the time, in part because they had live music and a number of us were -- and are -- musicians.

Cool. I’m a little in awe of musicians. So, what did you love most about you teenage best friends?

These were people I could tell anything to, which when you're a teenager going through all that angst is so reassuring. 

Yes. True that! So what did you learn from your friends?

To listen without judging, and the importance of seeing things from another person's perspective. 

Such great lessons. So are your relationships with friends different at this stage in your life?

It's not so different. While my husband is my best friend, and has been since I've known him, I still have a small group of friends rather than a single "bestie." A number of us are writers, so we have that in common to talk about (I was pretty much the only writer among my high school group).

YAY for writer friends. Er. And for non writer friends too. And husbands.  Thanks so much!!