Author Marisa Reichardt

Coming of Age

AUTHOR’S BOOKS HELP NAVIGATE HIGH SCHOOL YEARS

By CATHERINE GAUGH

High school can seem so long ago, yet memories are still vivid. Favorite teachers. Dances. The first boyfriend or girlfriend. Cheering at football games. Forming lifelong friendships.

But those years are also a time of struggle: Worrying about good grades. Thinking about college. Questioning what your parents taught you. Figuring out who you really are.

“What happened in high school really shaped you,” said Marisa Matherne Reichardt, Coronado High

School Class of 1989. “The classes you took, the movies you saw and the books you read.

“Your experiences, good and bad, helped form the adult you became.” Reichardt didn’t love school, but liked to write. One day, her freshman English teacher Bobbie Booth told her, “You are a writer” and suggested Reichardt enroll in journalism classes next year.

Reichardt did, and for the three years, she worked on the Islander school newspaper and the Beachcomber yearbook.

"Under Water" book cover for Malaysian edition, designed and published by Penerbit Haru.

“I loved writing and couldn’t wait for my journalism classes every day,” Reichardt said.

After graduation, she studied literature and creative writing in college and graduate school, pursued screenwriting classes, worked in journalism for a while, got married, moved to Hermosa Beach, had a baby and read a lot of books.

Then she wrote her own books. “Underwater,” was published in early 2016. The next one, “Aftershocks,” is due out this fall. The third, “A Shot at Normal,” is set to be released in 2021.

Ms. Booth was so right.

Idyllic years

Reichardt, born in San Diego, was in seventh grade when she, her younger brother, Michael, and their mother moved to Coronado. Marilyn Meek Matherne had grown up on the island and graduated from Coronado High School in 1963. Meek Matherne still lives in Coronado, and the Reichardts visit often.

“It was an idyllic existence growing up in Coronado,” Reichardt said. “And growing up there in the ’80s was exceptionally awesome. There was dollar night at the movies, skateboard parties and dances at the community center.” Love and marriage happened in Coronado, too. Jon Reichardt was her brother’s water polo coach. He’s now the water polo coach, ceramics teacher and surfboard shaper at Mira Costa High School in Manhattan Beach.

Finding her voice

Reichardt will tell you that it sometimes takes a while for writers to discover what they want to say and what they want to write.

“Generally, I like to write outside of the house, often at Starbucks where there is activity around me. I have a laptop, so I can go anywhere, and I can write wherever I go, even on vacation in Hawaii.”

– MARISA REICHARDT

“At Barnes & Noble, I would sift through the fiction section, looking for books by authors I really liked,” she said. “I was always attracted to coming-of-age stories. Books by Curtis Sittenfeld and Megan McCafferty were hugely influential for me. “‘Catcher in the Rye’ is generally the first coming-of-age story people read. Today’s teenagers might think of it as an old book (published in 1950), but it is still relevant. Once they read it, they say, ‘I get this.’”

“Those books made me realize

these were the stories I wanted to tell,” she said – stories about teenagers for teenagers that will help them navigate the journey into adulthood.

At first, she was overwhelmed by the thought of writing a book, but she eventually did. Then she wrote another one.

“They are in a drawer,” Reichardt said. “And that’s where they will stay.”

Then came “Underwater” about 17-year-old Morgan who survived a school shooting. Her grief and guilt bring on debilitating anxiety that prevents her from leaving her apartment. A therapist comes to see her, to help her remember the life she used to have: the sunshine, the beach, swimming in the ocean. Then her new next-door neighbor, a teenage boy named Evan, knocks on the front door. A swimmer and surfer, “Evan has the smell of the beach,” Reichardt said. “He is a catalyst in helping Morgan.”

And the meaning of the title? “It’s a metaphor,” she said. “Morgan feels like she is underwater and longs to breathe the air again.”

The next book, due out this fall, is “Aftershocks,” which centers on Ruby, a teenager who survives a devastating earthquake, in fact, “The Big One,” long predicted for Southern California. Surrounded by rubble and death, Ruby’s survival is just beginning.

Reichardt’s third book is in the process for publication in 2021. “A Shot at Normal” is about a teenage girl forced to deal with the tragic consequences after her well-meaning parents refuse to have her vaccinated against the measles.

Serious subjects

These are serious topics, not to be confused with children’s books. Reichardt specifically writes Young Adult fiction, or YA. Young people from 12 to 18 years old make up the primary audience, although adults in their 20s and 30s read them, too.

YA fiction is as varied as adult fiction: there’s fantasy, science fiction, history, adventure, romance and contemporary life, among other genres. Think of recent films based on books for this age group: “The Hunger Games,” “The Fault

Marisa Reichardt feels honored to write for the young adult audience. "We owe them the truth," she said.

in Our Stars,” “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants,” and even the Harry Potter series.

Reichardt’s teenage protagonists deal with events that have a tremendous impact on their lives and on the lives of others. She gets story ideas from the news feed that comes over her smartphone. “Generally, I like to write outside of the house, often at Starbucks where there is activity around me,” Reichardt said. “I have a laptop, so I can go anywhere, and I can write wherever I go, even on vacation in Hawaii.” She sets up playlists of songs that relate to the story she is writing and listens over headphones as she writes.

Research is constant. When she needed to know more about psychology, disaster preparedness and the anti-vaccination culture, “I reached out to people who know more about it,” she said. “People are really open to help. You don’t want to write a book that’s not accurate. People with knowledge can help you get it right.”

Reichardt writes in whole chapters.

“I usually stop when I know what’s coming next,” she said. “But I don’t always know what’s coming next. I could be in the middle of Hermosa Beach pier or grocery shopping at Vons when the solution comes to me. Writers are always writing.”

The truth

Reichardt said it is an honor to write young adult fiction.

“You are not a young adult writer unless you have respect for teenagers,” she said.

“Teenagers are sharp. They will be the first to call you out if you are wrong about something. They detect dishonesty before anyone else.

“They are coming into their own, they are questioning what their parents have taught them. In my books, I tell them that therapy works, that there is no one right way to deal with grief, and it is OK to ask for help when you need it. I want to give them hope.

“We owe them the truth,” Reichardt said. “It is the most important thing a writer can do, and it is the most important thing that I do.”