Blog Tour: War and Speech by Don Zolidis (Interview + Giveaway!)

Item: War and Speech
Author: Kaity

Posted May 1, 2020 by Kaity in Book Tours, Giveaways, Interviews / 2 Comments

Happy Friday and welcome to my stop on the War and Speech blog tour!! I am so excited to be a part of this tour, and I’m even more excited for you to discover what Don would do if he spent the day with Sydney! Read on to find out more about the book and author, plus follow the rest of the tour and enter to win a print copy of War and Speech!

War and Speech by Don Zolidis
Published on May 5, 2020 by Disney Hyperion Books
Genres: YA, Contemporary
Pages: 416
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At Eaganville School for the Arts, Speech and Debate is king. The varsity members of the squad are treated like heroes, and the coach, the irascible Joey Sparks, might as well be a god. But when new girl Sydney Williams, a perennial loser, joins the team, she has only one goal in mind: To infiltrate the team in an elaborate conspiracy and tear them apart from the inside out.

If you could trade lives with any YA character for a day, who would it be and why? What about a week? A month, year, or forever?

Pretty much most of them right now! But I think I’m going to avoid anyone in a dystopian novel because that’s feeling a little too real these days. Really – any character that is able to hang out with friends, travel cross-country, or go on an adventure sounds like a brilliant switch right now. I think Hudson from Adi Alsaid’s LET’S GET LOST sounds like a great person to be right now – (he goes on a really long road trip!)

What would you do if you spent the day with Sydney? Where would you go to eat, hang out, relax, etc.?

I think a day with Sydney would be pretty fun, actually. Of course we’d need to social distance effectively since we’re not living in the same household at the moment. I think it would be fun to watch movies with her and listen to her eviscerate plot holes with speed and savagery. I don’t think it would be terribly relaxing to be honest, since she’s “on” most of the time. But I couldn’t imagine a better companion to share wicked jokes across a 6-12 foot distance.

If Sydney were to hang out with characters from other YA books, who would they be and why?

Sydney would get along well with people from Rainbow Rowell’s books. I think she would fit right in with foul-mouthed oddballs with hearts of gold who’ve experienced deep pain.

Sydney would not be okay with popular, rich, or cool people. She would gravitate towards brilliant misfits with a chip on their shoulder and a penchant for mischief.

What was your favorite bit of research you ended up not using?

I learned a lot about the speech and debate world while working on this book – I even spent some time as a judge and assistant coach of a local speech team. I actually judged an event called “novice impromptu” where a person gets a random news question as has to come up with a well-reasoned opinion in an hour or so. It’s basically how I went through high school – only an hour to do my homework, and then making stuff up and going for it to see if I could skate through on charm and lies. I wanted to have Sydney compete in that event as well, but I couldn’t find a place to fit into the narrative.

Don Zolidis grew up in Wisconsin, went to college in Minnesota, and is mostly known for being a really funny playwright. For the past five years, he’s been the most-produced playwright in American schools. His more than one hundred published plays have been performed tens of thousands of times, and have appeared in sixty-four different countries. He currently splits his time between New York and Texas, and has two adorable boys who will someday read this book and have a lot of questions. He aspires to owning a dog. His first novel was The Seven Torments of Amy and Craig.