David Grossman
America’s next top author
Former magazine editor Melissa Walker is ready for her close up with her debut novel, Violet on the Runway
By Sara Grace McCandless
Published: September 28th, 2007 | 4:20pm
On the evening before she’s set to return to Chapel Hill, North Carolina, author Melissa Walker is more than ready for what promises to be a very special homecoming. As a former editor for Seventeen and ElleGIRL she is well versed with the teen territory — so what better way to kick off the release of her first young-adult novel, Violet on the Runway
The stop is just one of many for the author, who now makes her home in the Park Slope section of Brooklyn. Her debut marks the first in a series (as part of a three-book deal with Berkley Jove, a division of Penguin Putnam) that explores what happens when those dreams of being discovered become a reality for small-town girl Violet Greenfield.
While Violet’s 6 foot–plus stature and size-two frame has become a favorite target among the local mean girls, it’s the perfect combination for the runways of New York.
“There’s all these things that would not make [someone] the most beautiful in the yearbook but definitely on the runway,” says Walker, a sentiment that’s echoed by the character of Chanel-spectacled Angela Blythe, the savvy agent behind Tryst Models who spots Violet after a chance encounter. Angela soon whisks away the 17-year-old to Manhattan, where Violet is thrust into the fashion world and begins to experience first hand her fair share of struggle and heartbreak, aspects of the lifestyle that aren’t so apparent when glancing at glamorous, glossy spreads.
For Walker, making her heroine flawed was a conscious choice, as she envisioned Violet to be less of a role model and more just as someone relatable. “She makes a lot of bad choices, which I think she naturally would (at that age, but she kind of finds her way,” notes Walker. “I would hope that people would relate to her bad choices and her good [ones], and see themselves in her a little bit. That’s what I really wanted, for girls to see their own insecurities and their own dreams and their own confidences, too.”
Walker’s approach is just one of the many things that makes her work transcend the typical young adult world with a book that will undoubtedly appeal to all ages. Funny, engaging, and eye opening, Violet on the Runway is an addictive read full of all the juicy insights about the fashion industry one could hope for, as well as meaningful layers and observations about the importance of knowing one’s self.
The author’s own identity as a writer was clear early on, as she composed her first, paragraph-long book “The Very Vain Cloud” on her parents’ typewriter at age 5. Despite the fact that many people advised her that there was no money to be made in the writing world, she pursued an English degree at Vassar College, during which time she landed an internship at McCall’s. This would later lead to a full-time position with the publication that went on to become the now defunct Rosie magazine.
Out of work but with a generous severance in hand, Walker used the opportunity to start pitching a number of teen magazines, a field she’d always wanted to work in, thinking that their readers might relate to and enjoy her not-much-older point of view. This led to an ongoing dialogue with a fiction editor at ElleGirl, who eventually gave Walker an inside heads-up that she was leaving and encouraged her to apply for the job.
"When I first read ElleGirl, I fell in love. I was like, ‘Oh my God, it’s the new Sassy,’” Walker remembers, citing the legendary magazine that has served as inspiration to scores of aspiring writers. The comparison made sense — while at the time, Brandon Holley was the editor of ElleGIRL, Christina Kelly (from the original Sassy crew) came on board two years later to serve as ElleGirl's editor-in-chief
For Walker, landing the job with the magazine was, “Total bliss. I loved the stories I got to do, I felt so good about it. It was very exciting for me, and it definitely made me realize that’s the audience I wanted to work with long term.”
Walker spent three years at the magazine, a turn that provided much of the inspiration for Violet on the Runway. Though juggling her full workload while trying to pursue her other writing career proved to be tricky, she made a commitment to produce 1,000 words for her book at any given sitting. However, Walker’s schedule suddenly became far more flexible when just three months after she started her novel, ElleGIRL folded. The event proved to be very bittersweet. “I was really sad, because we were doing something different. I was really in love with the magazine,” she says.
These days, the now 30-year-old Walker enjoys a successful freelance career as a regular contributor to magazines such as Glamour, while also continuing her work on the Violet series. Forthcoming installments will test Violet’s wills against the European modeling scene Violet by Design, March 2008) and even take her to college, where she contemplates leaving the modeling world entirely (Violet in Private, August 2008).
Whether or not Walker will continue to tell her stories from a younger perspective remains to be seen, but regardless, she expresses a great amount of love and appreciation for the audience.
“[Teens] are incredibly underestimated at every turn. I think they are so open and honest. They react in a way that is so immediate and more genuine than adults,” she notes. It’s an accurate insight that’s captured and reflected beautifully within the pages of her own book, and one that will likely endear readers to her work for some time to come.
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Photo by David Grossman
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