{"id":805,"date":"2017-11-25T21:51:08","date_gmt":"2017-11-25T21:51:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thornbriarpress.com\/?p=805"},"modified":"2021-12-30T19:54:35","modified_gmt":"2021-12-30T19:54:35","slug":"qa-with-chain-gang-elementary-author-jonathan-grant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thornbriarpress.com\/?p=805","title":{"rendered":"Q&A with Chain Gang Elementary author Jonathan Grant"},"content":{"rendered":"

Note: This article was originally published in Like the Dew<\/em><\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Why did you write\u00a0Chain Gang Elementary<\/em>?<\/p>\n

I tell people it\u2019s my revenge for having to read\u00a0Lord of the Flies<\/em>\u00a0in high school.\u00a0 Actually, I first started on a completely different project. When I became a PTA co-president at a high-achieving public school, I was interested in publishing a non-fiction book\u2014a how-to guide for parent leaders taking over the reins of a parent-teacher group. And then I saw\u00a0Murder at the PTA Luncheon<\/em>. No, actually, while studying the subject, I came across this phrase, or something like it: \u201cEvery good school is fundamentally the same, but every bad school is unique.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

This got me thinking: Hmm. Unique is more interesting. Being a novelist at heart (although a journalist and editor by training), I decided to tackle the subject in a different genre: as a fictional \u201chow-not-to\u201d guide on parent-educator relationships.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Can you tell us more specifically what\u00a0Chain Gang Elementary<\/em>\u00a0is about?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>It\u2019s a tale of war between a PTA president and a grade-school principal, with casualties \u2026 and jokes. It\u2019s funny. It\u2019s not so funny. The plot follows the tenure of the first man in twenty years to head the school\u2019s Parent-Teacher Organization. It seems the gender is cursed. He\u2019s a reformer, and he finds himself at odds with the principal, who is very authoritarian. She won\u2019t listen to his ideas, and he\u2019s more than willing to go over her head, so they have a bad relationship from the beginning. And it gets worse. Much, much worse.<\/strong><\/p>\n

How much worse?<\/p>\n

One Flew Over the Cuckoo\u2019s Nest<\/em>\u00a0worse.<\/strong><\/p>\n

How did you come up with the title? This isn\u2019t about a prison school, is it?<\/p>\n

No, there aren\u2019t any prison uniforms or rock-breaking gangs, although . . . I\u2019d better just leave it there for now. Actually, the title comes from the unfortunate nickname Malliford Elementary School picks up after the principal institutes a draconian punishment for a prank pulled by a 5th<\/sup>\u00a0grader. It\u2019s really the start of the trouble.<\/strong><\/p>\n

And then what happens?<\/p>\n

The nickname sticks, parents rise up in protest, tensions mount, and the school becomes a cultural battlefield\u2014with students and teachers caught in the middle\u2014when an influx of low-income students are redistricted into the school. Each faction tries to apply its solutions to the \u201cproblem\u201d of low test scores, resulting in a testing scandal\u2014although different from the one that has plagued Atlanta public schools.<\/strong><\/p>\n

You\u2019re an Atlanta writer, right?<\/p>\n

I live in DeKalb, right next door to Atlanta, and some would say it\u2019s got an equally troubled school system. Our former superintendent has been indicted on racketeering charges, and the school board has turned on itself, with members leaking damaging information to the media whenever they don\u2019t get their way. And apparently all of them do it. As Mark Twain famously said, \u201cIn the first place, God created idiots. This was for practice. Then He created School Boards.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Is this story autobiographical?<\/p>\n

No. The novel incorporates themes and storylines from everywhere\u2013local news stories, national scandals, you name it. The teachers, students, and parents of\u00a0Chain Gang Elementary<\/em>\u00a0exist only on its pages, and they are true to themselves, not to any memories of mine. Of course, there\u2019s an old saying, \u201cEvery writer is still trying to win that third-grade fight,\u201d which may explain why\u00a0protagonist\u00a0Richard Gray is still\u00a0coming to grips with his childhood traumas. But as far as parallels to my experience as a PTA president, there\u00a0aren\u2019t any that I can see. It was a happy time for me.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Can you tell us more about the testing scandal?<\/p>\n

No comment. I don\u2019t want to spoil the plot.<\/strong><\/p>\n

What other works have you\u00a0completed or been involved with?<\/p>\n

I\u2019m the co-author\/editor of\u00a0The Way It Was in the South: The Black Experience in Georgia<\/em>, which was named the state\u2019s Book of the Year when it was published. I\u2019ve optioned a historical screenplay about two famous fugitive slaves to Hollywood, and another novel I\u2019ve written is currently being marketed to publishers by my agent. I\u2019m also preparing my next novel,\u00a0Brambleman<\/em>\u00a0(a Forsyth County saga), for publication on the 25th anniversary of Hosea Williams\u2019 anti-intimidation march to Cumming.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Anything else you\u2019re working on right now?<\/p>\n

Mainly, I\u2019m wearing a publisher\u2019s hat and setting up Thornbriar Press to distribute\u00a0Chain Gang<\/em>. As\u00a0a parent, I\u2019ve been\u00a0 interested in education for many years. Now that my kids are in college, some of my attention has shifted, and I publish\u00a0Georgia Colleges\u00a0\u00a0(www.georgiacollegesblog.com<\/a>) in addition to keeping up a Darwin-Awardish blog for\u00a0<\/strong>Chain Gang Elementary<\/em><\/strong>. I hope to publish a guidebook to Georgia colleges in the near future, and, in keeping with the spirit of\u00a0<\/strong>Chain Gang<\/em>, a humorous \u201chow-not-to\u201d guide for parents with children in public schools.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Are there any upcoming events you\u2019ll be participating in?<\/p>\n

First and foremost, I\u2019ll have a booth at the Decatur Book Festival on Labor Day Weekend, and I\u2019m\u00a0looking forward to that. You can find me next door to the Starbucks on Ponce de Leon. I\u2019ll have discounted prices on the book and free giveaways, so it should be fun. I also plan to exhibit the book at the Dahlonega Literary Festival later this fall, and in Savannah in February. I\u2019ll be setting up book signings as opportunities arise.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Buy Chain Gang Elementary<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/h4>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Note: This article was originally published in Like the Dew Why did you write\u00a0Chain Gang Elementary? I tell people it\u2019s my revenge for having to read\u00a0Lord of the Flies\u00a0in high school.\u00a0 Actually, I first started on a completely different project. When I became a PTA co-president at a high-achieving public school, I was interested in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":806,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-novel-category-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thornbriarpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thornbriarpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thornbriarpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thornbriarpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thornbriarpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=805"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thornbriarpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":807,"href":"https:\/\/thornbriarpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805\/revisions\/807"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thornbriarpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thornbriarpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thornbriarpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thornbriarpress.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}