By Zoe Howard
Executive Features Editor
On Feb. 16, Reichardt published her third young adult novel, “A Shot At Normal,” about a 16-year-old girl, Juniper Jade, who is raised by anti-vaxxers. When Juniper contracts the measles and spreads the disease unknowingly, she fights for the right to get vaccinated, even if it means taking her parents to court. “A Shot At Normal” is a coming-of-age story, and Juniper’s experience becomes even more relatable during [COVID], Reichardt says.
“I feel like [the pandemic] lined up in a really surreal kind of way and that [“A Shot At Normal”] has ended up being more timely because of what’s happening right now,” Reichardt said. “I think that it’s a solid conversation piece, particularly given the time that we’re in right now.”
Reichardt grew up in Southern California and received degrees in English and American Literature and Creative Writing from UC San Diego. She then earned a Master of Professional Writing degree from the University of Southern California.
“I took a long time getting to novel writing,” Reichardt said. “It felt like a really big undertaking. It scared me a little bit and so I wrote poetry, short stories [and] screenplays. I went to graduate school for screenwriting, and it was not until later in my thirties where I was like, ‘don’t you want to write a book, that’s what you’ve wanted to do.’ And what hit me was, I don’t want to write half a book; I want to write a whole book even if nothing happens to it; I want to finish it.”
Reichardt came up with the idea for “A Shot at Normal” around 2017, but was working on her previous young adult novel, “Aftershocks,” at the time. Throughout 2018 and 2019, she continued to work on drafting the novel and turned in copy edits of her novel two weeks into lockdown in 2020, not knowing it would come out during the middle of a global vaccination effort.
“I mean what I’m hoping is that this book can give people who have questioned vaccinations, particularly teens who don’t have a voice in the matter, a place to figure out how they feel about it,” Reichardt said. “Give them some resources if they are in the same kind of position as Juniper to seek out how they might be able to go about getting vaccinations.”
Reichardt says when she’s writing something, she thinks about it constantly and is inspired by everything. Reichardt finds inspiration for the fictional towns she creates from the cities she grew up around: Coronado and here in the South Bay, including Hermosa Beach.
“Those [teenage] experiences end up sticking with you more than other experiences in life a lot of the time, so it’s easy to sort of tap back into it,” Reichardt said. “I think most writers I
know have incredible memories, and they’re really able to not just remember something that happened, but remember all of the emotions in the fields that came with that.” In high school, Reichardt’s favorite classes were English and journalism. When Reichardt was in ninth grade, her English teacher; Bobbie Booth pulled her aside and told her, “I don’t care what you do next year, just make sure you sign up for journalism. You need to be writing.”
“I think having those people that were in my corner [and] saw that I was a writer, maybe before I knew I was a writer, I mean what a gift that was,” Reichardt said. “I just think for teachers to recognize that, not only recognize that and encourage it; is amazing.”
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