Houstonian Janet Thielke’s debut novel “Twelfth” doubles as a Pride month read and the perfect summer camp story. The book draws heavily on her experiences as an HSPVA/TUTS kid.For Janet Thielke's debut novel, the author wrote a story she would've liked to have read during her own formative, middle-grade years."Twelfth," a tale of mystery and adventure set at theater camp where William Shakespeare and self-discovery take center stage, landed on bookshelves last month.
"It's basically a mystery hidden inside a Shakespeare play," Thielke says."There are two story lines: the present is set in 2016 at theater camp, the past story line is in the 1940s and 1950s." "Twelfth" required her to work a different muscle. Thielke compares short stories to a fever -- ideas come in, and she writes them. A novel is more like a marathon. "It was open season all of my memories," she says.
As a theater major at HSPVA she began play-writing. There, she learned that creating a world was even more thrilling than existing in one. During her undergraduate studies at University of Southern California Thielke transitioned into fiction and short stories. Middle-grade students, she explains, are at an age where they're transitioning from accepting opinions from the people around them to making their own decisions they're having in the world.