I left with a list of symptoms-like jaundiced skin and pica, or the compulsion to eat dirt for minerals-and ideas on how to treat (or not treat) them. It was cool, like your science teacher letting you make up the answers and then providing the questions. We had a rather disgusting lunch where I told him what I wanted based on spread and virility of the disease, and he guided me toward real-world parallels. In this instance, she introduced me to a fantastic doctor of pediatric hematology and oncology. I have a doctor friend I go to for help justifying what I’ve created. Orleans is set in the future where disease has taken over the area of New Orleans – please tell us about what research, if any, did you do to decide how this would look or how the disease spread? Anyone who can survive that sort of crucible and still find their humanity is pretty incredible. com/index.htm or her blog, The Middle Hundred, at /.įor Orleans what part/character/event are you most excited/proud about? She lives near Los Angeles.įor more information, visit her website at. Flygirl (2010) won the California Book Award, was a YALSA Best Book for Young Adults, and has received fourteen State Award nominations. Smith has written several award-winning novels for young adults. In the end, they are each other’s last hope for survival. Brought together by chance, kept together by danger, Fen and Daniel navigate the wasteland of Orleans. Fen meets Daniel, a scientist from the Outer States who has snuck into the Delta illegally. Left with her tribe leader’s newborn, Fen is determined to get the baby to a better life over the wall before her blood becomes tainted.

Years later, residents of the Outer States are under the assumption that life in the Delta is all but extinct… but in reality, a new primitive society has been born.įen de la Guerre is living with the O-Positive blood tribe in the Delta when they are ambushed. After a string of devastating hurricanes and a severe outbreak of Delta Fever, the Gulf Coast has been quarantined.

Orleans by Sherri L. Smith