Character Interview + Swag Contest: Remington from Audition

Hitting up the blog today is Remington from Stasia Kehoe's debut Audition!

From the author: Doing a character interview for Remington was so much fun. One interesting thing I can share is that, when I saw the cover for the book, the Remington character was much hotter than I'd imagined. As I wrote AUDITION, I saw Rem as less, well, perfect--with his hair not thinning but threatening-to-thin and his nose a tad more turned-up. Just a little fyi!


What was your first thought when you saw Sara?

I didn’t so much notice Sara as notice her noticing me. Sometimes I’d feel her eyes on my back even though she’d look away when I tried to catch her at it. After a while I started to get this sense of her as both a young naïf and a very old soul. She made me want to work on dances. It was a wild feeling.

What's it like to kiss Sara?


She’s a follower. I put my arms around her, draw her in. I do everything first. Don’t get me wrong, though, she gets into it eventually.

What's the hardest thing about being a guy in the ballet world?

Well, on stage, the hardest thing is probably spending so much time as furniture for the girls’ big moves. Especially if you’re in the corps—most of the time you’re pretty much just a kickstand and a poser. Off stage, it’s just another world with its own set of rules. Same as being on a football team or working in a bank. I mean, sure people make assumptions about your sexuality and whatever but why should I care about that? People make assumptions about accountants and jocks, too. My mom was involved in theater so, before starting ballet, I did musicals. I’ve never found the ballet world to be much more difficult than that. And, I certainly don’t have any problems meeting girls.

For the readers who are left with a not so great impression of you, what would you say to them?

I would tell them to look at my dances—my creations. It takes a lot of sacrifice, a lot of courage, to get ahead as a choreographer—especially if you’re not also a technical virtuoso, which I’m not. I’ve got dances I want to put on stage and anyone who knows me, including Sara, should be able to see that that’s my focus. I am always thinking about dances, always struggling for my art. Besides, I didn’t force Sara into anything, so I’m not sure why readers’ judgments should be against me.

Do you regret things with Sara?

It’s never good when things end messily. But, no, I don’t regret being with her. She is an amazing girl. I made a great dance with her. I might have liked to have made a few more dances before we split. Then again, she had no right to expect to perform that dance. I mean, I had to put my dance on the best ballerina I could get and, right now, that’s Lisette. So, I guess things had to go the way they did. I hope when she looks back on this, years from now, she’ll like the dance, though. I mean that thing is pretty spectacular.


Thank you, Remington, for stopping in!

To help celebrate the book's release, I've also got a swag packs up for grabs, which includes bookmarks and sticky pads, to two commenters (US Only)!