North Hills Native Publishes Young Adult Book Dealing with Death

When she was growing up in the North Hills, one of Jen Violi’s favorite things to do during the summer was visit the on Cumberland Road and borrow stacks of books every week.

She remembers particularly enjoying Judy Bloom and Madeline L’Engle novels but said she finds it hard to pick only one author who inspired her to write her recently published young adult novel, "Putting Makeup on Dead People."

“Having my first book published is huge for me. I’m really proud of having a dream and working my butt off to make it a reality,” said Violi, 37.

Hyperion Books published her 336-page book in May. Violi is a 1992 graduate of North Catholic High School.

The novel is about a high school senior, Donna Parisi, who loses her father at the start of high school, and decides, during her senior year, to become a mortician. Violi, who also lost her father, Alfred Violi, in high school, used experiences from her life to write the story. Her mother, Claire, still lives in the North Hills.

“My formative years were really informed by that loss," she said. "I spent a lot of time in funeral homes, and I knew I wanted to explore death and grief in my fiction."

She began working on the book six years ago as a thesis for a master's degree of fine arts in creative writing at the University of New Orleans.

“At that time, it wasn’t a pure novel, [but] a collection of short stories all told from the same character’s perspective,” she said.

Violi didn’t specifically intend to write a young adult novel; she wrote her original collection of short stories from the vantage point of her character at different points in her life.

It was only after conversations with her agent that she began to consider writing for young adults. Violi eventually revised her piece so that it focused on only one year of her main character’s life, her senior year in high school.

Violi is working on the seventh draft of another young adult novel. She began writing it after finishing "Putting Makeup on Dead People" and said that it will be about a young woman who discovers she is psychic.

Violi said her biggest challenge as a writer is simply finding the time to write.

“I would love to build toward the life where I can really devote myself to the project that I’m working on and not worry about other things,” Violi said.

Besides writing, Violi coaches aspiring writers and leads writing workshops in Portland, OR, where she lives. She also writes “love notes,” unique greeting cards that she customizes with a handwritten recommended activity and inspirational quote as well as “one or two little surprises.”

Publishing a novel was her biggest dream — aside from being a Broadway singer, she said, jokingly.

“I did a lot of theater in college and found that although I love performance, I don’t think it’s my greatest strength,” she said.