Rachel Cohn Became Inspired to Write Beta From a Dream
October 31, 2012
Disney's Hyperion imprint released Beta by Rachel Cohn on October 16th. This title is the first installment of a planned four-book series. In an interview, Cohn revealed that the inspiration behind her new YA science-fiction novel came from a dream. She envisioned a world where teenage clones could be purchased at shopping malls.
"I had a dream about a 16-year-old girl who was a clone and she was available for sale at the mall, like the same place you go to buy sweaters, and some lady she only knew as the wife of a governor came in and bought her. I woke up and I was like, that’s an interesting concept that you can just go to the mall and buy clones who fulfill certain roles. That’s where it came from initially. I don’t really think of it as so different thematically from the other things I’ve written. It’s just a bigger, more fantastical setting."