Thursday, August 14, 2025

Patrick Tarr

Patrick Tarr’s novel, The Guest Children, comes after a long career in film and television. He won a Writers Guild of Canada award for his first produced script before gathering over a decade of experience as a staff writer, creative producer, and showrunner. For his work as head writer and executive producer on the international hit series Cardinal, Tarr was awarded 2021 Canadian Screen Awards for Best Writing in a Dramatic Series and Best Dramatic Series. A graduate of the Canadian Film Centre, he returned as Executive Producer in Residence for the 2022 Prime Time TV program. He lives in Toronto with his family.

My Q&A with the author:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

I think it gets them about halfway there, and the cover does the rest. ‘Guest Children’ was the term used for kids evacuated to Canada from cities in England that were under threat of bombing during World War II. I do think there’s something inherently spooky about those two words together, but the title in combination with a creepy photo of a remote, forested lake gives readers a pretty strong sense of what they’re in for. The original title was The Sand Palace, which is a structure that holds symbolic meaning in the story. But along the way, that element became less central and I needed a new title. The Guest Children was just sitting there, already waiting in the text. It felt just right.

What's in a name?

While they’re not the main characters in the story, the young brother and sister at the centre of the plot are named Frances and Michael Hawksby. I did choose these names deliberately to evoke the child characters from Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw - Flora and Miles. That story, like mine, deals with children in a remote place, and a character who’s called there who begins to question what is real. Their last name of Hawksby was a bit of a hat tip to Richard Brautigan’s The Hawkline Monster, another story set mostly at a remote house. In the setting of that story, anything can happen, and I wanted to evoke that same unpredictability - at least for myself - in writing The Guest Children.

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your new novel?

Horror really got its hooks into me from about twelve, and I spent most of my teen years borrowing paperbacks I was probably too young to read from the revolving horror rack in my local library. So I don’t think I’d be too surprised that I’d written a ghost story. I’d probably be more surprised that I’d managed to get a book published, as it just didn’t seem like an attainable dream to me at the time.

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

Endings, no doubt. When I started out writing, I thought I had so many great beginnings. But the truth is, it’s can’t be a great beginning if it doesn’t serve a great ending. It’s just a piece of something. I think my work as a television writer helped me become stronger as a storyteller. Outlining is a vital piece of that process, and I’ve since learned that I need to put the work into an outline when writing a novel as well. Outlines aren’t fun, but getting stuck midway into your novel isn’t fun either. By the time I sit down to write my beginning, I already know what my ending is - or what it might be. An important part of moving to a first draft is being flexible enough to change a plot point - or your entire ending - if you realize it’s not suitable anymore. But just because you may decide to change your destination, that doesn’t mean you wasted time drawing a map.

Usually the changes I make to my beginnings involve the delete key. Once I truly know my story, I realize I have more material than I need at the beginning, and need to get things in motion faster.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

The films The Others and The Devil’s Backbone are highly atmospheric ghost stories about children during wartime, and both were major influences on The Guest Children. They’re quite different films visually and thematically, but I found strong resonances in them both when I was trying to nail down how my story would feel. Apart from those, my setting and atmosphere were inspired by walks in the Canadian wilderness. The idea for this novel sprang forth after I read a bit of history about these children who came to Canada to shelter during the war. Walking in the woods, I found myself wondering what it must have been like for kids from the huge city of London to find themselves plunked down in a remote location in Northern Ontario.
Visit Patrick Tarr's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Tuesday, August 12, 2025

Gabriella Buba

Gabriella Buba is a mixed Filipina-Czech author and chemical engineer based in Texas who likes to keep explosive pyrophoric materials safely contained in pressure vessels or between the covers of her books. She writes epic fantasy for bold, bi, brown women who deserve to see their stories centered. Her debut Saints of Storm and Sorrow is a Filipino-inspired epic fantasy out with Titan Books. Saints has been named one of Spotify’s Best Audiobooks of 2024, and Buba a Spotify Breakout Author of 2024, and Saints was one of Reactor’s Reviewer’s Choice: Best Books of 2024.

Buba's new novel is Daughters of Flood and Fury.

My Q&A with the author:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

I know some people think its overdone, but I have a real soft spot for blank of blank and blank title formats for epic fantasy, so Daughters of Flood and Fury does a great job setting genre and tone expectations for readers before they’ve even opened the first page. I want you to read the title and immediately think Southeast Asian seafaring Fantasy Feminine Coming of Rage.

What's in a name?

To be entirely honest I’m not very good at names! My character’s names change a lot. Four times for the whole cast in Daughters of Flood and Fury. The only reason I don’t get accused of lazy naming is not that many people know Tagalog. I often share about my FMC Lunurin’s name meaning “to drown” in Tagalog, one of the few names I developed myself rather than pulling from 17th century baptismal records/census naming/and ship manifests, but I didn’t stop there. My MMC Alon Dakila has an equally symbolic and matched name to his wife, Lunurin. Alon in Tagalog means wave, which is especially fitting for my tide-touched healer. His last name Dakila means great or noble, what better name for the family of the Lakan of Aynila (their chief of chiefs).

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

Beginnings are very difficult for me. I often have to give myself permission to write the worst beginning in order to start in on the story and actually make progress. My motto is that anything can be edited better, but only once it exists, so my beginnings also change the most, as I work to make the worst beginning that got me started a good beginning. I usually go into my drafts with a pretty clear vision for the end already.

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?

Oh yes, I don’t actually believe that a writer can divorce themselves from the characters they write. What I like to do is to take one facet of my personality and dial it to 300% and then watch the plot hit the fan. Lunurin has the most of me, my anger and my grief. Alon has all the stubborn damned inconvenient morals and none of the internal snark monologue. Inez is very much the wounded inner child who doesn’t want peace, she wants to create problems, and I support her.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

Many of my inspirations are historical. For Daughter of Flood and Fury I drew on the sinking of the Spanish Armada, the history of piracy and karakoa raiding in the Philippines from Luzon and the South China Sea down to the Sulu Sea. I’m a big believer that reality is weirder than fiction. And for some more fun pop-culture hits I was absolutely influenced by Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, because it sent me down the research rabbit hole on Piracy in Asia, and Trese, a Filipino Netflix Anime and before that a komik that was my first pop culture interaction with Filipino folklore outside of family stories.
Visit Gabriella Buba's website.

My Book, The Movie: Daughters of Flood and Fury.

Writers Read: Gabriella Buba.

--Marshal Zeringue

Sunday, August 10, 2025

Leigh Dunlap

Leigh Dunlap is the screenwriter of the hit Warner Bros. movie A Cinderella Story. A native of Los Angeles, she attended film school at the University of Southern California. She now splits time and personalities between South Carolina and South Kensington and dreams of one day giving it all up and searching for buried treasure. Until then, she writes movies and books. Including Bless Your Heart, her debut novel.

My Q&A with the author:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

Bless Your Heart. It sounds nice, doesn’t it? As if someone is wishing you well. In the south, however, it’s a passive-aggressive put down. It’s someone smiling while stabbing you in the back. It’s a great title for a murder mystery about the rich and powerful people of Atlanta. The original title for my novel, though, was The Buckhead Betties. They are the Karens of Atlanta. Beautiful, rich and insufferably entitled. The publisher wanted to change the title because they didn’t think people would understand what a Buckhead Betty was, and that’s a fair point. Bless Your Heart was a fine alternative. You thought this was a romance novel? Well, bless your heart…

What's in a name?

Along with the title of the book, the publisher questioned all the weird character names. Birdie. Hampton. Poppy. Wade. Auggie. Cash. Kolt. I had to get rid of a few others. That’s the south, however. Or at least in Buckhead, the Beverly Hills of Atlanta. Unusual names, usually old family names, are just the norm. I even know someone named Matthews. With an ‘s’. This is not a story of Johns and Marys.

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your new novel?

My teenage reader self was a dreamer with a head full of mayhem. It was a swirling cauldron of worry, anger, love, happiness, misery, and angst. I don’t think teenage me would be at all surprised that I wrote a novel about a murder. Murderous thoughts were always lurking below the surface of teenage me! I hope she would just be relieved to know that she made it out of her teenage years and found an outlet in writing for all those feelings.

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they are world apart?

Every character in my novel is some part of me. Male or female. Rich or poor. Killer or victim. It’s as if all of my life was put in a blender and the result is a novel that has bits and pieces of me on every page.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

Again, I’m going back to the blender! I’m definitely the person you want on your trivia team. I know a little about a lot. (What is the capital of Bhutan? Thimphu, of course.) I’m a media junkie and take it all in and reformulate it. Having grown up with television being my babysitter, and also being a screenwriter, means that movies and TV and their structure and references influence everything I write.
Visit Leigh Dunlap's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Friday, August 8, 2025

Amy Rossi

Amy Rossi received her MFA from Louisiana State University, and she lives in North Carolina, by way of Massachusetts, with her partner and two dogs. The Cover Girl is her first novel.

My Q&A with the author:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

The Cover Girl is about just that: the girl on the cover of albums and magazines. The girl who exists in the context of an ad and is a projection of everyone who sees her – and the woman she becomes. It’s the story of an aging model, Birdie Rhodes, who looks back on her relationships with the two people that defined her life: the rock star who made himself her legal guardian after she posed for his album cover at age 15 and her legendary former agent.

This is the third title for the book; it went on submission under Look Away – a nod to the Iggy Pop song about his role in the 70s baby groupie era and the amount of silence that made situations like Birdie’s possible – and it was announced under another. We finally decided on The Cover Girl to give readers that immediate hint that they were getting a book that deals with the modeling industry.

What’s in a name?

When I first started writing, the main character’s name was Libbie, short for Olivia, which I changed to Elizabeth, because it suited her New England WASP background better. The nickname Birdie also did more work in that sense – hinting at that kind of old money tendency toward nicknames that don’t have an obvious root in the given name. Birdie also connotes a more delicate figure, suitable for a tall, thin model.

In the book, 56-year-old Elizabeth has shed young Birdie; it’s easier for her that way. References to her old name help prompt her reckoning – people from her past look at her and still see the girl she has tried to rid herself of, forcing her to realize she cannot keep two halves of her life separate and live wholly.

The rock star who upends Birdie’s life, however, remains nameless. This was my way of keeping the book firmly focused on her. Too often, the Birdies of the world are only considered in relation to the men who harmed them. Those men do not want for additional attention. It doesn’t matter who he is; it matters what he did. By not naming the rock star, I hoped to make it more possible for Birdie, and for readers, to name everything else that happens.

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your novel?

Not surprised in the least, and in fact, she’d be thrilled. As a teenager, I was obsessed with classic rock and with all the women I saw on Behind the Music who had been girls with the band, girls whose stories were always the liner notes to someone else’s. I had it in my mind early on that I was going to write about this one day. I also really wanted to be an actress and had gone to weekend classes at a modeling school, so that I ended up writing about these things wouldn’t be a surprise either.

However, as a teenager, I think I did romanticize all those songs about girls my age, so I might not have anticipated my older self wanting to see more accountability in that space.

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

The beginning is definitely harder for me. It’s the entry point, the tone-setter, and it has to be exactly right. It’s also the part that naturally gets fiddled with and overthought the most because it’s the part that has been in existence the longest. At some point in drafting, I knew what the ending of The Cover Girl would be, and when I got there, my writing speed probably tripled. Once I could see that end in sight, I got out of the way and let the story do its thing.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

Music, for sure. It’s the most common starting point for me. But as someone who came of age at the turn of the millennium, I’m also really influenced by commercialized nostalgia, pop culture, and misremembered or misjudged women. My early teen years were marked by the Clinton impeachment and the explosion and pillorying of pop princesses like Britney Spears. I think that definitely shaped what I am most interested in writing about.

Maybe all of this is to say that I’m deeply influenced by early 2000s VH1: all the rock docs and the construction of a story of the 70s and 80s on the Sunset Strip and the pulling together of a particular narrative of how things were then based on what we choose to bring forward from the past now – and who gets to do the telling.
Visit Amy Rossi's website.

Writers Read: Amy Rossi.

--Marshal Zeringue

Wednesday, August 6, 2025

Mara Williams

Mara Williams drafted her first novel in third grade on a spiral notebook—a love story about a golden retriever and the stray dog who admired her from beyond the picket fence. Now she writes about strong, messy women finding their way in the world. Williams has a BA in English Literature from the University of California at Berkeley, takes creative writing from Stanford Continuing Studies, and actively engages in writing groups and critique circles. Williams’s novel The Second Chance Playlist was a winner of the 2024 Emily Contest. When not writing or reading, Williams can be found enjoying California’s beaches, redwoods, and trails with her husband, three kids, and disobedient dog.

Her new novel is The Truth Is in the Detours.

My Q&A with the author:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

I find that titles either arrive immediately while drafting or are endlessly evasive. The Truth Is in the Detours was the tenth title for this book. I tried on several while drafting, none of which quite fit. When my editor bought it, she suggested a new title, so we changed it again. Further into the editing process, we decided the new title didn’t capture the wit and lightness. So, I went back to the drawing board and suggested The Truth Is in the Detours. It captures the spirit of the book with a bit of whimsy and a nod to the major themes but isn’t literal. My characters embark on a road trip in search of the truth related to a family secret, but they also discover truths about themselves and what they mean to each other.

What's in a name?

My main character is named Ophelia. It’s a name I’ve always loved because of the softness of the sounds and melodic syllables. However, because of its literary legacy, it’s not a name I would be brave enough to give to my child. So, in creating a character who had been abandoned and lied to by her parents, I thought it fitting that she would be given a beautiful name with a painful history. The book isn’t a direct nod to Shakespeare, but the Hamlet reference is stitched into cultural consciousness, so the name hints at her tragic origin. Her journey and character growth are about subverting that expectation. My other main character is Beauregard, although he now goes by Beau. I wanted a mouthful of a name that could embarrass an awkward, nerdy teen, but would evolve with him as he grew into himself.

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your new novel?

My teenage self would be very proud but not surprised. I’ve wanted to be an author as long as I can remember. I was an avid reader as a kid, and I was always searching for books like this one. At the time, I didn’t know how to find an assortment of rich, emotional, funny books with a central love story. I read a lot of Maeve Binchy as a teen and loved the layers of storytelling that wove romantic threads into family dramas. I’ve written exactly the book I would have devoured as a teen and young adult.

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

Beginnings are, without question, harder to write. I will rewrite an opening chapter a few dozen times to get it right. The opening pages have to do so much heavy lifting—character development, scene setting, intrigue, while providing the exact amount of context. But until it’s complete, it’s not always clear where the book should start. However, I always know how a book will end. By the last third of the book, my fingers can’t keep up with my brain. The ending writes itself. By then, the characters have the wheel and are steering me downhill at a breakneck pace. After the first draft, I rarely change the ending beyond minor tweaks. But the beginning is an invitation to the book, and an introduction to the characters the reader will have to commit to for three hundred pages. It requires a lot more finesse than a first draft can offer it. For this one, however, the opening scene and first line outlived my endless revisions.

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?

Typically, I do share some personality traits with my protagonists. However, with The Truth Is in the Detours, I was looking to stretch myself. My point of view character, Ophelia Dahl, couldn’t be more dissimilar to me, so writing her was both liberating and challenging. She’s flippant where I’m earnest. She’s impulsive while I’m measured. She struggles to apply herself to a particular goal, while I’m often too persistent even when I should cut my losses.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

I am inspired by my family and reality. There’s a reason for the cliché that the truth is stranger than fiction. So, I pay attention to life’s absurdities and splendor and create a catalogue of small and big moments to draw from. Characters and stakes are always pure fiction, but the details and texture are often inspired by real life. For example, The Truth Is in the Detours was inspired by a real-life moment. When my husband and I were newlyweds, we bought his childhood home and launched a DIY renovation to make it our own. The catch was that we had to clean out a lifetime’s worth of memories, debris, and clutter. I found my late mother-in-law’s wedding gown in a sideboard in my dining room. Later, I found my husband’s original birth certificate in between the pages of the Pennysaver in a dresser drawer. There’s much to learn about the things people choose to keep—either by choice or avoidance. Each artifact has a story to tell. But I began to wonder about the fictional possibilities. What if we found a secret inside a hand-carved Chinese antique chest—instead of fifteen years of youth soccer photos? What if we uncovered evidence that a missing loved one was still alive—instead of cherished mementos saved after their passing? What if we found mysterious legal documents rather than boxes of old copies of the Honolulu Star-Advertiser and dance recital programs? The first line of The Truth Is in the Detours is “It’s been an hour since the truth fell out of an accordion file,” which arrived in my head like a premonition long before I sat down to write the book.
Visit Mara Williams's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Tuesday, July 29, 2025

Christina Dotson

Christina Dotson is an Eleanor Taylor Bland Crime Fiction Writers of Color Award runner-up. In addition to writing, she is a licensed clinical social worker for a palliative care practice and lives in Kentucky.

Dotson's new novel is Love You To Death.

My Q&A with the author:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

I always envy writers who can create the perfect title. Unfortunately, that is not a gift I possess. I initially titled this book A Good Place To Stop, which my agent vetoed right away because it’s obviously terrible. We wanted the book’s title to have a wedding theme, but we knew that choosing one could potentially lead readers to think this was a romance novel. In the end, after several rounds of brainstorming, it was someone from my editor’s team who came up with the title, Love You To Death. And while we know this isn’t necessarily a unique title, it does give readers a deeper understanding of Kayla and Zorie’s bond. It’s a perfect reminder of the book’s themes surrounding loyalty, manipulation and obsession.

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your novel?

I doubt my teenage self would be surprised by my novel. Even as a child, I loved dark and twisted stories. I read Stephen King’s Pet Sematary when I was thirteen years old, and loved every single word, until it was time to go to bed.

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

Beginnings are definitely much harder for me to write than endings. If I can complete a paragraph or two, after multiple rounds of revisions, I’m golden and can take it from there. But figuring out that first line is a million times harder than that final line before the glorious THE END. Of course, since I’m not a plotter, I don’t always know what will happen at the end of the book, but my characters always guide me there, and I never second-guess their decision.

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?

Like most writers, I’m an introvert, so writing gives me the chance to explore the more extroverted side of myself through characters. In Love You To Death, I identify more with Kayla—the more reserved of the duo. Zorie is more free-spirited, loud, and wild. So, obviously, she was more fun to write.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

I’m a huge fan of reality shows and find a lot of inspiration in them, especially for dialogue. Also, my twenty-two-year career as a social worker has provided me with a spectacular blueprint for human behavior.
Follow Christina Dotson on Instagram and Threads.

--Marshal Zeringue

Friday, July 25, 2025

Nicky Gonzalez

Nicky Gonzalez is a writer from Hialeah, Florida. Her fiction has appeared in McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, BOMB, The Kenyon Review, Taco Bell Quarterly, and other publications. She has received support from the Elizabeth George Foundation, the Granum Foundation, Millay Arts, Lighthouse Works, and the Hambidge Center. She lives in Massachusetts.

Gonzalez's debut novel is Mayra.

My Q&A with the author:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

Mayra is both a friendship novel and a Gothic novel, so I wanted a title that straddled both of those subgenres. There are a few Gothic novels that are titled with simply a person’s name (Rebecca, Dracula) and the same goes for friendship novels (Sula, Marlena). It’s definitely a subtle nod, but I hope it communicates the friendship/gothic connection to some readers, at least subconsciously.

What's in a name?

When it comes to naming Mayra, not much! I met a few Mayras (pronounced “my-ruh”) growing up and I always loved the way the name sounded. Euphony was the number one factor.

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your new novel?

I think she’d say, “Wait, this is published? I’m published?” As for the book itself, I think she wouldn’t be very surprised. In response to the storyline in the fictive present, she’d say, “Okay, so we still like weird stuff.” But a good chunk of the novel is comprised of flashbacks to the narrator and Mayra as teenagers. Those flashback scenes and settings would feel familiar to teenage Nicky, but she might be surprised to learn that anyone would want to read about some kids messing around in Hialeah.

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

I find beginnings much harder because the possibilities are literally endless. I write very slowly when I’m in the early stages of a project, and as I continue to work and more of the story is revealed to me, I pick up speed. Very rarely do I know the ending of a story when I begin, but as I work on the story, the ending or possible endings start to coalesce. When it comes to short stories, I’ll sometimes arrive at the ending by surprise. I’ll write the last sentence and think, “Oh, of course that’s the end.” Beginnings are tough. There are so many ways into every story. It’s hard to choose.

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?

I think there’s a least a drop of me in every character, but I also see a at least a drop of myself in every person I meet. It’s a chicken and egg situation. Did I consciously place aspects of my personality in that character or did I write that character and then find myself empathizing with them after the fact? I don’t know!

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

I watch a lot of TV and movies. I was heavily influenced by anthology shows growing up: Twilight Zone, Are you Afraid of the Dark?, Goosebumps (though there were a few episodes of Goosebumps I was too afraid to watch). I also watched a lot of absurdist cartoons growing up and continue to watch them now, which I think gives my work a surrealist and sometimes comic undertone.
Visit Nicky Gonzalez's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Wednesday, July 23, 2025

Carolyn Dasher

Carolyn Dasher grew up in a military family, which meant she lived in ten different places before she graduated from high school. It also meant that every 4th of July she got to climb around on tanks and helicopters and watch the Blue Angels buzz overhead in tight formation. When she learned about the WASP—amazing women who stepped up during World War II to serve their country, and, as soon as the war was over, were told to step right back down again and transfer their talent and energy to home and family life—she knew she had to write about them.

American Sky is Dasher's first novel.

My Q&A with the author:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

The original working title of the book was American Girls. That was too close to other titles already out in the world, so my publisher requested a change. Between my editor, my agent, myself, and my family, we generated a list of probably twenty possibilities, none of which fit the book. After a lot of back and forth, and some growing despair on my part, the words American Sky popped into my head. And that was the one.

The title nods at the aspirations of the characters and the tone of the book, but it doesn’t suggest much about the plot. It’s more of a vibes title.

What's in a name?

One of the main characters in the book is a young, female pilot who becomes a WWII WASP (Women Airforce Service Pilot). I called her Georgeanne, because I think it’s a beautiful name, and I wanted her to go by a “male” nickname: George. The name also fits the WWII setting of the book. George’s last name, Ector, comes from my nerdy, lifelong affection for the Arthurian legend. Ector was the foster father who raised King Arthur. In American Sky, Georgeanne raises a daughter who is not biologically hers. The two names read well together. It’s a strong name, and it suits George’s strong character.

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your new novel?

My teenage self would be shocked that I’d written a novel at all. I loved reading and enjoyed creative writing, but I didn’t dream of writing books myself. I didn’t know any writers. Whatever magic conjured words onto the page, pages into books, books onto shelves, happened far away in some mystical, mysterious place. It wasn’t until I was grown that I realized—or allowed myself to realize—that I wanted to be a writer.

My teenage self would be even more shocked that I wrote a book about women repairing cars and flying planes. My mechanical inclinations are nonexistent, although I’m somewhat astonished by the complexity and beauty of certain machines. Obviously, writing this book required a lot of research.

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

I love writing beginnings. So much freedom and possibility! It begins with a mental image of my main character, in this case, Georgeanne/George, in a specific setting or situation. In the original first scene of American Sky, George is fifteen—tall and awkward and trying to hide her hands, because she has grease under her fingernails from working on the family car—and she and her friends are watching a barnstormer fly loop-de-loops. When George realizes the pilot is a woman, she forgets all about her hands and her height; she just knows she has to go up in that plane. It’s a catalytic moment for her. And those moments are always fun to write.

This scene now appears on page 51, so, yes, I make big changes as I write and revise. My agent suggested I start the story earlier, focusing on George’s mother, Adele. Which turned out to be great advice. The book now begins with Adele, an independent and unusual woman for her time, and readers keep telling me how much they love her.

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?

I’m too private a person to intentionally put myself in a book. But the characters all come from my head, and small parts of me live in each of them. Mostly, though, I love how these characters are different from me, especially the ways they are braver than I am. The women in this book dare to live their differences out loud in a time and place when that just wasn’t done.
Visit Carolyn Dasher's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Monday, July 21, 2025

Shelly Sanders

Shelly Sanders is the bestselling author of the adult novel Daughters of the Occupation and the acclaimed young adult historical novels The Rachel Trilogy. She began her writing career as a freelance journalist working for major publications, including the Toronto Star, National Post, Maclean’s, Canadian Living, Reader’s Digest, and Today’s Parent. She lives in Ontario.

Sanders's new novel is The Night Sparrow.

My Q&A with the author:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

My working title was Red Army Woman, because my novel is about a female Red Army sniper. Still, this is not exactly a gripping title and you can’t assume 2025 readers know what Red Army means. Then, I came across a sniper’s diary entry which reads: “We are but a sparrow’s feather.” This enthralling comparison led me on a tangential search for everything about sparrows. I discovered that these small birds are actually mighty in numbers (like snipers), look identical in their grey and brown feathers (like snipers in uniform), and nest in trees (like snipers in camouflage). I wanted “sparrow” in the title but couldn’t come up with a catchy title. My editor brainstormed the idea with the marketing department, which is hugely involved in choosing the title, and they came up with The Night Sparrow. I like the oblique metaphor which alludes to the story, ignites curiosity, and is memorable. And I do reference sparrows a few times in the narrative, giving readers a chance to ponder its significance within the narrative.

What's in a name?

Elena Bruskina’s name comes from the two real women who inspired this novel, Yelena (Kagan) Rzhevskaya and Masha Bruskina. Yelena, a Jewish Red Army interpreter during the war, witnessed “the long and bloody Rzhev Operation of February 1942-March 1943,” as reported in Yad Vashem’s International Institute for Holocaust Research. “She was shocked by this operation, which historians have called "the Rzhev Meat-Grinder" and took Rzhevskaya as her pen-name.”

In 1945, was chosen for a secretive three-person SMERSH unit. The acronym for SMERSH means, death to spies. She was tasked with translating for German prisoners interrogated by the other two members of her unit. She played a pivotal role towards the end of the war, and after, but became terribly dismayed when she learned the fate of two German civilians who helped fulfill the unit’s mission. Determined to tell the world what really happened during her time with SMERSH, Elena tried for years to get uncensored articles published in the Soviet Union, to no avail. But she didn’t give up and, in 1965, her heavily censored memoir was published. Twenty years later, a much less censored version was published. In Russian, Elena means ‘shining light’, and this is why I kept this name, as her character shines a light on a story that Stalin hid for decades.

Masha Bruskina was a Jewish 15-year-old who was forced into the Minsk ghetto. Restless, she went underground and, as a nurse, helped wounded Red Army soldiers recover so that they could quickly return to the front line. One night, she was caught. A few days later, she was paraded down the street by the Germans, with a sign hanging around her neck, a false statement that she had killed German soldiers. I was so moved by Masha, I decided to weave her story through the narrative and make her Elena’s younger sister.

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your novel?

My teenage self would be shocked that I’ve written about a Jewish female sniper! Not only am I a lifetime pacifist who is afraid of guns, my grades were average. I was never singled out by a teacher for a well-written essay. And after decades of criticism about my behavior, due to undiagnosed ADHD, I had a very low opinion of myself compared to others. It took years of writing as a journalist, and the discovery of my Jewish roots, for me to believe in my ability as a writer and to realize I have stories to tell, inspired by history.

Looking back at my favorite novel in high school, Catcher in the Rye, I probably would have said, at the time, that if I were to write a book, it would be one of female teenage angst, written in the style of Catcher in the Rye, set in suburban Chicago where I grew up. There was nothing about female snipers on my radar!

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

I spend hours rewriting the beginning when I start my first draft, as I feel it will be far more visceral as a whole, if the base is as strong as steel. I start in the middle of a scene, with the protagonist interacting with other characters or responding to something within the setting. In The Night Sparrow, the editors had me restructure the novel to balance the war scenes with Elena’s time as an interpreter, which dramatically improved the pace. I thought I would have to rewrite the beginning, but my editor in New York suggested I move an action scene from the middle of the book, to the front. Not only does this throw Elena into action immediately, on the front facing the Germans, it adds urgency to the beginning which draws readers in right away.

The ending is always a long process of revisions, because I want to leave the reader curious about what happens next while staying true to the characters’ emotions. Life is not a series of events that can be resolved easily, and I want my novels to end on a note of uncertainty. I want readers to discuss what they think will happen next, to ruminate over the ending, to feel slightly unsettled when they finish reading.

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?

I write to make sense of circumstances, places, people, and history, so it’s not surprising that traces of myself slip into my characters. In The Night Sparrow, you’ll find glimpses of me in Elena’s love of language, in Raisa’s persistence and, I must admit, in Zina’s up-and-down moods. This is not intentional yet, as I write, as I dig deep into the characters’ interiority, as I try to figure out how they would respond to obstacles, my own emotions seep through my characters’ skin.

Because I write historical fiction, you would think the characters should be worlds apart from me and my contemporaries, but I don’t think this is necessarily true. I believe characters should be relatable in some way, no matter the genre and, by inserting a dash of modern sensibilities, Elena becomes more true, more diverse, more relevant.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

Discovering my furtive maternal ancestry upended my world and changed everything I thought I knew about myself. I didn’t know I was Jewish until I was 18 years old and about to go to college. Eight years ago, I found out my roots were planted in Latvia in the late 1700’s. Then, I discovered 30 relatives who were murdered in the Latvian Holocaust. Standing in front of the mass grave in the Rumbula forest, in Riga, I was resolved to tell my family’s story, to remember the names of relatives seen in dozens of photos with my grandmother. The exploration of what it means to be Latvian-Jewish and the generational trauma perpetuated by secrets are what motivate me to write. My grandmother kept her Judaism and her Latvian-Jewish family a secret, probably because of what she endured as a Jewish girl living under the last Tsar. Her well-meaning decision meant she didn’t live authentically, as a Jewish woman after coming to Canada in 1936. She had to deal with the grief of relatives who vanished during the war, privately. When I began unpacking her story, through photos, research, and interviews with Latvian-Jews, I saw how the threads of antisemitism had gutted my family, once thriving in Latvia as Jews, to one shaky branch devoid of culture and traditions. I stared at the photos of my great-grandmother’s sisters, killed during WWII, along with their husbands and children, and at my great-grandfather’s brother whose entire family was murdered. Something inside me shifted. At that moment, I knew my writing would be shaped by loss, by antisemitism, and by Judaism. I felt as if my purpose, going forward, was to tell the stories of those forgotten and neglected.
Visit Shelly Sanders's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Night Sparrow.

--Marshal Zeringue

Thursday, July 17, 2025

Samuel Hawley

Samuel Hawley is a Canadian writer with BA and MA degrees in history from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. He was born and grew up in South Korea and taught English there and in Japan for many years. His books include The Imjin War, the definitive account in English of Japan’s 16th-century invasion of Korea and attempted conquest of China; Speed Duel, about the 1960s rivalry between Craig Breedlove and Art Arfons for the world land speed record; Ultimate Speed, the authorized biography of land speed racing legend Craig Breedlove; and The Fight That Started the Movies: The World Heavyweight Championship, the Birth of Cinema and the First Feature Film.

Hawley's new novel is Daikon.

My Q&A with the author:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

The title Daikon is the nickname that the Japanese give to the atomic bomb they recover from the wreckage of the B-29 that crashes in chapter one. The bomb is very much a main character in the story in its own right. The other main characters Dr. Keizo Kan and Petty Officer Yagi open it up and explore it and get to know it, and then must put it together again for use in a suicide mission.

Actually, the title of the book was originally One Hundred Million Eat Stones, a reference to the determination that the Japanese people (the “Hundred Million”) would fight to the death rather than surrender. The Japanese had several popular slogans like that during the war referring to the “Hundred Million.” In the early days of victory the slogans were upbeat, like “One Hundred Million Hearts Beating Together.” Toward the end of the war, with defeat looming, they had become grimmer, “One Hundred Million as a Suicide Squad,” that sort of thing.

My agent suggested that a shorter title would be better, maybe something enigmatic and even whimsical to contrast with the seriousness of the story. “The Americans referred to the bomb as ‘Little Boy’ or the ‘gadget’ or the ‘gimmick,’” he said. “Maybe the Japanese came up with a nickname for it too. That could be the title.” He was right. It was a great idea. So that’s what I did. One of the characters observes that the bomb looks like a big black daikon radish. So it became "the Daikon," and that became the title of the book.

When the book was purchased by Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster, the publisher wanted to try other titles. I struggled for ages to come up with something else, but nothing worked. “The Light That Falls,” “We Live in Ruins,” and “The Flowers of Adversity” are three I came up with. The more I struggled to find another title, however, the more convinced I became that “Daikon” was the best title. And eventually we just stuck with that. Thank goodness!

What's in a name?

When I’m writing fiction, I compile lists of interesting names I encounter in research and reading, a stockpile of names to draw on as needed. With Daikon, since the characters are all Japanese, this stockpile was no use. There was some method to my name selections, though.

For the antagonist in the story, the army officer who wants to use the recovered atomic bomb against the Americans in order to stave off defeat and keep the war going, I wanted a name starting with an “S” like the hissing of a snake, and consisting of several syllables. So he became Colonel Sagara.

For the protagonist, the main character at the heart of the story, I wanted a one-syllable name to stand in contrast to the three syllables of Sagara. There are not many one-syllable names in Japanese. The first one to come to my mind was Kan. When I first went to Japan back in 1988, one of the Japanese teachers I had was named Kan. So I borrowed her name. It seemed perfect with the hard “K” too, another contrast to the hissing “S” of the nemesis Sagara. That “Kan” as spoken is also the English verb “can” (Keizo can do it!) never even occurred to me until later.

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your novel?

My teenage self would no doubt be surprised by my novel, but also very pleased. I was no Truman Capote in my teens, equipped to write brilliant novels, but I did have a longing to write books. It was the main reason I stayed on in university to do a master’s degree in history. I wanted to write a master’s thesis, a longer work. It was kind of like writing a book.

By my late 20s the yearning to write actual books that would be published had become stronger, but it took me a long time to make it happen. I was living in Japan then, and then later Korea, and doing a lot of traveling, so my earliest writing was travel pieces for magazines and newspapers. Some titles of articles I remember: “The Fishing Ponds of Tokyo” (a quirky Japanese hobby); “Snoring to Glory on the Mahalmaxi Express” (train travel in India); “Support Your Local Sekitori” (sumo wrestling in Japan); “Sri Lanka’s Bit of Britain” (a visit to Nurawa Eliya in Sri Lanka); “Down the Nile by Felucca” (Egypt travel in a traditional sailboat). There were many others. I ended up throwing everything away when I left Canada in 2021. All that stuff if gone now.

A writer back then who really impressed me was travel writer Paul Theroux, starting with his Great Railway Bazaar. His painting of scenes, his ability to capture language—absolute perfection. On the final page of that book, as Theroux is nearing the end of his long train journey, about to arrive back home, he flips back to the first page in his notebook and reads the entry he wrote when he first started out: “Ever since childhood, when I lived within earshot of the Boston and Maine, I have seldom heard a train go by and not wished I was on it.” The story ends with Theroux reading the same words he wrote back at the beginning, making the journey a circle. The journey is a circle that takes you back home. The beauty of that just blew me away. I read it several times, flipping back and forth from first page to last, marveling at the brilliance. To write something like that, something so perfect—what a satisfaction it would be!

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

I don’t find one more difficult than the other. I do like being able to write the ending first, though. Knowing how the story ends, knowing the actual scene, means that you know where you’re going, that the journey you’re taking your hero on isn’t just going to meander off into an uncharted wilderness where you can get bogged down as a writer.

With Daikon, it took me a long to to get the story right. But I had both the beginning and the ending written from very early on, and they stayed more or less unchanged. The novel opens with a bombing mission taking off from Tinian Island, bound for Japan with an atomic bomb. And it ends with our two main characters in a train station in Tokyo, on their way home. This is where I wanted them to be, reunited, with hope for the future. One of the first sentences I wrote for Daikon was in fact the very last sentence: “They followed the Americans onto the train.”

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?

Maybe inescapably, elements from an author’s own makeup find their way into the characters he writes about. In Daikon, I guess this applies most to the main character of Keizo Kan. I used some of my own fears and insecurities in my depiction of him, exaggerating them because he has been traumatized by the war and has had a nervous breakdown and is emotionally broken.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing? Music? Pictures? Movies? The news? The environment? Politics? Family?

For non-literary influences, it far and away would be movies. I actually took a long detour into writing screenplays during my career as an author of books. I’ve written 10 or so screenplays so far, including a spec script for a TV series based on my land speed racing nonfiction book “Speed Duel.” A few of my screenplays have been optioned over the years (“Homeowner With a Gun,” “Kill Them All,” “The Falls”), but none have ever made it into production.

When I first started writing narrative nonfiction, I would often think in terms of a scene from a movie to help frame a chapter, make the writing more interesting and alive, not just a recitation of facts. This is even more the case when I’m writing fiction. I’m often seeing in my mind’s eye the chapter I’m writing as a scene in a movie.

I also sometimes refer to screenplay structure when outlining the plot for a novel. This is a really useful tool to refer to when plotting out the story. It helps to build momentum.
Visit Samuel Hawley's website.

The Page 69 Test: Daikon.

--Marshal Zeringue