Catherine Chidgey

Catherine Chidgey’s novels have been published to international acclaim. Her first, In a Fishbone Church, won Best First Book at the New Zealand Book Awards and the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. In the UK it won the Betty Trask Award and was longlisted for the Orange Prize. Her second, Golden Deeds, was a Notable Book of the Year in the New York Times and a Best Book in the LA Times. Chidgey has won the Prize in Modern Letters, the Katherine Mansfield Award, the Katherine Mansfield Fellowship and the Janet Frame Fiction Prize. Her novel Remote Sympathy was shortlisted for the Dublin Literary Award and longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction. Her novels The Wish Child and The Axeman’s Carnival both won the Acorn Prize for Fiction, New Zealand’s most prestigious literary award. She lives in Cambridge, New Zealand, and lectures in Creative Writing at the University of Waikato.

Chidgey's new novel is The Book of Guilt.

My Q&A with the author:

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

I knew from very early on that The Book of Guilt was the right title for the book because of the way it works with the three-part structure. The novel tells the story of thirteen-year-old triplet brothers living in a shadowy boys’ home in the New Forest, England, in a skewed version of 1979. Their three carers – Mother Morning, Mother Afternoon and Mother Night – record the boys’ wrongdoings in a ledger called The Book of Guilt, so the title refers to an actual book within the book. It’s mentioned early in the story, on page 14, and signals to the reader that these are children who are closely monitored. It also speaks to the emotional atmosphere of the novel; almost every character is culpable in some way – or believes that they are, which is possibly more corrosive. The title is also the name of the last of three sections in the novel: The Book of Dreams, The Book of Knowledge, and The Book of Guilt. While all referencing specific texts, these titles also trace the main characters’ journeys from dreamy unawareness, through dawning knowledge, and on into an abiding guilt.

What's in a name?

I named the boys’ carers after their daily shifts to suggest that – just like their young charges – they are ensnared in a system that values some lives less than others. Mother Morning, Mother Afternoon and Mother Night are expendable, easily replaced – every other children’s home within the mysterious Sycamore Scheme has carers that bear these names. And yet, the boys do love them – the only mothers they have ever known, and the ones who administer their daily medications to keep them safe from the mysterious and unpredictable illness known only as the Bug.

One spark for the book was reading a news story about a Japanese politician who holds the role of Minister of Loneliness; I seized on that and knew it belonged in my writing. In The Book of Guilt, when the new government announces that they will be closing the homes and releasing the remaining children into the community (which is making the community very nervous), it’s the Minister of Loneliness who is tasked with implementing the closures. I love the strangeness of her official title, with its notes of wistfulness, sorrow and compassion, and I love the fact that during the writing of the book, this same position was created in the United Kingdom.

The boys’ home lies on the outskirts of a sleepy New Forest village called Ashbridge. I invented this name to suggest a separation between the boys, who have been confined to the home for most of their lives, and the outside world – it may be possible to bridge this divide, but that bridge will be exceedingly fragile, as if made of ash.

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

She might be surprised that I’ve finally stopped writing angry, angsty poems about Ronald Reagan and nuclear war. When she was 15 or thereabouts, she wanted to become a nun, so she would probably be pleased that I still have an eye on complex moral issues – is there ever a sound reason for drawing on the medical research conducted in concentration camps in Nazi Germany, for instance? She would recognise some of the questions the boys are asked to consider each week in their Ethical Hour classes, led by Mother Morning: A building is on fire. You can rescue a trapped child, or you can rescue a valuable painting and sell it in order to raise enough money to save twenty children from starvation. What should you do and why? These are lifted from her own Religious Studies classes at her Catholic high school, where – after wrestling with them – she and her classmates were told that there was no right answer. This all makes the book sound like quite a weighty read; I hope teenage Catherine would also laugh at the many moments of humour that thread through the novel.

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

I definitely mined my own nerdiness at age 13 when writing the boys. The only books they have access to are the eight volumes of a children’s set of encyclopedias called The Book of Knowledge. Outdated and biased, these tomes speak with the stuffy voice of authority, and the boys believe that all knowledge in the world is contained between their covers. In their day-to-day conversations, they geekily drop in facts from The Book of Knowledge, and even quote passages from it. With the closure of the home looming, the boys attend Socialisation Days with girls from another home to learn how to behave when they meet other people beyond those few they’ve known all their lives. Here I really had fun in playing up the utter awkwardness I felt at that age, especially in the presence of the opposite sex; the children’s common ground is The Book of Knowledge, so they resort to peppering their small talk with extremely niche factoids from these familiar, safe texts.

Follow Catherine Chidgey on Facebook and Instagram.

--Marshal Zeringue

Jessica Bryant Klagmann

Jessica Bryant Klagmann grew up climbing mountains, paddling rivers, and scampering through the woods of New Hampshire. She studied writing there and in Fairbanks, Alaska, before falling in love with northern New Mexico. Klagmann is the author of the novel This Impossible Brightness, and when she isn’t writing, she can be found illustrating, trail running, or teaching her two kids the fine art of scampering.

Klagmann's new novel is North of the Sunlit River.

My Q&A with the author:

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

I hope the title North of the Sunlit River is compelling and original, but also relatable enough that people don’t ask, what the heck could this book possibly be about? I think the word “north” is fitting because it’s not just about a specific place in Alaska, but about the idea and feel of living in the North. “Sunlit” is a reference to the extended daylight hours of summer in Alaska, and it also describes the river as not a specific one, but one that means something to these characters in this story. Every river is sunlit at some point, but this one belongs to them and the particular memories they made there. I also think the themes suggested by the title are present throughout the novel, but they don’t come fully together until the very end, so my hope is the title is a thread that can be followed to a satisfying final moment with the book.

What's in a name?

In North of the Sunlit River, I changed the main character’s name quite a few times before settling on Eila. Her name, as well as her father’s name (Stefan), and the last name (Jacobsen), came from a list of Scandinavian names, even though I abandoned the idea of specifically mentioning their heritage in the book. I have strict opinions about names being short and easy to pronounce, but also unique and not connected to anyone I know in real life. Ultimately, I chose all of the characters’ names based on my own sense of cohesion and how I pictured each one in my mind, rather than focusing on the names’ meanings or origins.

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

Probably quite a bit, as I had decided to be a visual artist when I was a teenager. In fact, I went to college as an art major. Pretty quickly though, I changed my major to writing. As a reader back then, I was more interested in historical fiction. It wasn’t until college that I discovered my love for magical realism and writing about the natural world. I don’t think my teenage self would have ever expected I’d be living in (and thus inspired by) Alaska.

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

I love beginnings. The caveat to this is that I rewrite them a lot. I have to start with a really good line to get my momentum going, and it’s what inspires the tone and voice and pacing of the story. But later on, I rearrange things, try moving chapters around, and the beginning is often the last thing I come back to when I’ve finished. As chaotic and uncertain as that may sound, I enjoy this process a lot. Endings feel so much harder, as the story has to come together fully, all the threads tied up and yet leaving the reader with some sense of the future. I’ve always believed endings should be somewhat inevitable, but also surprising to the reader, which I find so difficult to pull off. That said, when I do finally land on that ending that feels right, it’s extra satisfying.

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 every character comes from some part of me, if only because I spend so much of my life observing the world for the purpose of writing. It doesn’t matter if I’m writing male characters or female characters, there is always some part of me in there. In North of the Sunlit River, there’s a lot of me in Eila, mainly because I drew on the experiences of losing my father and of living in Alaska. She also has a lot of my personality, which is nature-loving and quiet. There is also a little of me in Jackson’s character, too, because I run a lot. And there is some of me in Lark as well, because she lives in New Mexico and makes a journey to Alaska similar to the one that I once made.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

I find music is inspiring, both before and during the writing process. I get a lot of ideas from lyrics when I’m listening to music on a run or when I’m cooking. And then I always have a kind of soundtrack for everything I write—something I listen to often during the writing itself. It has to be instrumental, and it adds a certain feel to the way language evolves on the page. For North of the Sunlit River, I listened to a lot of Hania Rani and Jóhann Jóhannsson.

Visit Jessica Bryant Klagmann's website.

Writers Read: Jessica Bryant Klagmann.

--Marshal Zeringue

Zoë Rankin

Zoë Rankin grew up in a village in Scotland. She studied international relations and Arabic before going on to qualify as a primary school teacher. She spent many years traveling in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, and Africa, and eventually settled in New Zealand. She has always been passionate about writing as well as spending time outdoors and exploring by bike, often with her two small children, who are equally adventurous.

Rankin's new novel is The Vanishing Place.

My Q&A with the author:

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

When my manuscript was still in working draft form on my computer, it was titled The Wilder Child. This first title idea was inspired by the opening hook of an unkempt child appearing from the bush (vast areas of dense New Zealand forest). But something about it didn’t hit quite right. My New Zealand publisher and I went back and forth, over a few months, until we settled on The Vanishing Place. At one point, a character in the novel says, ‘this is the vanishing place,’ a statement which holds true on a number of levels. The New Zealand bush has this ability to swallow you up, to hold tight and never let go. It is a place where secrets and people can truly disappear. I think, as a title, The Vanishing Place evokes questions and intrigue and creates a sense of unease in the reader.

What's in a name?

The fictional village where the story is set is based on a real settlement on the West Coast of New Zealand called Haast. However, as I am not from Haast (a remote community of three hundred people) I didn’t feel comfortable using the name. So, instead, I chose the name Koraha which is a Te Reo Māori term for wilderness. This name, therefore, means a lot as it alludes to the heart of the novel.

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

I think my teenage self would be very unsurprised that I wrote a novel set in the middle of nowhere surrounded by trees. I have always been drawn to smaller, more remote, locations. I have also always been a habitual overthinker, so my teenage self would absolutely recognise the internal struggle and sense of stubbornness and self-doubt that lives in the main character, Effie.

As a teenager, I was fascinated by the role that our childhoods might have on who we are as adults – in those experiences, some remembered and some not, that live deep inside of us and continue to shape our lives. When I was sixteen, I did a school project, exploring whether evil is something that we are born with, or if it is something that is thrust upon us by circumstance. This question is very much at the heart of The Vanishing Place.

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

I find the endings hardest because I have no idea what they are going to be. For me, the opening arrives as this clear, gripping, image. From there, I follow the characters into the pages, nervously watching and waiting for an ending to reveal itself. However, having said that, while the opening sentence of chapter one didn’t change from that first sentence I wrote, the prologue did get added in later.

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

When I was seventeen, I was living in Uganda doing volunteer work, something that I had dreamed about doing since I was eight-years-old. But I became very ill and consequently I was sent home by a doctor months earlier than planned. This sense of failure has lived in me ever since, and I think it could be why I now live in New Zealand, as far from my Scottish home as possible, as I was desperate to prove myself. The main character, Effie, reflects this part of me, in that she carries the weight of her childhood events, things that haunt her.

Effie also loves the outdoors and she has a connection with both New Zealand and Scotland, like I do. So, although Effie is not based on me, there are definite parallels between our lives and personalities.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

My writing was inspired by my dad’s love of the outdoors, and his role in the mountain rescue team throughout my childhood and the stories that he told me about the rescues.

At the moment, in New Zealand, there is a huge story in the news about a man called Tom Phillips, who had been hiding in the bush for four years with his three children. This story is close to the hearts of many New Zealanders and, while The Vanishing Place, is not linked to this real-life tragedy at all, the fact that Tom Phillips was able to evade the efforts of police for so many years, illustrates just how dense and vast the New Zealand bush is.

Follow Zoë Rankin on Facebook and Instagram.

--Marshal Zeringue

David McGlynn

David McGlynn's books include the memoirs One Day You'll Thank Me and A Door in the Ocean, and the story collection The End of the Straight and Narrow. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The American Scholar. He teaches at Lawrence University and lives in Madison, Wisconsin.

McGlynn's debut novel is Everything We Could Do.

My Q&A with the author:

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

The novel's title, Everything We Could Do, is meant to call to mind the phrase often used by physicians & healthcare providers after a patient dies -- "we did everything we could." The phrase is often of little comfort to families, but it's also absolutely necessary. People need to know the doctors and nurses did everything imaginable to save a life. Everything We Could Do is set not only in a hospital, but in a neonatal intensive care unit, where the smallest, most fragile humans cling to life. In the novel's second plot line, one of the NICU nurses struggles to care for her disabled, nearly adult son, even though she has fought and advocated for him throughout his life. In both cases, characters try "everything" to hold onto the ones they love. But everything, quite often, isn't enough.

What's in a name?

Everything We Could Do was inspired by my own experience as a NICU parent, and to an even greater degree by my wife's years as a NICU social worker. She cared for the very families and infants who appear in the novel. I wanted my main character to be strong and smart, but also tender and vulnerable -- not a professional healthcare employee, but a woman who can navigate a complex world, full of arcane, rapid-fire language. She's a bit of an amalgam of my wife, so I named her Brooke, which is my wife's middle name.

The nurse who cares for the babies -- and whose own son is struggling as he nears adulthood -- is named Dash Coenen. Her name is stolen from one of the nurses in the NICU where I served as a volunteer. I loved the nurses I interacted with in the NICU, especially during my research. They were funny and sharp and, in most cases, no-nonsense women. Most were local to Northeast Wisconsin, where the novel is set, and loved things like the Green Bay Packers, fishing, camping. But when acute situations arose, which happened quite often, they were among the toughest, most focused professionals I'd ever encountered.

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

I've wanted to write a novel since I was a teenager. Everything We Could Do is my first novel, but my fourth book. I've written a collection of stories, plus two works on nonfiction. I think my teenage self would say, "Hey, man, nice novel, but what took you so long?" I don't have a good answer other than, "I was trying for a really long time."

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

Over the course of my work, I've noticed a curious phenomenon. I believe I have the beginning of a book nailed down for a long time -- years, in many cases. And yet, as I near the end of the final draft, I begin to find the book's beginning problematic in some way. It's too long, or too slow, or too cumbersome. Such a realization causes no small amount of consternation and angst until I work up the courage to cut it -- typically the first 50 pages. I have cut the first 50 pages of the last three books I have written, including Everything We Could Do. The novel's opening line -- "The word didn't fit. Children. Babies. Hers." -- was originally in the middle of the third or fourth chapter. When I finally realized that, yet again, my opening needed to go, I started cutting a paragraph at a time until I got to that line. It felt fresh and raw, so I stopped.

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

I am hugely connected and invested in my characters. Each of them embodies some aspect of me: my fears, my hopes, my dreams, my worst qualities or my best. I also took a lot of care to reflect the characteristics of the very real people I met and worked with and spoke to during my long years of research for the novel. I wanted Everything We Could Do to provide the most accurate depiction of a world -- the NICU -- that's both common and unknown to most people who haven't experienced it personally. As I told friends when I was working on the book, the birthing center (or labor and delivery ward) is the one wing of the hospital where people arrive fully expecting everything to go well, for both a mother and her newborn infant to emerge healthy and perfect. When something doesn't go as planned, or when something truly harrowing occurs, the whiplash between expectations and reality is fierce. I wanted to bear witness to that experience, for the people who go through it. I went through it when my younger son was born, and was caught up in all the emotions the story contains.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

I grew up in Texas and California, and went to graduate school in Utah. I am a creature of the American West you might say. When I moved to Wisconsin in 2006, it seemed a different world. I often felt (and can still feel) like an outsider. But rather than try to leave, I tried my best to make a life. I went to fish frys and potlucks, watched football and hiked in the snow during the winter. I wanted to show how a relatively ignored corner of the country -- Northeast Wisconsin -- could be full of intelligent, sarcastic, talented, and fragile people. I am always looking around at my environment, at my townspeople and friends, in community centers and YMCAs and churches, for insights into the culture taking place all around me.

It's also true that I love medical dramas, whether in books, in the movies, or on TV. The HBO show, The Pitt, was a huge success this year, largely because it so thoroughly depicts the frenzied humanity of the emergency room. The doctors and nurses work incredibly hard, for 12+ hours, and never manage to get caught up. I'm a sucker for shows like that precisely because they feel so real, and they give a broader, public voice to the experiences I hear my wife relate to me about her job. Aren't we all drawn to art -- including TV and cinema -- in which we can see ourselves? I know I am.

Visit David McGlynn's website.

Writers Read: David McGlynn.

--Marshal Zeringue

Kitty Zeldis

Kitty Zeldis is the pseudonym for a novelist and non-fiction writer of books for adults and children. She is the author of Not Our Kind and The Dressmakers of Prospect Heights. She lives with her family in Brooklyn, NY.

Zeldis's new novel, One of Them, is "a story of secrets, friendship, and betrayal about two young women at Vassar in the years after World War II, a powerful and moving tale of prejudice and pride that echoes the cultural and social issues of today."

My Q&A with the author:

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

The title is an essential part of the story or experience; another writer told me the title is an advertisement and I think it’s true. Sometimes a title comes to me right away, before the thing is finished or even written. Other times it has been a struggle, and I've gone through many options before settling. One of Them is a title that came almost instantly and I think it’s perfect for this book.

What's in a name?

Names tell you a lot about a character right away. James Prescott III is going to conjure someone quite different than Isaac Hirshkowitz without even a word of description. I collect names that seem beautiful, quirky or even terrible for possible later use; it’s thing I’ve done for years. I knew a girl with the last name of Goldhush when I was a freshman in college and I used that name for one of my characters; I hadn’t even known I was storing it away. It doesn’t have to be a name I like, it needs to fit the character.

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

Well, my teen aged self had no idea I would be a writer at all, so I think she would be very surprised! In those years I was intent on becoming a ballet dance; writing was not on my mind at all.

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

It’s split pretty evenly. The beginning is super important, and maybe even harder because you’ve got the task of luring the reader in. By the ending, you’ve developed some momentum, and so that can carry you along in the writing.

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

My characters are both entirely me—I’ve created them after all—and not me at all, because they live in a fictional world that is not mine. Both things are true at the same time.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

I’ve found inspiration in a television series and have drawn ideas from stories I’ve been told or something I read in the newspaper. Inspiration is all around; you just have to be open enough to let it in.

Visit Kitty Zeldis's website

My Book, The Movie: Not Our Kind.

Writers Read: Kitty Zeldis (December 2018).

Coffee with a Canine: Kitty Zeldis & Dottie.

The Page 69 Test: Not Our Kind.

The Page 69 Test: The Dressmakers of Prospect Heights.

My Book, The Movie: One of Them.

--Marshal Zeringue

Stephanie Reents

Stephanie Reents is the author of The Kissing List, a collection of stories that was an Editors’ Choice in The New York Times Book Review, and I Meant to Kill Ye, a bibliomemoir chronicling her journey into the strange void at the heart of Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian. She has twice received an O. Henry Prize for her short fiction. Reents received a BA from Amherst College, where she ran on the cross country team all four years; a BA from the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar; and an MFA from the University of Arizona. She was a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University.

Reents's new novel is We Loved To Run.

My Q&A with the author:

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

We Loved To Run is a funny title because the first line of my novel is “We hated a lot of things…” followed by a whole list of running adjacent things my characters dislike, including their coaches. I knew from the very beginning that my novel would explore how my characters – the members of a women’s cross country team competing for a small New England college in the early 1990s – both love running and also hate it at times because of the amount of sacrifice involved in training to be fast and setting their sights on a spot at nationals. The first plural voice – “we” – is very important in my novel, which alternates between the communal voice of the team (which truly belongs to the team and not any single character) and the perspectives of two individual runners: Danielle, the team captain, and Kristin, a runner who is determined to steal the top spot from another runner. In my experience whenever a character insists on something – like “we loved to run” – you know their feelings about it are probably more complicated. As it so happens, my characters do love to run (and also hate it) and there are other less tangible challenges they’re trying to convince themselves they can overcome.

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

I ran in both high school and college, and so writing this book meant spending a lot of time with that distant teenage and young adult runner. (I’m in my 50s now.) I think she would love this novel because it’s about young female athletes: their physical strength and mental fortitude; the highs and lows of training, the thrill and heartbreak of racing; the complexity of team dynamics; and finally, the beautiful fierceness of women’s friendships. I didn’t know of a single book about women runners – or even women athletes – when I was growing up. There are a handful of novels about women sports now more than thirty-five years later, but we still need more!

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

I wrote the beginning of this novel in my first graduate school workshop in the late 1990s. Then it was the beginning of a short story that wasn’t very good. I remember a very cool man named Eli (who also happened to be a talented writer) scribbling on the back of my manuscript, “Find a plot!” What I did find was the communal voice of the team—which was still exciting to me twenty years later when I started working on this novel in earnest. The first lines of that story became the first lines of this novel; of course, once I began discovering the plot and getting to know the six cross country runners at the heart of my novel, I layered in more details to the opening chapter of my novel.

I love writing endings, and they’re also really hard to figure out. With We Loved to Run, I first tried an experimental shortcut way to get to the end of the novel, which failed because it was just a lame attempt to avoid writing the final section. Then, I wrote an ending that took me (and my characters) to the right place (an abandoned farmhouse) but missed the mark on tone and mood. Then, I got the tone and action right, but my editor suggested that the novel needed one more chapter.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

Walking both inspires me and fuels my creative process. I love what Rebecca Solnit says about web of connections between walking, observing, and thinking in her book, Wanderlust: “Walking, ideally, is a state in which the mind, the body, and the world are aligned, as though they were three characters finally in conversation together, three notes suddenly making a chord. Walking allows us to be in our bodies and in the world without being made busy by them. It leaves us free to think without being wholly lost in our thoughts.” I spent hours roaming Providence, where I was living when I started writing this book, and Seattle, where I moved with my family when I was finishing it. I also backpacked in the Sawtooth Mountains of Idaho and repeatedly climbed Old Steepie, a stretch of dirt road on an island in the San Juans, one of my very favorite places for writing and walking and thinking.

Visit Stephanie Reents's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Kissing List.

Writers Read: Stephanie Reents (June 2012).

--Marshal Zeringue

Marisa Silver

Marisa Silver is the author of the novels The Mysteries; Little Nothing; Mary Coin, a New York Times bestseller and winner of the Southern California Independent Bookseller’s Award; The God of War, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction; and No Direction Home. Her first collection of short stories, Babe in Paradise was named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and was a Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year. When her second collection, Alone with You was published, The New York Times called her “one of California’s most celebrated contemporary writers.” Her fiction has been included in The Best American Short Stories, the O. Henry Prize Stories, as well as other anthologies. She is a recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the Cullman Center for Scholars and writers. She lives in Los Angeles.

At Last is Silver's new novel.

My Q&A with the author:

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

At Last follows the lives of two women who enter into an uneasy, often competitive relationship when their children marry. The lengths they go to prove that they are the more essential matriarch is sometimes comic, sometimes heartbreaking and often both at the same time. But underneath all of their missteps lies their desire to love and be loved by their children, their granddaughter, and, in the strange ways that love shows up, by each other — at last.

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

I wasn’t the most dedicated reader as a kid. This is an understatement. My free time was mostly spent sitting in a swivel chair in our den daydreaming or staring out the window, observing people on the street, and wondering about their lives. My parents were great readers who considered reading to be maybe the only valuable way to spend your spare time. They found my lack of interest troubling, maybe a sign that I just wasn’t going to measure up to their hopes for me. Often, my mother would come to me with a book she’d just read and loved, urging it on me. And because I wanted to please her and maybe because I secretly believed my parents might be right, and that I wasn’t going to amount to much, I read what she gave me: the works of writers like Paula Fox, Toni Morrison, Alix Kates Schulman, Marge Piercy, Eudora Welty and Flannery O’Connor, to name a few. My mother was interested in the lives of women, and although I don’t think I would have been able to articulate this when I was a teenager, she was interested in the ways women claimed themselves in worlds where they were not always given agency. I like to think that had At Last been published when I was a kid, it would have been one of the books she would have found compelling for those same reasons and that she would have pressed it on me, and that I would have read it.

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings?

When I start a novel or a story, I feel like I’m circling a monolithic building that has no obvious doorway and I’m trying to figure out a way in. And then, after a lot of thinking, some pounding (i.e. my head against a wall) a little fissure opens up and I slip inside and begin. I tend to start in the middle of something that’s already going on. In the case of At Last, the two central characters are stuck in a car together as they make preparations for the wedding of their children. They’ve never met before. The intimacy of the tight space horrifies them both. This seemed like a great way to begin a story about the battle of two formidable wills.

I never know where I’m heading with a novel and so I don’t know where things will end up. I like to work this way. I want to discover and be surprised by what I write just as much as I want a reader to be surprised by how the novel delivers more than what might be obvious at the outset.

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

When I was a young girl, my parents would go on holidays and leave me and my older sister in the care of our grandmothers. One day, when one grandmother was driving us to the other’s house, she said “You love me more than you love her, don’t you?” I have never forgotten this, and I wrote At Last to explore what might have made her say that. But beyond that, the novel and its characters are imagined. Figuring out how to make a pure invention make what we think we are familiar with and know, unfamiliar and new – that, for me, that’s the challenge and the joy of writing.

Visit Marisa Silver's website.

The Page 69 Test: The God of War.

--Marshal Zeringue

Kathleen Barber

Kathleen Barber is the author of Truth Be Told (2017, originally published as Are You Sleeping), which was adapted into a series on AppleTV+ by Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine media company, and Follow Me (2020). A graduate of the University of Illinois and Northwestern University School of Law, she now lives in Washington, DC, with her husband and children.

Barber's new novel is Both Things Are True.

My Q&A with the author:

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

I usually really struggle with titles, but the title for Both Things Are True came to me not long after I started writing the book and just felt right. I don't want to share too much of the context because I don't want to give away any spoilers, but one of the characters says "both things are true" during a particularly emotionally charged moment in the book. It's a revelation for my protagonist, helping her realize that what she thought was black-and-white is actually more nuanced. It was important to me that the title reflected that growth (and the specific context in which it's said), although I don't expect readers to understand until they hit that portion of the novel. That said, I think the title both fits genre conventions and hints that there's a truth my protagonist has to learn, so I believe it gives readers an accurate representation of what's to come in the book.

What's in a name?

The protagonist of Both Things Are True is named Vanessa Summers. I chose Vanessa because she felt as though she should have a "V" first name (why? I'm not totally sure, she just felt like that to me), and I liked the different nicknames that Vanessa offered (Sam calls her "Ness," Jack calls her "V"). I chose Summers for her last name because it's bright and cheerful like her, and also because I wanted to remind myself to give her a bit of grit, à la Buffy Summers.

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

My teenage self would not be surprised at all. Both Things Are True is much closer to the stories I wrote as a teenager than my previous novels were. The stories I wrote then skewed romantic, and I'm almost certain that you could find a precursor to Vanessa and Sam in those old pages.

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

Endings are so, so hard! When you write the beginning of a book, what you're mainly doing is messing up the protagonist's life. That's fun and easy! Just throw a lot of obstacles at them! But when you write the ending, you have to not only solve all these problems you've created and tie up all the loose ends you've dropped, but you have to leave the characters in an authentic place. And that's the really tricky bit: you want to give your characters enough resolution so that the reader feels satisfied when they reach the end of the book, but also leave room for your characters to exist after the reader closes the book. If you've done it right and created lifelike characters, the reader shouldn't feel like the end of the book is The End for them.

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

There are aspects of me in all of my characters (even the worst ones, I'm sure) but that's largely not intentional. It's simply that I'm only human, and while I can do my best to imagine how a person different from me might react to or feel about any given situation, I'm necessarily filtering that through the lens of my own experience. Occasionally, though, I will give a character an experience I've had (for example, in Both Things Are True, Vanessa has been to yoga school in Rishikesh, and she and Sam visit Friar Tuck, a real bar in Chicago) but my goal is always to have my characters respond to those experiences in way that's true to them, rather than how I actually behaved.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

I see inspiration everywhere! For Both Things Are True, in particular, I was partially inspired by my interest in influencer culture (particularly yoga influencer culture) and my own experiences living in Chicago in my twenties. I'm also often inspired by music, and I usually make a playlist for each of my projects. The Both Things Are True playlist includes songs like "Love Is a Laserquest" by Arctic Monkeys (the best song about longing ever), "Mr. Brightside" by the Killers (one of Vanessa's favorite karaoke songs), and "I Will Always Love You" by Dolly Parton (I guess you'll have to read the book for that one!).

Visit Kathleen Barber's website.

The Page 69 Test: Follow Me.

Writers Read: Kathleen Barber (March 2020).

12 Yoga Questions with Kathleen Barber.

The Page 69 Test: Both Things Are True.

My Book, The Movie: Both Things Are True.

--Marshal Zeringue

D. W. Gillespie

Born and raised in Middle Tennessee, D.W. Gillespie has been daydreaming for as long as he can remember. His first short story was in second grade, and it involved (unsurprisingly) monsters wreaking havoc on some unsuspecting victim. Some things never change, and now Gillespie writes a healthy mixture of horror, sci-fi, and supernatural fiction.

He began writing seriously in 2002, and after winning the MacDougal Award for his short story "The Home", he's since been published many times in print and online. Gillespie's body of work includes a dozen novels and dozens of short stories, including the novels Still Dark, The Toy Thief, and One by One. In recent years, he’s moved into middle grade horror, and his new novels include Give Me Something Good to Eat and Grin.

My Q&A with the author:

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

With Grin, I knew I needed a title that could double duty. It’s the name of the book, but also the name of the arcade game inside the book. It’s short, simple, and hopefully intriguing for readers, especially when paired with that absolutely awesome cover.

What's in a name?

For me, names are always a gut feeling. I don’t spend a ton of time going through deeper meanings or trying to be overly symbolic with my character names, but they do have to feel right if that makes sense.

Danny is a sweet kid, but he’s also anxious and unsure of himself. Contrast that with Uncle Bill who is straight to the point, simple, and uncomplicated.

One fun bit of trivia about his friend Jodi… I don’t know where the name came from, but it just sort of landed on the page and I ran with it. She’s artistic and a little quirky, and the name just clicked. But during edits, my publisher was a little concerned that the name might seem out of place for a kid that age (admittedly, it does sound like an 80’s name). I was prepared to change it, but on the next round of edits, they said, “Nevermind…she’s Jodi. It just fits!”

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

I have asked myself that question a lot, and I usually don’t have a great answer. But for Grin, I’m pretty sure my younger self would be thrilled. Knowing that I took my lifelong love of videogames and turned it into a book is something both thrilling and special to me.

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

I usually know where I’m going, even if I might change paths to get there. Very early on in the process, I knew exactly how the “big showdown” at the end of the book was going to play out, and it was more a case of just getting the chess pieces in place so to speak. I will say the “to be continued” final chapter was a surprise!

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

It’s a boring answer, but yes and no to both questions. They’re all me. The good guys, the bad guys, the ones that are more heroic than I could ever be, and the ones that do horribly unspeakable things. I’m all of them, which is another way of saying, I’m none of them!

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

This is another easy answer, but when people read this book, they’ll understand that it wouldn’t exist without my love of gaming. I’m sure someone could have conjured this same idea, but it would likely be drastically different. There’s a nuance to my pointlessly encyclopedic knowledge of gaming’s history that bleeds through the pages. If anything, I had to tone some of that back to keep from boring non-gamers.

Visit D. W. Gillespie's website.

My Book, The Movie: Grin.

--Marshal Zeringue

Arbor Sloane

Arbor Sloane grew up in the Midwest and earned her master’s degree of English at Iowa State University. She now teaches community college courses and resides with her family in the Des Moines area.

Sloane's new novel is Not Who You Think.

My Q@A with the author:

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

Titles are a tricky thing. The author might come up with a title that they feel encapsulates their book perfectly, but publishers could find that it's not as marketable as they would like. This is the case of Not Who You Think. Originally, I called the book Beyond the Glass because the book is about monsters who hide behind a computer screen, pretending to be harmless when they're really predators looking for their next victim. But I could see how that idea might not be immediately apparent to readers, so I think the alternate title works better. It hints that people are not always what they seem in a catchier way.

What's in a name?

Generally, I don't use a lot of symbolism when naming my characters. I usually just research the time frame in which the story takes place and select the most popular baby names. However, in Not Who You Think, I named the main character Amelia Child because before she begins her research on serial killers, she is obviously much more innocent than she is once she's learned the entire story of Gerald Shapiro, the original catfish killer. There might also be some more significance to the name, but I don't want to spoil the story too much.

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

I don't think I would be too surprised that I ended up writing thrillers. My favorite author when I was in high school was Stephen King, and I always enjoyed reading darker, more disturbing stories.

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

I think beginnings and endings are both difficult in their own ways. Beginnings are tough, at least for me, because I have no idea what direction they will take (I'm a true panster through and through), and the road ahead of me is long and uncertain. And, because I write thrillers, endings are hard because they have to tie in all the clues and everything has to make sense. Since I'm a pantser, I tend to go on a lot of side quests, and not all of them end up being significant. I end up having to go back and rewrite the beginning to make it all cohesive.

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

In particular, the main character in Not Who You Think struggles with some of the same things I am navigating at this time in life. There's a lot of exploration of female relationships, specifically the mother-daughter dynamic. Like me, Amelia Child is plagued by the atrocities that humankind is capable of and wants to explore what contributes psychologically to shape the minds of such monsters. She has written a book that she's apprehensive about her teenage daughter reading due to its focus on violence. Amelia has also lost her mother, which is a grief I'm still working through. Essentially, there are questions about how a mother's negative experiences might affect her daughter and whether that trauma may be mitigated somehow.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

As I mentioned in the previous question, I'm extremely interested in what drives people who commit terrible crimes. I remember being in college when Columbine happened, and I just couldn't fathom what went on in the heads of those boys to have so little regard for human life. Even worse was Sandy Hook. What horrific experiences did that kid have that could make him so evil that he'd be able to put a gun in a child's face and pull the trigger? I think that question is what drove me to write this book. Are serial killers born or made? Is there any way to prevent such annihilation in the future?

Follow Arbor Sloane on Instagram.

The Page 69 Test: Not Who You Think.

--Marshal Zeringue