Stephen Kiernan

Stephen Kiernan's new novel is The Curiosity.

From his Q & A with Tim Powers at Amazon.com:

Tim Powers: Where did you get the initial idea for the book?

Stephen P. Kiernan: I heard a song by James Taylor and thought it would make a good novel. But I stewed on the idea for 18 years, because it had a missing ingredient I couldn’t identify. Then I was biking in Italy with two writer friends, and one night I shared both the story and my problem with it. One friend said: “It needs a beautiful woman.” The other added, “Who is smarter than everyone else.” Geniuses. After that, the book nearly wrote itself. The final novel bore as much resemblance to the song as an oak does to an acorn, but that initial nut was essential.

TP: You’ve written nonfiction for decades. The Curiosity is your first novel. Was it easier or harder to write?

SPK: Imagine an artist painting a still life without the actual fruit and flowers in front of him. He must work without the benefit of light on the apples just so, and without the discipline of rendering the peonies precisely as he sees them. But he also has the freedom to add pomegranates, if he thinks it will make a better picture. This novel was like that, both liberating and challenging, with the writing entirely in service of...[read on]

Visit Stephen Kiernan's website and blog.

--Marshal Zeringue