Kelly Harms

Kelly Harms's new novel is The Overdue Life of Amy Byler.

From her Q&A with Deborah Kalb:

Q: How did you come up with the idea for The Overdue Life of Amy Byler, and for your character Amy?

A: I find that most of my story ideas are cooked up from a little bit of my own personal escapism with just a sprinkling of cultural subversion. As a single mom myself, it wasn't hard to dream up a situation where a woman would want to step out of her daily toil and try the road not traveled.

But the subversion comes in when you understand just how much messaging is out there about what a single mother should be. Our culture reveres and abhors single mothers in equal parts, and places expectations on such women that are absolutely untenable, and the more I dug into that, the more I realized it applied to...[read on]

Learn more about the book and author at the official Kelly Harms website, Facebook page, and Twitter perch.

The Page 69 Test: The Good Luck Girls of Shipwreck Lane.

--Marshal Zeringue