Paula Brackston

Paula Brackston is the author of a travel book, The Dragon's Trail and the novels The Midnight Witch, The Witch's Daughter, and The Winter Witch. She has an MA in Creative Writing from Lancaster University in the UK, and her autobiographical writing has been published in several anthologies.

From her Q & A at The Lit Bitch:

The Lit Bitch: What was your original idea for the witch books and how did it first develop? Did you have an idea or an outline for The Midnight Witch before you started writing it? Did the direction change once you sat down to being working on it?

Paula Brackston: It all started with Elizabeth Hawksmith. I didn’t set out to write ‘witchy books’. I wanted to write historical fiction, and my research led me to look at witchcraft in the seventeenth century. I began to ask myself, what if some of those women accused of witchcraft were actually real witches?

As for The Midnight Witch, I had a hankering for a glamorous setting this time, and a wealthy protagonist. We are accustomed to the idea of women being victims in history because they often had so little power, even over their own lives. This time I wrote a woman who, on the face of it, had everything: privilege, wealth, a title, beauty, a powerful family. I wondered what sort of witch such a woman would make. What obstacles and conflicts might she face?

I do...[read on]

Visit Paula Brackston's website.

Writers Read: Paula Brackston (February 2013).

Coffee with a Canine: Paula Brackston & Bluebell.

--Marshal Zeringue

Hank Phillippi Ryan

From the book jacket of Hank Phillippi Ryan’s latest novel, Truth Be Told:

While digging up the facts on a heartbreaking story about a middle-class family evicted from their suburban home—and on other foreclosures—reporter Jane Ryland soon learns the truth behind a big-bucks scheme and the surprising players who will stop at nothing, including murder, to keep their goal a secret. Turns out, there's more than one way to rob a bank.

From the author's Q & A at Writers Who Kill:

Jane Ryland, your main character, and her cameraman, TJ Foy, are covering a story about an eviction. They attend the clearing of a house by police when it becomes obvious they have found something nefarious in the house. Is it typical that one story leads to another?

HANK: TRUTH BE TOLD did come from an actual story! My photographer and I were covering an eviction, lots of deputies and lots of commotion and lots of trash in the front yard. It was incredibly sad. Unlike Jane in the book, I did not know who owned the home. We were just getting video for a story I was working on about mortgage fraud.

At one point a deputy came to the front door, I saw his silhouette outlined in the door frame. His whole body sagged, his shoulders, his head. So telling and so emotional. And I wondered… What if he just found a body in a back room?

Remember the deputies had been there for hours, cleaning out the house. And I thought—as a crime fiction author, of course: law-enforcement officers themselves have been inside that house, touching everything and moving everything around. What if they have ruined a crime scene? What if the cops ruined their own crime scene!

And the more I thought about it, the more I thought...[read on]

--Marshal Zeringue

Dylan Landis

Dylan Landis is the author of a debut novel, Rainey Royal, and a linked story collection, Normal People Don't Live Like This. Her work has appeared in the O. Henry Prize Stories 2014, the New York Times, Tin House, BOMB and elsewhere. She lives in New York.

From her Q & A with Jennifer Smeth at Book-alicious Mama:

In your first book, Normal People Don’t Live Like This, we see the characters Rainey and Leah. What made you decide to continue on with these characters in Rainey Royal, and make a whole book dedicated to Rainey?

Rainey appears in only the first two stories of Normal People Don’t Live Like This—in “Jazz,” her father’s best friend has pinned her to the ground in the dark, in Central Park, and in “Fire,” she’s a bully, and there’s a causal link, of course. And then she disappears from the book, because it’s really about Leah Levinson, who’s obsessed with science and stealing and fast girls, and whose mother is starving herself. Readers asked me, What happened to Rainey; will she get her own book? I found she was still alive to me.

If someone hasn’t read Normal People Don’t Live Like This, will they “miss” a connection with Rainey?

Rainey Royal builds on Normal People Don’t Live Like This, but it’s complete unto itself.

What was the inspiration for Rainey Royal?

Being teased, on the one hand, and being a bad girl myself on the other, and having a lifelong fascination with the tough girls. They always seemed to...[read on]

Visit Dylan Landis's website.

Writers Read: Dylan Landis (November 2009).

The Page 69 Test: Rainey Royal.

--Marshal Zeringue

Zachary Lazar

Zachary Lazar is the author of the novels I Pity the Poor Immigrant and Sway, and the memoir Evening's Empire.

From his Q & A with Deborah Kalb:

Q: Why did you decide to include Meyer Lansky as one of the main characters in [I Pity the Poor Immigrant]?

A: My previous book, Evening’s Empire, was a nonfiction book about my father, who was murdered by two contract killers when I was six years old.

That story is very complicated, but it introduced me to the world of organized crime, and in particular the Jewish iteration of organized crime. I began to get more and more interested in the way Jewish gangsters have been represented.

They are often romanticized, or caricatured, in a way that obscures the reality of how violent they were. The idea of violent Jews is still surprising to people. Many Jews, at least American Jews, don't know how to process the information.

Since the book came out, I have met dozens of people who are eager to tell me that they had a relative who knew Meyer Lansky. It seems...[read on]

Learn more about I Pity the Poor Immigrant at the Little, Brown and Company website.

Lazar's novel Sway is on the list of forty-six essential rock reads.

My Book, The Movie: Sway and the Page 69 Test: Sway.

The Page 69 Test: Evening's Empire.

The Page 69 Test: I Pity the Poor Immigrant.

--Marshal Zeringue

Kelli Stanley

Kelli Stanley is a critically-acclaimed, multiple award-winning author of crime fiction (novels and short stories). She makes her home in Dashiell Hammett’s San Francisco, a city she loves to write about.

Stanley is best known for the Miranda Corbie series of historical noir novels and short stories set in 1940 San Francisco. The first novel of the series, City of Dragons, introduced Miranda, the unforgettable protagonist Library Journal calls "one of crime’s most arresting heroines.”

City of Dragons won the Macavity Award for Best Historical Novel, and was nominated for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, a Shamus Award, a Bruce Alexander Award and an RT Book Reviews Award, was a Mystery Guild selection of the month, and placed on many “best of the year” lists.

City of Secrets, the sequel to City of Dragons, was released by Thomas Dunne/Minotaur to great critical acclaim, was nominated for a number of awards and won the Golden Nugget for best mystery set in California.

Stanley's latest novel in the series is City of Ghosts.

From the author's Q & A with Daniel Ford for Writer's Bone:

DF: You’re best known for your Miranda Corbie series of historical noir novels and short stories set in 1940 San Francisco—which include City of Ghosts, City of Secrets, and City of Dragons. What drew you to noir and who were some of your early influences? What made you decide 1940s San Francisco as a setting?

KS: I’ve always been drawn to the period of American history from the 1920s through the end of the WWII. I’ve also always adored film noir. As a little girl, I could do a mean Jimmy Cagney impression! I must have been born with a noir gene. Not many people in my third grade class could figure out why I was writing a play about gangsters, spies, and an unfaithful, treacherous girlfriend.

My actual taste of literary noir didn’t come until I was an adult, however. I grew up reading Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie as a child (and Dame Agatha is far darker than many people think).

Raymond Chandler was my first real writing teacher. I devoured everything he wrote, and realized style, as he once said (and I paraphrase) is all a writer really has to call her own, so you need to develop it, hone it, and protect it. Hammett followed—to him, I owe the importance of existential, tough-as-nails realism, the moral force of class warfare, and the beauty of...[read on]

Learn more about the novel and author at Kelli Stanley's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Kelli Stanley & Bertie.

The Page 69 Test: City of Dragons.

The Page 69 Test: City of Secrets.

The Page 69 Test: City of Ghosts.

My Book, The Movie: City of Ghosts.

--Marshal Zeringue

Maureen Corrigan

Maureen Corrigan’s new book, So We Read On: How The Great Gatsby Came to Be and Why It Endures, takes its title from the last line of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby.

From Corrigan's Q & A with Laurie Hertzel for the Star Tribune:

Q: You call “Gatsby” the “one great American novel we think we’ve read but probably haven’t.” What do you mean?

A: We usually read “Gatsby” in high school when we’re too young to understand the regret and sense of loss that pervades the novel. Every character in “Gatsby” is stretching out his or her arms for someone or something eternally out of reach.

Gatsby stretches out his arms for Daisy (symbolized by that much-discussed green light at the end of her dock). Nick is reaching for his friend Gatsby, who’s dead at the beginning of this retrospective novel; Myrtle is reaching for Tom; Wilson is reaching for Myrtle, and on and on.

I think, as high school readers, we tend to be less alert to all this frustrated yearning and, instead, focus on the giddy exuberance of Gatsby’s parties and the obsessiveness of Gatsby’s love for Daisy.

We read the novel as a tragic romance rather than as a profound commentary on...[read on]

--Marshal Zeringue

Jodi Picoult

Jodi Picoult's newest novel is Leaving Time.

From her Q & A with Caroline Leavitt:

I always have to ask, what sparked this particular novel?

JP: I have three kids, and my daughter – my youngest – was getting ready to go to college, which meant I’d be an empty nester. It was daunting, to say the least. Then I read a fact: In the wild, an elephant mother and daughter stay together until one of them dies. I thought, How enlightened! Why can’t we be like that!? I began to do a little digging on elephants, and learned how advanced their cognition is. And when I discovered that they actually grieve and experience and process loss, I was completely hooked, and knew I would be writing about what it meant to be left behind…and also that I had my profession for the character of Alice.

I know you actually worked with the elephants at an elephant sanctuary in Tennessee. Did you have any preconceived ideas that were changed by your experience? What surprised you the most?

JP: I was privileged to spend time at The Elephant Sanctuary – and I really do mean that, because the whole point of the sanctuary is that their elephants are no longer on display but in a lovely retirement setting. Since this was my first experience with elephants I didn’t have many preconceived notions, but I was...[read on]

--Marshal Zeringue

Laird Hunt

Laird Hunt is the award-winning author of a book of short stories, mock parables and histories, The Paris Stories (2000), and five novels from Coffee House Press: The Impossibly (2001), Indiana, Indiana (2003), The Exquisite (2006) Ray of the Star (2009) and Kind One (2012), which was a finalist for both the 2013 Pen/Faulkner award and the 2013 Pen USA Literary Award in Fiction and the winner of a 2013 Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Fiction.

Hunt's new novel is Neverhome.

From his Q & A with Simon McDonald at The Reading Room:

The narrator of Neverhome is Ash Thompson: a young woman who passes herself off as a man in order to go to war to defend the Republic. What was the inspiration for Ash, and her journey?

Hundreds of actual women did this during the American Civil War. I first learned about them when my wife gave me a copy of Sarah Rosetta Wakeman’s war letters. Wakeman disguised herself as a man and went to fight for the Union using the first name Lyons. That gift from my wife came 18 years ago, meaning it took me some 14 or 15 years to find my way to the first line of the novel and the story that poured out of it. There were so many reasons these women went to war and as I wrote (I do a good portion of my research as I am writing) I learned more and more about them. They went for adventure, patriotism, opportunity, love and other reasons. In many cases, we don’t know why they went, only that they were there. The character that came to me has her own very personal and complex reasons for going to war. A large part of the impetus for telling the story has to do with exploring those reasons and perhaps, simultaneously, shedding light on the multi-faceted humanity both of Ash and...[read on]

Visit Laird Hunt's website, Facebook page, and Twitter perch.

The Page 69 Test: Neverhome.

My Book, The Movie: Neverhome.

Writers Read: Laird Hunt.

--Marshal Zeringue

Michael Blanding

Michael Blanding is a Boston-based investigative journalist whose work has appeared in The Nation, The New Republic, Salon, Consumers Digest, The Boston Globe Magazine, and Boston Magazine. His first book, The Coke Machine: The Dirty Truth Behind the World's Favorite Soft Drink, was published by Avery/Penguin in 2010. His new book is The Map Thief: The Gripping Story of an Esteemed Rare-Map Dealer Who Made Millions Stealing Priceless Maps.

From Blanding's Q & A with Ulrich Boser:

Why did you write this book?

I’ve been a lover of maps since a young age – something about looking at map immediately makes me excited about traveling and discovering new places. So when I first heard about Smiley’s case back in 2005 I was very intrigued by his story and this world of rare-map collectors it involves. In 2011, I was complaining to a journalist friend that I didn’t have any good story ideas, and she mentioned that Smiley had just been released from prison and I should try and interview him. As soon as I spoke to him, I knew that I had the subject for a fascinating book that would be part psychological profile of a thief, part history of mapmaking, and part investigation into this obscure subculture.

Why does it matter?

Maps have been incredibly important documents over the centuries — they have helped to discover new territories, define boundaries, establish trading empires, and win wars. And yet, most people don’t know a lot about them. Many of these historical maps exist in only a few copies safeguarded by rare-book libraries and other institutions and so when someone steals or defaces them, they are changing our understanding of history. The fact that it was a lover of and dealer in rare maps who was doing the stealing intrigued me and made me ask...[read on]

Visit Michael Blanding's website.

The Page 99 Test: The Map Thief.

--Marshal Zeringue

Stephan Eirik Clark

Stephan Eirik Clark was born in West Germany and raised between England and the United States. He is the author of the short story collection Vladimir's Mustache. A former Fulbright Fellow to Ukraine, he teaches English at Augsburg College in Minneapolis. His recently released debut novel is Sweetness #9.

From Clark's Q & A with J. A. Bernstein for Fiction Writers Review:

Clearly your novel, like many of DeLillo’s, takes aim at a number of American institutions: corporatism, fast-food, suburbia, upward mobility, Reaganism, the Cold War, the military-industrial complex, self-improvement, weight loss, consumerism. Did you set out to target any of these things, or did they just fall into line?

All along, I knew I wanted to tell a big story—that of America in the 20th Century, that most American of time periods. So much in the country changed after World War II, and the books I admire most have tried to reflect that change, in whole or in part. What I didn’t want to do was tell this story in a way that readers had already seen, so I grew very excited when I discovered the world of flavor creation. It offered me so much that was unique and unexplored: a workplace that hadn’t yet been the setting of a work of fiction, industry-specific jargon and speech, and a whole range of metaphors and products through which I could discuss American life.

More than anything, I wanted this book to take on the processed food industry. As a satirist, I wanted my novel to serve as a kind of corrective to it, if only by asking readers to question what it is they’re eating. But the food industry doesn’t exist in a vacuum, so it’s what it reveals about American life that is...[read on]

Visit Stephan Eirik Clark's website.

My Book, The Movie: Sweetness #9.

The Page 69 Test: Sweetness #9.

--Marshal Zeringue