Sarahlyn Bruck

Sarahlyn Bruck writes contemporary, book club fiction and is the award-winning author of three novels: Light of the Fire (2024), Daytime Drama (2021), and Designer You (2018). When she’s not writing, Bruck moonlights as a full-time writing and literature professor at a local community college. She’s also a co-host of the pop culture podcast, Pretty Much Pop. From Northern California, Bruck now lives in Philadelphia with her family.

My Q&A with the author:

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

I love this question because I do sweat the title. It takes awhile for me to find the right fit. First off, I like a title that hints at a meaning or theme of my book, and I think Light of the Fire does that.

But this was not my original title. The original title was Offside, which is a soccer reference. It does very little to indicate what the book is really about—two estranged high school besties and former soccer teammates, who are forced to face a twenty-year-old accident that was blamed on someone else. It is something they’ve kept secret for all these years and that subsequently destroyed their friendship. Now, when circumstances bring the two together again, they must decide to what extent they’ll go to keep their secret hidden or face the consequences of finally coming clean. It’s a story about the power of friendship, forgiveness, and healing from past mistakes.

My editor at Lake Union suggested we change the title and came up with Light of the Fire, which hints at the women’s rekindled friendship, the fear they each have as they muster the courage to live outside of their comfort zones, as well as the secret they’ve kept hidden all this time. Are they willing to finally face the consequences of their twenty-year mistake?

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

My teenage reader self might not be too surprised—though the focus is truly on the friendship between Beth and Ally who are the two main characters, to a certain extent the book takes place in the soccer world. I played soccer all through high school and think it’s not exactly a shocker that I chose to incorporate this piece of my life into one of my books. It’s definitely a personal slice of my past that made it into this story.

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

Definitely beginnings. Early in the writing process, I like knowing how the book will end because endings are what I write toward. Sometimes those endings change or shift around a bit. But even if I need to make a pivot at the end, it’s as an organic result of the story leading up to it.

Beginnings are different. A beginning that felt right for me when I started might not work once I get to the editing stage. Or once I send the draft to my beta readers or my editor. So for me, my beginnings can take many, many tries to get right. It’s important that a story start in the right place. I want my readers to be drawn in.

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

Sure, I think there’s a little bit of me in each of my characters. But, one of the best parts of creative writing for me is immersing myself in characters who are very different from me. I love finding connections with my characters–they end up feeling like real people to me–and I think those connections come from relatability. And that’s kind of the beauty of it, right? We can relate, we can empathize with people who experience the world differently.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

I’m inspired by movies and television for sure–I love all forms of storytelling. But I’m also inspired by conversations I overhear at a restaurant or by people I see on the subway. I live in Philadelphia, so just being out and about can influence whatever it is I might be working on at the moment.

Visit Sarahlyn Bruck's website.

My Book, The Movie: Light of the Fire.

--Marshal Zeringue

Alexander Sammartino

Alexander Sammartino lives in Brooklyn. He received his MFA from Syracuse University.

His new novel is Last Acts.

My Q&A with the author:

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

A good amount, I think. It establishes a mood, a feeling.

What's in a name?

Oh, so much. Theories about naming—like Kripke’s idea that the meaning of a name is identical to its referent, or Frege’s notion that there’s some abstract sense a name also refers to—have long fascinated me. When writing, I try to take each opportunity for a name as its own situation. Sometimes I might choose a name to create a sense of geographic or historical realism, and, other times, I might choose something that sounds poetic or funny to call extra attention to that character or that location. The names all depend on how they fit into what’s happening in the story, the context.

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

Beginnings, definitely. For me, that’s where all of the pressure is. If the beginning does not work, there will be no ending, because a good ending comes naturally if the beginning has been logically pursued. The beginning is overwhelming because the logic does not exist yet. You have to start, somehow, even when there are so many possibilities. I’ll constantly change an opening, constantly revise an opening. I also know for me, as a reader, I can forgive a bad ending, but a bad beginning? I’ll drop a book if I’m not intrigued by the first paragraph.

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

I do, I do, and I wish there was less. I feel like a narcissist sometimes, but what can you do? I know there are people who say you have little control over the story you tell, over what you’re obsessed with, and the emotions of my characters, many of which I experience, are something I want to examine. Robert Bresson said his films were driven by what he wanted his viewers to feel. If I think my own particular emotional experience might seem worth analyzing, it can be the inspiration around which to construct a scene.

Visit Alexander Sammartino's website.

The Page 69 Test: Last Acts.

--Marshal Zeringue

Lea Carpenter

Lea Carpenter is the author of the novels Eleven Days (2013), Red, White, Blue (2018), and Ilium (2024).

She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Princeton and has an MBA from Harvard Business School, where she was valedictorian. Carpenter has written the screenplay for Mile 22, a film about CIA’s Special Activities Division, directed by Peter Berg and starring Mark Wahlberg and John Malkovich.

My Q&A with the author:

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

Probably not enough, if I am honest. The story of the novel all started when I saw a series, or “cycle,” of paintings by Cy Twombly, one of my favorite artists, called Fifty Days at Iliam. Iliam, for Twombly, was with an “a” not a “u,” which makes it foreign, yet uncanny. The paintings are Twombly’s take on the Trojan War, which is a war that has hung around, or over, so much of what I have written, beginning with Eleven Days, my first novel. That title referred to the eleven-day period at the end of the Trojan war when Achilles agrees to stand down his army to allow Priam to properly bury his son, Hector, who was killed by Achilles to avenge the death of Achilles’s best friend, Patroclus. Cycles of violence: the idea that all conflicts are at risk of becoming “forever” (the word Dexter Filkins brilliantly affixed to the terror wars) is at the center of a lot of what I write and is certainly at the center of Ilium. Hopefully by the end of the novel, which I close with a quote from Emily Wilson’s translation of The Odyssey, the reader will like the reference in the title. I have never been very good at titles though. It is hard to top the best ones. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. Or The Thin Red Line. Everything I have ever titled is an attempt to get closer to that kind of feeling.

What's in a name?

A lot can be in a name, I think. If we are talking about titles think about Slouching Towards Bethlehem. Everything is there about, in that case, what Didion was trying to say about the sixties. If we are talking about character names, I just wrote a novel where my narrator/heroine does not have a name. Names are hard. Aaron Sorkin, I have heard, gives his characters names of NFL players in early drafts. There is a needle to be threaded with a name between “Johnny” and “Huckelberry,” isn’t there. You want to be new, unique, but you also do not want to sound ridiculous. My own name, Lea, is pronounced “Lee,” and that’s been an ongoing thing in my life. And yet I love my name as I was named after my godmother, my mother’s best friend, and a woman who had a critical impact on me. I love carrying her name and trying to live up to certain things she exemplified. She was fearless. She never suffered a fool, not one. My mother is like that, too. And my mother has a great name: Carroll.

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

Not surprised at all. My teenage self was constantly imagining elaborate stories in which I was the heroine, usually being rescued or working on a rescue mission, which is preposterous as I grew up in a small very quiet town. I recently started watching Fauda, the television series, and have thought more than once that the show reminds me of my teenage hallucinations about what I could be, a kind of warrior on a complex mission where everything is at stake, but my hair is still perfect. Little did I know, then, that my father had had so many experiences that could have informed those inner monologues, and those dreams. I never asked him about his life before me. Children are narcissists in that way. Children look ahead. He died before I became a writer.

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

I once heard John Irving deliver a talk in which he said he always writes endings first, then starts at the beginning writing towards that moment. He talked about A Prayer for Owen Meany, and the scene where everyone is holding Owen in the air, and how he knew he would be writing towards that moment. In the novels, I have had a sense of the endings in each one, but I did not write them down until the end of the process. Endings, in theory, should be harder, as they will be what the reader is most likely to remember., at least if we trust neuroscience. I have always re-written my openings. With Ilium, I wrote an entirely new first chapter just before the pages were typeset. I need to have the reader glimpse the third person, which returns at the very end, so that the end felt less like an exotic add on than like a revelation, along the lines of oh I get it all now.

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

As a writer you are all of your characters, I think. And yet, like my silly teenage self (or, my ambitious dreamer teenage self) I write about exotic people and places. Warriors, spies, diplomats, Navy SEALs, oligarchs. I have not been afraid to write into these kinds of people, and in this way, John le Carré was a true inspiration for Ilium, too. Le Carré knows the spy world is, above all, just a really fine metaphor for how we all live, only heightened. If you’re going to be betrayed, why not be betrayed by an arms dealer, or a princess? Ditto for falling in love. Falling in love with a prince is a story as old as time but that can end (as we all now know, and if you don’t know, watch The Crown) just as tragically as falling in love with an arms dealer. Richard Roper, in The Night Manager, is a sort of irresistible arms dealer. The finest villains are usually irresistible.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

My father, though he was very literary, so perhaps he does not count. He, and who he was, runs through all my work. I am inspired by visual art, too, painting in particular, which plays a central role in Ilium. I have learned a lot from television, a distinctly non-literary form, and one that can be a master class in plot and story architecture. And travel is always inspiring. I love writing about places I have either been or dream to see. I wrote a screenplay last year set in Niseko, Japan, mainly as I wanted an excuse to go there and see the Ice Village. So, people and places. People and places, and HBO.

--Marshal Zeringue

Nashae Jones

Nashae Jones is a kid lit writer, because at an early age she learned what the magic of books could do for a developing mind. She always dreamed of creating worlds that would stay for a reader long after they put down their books. Jones is also an educator and book reviewer (kid books, of course). She lives in Virginia with her husband, daughter, son, escape artist husky, and two black cats that Jones is convinced are reincarnations of Pinky and the Brain.

Her new novel is Courtesy of Cupid.

My Q&A with the author:

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

My title went through many different iterations. While writing my first draft, my book took on the working title Cupidly Ever After. Before going on submission to editors, we decided to change the name to Stupid Cupid, something my agent and I felt reflected the clumsy actions of the book’s demi-god protagonist. After the book got acquired by Aladdin, and the book went through editorial changes, we decided as a team to change the name again, finding that Courtesy of Cupid was the perfect title to reflect the quirky humor and sweetness in the book.

What's in a name?

I wish there was something that I could point to as distinctly literary about my characters’ names, but instead my characters are named based off of people and things that I love. My protagonist, Erin Johnson, has the nickname EJ which pays homage to my husband’s family. He and his siblings all go by nicknames that end in J. Other characters are ripped from my everyday life. For example, Erin’s English teacher, Ms. Richmond, is modeled and named after my real-life friend.

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

I think my teenage self would’ve enjoyed reading my novel. It would have made me laugh, and it would’ve brought me joy. I think at the same time, I would’ve also been hard on myself for reading something that was very clearly genre-fiction. Teenage me was a bit of a snob.

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

I think there is something invigorating about starting a new project. I’m fresh-faced and filled with hope, and it is always easier for me to come up with beginnings to my stories. Conclusions are definitely harder for me since by the time I reach the end of the story, I’m anxious to be finished.

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

The character I connect with most in my book is my protagonist, Erin's, mother. Erin’s mother ghostwrites romance books, and she throws Erin a Valentine’s Day themed birthday party even though Erin despises Valentine’s Day. As a mother of a tween and teen, I understand how mothers can sometimes misconstrue what their children want.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

As an eighties baby, I love older eighties and nineties music, tv shows, and movies. I find that, subconsciously, a lot of eighties and nineties references slip into my writing.

Visit Nashae Jones's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Lucy Connelly

Lucy Connelly loves traveling the world, but her favorite place is at home with her dogs and family. That said, she's always up for adventure and is constantly on the lookout for killer inspiration--as in who will be the next killer in her books? She has a master's degree in humanities and enjoys learning all the things. And she's been published by many other names.

Connelly's new novel is Death at a Scottish Wedding.

My Q&A with the author:

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

Death at a Scottish Wedding tells the reader precisely what they are getting into with this mystery.

What's in a name?

Dr. Emilia McRoy name means strong woman. That’s why I picked it. I gave her a Scottish last name because looking into her heritage, something she knows little about is integral to finding her place in the world.

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

My teenage self would be astonished that I wrote a book, but maybe not that it was a mystery. I’ve always loved mystery novels. The genre has been a favorite since those Nancy Drew books from my childhood.

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings?

Beginnings are the most difficult. It is the introduction into the world that is the novel. Which do you change more? My endings tend to come more naturally than beginnings do. So, I probably change the beginnings much more often. However, sometimes the person I thought was the killer changes by the end of the book.

Do you see much of yourself in your characters?

A bit of the writer slips into their main characters. I tend to write about strong women with great friend groups that are supportive and kind. That’s where real life may bleed into the work. I don’t know what I would do without my friends.

Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?

This depends on the book I’m writing. Dr. Emilia McRoy in Death at a Scottish Wedding is someone different from me. However, we have some things in common, like those strong friend groups. She’s much braver than I could ever be.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

Scotland was a big inspiration for this series. It’s a beautiful country, and the people there are fantastic.

Visit Lucy Connelly's website.

The Page 69 Test: Death at a Scottish Wedding.

--Marshal Zeringue

Katia Lief

Katia Lief is the author of A Map of the Dark and Last Night published by Mulholland Books/Little, Brown under the pseudonym Karen Ellis. Earlier work includes USA Today and international bestselling novels Five Days in Summer, One Cold Night, and The Money Kill, the fourth installment of her Karin Schaeffer series published by HarperCollins and nominated for the Mary Higgins Clark Award. She teaches fiction writing at The New School in Manhattan and lives with her family in Brooklyn.

Lief's new novel is Invisible Woman.

My Q&A with the author:

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

The title Invisible Woman should instantly tell the reader a lot about the book. It clearly imparts a sentiment that we women often experience the world from behind a veil of invisibility, overlooked and silenced and unheard. Since the #MeToo and #TimesUp movements burst on the scene in 2018 and ripped the veil aside, we’ve at least been able to openly name the experience. The novel’s protagonist Joni peers back into her past through a newly focused lens and is surprised by what she sees. There’s also a hidden secret tucked into the title that reveals itself much later in the book; obviously I won’t discuss that here.

What's in a name?

Joni Ackerman is the novel’s main character. Joni comes from my love of Joni Mitchell’s music. Ackerman was a name that felt right for reasons I can’t begin to explain.

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

My teenage self wouldn’t be at all surprised that her older self wrote this novel because she never hesitated to say exactly what she thought. What would surprise (and disappoint) her would be learning that the times of her future life would not have kept the promises of her youth. In the seventies, when I was a teenager, the second wave of feminism was everywhere. In the idealism of my youth, I never imagined how quickly it would vanish.

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

The beginnings are much harder. There’s so much to do at the start of a novel, from jump starting the plot to creating characters to establishing place. They’re all important and they have to develop simultaneously. I will go back again and again until the beginning is just right, and once the first draft is finished it’s not unusual for me to completely rewrite the first chapter.

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

The answer is yes and no. Characters grow out of a writer’s imagination, and the stuff of our imagination is fed by the world around us as it’s filtered through our perceptions. In other worlds, our minds are a filter for the world, and what gets in becomes the material we work with. So yes, in that sense, I’m in all my characters. No one character, though, is literally ‘me.’

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

Everything!

Visit Katia Lief's website.

The Page 69 Test: Next Time You See Me.

My Book, The Movie: Next Time You See Me.

The Page 69 Test: Vanishing Girls.

My Book, The Movie: The Money Kill.

The Page 69 Test: Last Night.

--Marshal Zeringue

Angela Brown

Angela Brown’s work has appeared in the New York Times, Real Simple, and other publications. She holds an MFA from Fairleigh Dickinson University. She lives in New Jersey with her husband and two young children, where she is currently at work on her second novel.

Brown's debut novel is Olivia Strauss Is Running Out of Time.

My Q&A with the author:

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

If I’m being honest, I really love the title and think it captures so much about the story that readers will discover within the book’s pages. The title arrived to me very early on – I was only about twenty or so pages into the first draft – and never strayed from it (my agent and editor ultimately loved it, too, so at no point in the process of writing or production did the title ever change). There are really three things I admire about the title Olivia Strauss Is Running Out of Time. First, I love that it’s sort of a big, clunky type title (my favorite kind!) which I think perfectly suits the protagonist, Olivia. She’s a bit of a mess at the start of the story, and so I don’t think a very neat and tidy and simple title would quite suit her. I also love that her full name is included in the title. It lets readers know right away that this is very much her story. At the start, Olivia is a bit self-absorbed, too – something she really works at changing throughout the text – so for that reason I also like that her name is the very first thing readers see when they pick up the book. Lastly, the second part of the title captures the primary theme of the story and also provides a similar sense of urgency that Olivia herself feels right from the get-go.

What’s in a name?

The book is very much about Olivia’s journey toward learning to live her best life, while also being about life and death (and one woman’s fear that she’s running out of time to live). I loved the idea of the protagonist having this theme embedded right into her name. Her nickname, which she’s more often than not referred to in the book, is “Liv.” As she points out early on: “That’s the irony of this whole thing: the fact that my nickname is Liv. Live. To live! And yet…”

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

I think my teenage self would really love this book and think it was pretty cool. I was very much the bohemian kid growing up, so I think sixteen-year-old me would be excited to read about, and also proud that I wrote about, a woman who still finds ways to explore this side to herself.

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more? 1000% beginnings! Even if I have a very clear vision for a story, if the first ten or twenty pages don’t feel just right, I can’t create anything beyond them. Like all writers, I go through many drafts before I arrive at a final product, though there’s something about the beginning of a novel that just feels so different for me. It has to “hit” right from the first draft, which makes them much more difficult for me to craft. For Olivia, the opening pages in the final book are nearly identical to those in the very first draft. Endings are very different – those just pour right out of me.

Do you see much of yourself in your characters?

The whole book, of course, is fictional, though I drew a lot of inspiration for Olivia’s character from my own life. Like her, I’m a suburban mother of a certain age, a former educator, and at the time I wrote the book, was an aspiring writer. I think Olivia and I also share many personality traits: we’re both overthinkers who can be a bit sarcastic or witty at times but are (I hope!) ultimately very tender people.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

Music was very important to me while I wrote this book. There was a specific playlist I listened to on repeat the whole time I worked on this project, which consisted of songs that reminded me of a certain point in my life (one that Olivia herself longs for). It consisted of a lot of Magnetic Fields, Tom Waits, the Velvet Underground, stuff like that. I’m also really inspired by just plain old everyday life. I live a very simple, suburban existence, and I love to find relatable stories hiding just beneath the surface of my day-to-day. It’s unlikely that you’ll ever find me writing a story about, say, some fictional superhero. I think I’ll probably always, to some extent, focus in my adult work on women like me and work to discover what makes them so interesting and to find unique ways to tell their stories.

Visit Angela Brown's website.

The Page 69 Test: Olivia Strauss Is Running Out of Time.

--Marshal Zeringue

Amy Crider

Born in Ohio in 1961 and raised in rural upstate New York, Amy Crider earned a BA in theater from Goddard College, then an MA in education, and didn't return to theater again until moving to Chicago in the 2000s, starting with the writing program at Second City. She spent ten years with Chicago Dramatists, capping her studies in their first Master Class.

One of the few writers who has won awards for both fiction and drama, her childhood during the trauma and violence of the 1960s launched her lifelong desire to inspire audiences toward redemption, courage, and compassion.

Crider's latest novel is Kells: a novel of the eighth century.

My Q&A with the author:

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

I struggled with the title of my novel Kells: a novel of the eighth century. The novel is about the creation of the Book of Kells, but it was not known as the Book of Kells at that time. The monks weren’t living at Kells then, they moved there later. I wanted to keep Kells in the title to make clear this is the Book of Kells, and I tried some variations such as Kells: the Gospel of Columba, as well as The Pen of God. I rejected those because it made my novel sound more religious than it is. My editor decided the title we used worked well enough.

What's in a name?

I read 50 books to research this novel. The very first book I read, Fury of the Northmen, mentioned that in the annals of the monastery of Iona, which is mostly a log of who died when, there is mentioned the death of Connachtach around 800 AD, and they note he was a “master scribe.” I immediately thought: Wow, this could be the guy, the chief scribe of the Book of Kells! So I had to write his story.

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

My teenage self wouldn’t be surprised. I was always interested in writing historical fiction, even in high school. Maybe, though, she’d be surprised at how long it took. I was ambitious and thought I’d find success at a young age. And now I’m 62. Better late than never!

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

I struggle with endings more. This is true of both my fiction and my playwriting. Even though I usually know how the story will end, I do revise endings more than beginnings.

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 put myself in my characters. With Connachtach, I wanted to subvert the expectation that he would be some conservative, religious monk. Connachtach is an artist before anything else, struggling with his ego, which I call “pride” in the novel. I depicted to some degree my own struggles with my ambition and ego.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

For Kells, I was captivated by medieval art. What monk created in this era are known as “illuminated manuscripts,” lavishly illustrated. They were called “illuminations” because they were like light shining through a stained glass window. Once when I was showing some of this artwork to a teenager, he asked if the monks were doing drugs. That’s how fantastical this art is. For my research I took a Celtic art class and learned how to do that tricky interlace pattern. It’s amazing stuff. I also love medieval music and Celtic folk music.

Visit Amy Crider's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Robin Stevens

Robin Stevens was born in California and grew up in Oxford, England, across the road from the house where Alice of Alice in Wonderland lived. Stevens has been making up stories all her life. She spent her teenage years at boarding school, reading a lot of murder mysteries and hoping that she’d get the chance to do some detecting herself (she didn’t). She studied crime fiction in college and then worked in children’s publishing. Stevens now lives in England with her family.

Her new novel is Death Sets Sail.

My Q&A with the author:

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

I'm very proud of the title of Death Sets Sail - I think it really lets readers know what the book is about! My books are 1930s murder mysteries starring young detectives, and this story is all about a murder on board a Nile cruise ... but death is also pursuing my main characters, with one of them facing a terrifying and potentially tragic end ...

What's in a name?

I think names are extremely important. My favorite name from this book is Hephzibah - I think it's awkward and old-fashioned and a little bit weird but still charming, and that's the character! I often borrow names from friends or family members or people who are important to me - my detective George's last name is Mukherjee because that was the name of a tutor whose university course I really loved, and my narrator Hazel's last name is Wong because that's one of my best friends' names!

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

I think she'd be completely delighted by it. It combines so many things she loved - murder mysteries, Agatha Christie's Death on the Nile, Egyptology, cults, young detectives, a group of best friends, and two extremely romantic romances! I hope she'd be very proud of me.

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

I think they're both very hard to write well! I usually start with a clear idea of the beginning scenes, and the moment of the crime, and then struggle a bit more with the middle and the end. I usually change quite a lot in terms of the final scenes, and what happens with all of the characters after the mystery is over. With this book, though, I actually had an unusually firm vision for the very final chapters. It was a moment I couldn't wait to write, and I couldn't write without crying. And I still cry when I reread it now!

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 all of my characters share aspects of my personality! Hazel is my quieter, kinder, more thoughtful side, while Daisy has my impulsivity and boldness and flair for the dramatic. Interestingly, this year I realized that Daisy and I share something else, too: she is an autistic character, and that turns out to have been drawn from life, as I have recently been diagnosed!

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

My mother worked in a museum when I was a child, and I was particularly fascinated by the Egypt galleries, so that definitely inspired this book! Over the years I've become really interested in the way Westerners claim Egypt as almost part of their own history - so much has been taken from the country and installed in museums across the world, with very little thought about who really owns it. So this book is about a group of British people who see themselves as having ownership over Egypt and Egyptian things, and I hope explores how foolish that idea is!

Visit Robin Stevens's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ryan Kenedy

Ryan Kenedy is a professor of English at Moorpark College. His short fiction has appeared in North American Review, The Greensboro Review, Sou’wester, and San Joaquin Review.

Kenedy's new novel is The Blameless.

My Q&A with the author:

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

The title The Blameless occurred to me early on, even before I began writing the novel, which is unusual for me. Typically, I struggle to find good titles for my work and I'm rarely satisfied with the titles I settle on. But I knew The Blameless would be a novel about a man convicted of murder, so the idea of blame was central to my initial conception of the book. Of course, we all know what it's like to carry blame for hurting other people, and we also know what it's like to blame ourselves for things we shouldn't be blamed for, things that were never our fault, particularly those things that occurred during childhood. The novel's two main characters, Travis Lee Hilliard and Virginia Bigelow, struggle to process the lifelong effects of blame and guilt. Given who we are and all we've done, is true forgiveness even possible? Or to put in another way, can we ever become blameless?

What's in a name?

When I began writing this novel, I referred to the main character by his initials, L.T., but I didn't know what the initials stood for, and I wrote many pages before the name Travis Lee Hilliard occurred to me. I knew the character needed three names (we tend to remember murderers by their full name -- Lee Harvey Oswald, John Wilkes Booth, etc.). The problem, of course, is that L.T.'s initials don't work for Travis Lee, and yet T.L. sounded as awkward as Lee Travis Hilliard. Besides, I had grown accustomed to the name L.T. and didn't want to abandon it. To add to this complexity, L.T.'s mother had always called him Lee. And although L.T. admits that he never liked the name Travis (his father's name), it's the name he uses inadvertently when he introduces himself to the preacher and his family. So throughout the novel, Virginia refers to him as either Travis or Travis Lee Hilliard. But how to resolve the discrepancy between the character's full name and his initials? I decided his uncle Morris was to blame for this. Morris started calling the boy L.T. and nobody ever knew why, but it caught on, and only his mother continued to call him Lee. To me, these different names highlight the character's complicated identity both in terms of how he sees himself and how he interacts with others.

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

In general, I find it harder to write endings than beginnings. Beginnings come easily to me, fueled by inspiration, I suppose, although the revision process tends to reveal the story's true beginning later in the narrative. This certainly happened when I wrote The Blameless. I started writing the novel forty or fifty pages before the actual story begins. But I needed to write those pages to become familiar with the characters and to develop a sense of the plot. Once I knew where I was headed, I was able to discard the original beginning with no regrets.

On the other hand, I'm more of a perfectionist when it comes to writing endings, perhaps because I demand too much from the end. I want it to do more than it's capable of doing. I didn't know how The Blameless would turn out until I was about thirty pages from the end. Suddenly, the book's final image came to mind, and, fearing I would lose it, I jumped ahead, wrote the last few pages of the novel, and then went back to finish the rest. I worked tirelessly on the final chapter, writing several parts over and over, but that last paragraph remained much as I had first written it.

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

Yes, I see myself in my characters -- even when those characters are a world apart. This doesn't mean that the characters are versions of "me," or that they serve as manifestations of my personality. In most cases, my characters are very different from me. L.T. and Virginia are two very good examples. Still, I recognize something of myself in them: their frustrations and failures, their insecurities, their fears and desires. At the same time, although I never base my characters on real people, I can't help recognizing people I've known in one way or another. It's unavoidable. My characters are amalgamations of myself and everyone I've known, and all the books I've read and films I've watched, and everything I know and still don't understand about the human experience.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

I've lived in California most of my life. The setting of my novel ranges from the Central Valley to Los Angeles to the Mojave Desert. There's something very stark about California's arid landscape that is rarely depicted in film. But the severity of this region often finds its way into my writing, in my descriptions of place and my characterizations.

Visit Ryan Kenedy's website.

--Marshal Zeringue