Callie Rowland

Callie Rowland is a fantasy author based in Louisville, KY. Her debut, Fields of Asphodel, will publish on August 1st, 2026, followed by her sophomore novel, Gate of Nightmares, in summer 2027. She holds a Creative Writing BFA from Spalding University, where she served as Co-Founder and Editor of the undergraduate literary magazine, The Opal.

Rowland daylights as a proofreader at a marketing agency. She spends most of her free time reading and writing, but she also loves thrifting, baking, and exploring the historic district where she lives. When she's feeling brave, she even hangs out with other people. She is the proud mother of a spider plant named Lucifer, a pothos named Lilith, and a cat named Lewis (who she suspects is the guardian of realms).

My Q&A with the author:

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

My favorite thing about the title Fields of Asphodel is its double meaning: Asphodel is the name of the protagonist, and the Fields of Asphodel – where the souls of unremarkable mortals reside in the Ancient Greek underworld – plays a major role in the story. The title suits its genre's convention (think of books like The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller and Ariadne by Jennifer Saint), but my publisher initially wanted to swap it for something more pronounceable, which I completely understand. I've met many people who don't know how to pronounce "Asphodel," and I secretly didn't either until I looked it up. We toyed with a few options, but in the end, nothing better prepared readers for a book about the daughter of Hades and Persephone, who, upon being forcibly engaged to the god of death, attempts to escape her mother's fate by kidnapping her husband-to-be – thus putting the worlds of both gods and humans in peril.

What's in a name?

Fields of Asphodel started out as a straightforward Hades and Persephone retelling in which Persephone kidnaps Hades instead of the other way around. When I decided to instead write about their children so that I could play with the messy family dynamics, the name "Asphodel" or "Del" for short came to me so fast that I'm convinced it was there waiting all along. The name means "mourning" and "normalcy," which together I interpret as "mourning what is normal." This exemplifies Del's character arc and the book's central theme of breaking generational cycles, but – like with the title – I planned to change her name until I had written a large chunk of the first draft. Maybe the lesson here is that I should trust my gut.

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

I was a huge fan of Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson and the Olympians series as a kid, so to be honest I think my teenage self would expect me to write at least one Greek myth retelling during my author career. That's not to say I always planned to debut with one. Before Fields of Asphodel, I wrote quite a dark fantasy that no publisher ended up wanting. In response, I returned to my roots (flower pun intended) by diving into this cozy Greek myth romantasy. If you're ever stuck as a writer, the advice I would give is to lean into your childhood obsessions and have fun.

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

When I sold Fields of Asphodel to my publisher, the first chapter didn't exist. During revisions, my editor told me readers would need that scene to form a deeper connection to Del and her Isle of Flowers before she kidnaps the god of death. While I knew my editor was right, finding exactly the right opener was undoubtedly the hardest part of writing this book. I cannot believe that I ended up with a first chapter that I'm truly proud of – and, to my relief, the first line of the book has remained the same from the very first draft. I chopped up and tossed around the middle of the book like a salad, but the last 50 or so pages barely changed at all.

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

Del and I both suffer from drastic cases of eldest daughter syndrome. That is, we're both stubborn, struggle to trust others, and are independent to a fault. We're great at giving advice to others, but we find it much harder to follow that advice ourselves. Throughout Fields of Asphodel, Del learns – both through her budding relationship with the god of death and the changing tides of her family – that sometimes she is wrong, sometimes she needs help, and sometimes she makes mistakes like everyone else. All of that is okay. The important thing is to apologize, forgive, and become a better person moving forward.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

Music, visual art, and architecture are the heavyweights here. Some songs on my Fields of Asphodel playlist include "Sleep to Dream" by Fiona Apple, "Cypress" by Sarah Kinsley, "Daffodil" by Florence + the Machine, and "Underworld" by Alice Phoebe Lou. For visual art, I often scroll through the Instagram pages of artists like @musetheart, @monika_marchewka_art, and @pantovola.art among many others. In terms of architecture, I'm a sucker for anything Art Nouveau, and I'm lucky enough to live in the historic district of my city, so the Victorian homes always inspire me on walks.

Visit Callie Rowland's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Anthony Peckham

Anthony Peckham is an award-winning screenwriter and novelist. His movie credits include Invictus, Sherlock Holmes, and Don’t Say A Word. His Children of the Black Glass middle grade fantasy trilogy is published by Simon & Schuster.

Peckham was born and raised in South Africa and completed his undergraduate degree at the University of Cape Town in English and Classical History. He moved to California to attend film school at San Francisco State University and earned a M.A. in Film. He now lives in Hawaii with his family.

His new novel is The Law of Solitude.

My Q&A with the author:

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

I love titles; they’re random attractors and can do a lot of work for you, especially if you’re not a household name. Finding a title that “clicks” is a wonderful feeling. After all, they’re the name of the book and names penetrate deep into the subconscious. When I browse in a bookstore, titles and cover art definitely influence what I reach for.

There should be a clear and dynamic relationship between title and book; in my opinion, you should never reach the end of a book and ask “Why was it called that?”

For my trilogy, I started with a simple descriptive title, Children of the Black Glass, then an evocative title, Winter’s Fire, then, hopefully, a slightly mysterious and alluring title in The Law of Solitude. Each introduces its book and each book justifies its title upon reading.

What's in a name?

A name is your first and best chance to give a character color and make them memorable - all before starting the work of description, action, dialogue, thoughts. I take a lot of trouble with my names, and often change them if they don’t stick during writing.

For instance, the central characters in my Children of the Black Glass trilogy are a brother and sister on the cusp of adulthood. The boy is a fine hunter with a bow, so I landed on Tell, to pull echoes from the legendary archer William Tell. The girl is bold, loud, ruthlessly cheerful, infinitely curious, and so I named her Wren, for a beloved bird with many of the same characteristics.

Equal care was taken with the names of all my characters, even fairly minor ones.

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

My lazy, indulgent teenage self would be incredibly surprised, nay, shocked, that I actually managed to write a novel at all, let alone three. But he would not be surprised by what I’ve written; I set out to write the kind of books I always loved to read - ripping, twisty stories with high stakes and jeopardy, in which Bad Things Happen to Good People, who nonetheless manage to prevail in the end.

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

There are many good beginnings to stories; a fitting end is hard to find. So, I always make sure I have an idea of my ending before I start writing. Generally, the endings change less than the beginning.

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

There is something of me in all my characters, good, bad and ambiguous. That’s the only way I know of bringing them to life.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

This may seem like a strange answer, but everyday curiosity influences my writing greatly. Curiosity - asking questions - is such a powerful tool, and one that’s consciously suppressed by our culture and technology.

Visit Anthony Peckham's website.

--Mrshal Zeringue

Arvind Ethan David

Arvind Ethan David has written seven graphic novels, including most recently his adaptation of Raymond Chandler’s Trouble Is My Business (May 2025) and the Bram Stoker Award–nominated Darkness Visible with Mike Carey. David has also written multiple hit audio originals, including the science fiction anthology series Earworms, The Crimes of Dorian Gray, and the nonfiction audiobook Douglas Adams: The Ends of the Earth.

In theatre, David’s plays include The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, both based on the novels by Douglas Adams, and he received an Olivier nomination for his family musical The Boy With Wings, based on Lenny Henry’s children’s book. He also contributed additional material for David Baddiel and Erran Baron Cohen’s musical The Infidel and was a lead producer of the Grammy and Tony Award–winning Broadway musical Jagged Little Pill.

David has written and produced extensively in television, including Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency for Netflix, Anansi Boys for Amazon, and the Asian Academy Award winner The Garden of Evening Mists for HBO.

The Great Game is his debut prose novel.

My Q&A with the author:

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

Titles are hard, man, really hard. The title was literally the last thing that got done on this book, and it is not the title I started with. The book starts as a historical murder mystery. It escalates into a conspiracy thriller and then gradually evolves into a rather pointed examination of empire and imperialism.

Oh, and amongst its major characters are an aging Sherlock Holmes and a young Winston Churchill. It was a challenge to get all of that in a title.

Other contenders included The Dread and the Envy, which I thought he had a certain Imperial cadence, but was dismissed for being too niche. For a while, I was very keen on The Good Colonial, which felt reminiscent of Graham Greene and John le Carré, in whose tradition I would be delighted to sit. Ultimately, The Great Game won because it conjures a certain Sherlockian tone whilst also explicitly referencing the historical spy craft and statecraft between the great imperial powers in the 19th century (while also paying tribute to Rudyard Kipling and his book about another spy caught between two cultures, Kim).

Now that we have it, it feels like the only possible title for the book.

What's in a name?

The narrator and protagonist of the novel is first introduced to us as “Bunny”. That is the name by which his best friend and co-conspirator in crime, Raffles, refers to him. In this, I am paying homage to a pair of historical characters. The original Raffles and Bunny were created by E.W. Hornung in 1895 and this pair of society cat burglars quickly became as famous as their law-enforcing predecessors, Holmes and Watson.

Ten pages into The Great Game, however, Bunny makes a confession. “Bunny” is not his real name. It is simply a nickname that Raffles has given him in honour of the late Bunny Manders, Raffles' former partner in crime. So, who is our hero?

“My name is Lt. Balvinder Dev Singh, an alumnus of Government College Lahore, where I was schooled in Latin, Philosophy, Mathematics, and English Literature. Late of the Second Patiala Infantry, assigned by His Highness the Maharaja of Patiala at the request of the British to serve an auxiliary role in the Second Boer War. Honorably discharged and, at the time of this narrative, thirty-six years of age, unmarried and a pupil barrister at Nine Stone Buildings, Lincoln's Inn.”

So yes, his name matters because it tells us exactly who he is and how he differs from the traditional narrator of tales such as this. In turn, that gives you a hint at how this book is going to subvert your expectations.

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

It was as a pre-teenager that I first read all the books that inspire this one: the Sherlock Holmes mysteries, most obviously, but also H.G. Wells, Rudyard Kipling, J.M. Barrie, and Oscar Wilde. Then, a few years later, in my late teens and early twenties I started reading the work of Salman Rushdie, Hanif Kureishi, Kazuro Ishiguro, V.S. Naipaul and Zadie Smith. In a way, this novel puts all those influences in a blender. The ingredients are literature of Empire as told by the imperialists, mixed in with the story of the Colonials, told from the other side of the coin. I wanted to use the methods of all my biggest influences and put them into a dance with each other.

So I think teenage me would be pretty pleased.

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

Both are bastards. If you don't grip your reader in the first couple of pages, really ideally in the first paragraph, you're in trouble. They won't go any further. If you don't leave them deliciously satisfied in the final chapter, in the final image, then they won't tell their friends that they have to read it too.

For The Great Game, I knew I had to start with a murder and also with the singular personage of Raffles, but I also wanted to play a little literary game with the secondary mystery of who our narrator really was. Playing both games at once—the mystery of the murder and the mystery of identity—was a way of immediately signaling what type of book this was going to be.

As for the ending of The Great Game, I'm incredibly proud of it, but also can say absolutely nothing more about it, as it is a massive spoiler. It does exist, exactly to the word as I first wrote it.

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

For me, most characters start grounded in a real person. Sometimes myself, sometimes a public figure, sometimes others I know. The process and art of writing means that once you dig deep into them, you imbue them with an essence of their own, and they grow into being their own people. No longer copies of the real world, but real in a deeper sense.

In the case of The Great Game, though, something different and rather unexpected happened. When I first created Balvinder, all I knew about him were the facts of his life, which he quotes above.

Then, the more I wrote him, the more I started to empathize with him. The more I realized that he is who I might have been if I was born a hundred and fifty years ago. In writing the book, he and I went on similar journeys of exploration, and we became very angry at a world we had previously too easily accepted.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

I read a lot of history, and in the case of this book in particular, it reflects my long obsessions with the lives of Winston Churchill and Oscar Wilde. I'm also absorbed with both contemporary and historical politics, interested in how what seems like contemporary problems to us are actually just new manifestations of old and deep patterns. Historians of Empire William Dalrymple, Caroline Elkins and, on the opposite end of the political spectrum, Niall Ferguson have all informed both my worldview and this particular book.

I'm also a screenwriter and playwright, and so some of my biggest influences come from those worlds. Oscar Wilde, of course, and his near contemporary George Bernard Shaw, the recently late but always great Tom Stoppard, Billy Wilder, Aaron Sorkin and Diablo Cody (with whom I've had the honour of working). All those writers elevate dialogue to music, and that's the thing I try hard to chase in all my writing.

Visit Arvind Ethan David's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

David Wellington

David Wellington was born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He attended Syracuse University and received an MFA in creative writing from Penn State. In 2004 he began serializing his novel Monster Island online. The book rapidly gained a following, and was acquired for print publication by Thunder’s Mouth Press. Since then, Wellington has published more than 20 novels, and has been featured in The New York Times, Boing Boing and the Los Angeles Times.

Wellington's new novel is Erebus 13, the third title in his Red Space trilogy.

My Q&A with the author:

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

I ended up not picking the titles for the Red Space trilogy books; in fact this book was just called “Red Space Volume Three” until I’d already finished the first draft! I had to retcon the title back into the book but fortunately I had the perfect place to use it. Now Erebus 13 is where the most important scenes in the book take place. I think it works pretty well, though—it’s certainly dark and mysterious and it references my (much) earlier book, 13 Bullets.

What's in a name?

Another interesting question, since I didn’t choose the character names either! This book was a real collaboration between me and my editor, James Long. He came up with the original crew of the Artemis: Petrova, Zhang, and Parker, to represent different cultures though in the end not the cultures you might think. Zhang and Parker both were born in the outer solar system, in places only loosely connected back to the Earth of their ancestors. Petrova is the only real earthling in the books, and that’s important for this volume where she ends up going home—or back, anyway, to what used to be her home, though it’s drastically changed now. Rapscallion, the robot, was entirely James’s invention, which I freely admit even though he’s my favorite character in the series.

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

Not all that much, actually! My twenty-year-old self would have been blown away, but when I was a teenager I never doubted I would be working as a science fiction author at this age. It was all I wanted to do from when I was six (when I first saw Star Wars). I am so grateful to my readers and everyone I’ve had a chance to work with over the years, that I’ve been able to make that real.

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

Beginnings, definitely. I always start a book with the ending clearly in mind, and then I work backwards. What happened to put the characters in this particular predicament? There’s your plot. Who is there at the ending, and who isn’t? It’s all about finding my way back to the moment when it really all began, when the action starts.

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

There’s some of me in all my characters. It’s one of my flaws as a horror writer, honestly, that I tend to only write smart, logical characters, people who can think through a problem and solve it little by little. Horror often works better with characters who are strongly passionate about things, who fly by the seat of their pants… of course, those kinds of characters die off pretty fast! I always want the character who’s going to make it through, or at least survive the longest.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

The Red Space trilogy was inspired by a lot of classic space horror movies, from Alien to Event Horizon to Pandorum. We wanted to create a good old-fashioned thrill ride of a story, with lots of action and suspense but also rich, relatable characters. I think I feel that the most in the way the series feels like you’re in freefall the whole time, with each new horror, each new terrible event coming out of seemingly nowhere. The characters are left desperately scrambling, just trying to stay alive—while simultaneously trying with everything they’ve got to solve the central mystery of the series, and maybe even get ahead of their ancient enemies.

t David Wellington's website.

The Page 69 Test: Chimera.

The Page 69 Test: The Hydra Protocol.

The Page 69 Test: Positive.

My Book, The Movie: The Cyclops Initiative.

The Page 69 Test: The Last Astronaut.

--Marshal Zeringue

Rachel León

Rachel León is a writer, editor, and social worker, who has worked in child welfare for nearly two decades. She serves as Managing Director for Chicago Review of Books, and is the author of the novel, How We See the Gray.

My Q&A with the author:

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

I think my title does quite a bit of work: it brings in the Greek chorus so before even opening the novel, the “we’ is immediately present for the reader. And while the novel deals with the foster care system, it’s more about seeing the gray. What does it mean to see the gray?, you might be wondering. Well, to me, it’s understanding that we can only know so much about another person (and yet as a society, we’re so prone to judge). How We See the Gray is about how we’re all complicated and messy, so we should show each other grace and kindness.

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

My teenage self would be very surprised by my novel! I honestly didn’t even know about foster care when I was in high school, so to learn adult me wrote an entire novel about that system would be mind blowing. But also, the novel takes a lot of risks in terms of form and narrative, which would be surprising. Plus, as a teenager I was convinced I’d be a visual artist, so my teenage self would also be confused why I wasn’t painting and wrote a novel instead!

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

I rewrote the beginning multiple times, but the ending has more or less stayed the same, so I’d have to say beginnings are harder. Finding the best way into the story was difficult, even (especially?) after knowing the ending.

I knew from the start I wanted the ending to carry the heart and hope that (to me) defines my experience working in foster care. People hear “foster care” and assume it’s all depressing, but what characterizes my experience more is this feeling of my heart expanding as I see how much love exists in this world, how strong and good people can be. That’s what I wanted to leave readers with. Getting them there was tougher.

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

On the surface, Meredith, the novel’s main character (a young foster care caseworker who is a single parent) and I have the most in common, or at least did: I too began working in child welfare as a single parent of a preschooler and also drank to cope with the stress of the job. Like Meredith, I’ve always felt the weight of this work and have had a strong desire to do my best for the families I serve. And like Meredith, I also have the common traits found in adult children of alcoholics. However, our personalities are very different. I don’t see myself in the character at all, though we share similar circumstances.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

Music for sure. I included the lyrics to La Historia’s album Low Mimetic throughout the book because that album feels to me like the soundtrack to the novel. A few readers have seen parallels to The Wire, which I’ve admittedly only seen one season of, yet I understand the comparison.

More than anything, my work in child welfare and my coworkers have influenced my writing. Both the work and the people I do it with have helped shape me into who I am and shape how I see the world, which is what I brought to the page.

Visit Rachel León's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Shana Galen

Shana Galen is an award-winning writer and bestselling author of over fifty historical romances. Galen taught middle and high school English in Houston’s inner city for more than a decade. She is also dedicated to animal rescue and advocacy. She writes full-time, surrounded by four rescued cats and one spoiled rescue dog.

Galen's new Regency romance is A Shop Girl's Guide to Wooing a Lord.

My Q&A with the author:

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

A Shop Girl’s Guide to Wooing a Lord tells readers exactly what they are getting in this book. It’s a class divide romance featuring a lower-class woman and an upper-class man. Of course, there is so much more to the book than this trope, but my publishing team and I saw the title as a window into one of the central conflicts in the novel. When you’re titling a book set in the past, additional points to consider are what words were in use in that time and whether those words are still in use today and how much the connotation of those words has changed. For example, as the book opens the female main character sells flowers for a living; she’s a flower girl. But today a flower girl is a little girl who scatters flowers before the bride walks down the aisle, so that description wouldn’t work. There’s a lot of brainstorming and discussion and trial and error before a final title is decided.

What's in a name?

Characters’ names are so very important for signaling who they are in this book. Garret Kildare is the second son of an Irish earl. His Irish name is Gearoid, and Garret is the Anglicized version. Since he comes from an upper-class family, he needs a name that reflects his social position and his ancestry. Tamsin Archer is the female main character. Tamsin, in the early 1800s, was a lower-class name. The aristocracy were naming their daughters Elizabeth, Georgiana, and Sophia. I also wanted to give her a surname that reflected her personality. She’s very direct and goes for what she wants, which is why Archer works so well for her.

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

As a teenager I read a lot of Stephen King and Anne Rice. I didn’t read romance at all, but I was very romantic in that I always daydreamed about the boys I had crushes on performing grand gestures to win my love (which never happened, unfortunately). I might be surprised that I grew up to write books that don’t feature vampires or scary clowns, but I would probably like the history and the love stories a lot and connect with those aspects.

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

I don’t find beginnings or ending difficult at all. Those are the easiest parts of the book to write. The middle is the hardest part for me. I suppose I do end up changing the beginning of the book more than anything else. I often start stories too early, meaning that I write a chapter or 20 pages of story that, upon more reflection, doesn’t need to be in the final book. I’m writing it for me so I can get to know the characters. I often cut those first pages or go back and change where the story starts or just make the first chapter sharper and more concise.

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

In A Shop Girl’s Guide to Wooing a Lord neither character is like me. Tamsin is tough and a force unto herself. She’s a survivor—jaded and distrustful because that’s how she’s made it this far. I wouldn’t last a day in her world. Garret is kind of a frat boy in that he’s really social and fun-loving. He lives for a party. I’m not like that at all. He is the kind of person who has a soft spot for people or animals in need, and I think we overlap a bit in that way.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

For this book, in particular, I’d say several movies were influential. The book has shades of the film My Fair Lady, not because Garret tries to “better” Tamsin but because of the conflicts that arise from class differences. Pretty in Pink is another movie I enjoy because the characters really have to struggle with the pressures of the outside world interfering with their romance. Love isn’t always enough when two people are from opposite worlds.

Visit Shana Galen's website.

The Page 69 Test: A Shop Girl's Guide to Wooing a Lord.

--Marshal Zeringue

DeAndra Davis

DeAndra Davis is New York–born and Florida-bred. She’s a hopeless musical theater nerd (Wicked is definitely her favorite), a perpetual student and teacher, and always trailed by a kid or a dog because she has way too many of both. She has an opinion for everything, an argument ready, and a hug for everyone, and she thinks you should, too. She is the author of All the Noise at Once, winner of the William C. Morris Award for best young adult debut book, and The Lovers, the Liars, and Me.

My Q&A with Davis:

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

Titles are widely important to me and the first thing that I consider is not hating my title because I’ll have to say it so often once it’s chosen and out there. I like for titles to do at least half the heavy lifting as well. I don’t like for them to be so divorced from the book that you don’t know what to expect. I like for them to leave a little mystery but also be connected enough that you can understand it once you’ve read the book.

I definitely agonized over my title a bit because originally it had a title that really took you right into the story and the fleeting nature of my main character leaning into this single summer, but that title happened to already be in use by a really recent book, so I pivoted.

Ultimately, I decided to lean into the tarot and secret elements of the story, thinking to myself, what tarot card really represents the book and landed on the lovers. From there, the rest of the title came easily because of how trapped my character is with her love triangle, her tarot, and her secrets. It’s all entangled and I love that the title captures those elements and brings them to life.

What's in a name?

Names are kind of funny for me because I definitely put a ton of thought into how I feel they represent the character, how they represent culturally, and then how they connect personally. First off, I will admit I steal a lot of names from my family members, haha. That doesn’t mean the characters reflect those family members in any way, I typically just feel the name fits.

For my main character Jaliya, I took her name from familial connections, though her name isn’t a typical Jamaican name which is on purpose, and her last name is also a family name. I think because this story especially tied so much into my own culture and identity, it was personal enough that familial connection felt like the right move. For Shevaughn, India, Deon, and Andre, I wanted to tap into names that fit culturally as well. Names that could conceivably be Jamaican names. This is even true for Jaliya’s uncle Ian, which is a popular Jamaican name. I think about how a name can set you in a place and tell you about a person. I wanted that for my characters.

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

Beyond surprised. I think she’d be shocked at my audacity to be so honest on the page—so forthcoming and so unlike how I was as a teenager. I think I write stories that are close to me and mean something to me but I also have a habit of writing the bravery into my characters that I wish I once had. The bravery I had to grow into, and sometimes still struggle with. Teenage me would definitely be like, “Girl, you’re telling on yourself!” which is hilarious and likely true, but I think she’d be proud that I got to a place where I felt so comfortable doing so.

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

I change beginnings much more than endings and this has been true for all my books so far. Jaliya’s beginning had to be with her indecision; it had to be with her floundering and utilizing outside support for answers. That was always true. I had to figure out how to bring that to life in practice outside of just her tarot cards. How could I show everyone how much she flounders and how people think of her? What better way than a party? I loved writing the party scene because there’s nothing better than a fish out of water element and I think her uncomfortability was almost palpable. Beginnings are tough, but who doesn’t love some teasing, meeting a bully, getting your hopes up and then dashed, and then a good angry cry to usher us into a story?

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

Both? Is that a cop out? I tend to pull pieces of myself and insert them into my characters, but I also pull wildly different pieces and put them in the same character as well. Pieces of other people—friends, enemies. Pieces I haven’t yet truly seen explored in anyone I know but want to see play out.

I connect to Jaliya because she’s Jamaican but born in the United States. She’s raised entirely with Jamaican values and culture at home to the point where it can ostracize her from peers in the states, but then still told she isn’t enough of her own culture because of where she was born. I understand that deeply. I pull tarot cards (though not with the same vigor and necessity as Jaliya). I have uncles (and other family) who live in Jamaica that I’ve been visiting since I was just a baby. There are definitely pieces of me in Jaliya and there’s also pieces of me in her friend group. Deon got my sarcasm and humor. Shevaughn got my ability to hold a grudge sometimes. India got my thirst for adventure and quickness to take in a new friend. Andre got my shyness in romantic situations. How can a character show up real if they don’t reflect something real?

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

Movies and shows always! For this book To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, XO, Kitty, and The Summer I Turned Pretty especially were great to tap into for the right vibes.

Otherwise, my experiences and family are constant influences on my writing. I am always considering where I, or the people around me, fit into my stories.

Visit DeAndra Davis's website. She can be found on most socials @DeAndraWrites.

My Book, The Movie: The Lovers, the Liars, and Me.

Writers Read: DeAndra Davis.

--Marshal Zeringue

Tracy Lynne Oliver

Tracy Lynne Oliver is a writer based in Los Angeles. She has been published online at a variety of places such as Medium, Fanzine, and Occulum. She co-authored the graphic novel, The Sacrifice of Darkness, with Roxane Gay. Her story, “This Weekend” was included in Best Microfiction 2019.

Her new book, Magician, is "dark magic debut novel featuring the Boy who becomes the Magician and the villainous Mother whose sadism might end it all."

My Q&A with the author:

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

I really struggled with titling my book. The story started with a powerful image; an old black man, head in his hands, sitting on the edge of a bed in a decrepit hotel room or some sort of run-down apartment. I needed to write his story. After putting words down, and learning where it was going, I eventually just used Magician as a working title. I referred to my work in progress as such until the book was complete.

But when the novel was finished, the question I asked myself was what to call it. I did my best to come up with alternatives but nothing else seemed to fit. I kept Magician.

As the book’s story takes you through the life journey of one man, Magician doesn’t seem to capture what the totality of the book is. Magician is only the final version of this man. His story begins even before he is the Boy. So, it might not be the best representation of what the novel is fully about, but it does highlight the gravitas of what he becomes and in that, overcomes.

What's in a name?

My main character doesn’t have a name. Neither do most of the characters in this book.

For many people, names have associations. You know an Ashlee, a Tom, a Vicki or a Steve and you have experiences and feelings about those people, both good, bad or indifferent. For this novel, I wanted my characters to be clean slates. Plus, the novel is set in a world that is ours yet is also kind of not. I wanted my Magician to feel outside the world we are from. Same for his Mother and his Her. If my Magician was named Brad, well, the entire vibe of the book would be different. (No offense to any Brads out there.)

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

I think the only surprise my teenage self would have at my novel was that I wrote one. At that time in my life, I was primarily a reader who loved English class the best and enjoyed every writing assignment given by said English class. If my future-self handed my teenage self my very own novel, I think I would’ve been stunned. (It probably would’ve set me on my writing path a lot earlier than it started).

However, I don’t think teenage Tracy would’ve been surprised by the novel itself. I had dark subject matter vibes threaded through me since I bought ghost story books at every Scholastic Book Fair in elementary school. I think teenage me would’ve devoured and loved my novel.

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

Beginnings are harder for me. While I usually start with strong imagery and feeling, I don’t know where it’s going until I start writing words down. So, with no clear direction or outline, I hesitantly write my beginning, all the while trying to just ‘let go’ and not think, knowing I’ll eventually come back to polish and shine.

Endings eventually reveal themselves. Why constrict my story to build to an already decided ending when my characters may take me elsewhere?

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

I don’t exactly see myself in my characters. They are my creations and I put myself into them rather than the other way around.

At least for now. At least until I write a ‘closer to me’ story, perhaps.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

A bright red pair of pants worn by a cooler than I’ll ever be 70-year-old.

A Playschool table and chairs set carefully arranged and ready, sitting in an old creek bed.

A spatula owned for the entirety of the marriage and years after the divorce.

Two cocktails made, poured, garnished and set out, in a sad way, for one.

An offer to a man holding one pack of steak to go ahead of me in a grocery store, who then shakes his head no, then gives me a perverted up and down stare-smile.

Any impactful thing.

Visit Tracy Lynne Oliver's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Tessa Yang

Tessa Yang is a reader, writer, and shark enthusiast from New York State. She received her MFA from Indiana University where she served as the Editor of Indiana Review.

Her debut novel is The Jellyfish Problem.

Yang's story collection, The Runaway Restaurant, was published by 7.13 Books in 2022. Her stories have appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, The Cincinnati Review, Foglifter, and elsewhere, and her flash fiction has been featured in Best Small Fictions 2024, Flash Fiction America, and Wigleaf's Top 50 Very Short Fictions of 2018 and 2019.

My Q&A with the author:

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

“Jellyfish problems” was the thoughtless title I gave the Microsoft Word file where I was writing. It evolved into the title of the book because, as it turned out, it was doing quite a bit to take readers into the story. What problem is being caused by a jellyfish? How will the characters solve it? The book actually sold as Clementine; or, The Jellyfish Problem, à la Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, and was shortened during edits to just The Jellyfish Problem. I appreciate that it’s a mysterious title with a touch of whimsy, like the story.

What's in a name?

I love a name with nickname potential. The protagonist of The Jellyfish Problem is named Josephine Ness, and in the first chapter, we learn that she’s been called Josephine, Jo, Josie, Jo-Ness, and Nessie depending on the context. I think you can discover a little something about the relationship Jo has with each side character based on what they’ve chosen to call her.

The name of the main setting is Shattering Point, which I came up with by drafting a list of 20 potential names and picking the least terrible. I wanted something that sounded ominous but believable, that would maybe have the reader thinking, “Hmm…that doesn’t sound like a place where good things are going to happen.”

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

I read mostly fantasy as a kid, so my teenage self would be surprised that The Jellyfish Problem is so grounded in realism. I’ve seen it on a few sci-fi lists, which makes sense, but no one’s going to shelve this book as straight-up fantasy. I was also still closeted at that age. I didn’t read a book with a lesbian character until I was in college. My teenage self would be like, “Why are you writing all this gay stuff?” Well, she’ll know the answer soon!

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

I changed both for The Jellyfish Problem, but the ending was harder. For the longest time, I had no idea how to solve the titular “problem” that Jo experiences. I was in the dark with the characters, trying to find my way out.

The beginning kept backing up, taking Jo farther from the island where the main drama takes place—the opposite of Vonnegut’s “start as close to the end as possible”—because I discovered there was important emotional backstory readers needed to absorb before they reached Shattering Point.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

The earliest thematic inspiration for The Jellyfish Problem was the movie Jaws. I ended up rewatching it (also Alien and Nope) while I was revising; I literally mapped out the structure of all three movies into a sort of timeline, recording what major plot developments happened at 25%, 50%, and 75% of the way through and trying to mimic those beats in my book.

Because The Jellyfish Problem was so research-intensive, I also took a lot of influence from nonfiction: podcasts, lectures, articles, interviews, and reference books. I decided to have Jo working on her own book within The Jellyfish Problem, partially to give me a vehicle for sharing all the amazing stuff I was learning!

Visit Tessa Yang's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Kerri Hakoda

Kerri Hakoda has worked in and out of Alaska in advertising and marketing, marine transportation, cable television and trade magazine ad sales. She was born and raised in Hawaii, but now calls northwest Washington her home, where she lives with her husband (himself a veteran of the Alaska fishing industry) and writes mystery, historical, and young adult science fiction.

Hakoda's new novel is Too Deep to Cross: A Thriller.

My Q&A with the author:

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

I believe that title and cover design play a huge role, especially for a fairly new (but chronologically old) author like myself! My publisher and I labored over the title to Too Deep to Cross, far more so than for the first book. Since my first novel was titled Cold to the Touch, and Too Deep to Cross is a sequel, I think initially we were both stuck on the “Cold” theme. Considering that most of the action of the second book takes place in the summer, we ultimately thought a “Cold” title would be a stretch. I think that I came up with Too Deep to Cross early in the process and it made the cut each time. After much discussion, we agreed that it seemed like a “conversation” between the titles of the first and the second books. Since much of the book takes place on the Yukon River in Alaska, and there are themes of alienation and irreconcilable differences throughout, I think it works.

What’s in a name?

I had a lot of fun with character names – especially with my protagonist and his family. DeHavilland Beans is named after an aircraft as are his siblings Hercules, Piper and Otter. His oldest brother was named Lindbergh after the famous aviator. Their father was a bush pilot and obviously had far too much say in naming his offspring. One of my early reviewers thought my naming scheme was “silly” – maybe, but I allowed myself this indulgence.

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

Very surprised, since my teenage self had never left the Hawaiian Islands. My teenage world, although idyllic in many ways, was very small. The thought of writing a series of mysteries set in Alaska would have never occurred to me back then.

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

I love writing beginnings and endings! It’s the mushy middle part that sometimes gets away from me. Beginnings usually come fairly easily. Although I almost always know how I plan on ending the book, I do tend to change it more often than the beginning. Pesky loose ends suddenly appear and need tying up, especially in the mystery genre.

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

My characters share some of my cultural experiences and my insecurities, but ultimately, they give me the opportunity to step outside myself. So I’d have to say that no, I don’t normally see a whole lot of myself in them.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

The initial idea for my first book Cold to the Touch was kindled by the real-life tragedy of Samantha Koenig, a young barista who was kidnapped and killed by serial killer Israel Keyes. While I don’t strictly model my novels after actual events, I do keep a file of intriguing news “clippings,” that may or may not make their way into my books. Truth being stranger than fiction, and all that. Those of us in the Pacific Northwest remember a few years ago when human feet, encased in athletic shoes, began washing up on British Columbia beaches. I think the seed of Too Deep to Cross germinated from these real-life events, but grew in a different direction. Unlike Cold to the Touch, which is more linear in structure, Too Deep to Cross employs historical elements and events throughout.

Visit Kerri Hakoda's website.

Writers Read: Kerri Hakoda.

--Marshal Zeringue