Robbie Couch

Robbie Couch is the New York Times bestselling author of If I See You Again Tomorrow, in addition to Blaine for the Win, The Sky Blues, and Another First Chance. He is also the author of the novel Bloom for adults. Originally from small-town Michigan, Couch now calls Los Angeles home.

His new novel is Just the Good Parts.

My Q&A with the author:

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

My hope for every one of my titles is to spark more intrigue in the book than introduce them to the narrative itself. I think my novels' titles tend to feel more relevant after having read the books, and Just the Good Parts is no exception. It, of course, conveys the idea that there's been an elimination of the bad parts—whatever good, bad, or parts are even supposed to mean out of context—but my hope is that the framing brings a richer understanding to readers after they've been introduced to Caspen, a nostalgic character whose penchant for forgetting the bleaker sides of his past may cost him his future.

What's in a name?

I have a very uninspiring answer to this (that may make some people angry)! I think, generally speaking, character names are overrated and reflect an author's own state of mind—or even self-indulgence—more than they serve the story. I've never enjoyed a novel more or less because a character was named Patrick instead of Peter. There are definitely exceptions; if the name of a character is meaningful to the bones of the story itself beyond some clever symbolism that gets lost in the weeds, for instance. And there can be cultural considerations to keep in mind while creating characters, as an ahistorical error or nonsensical name risks distracting the reader and pulling them out of the story. But in terms of the creative process of naming characters or leaning into the symbolism of names, I'd rather spend that time on more important things (sorry not sorry!).

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

I think my teenage self would be (pleasantly) shocked that I'd written a book that was about to be published at all, let alone six gay ones! I'd always dreamt of writing a novel as a kid, so I suspect Teenage Robbie would be on cloud nine. Because Just the Good Parts is speculative fiction and my earliest reading obsessions tended to lean in the fantasy direction, he may be a bit surprised by the genre, but I'd have to revisit my childhood memories to find out ... which I'd do, if only I were Caspen Coolsby.

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

I find it much more difficult to write beginnings, even if I'm incredibly inspired by the scene and story. I want my first page (my first sentence, really) to immediately hook the reader with a compelling conflict, a strong character, or, ideally, both. And that results in my putting a lot of pressure on getting it just right, which usually comes with about a dozen or two heavy edits. Getting to write the ending of my books incentivizes me in the same way I imagine it feels for a marathon runner to make it to mile 26; I'll be exhausted by the time I reach the finish line, but that moment fuels my forward motion the whole journey.

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

It really depends on the book. My debut novel, The Sky Blues, was my most autobiographical of the six novels I've written, so, naturally, I saw a lot of myself in its main character, Sky Baker. But I've spread my narrative wings since then. I try to challenge myself to write as complicated characters as I can—because the messier they are, the more compelling they seem to be—and that requires getting outside of my own thoughts, my own history, and my own lived experiences.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

I find a lot of inspiration in TV and film, particularly when they're written in ways that blend genres or frame narratives in inventive ways. I recently rewatched one of my favorite movies, Arrival, for the fifth or sixth time, and continue to be amazed at how a chilling, sci-fi story about an alien invasion is actually a heart-shattering tale about Amy Adams' character grieving the loss of her daughter. And I just finished Widow's Bay, which swings between horror and hilarity in a way I've never seen done before on TV, let alone done well. It's very inspiring to see other writers reinvent the storytelling wheel.

Visit Robbie Couch's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Erin Cotter

Erin Cotter writes young adult fiction. Originally from Buffalo, New York, she currently calls Austin home. When not writing she spends time with her partner and pets, eating tacos, and searching for Golden-cheeked Warblers in the Texas Hill Country.

Cotter's new novel is A Dangerous Bargain.

My Q&A with the author:

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

For my book, I want the title to both hint at the action to come and also serve as a bit of a metaphor for what the book explores thematically. At first, my book was titled The Angel’s Bargain, but I didn’t love that title because while the book is about bargaining with angels for magic, it’s also about the cost of such magic, and what someone is willing to give up for greatness. There’s a sense of unease to the divine magic in my story, a sense that this power, while relied on heavily by the Renaissance artists in their workshops, is a sinister, ticking bomb with an agenda of its own. A Dangerous Bargain obviously points to that theme much more effectively than The Angel’s Bargain.

What's in a name?

The protagonist is called Virgil, and in all the books I’ve written, I’ve never felt more strongly about a character’s name before. The name isn’t historically accurate to 1400s Florence so I had to create a backstory for why Virgil calls himself this. Virgil chooses this name because he likes the thought of being someone who can lead people through darkness—a direct nod to the fact that the famous Roman poet Virgil is Dante’s guide through hell in The Divine Comedy. A Dangerous Bargain explores some heavy topics such as forgiveness, guilt, and reckoning with the cost of bad decisions, so Virgil himself goes on a personal journey through his own darkness and emerges on the other side knowing he’s worthy of love and self-kindness.

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

My teenage self wouldn’t be surprised by A Dangerous Bargain. This book is the most teenage me coded story I’ve written so far. I loved dark, historical leaning tales, and Sabriel by Garth Nix was and still is one of my favorite books. The lush Renaissance setting, the grounded, sinister magic, and the romance between pricky self-sabotaging Virgil and annoying, flirtatious Leonardo would’ve been cat nip to me at seventeen! The only aspect of this story that would surprise teenage me is the queer element. There were virtually zero queer YA books on shelves when I was a teen, and I wish so much that wasn’t the case.

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

Sticking the landing for this book was the hardest part of the entire writing process. I knew the exact final image I wanted to end on. Without spoiling anything, I wanted Virgil’s journey out of the darkness to symbolize something bigger than his own struggles but I must’ve rewritten the ending three times before I figure out what that bigger thing was and how to get there. I hope readers love the way everything ties together in the end—I know I do even though it took me a long time to get there!

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

My characters, especially, my protagonists, carry large parts of myself in them. I wrote A Dangerous Bargain during a time in my life when I struggling with a lot of personal guilt and regret, and I think Virgil is clearly a posterchild for that. When I sit down to create a new story, of course I want to create a story readers enjoy, but I also sit down to write to explore something that’s nagging me in my own life. Maybe it’s a form of therapy, I’m not sure!

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

Contemporary technology had a very large influence on A Dangerous Bargain: the magic was inspired by AI. I was sitting in the airport traveling to promote my second book when I learned from the Atlantic LibGen database that my book had already been pirated to train AI less than two weeks after its release. I was angry, but also heartbroken. What’s the point of writing a book without doing any of the labour of it? How could anyone call themselves an artist when they were skipping the creative process? I began to wonder if bygone artists would be as pissed about this as I was, and this turned into imagining what an age of AI would’ve looked like during the Italian Renaissance—one of my favourite time periods—and the magic of A Dangerous Bargain emerged.

Visit Erin Cotter's website.

Writers Read: Erin Cotter.

The Page 69 Test: A Dangerous Bargain.

My Book, The Movie: A Dangerous Bargain.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ryan Douglass

Ryan Douglass is the author of young adult horror novel The Taking of Jake Livingston, a New York Times bestseller and an ALA Rainbow Book List Pick; The Great Disillusionment of Nick and Jay, a reimagining of The Great Gatsby set in 1920s Harlem; and Night of Madness, a collaboration with the company behind Clown in a Cornfield. His work explores the ways young people fight to survive in hostile worlds. He lives in Atlanta with his dog and spends his free time baking ambitious desserts and scoping out true crime documentaries.

My Q&A with the author:

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

I think Night of Madness is pretty on-the-nose for what you’re getting. It’s a horror novel that takes place over one night and follows a character who gets trapped in a death game disguised as a game show. “Madness” is the perfect descriptor for what happens as the game induces sensory confusion. This is a collaboration with Temple Hill, so the book was originally called A Night of Madness, but I advocated to drop the “A.” Something about starting with “Night” feels very foreboding to me.

What's in a name?

The main cast was mostly named by Temple Hill, so for their characterizations I followed what the names evoked. For the characters I created, like Mara’s younger brother, Charlie, I wanted to see how I could lean into Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, which is what the plot derives from. Most of the characters have common names, some of which call back to the original cast in ways that are felt rather than explicit.

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

My teenage self would not be surprised by this at all, because I remember how changed I felt when I read Full Tilt by Neal Shusterman. I knew I wanted to do something similar, with a funhouse/carnival aesthetic that was psychologically dark underneath and formed allegories for the main character’s mental state. I had been playing with story ideas like this for years.

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

I find endings to be the hardest part because I like to take risks and go to ambitious places in my writing, but endings require you to give the reader payoff—to ground all your flights of whimsy in logic. I am very Type B, a mood reader, and naturally a more abstract, metaphysical, and metaphorical writer, since my education is in poetry. So while writing beginnings can feel like running into something exciting and new, writing endings always brings me to a grounded place and allows me to stretch that logical muscle.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

Music is always the big one for me. Movies as well, especially when I want to pull off something cinematic. I use the news as noise more than anything, because I get my news online. I stay abreast of politics because I always want to make sure my writing is tuned in to the current moment as much as possible, and because I see that as part of my civic responsibility.

Follow Ryan Douglass on Instagram and Threads.

--Marshal Zeringue

Beck Kubrick

Beck Kubrick is an award-winning writer and cartoonist living in Manchester, UK. They like stories about terrible girls and thinking about the apocalypse. They have worked with Cartoon Network, Mad Cave Studios, Oni Press, and more.

Kubrick's new book is Dead Girls, their debut graphic novel as author-illustrator.

My Q&A with the author-illustrator:

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

I like weirdly blunt, long titles like Someone Who Will Love You in All Your Damaged Glory or The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires but then I have this short title. I like my title, my editors did too, they called it ‘punchy’. It’s a little tongue-in-cheek and funny because…they’re not dead. I think it captures the dichotomy of the comedy/ horror well. ‘Dead’ is so blunt and it’s juxtaposed with ‘girl’, who traditionally we think of as innocent or sweet. My characters are girls, literal children, dealing with life and death (in the form of murderous furry- head wearing killers). Girlhood is a beautiful thing but it’s also a box others can try to trap you in.

It’s also worth saying that to be a dead girl, you don’t literally have to be a girl; Ernie, a thirty- something, adult man who is Ash’s surrogate uncle is totally a dead girl, it’s a state of mind.

I wanted to play with the traditional horror conventions of a ‘final girl’, so they’re not ‘final girls’, they’re something else. Ash is essentially a dead girl walking. It’s also stolen from a Penelope Scott song of the same name. This song and ‘Lotta True Crime’ have a lot of themes that are present in my book. The title is also inspired a little by the anime, Angel Beats! (2010), the kids are literally dead and call themselves ‘the not-yet-dead’ club.

What's in a name?

Final girls traditionally have a name or nickname that is gender-neutral, I wanted to play with tropes, not totally negate them for the sake of it. I also think having names that are typically nicknames is fun as it informs us of the character, their choices and how other treat and perceive them. Identity and expectations is a big theme of the story; Ash and Cassie both prefer a shortened version of their name and Ash further shortens Cassie to ‘Cass’ as a sign of affection.

On the flip side, authority figures often call them by their full names as a sign of disrespect, Ash reacts with anger and corrects them (whether they respect her correction informs us of their character too) whilst Cassie is happy to be ‘Cassandra’ when someone is projecting that on her. It’s not directly stated in the book, but I think of Jamie as having a traditional Korean birth name but preferring to go by Jamie and dealing with her own sense of identity via that.

Heather’s name comes from a joke from season 3 of RuPaul’s Drag Race (2009), the exact line ‘Who is Heather?’ didn’t make it into the script but ‘Where is Heather?’ did. The joke is in turn inspired by the comedy-horror film, Heathers (1988).

Most characters' last names are from The Walking Dead characters because I suck. Ash’s last name, ‘Hargreeves’, comes from Umbrella Academy by Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá and Naomi’s last name comes from Velma Dinkley from Scooby-Doo (1969). There’s a bunch of referential names like that throughout, especially the usernames for Naomi’s livestream chat.

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

Everything I create is for the weird kids and I was such a weird kid. Teenage me would be pretty amazed, I didn’t grow up around readers so just being an author seemed so intangible. I figured it’d never happen for me as I would never know the right people or be good enough at art etc. and yet, here we are!

I was a little self-serious and dark so I would probably wish it was just pure horror and all dark and moody and not horror-comedy, but I think I’d be into it.

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

Beginnings are easy; they’re just thoughts and ideas and potential, I am forever creating beginnings. Endings are final, they must tie up all the problems you just spent hundreds of pages creating but not be too perfect. I want it to feel like the characters continue to exist beyond the story, but not in an ambiguous, annoying way. I always knew where Ash’s story ended but actually putting that to the page was more difficult, it was the thing I got the most edits and notes about in edits. Ernie’s ending changed quite dramatically despite being a smaller side character.

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

Absolutely I see myself, this book is so selfishly self-indulgent and ‘me’. I’d been trying to contort myself into someone who makes (what I thought were) marketable stories that editors would like and wasn’t getting much traction. (Don’t do this, it’s a terrible strategy).

I like stories about terrible girls doing terrible things in terrible situations. I wanted unconventional heroes who don’t have to conform to the way girls ‘should’ be and to navigate the complex history of horror and which characters, especially girls and women, get to survive and why (hint: because they’re pure and virginal and innocent.). I wanted characters who felt like me and my friends and people I love; even the bad guys and even the furries (that’s a joke, shout out furries, I’m an ally). I wanted everyone to feel like real and complex humans with wants and desires. Like the Rattail twins, they look nothing alike, are they really twins? Why do they have matching rattails? I’ll never tell.

An editor did suggest making Ash more likeable early on, which stung a little as I’ve been her. I’ve been angry and felt alone and just been so mad at the world; I think a lot of us have. I’m writing for those readers, who don’t need her to be overtly sweet/ vulnerable to be on her side and endeared to her. She’s anyone who has felt trapped in a story someone else has assigned to you.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

I’m inspired by anything and everything, I can’t switch off my brain. If I drop something on the floor, by the time it’s landed, I’ve imbued it with a tragic backstory or something, it’s like a Rorschach test for where I’m at that day. I have pages in notebooks and long notes on my phone of thoughts and ideas. Every thought, experience and idea for the past couple years has been absorbed into this story.

Obviously, Dead Girls is heavily inspired by slashers, more traditional ones and the tropes and conventions they laid out and then the comedy-horrors and meta-slashers, like Scream (1996) I started watching when I was a little too young that blew my mind. Cabin in the Woods (2011), Tucker and Dale VS Evil (2010) and You’re Next (2011) rewired my brain, I was like ‘this! this is what I want!’.

Sometimes I can only see the inspiration in hindsight; in answering this question I’m realizing how important music was to creating the story. Some of the big inspirations were Penleope Scott’s entire discography, ‘Brutus’ by Buttress, ‘Burn your village’ by Kiki Rockwell, Ashnikko’s whole vibe and ‘Hayloft 1’ and ‘Hayloft 2’ by Mother Mother.

Follow Beck Kubrick on Instagram.

My Book, The Movie: Dead Girls.

The Page 69 Test: Dead Girls.

Writers Read: Beck Kubrick.

--Marshal Zeringue

Lara Stokes

Lara Stokes grew up in Northern Ontario and now lives and writes in Kawartha Lakes, Ontario. Her work has appeared in The Danforth Review, The Ottawa Arts Review, Burnt Toast (newsletter for The Writer’s Union of Canada) and has been shortlisted for the Toronto Fringe New Play Contest and Geist’s CanLit Short Fiction contest. In 2007 she completed an Honors BA in Theatre and Creative Writing at York University, where she was the recipient of the b.p. Nichol award and the Judith Eve Gewertz Award.

Stokes's debut novel is Midsummer Nights.

My Q&A with the author:

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

Midsummer Nights was originally called Community Theatre. In the editorial process, we wanted something more immediate that would place readers in the world of the novel more easily. As it is set in a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, is set in summer and has romantic elements, the shortened Midsummer Nights does more to establish the tone and subject. It’s a change I’m very happy to have made.

What's in a name?

A lot! My protagonist’s name is Miranda. I wanted her to have a Shakespearean name that didn’t have too many immediate connotations (Juliet, Ophelia…) but that also informed her character a little. Her parents are an actor and director who own a local theatre named Tempest Theatre - in The Tempest, Miranda is the daughter of the sorcerer Prospero. In the book, she is up against her parents’ creative power over her, and, as in the play, has to fight to establish her own identity within a male-dominated society (and in my book, industry). Maybe it’s an unnecessary layer, but I wanted to make sure that when it came to Shakespearean references, I was making intentional choices.

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

My teenage self would be delighted! My whole world was theatre - I read Shakespeare for fun, had my first kiss onstage, and took myself very seriously. There is a lot of teenage Lara in this book (including playing Wendy and smoking a cigar out back in my nightgown!). I was such an earnest little nerd. A lot of this book is for her.

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

I hate writing both, but both went roughly as planned in this book. Miranda makes a choice towards the end that is her own - I didn’t plan that, but I had to go with it! The very first page is actually one of the last things I wrote.

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

The main critical feedback on this book has been that my protagonist is unlikeable, so it’s hard to answer that! I really reject the idea that a protagonist has to be likeable (and it’s rarely expected of male characters!) Many readers have loved her - she is very human, flawed and selfish, and I don’t shy away from that in a character. There is enough to love to appreciate the arc of her growth. Miranda’s snark and wit are very much my own, but I’m nicer!

Visit Lara Stokes's website.

Writers Read: Lara Stokes.

The Page 69 Test: Midsummer Nights.

--Marshal Zeringue

Tracy Maton

Tracy Maton has had a varied career as a copywriter, a marketer, a quality improvement ambassador in the UK’s National Health Service, and a children’s entertainer. When she’s not writing, she can be found swimming in her local lake. Maton was born in Montreal and now lives in Bristol, England, with her husband and three occasionally present children.

The Artful Anna Harris is her debut novel.

My Q&A with the author:

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

My book was inspired by Patricia Highsmith’s classic, The Talented Mr Ripley. Being upfront about her influence felt important, hence the similarity between our two titles. To a Ripley-fan, the title offers a plethora of hints. For those without any awareness of Ripley, the title still works to a degree, awarding ownership of the story to Anna Harris and implying trickery or cunning, of which there is plenty.

The draft title was The Affable Anna Harris, chosen because the syllables match the original more closely (and Anna is undoubtedly affable, at least on the outside) but the editorial team suggested Artful to avoid any suggestion the novel is a cosy read. I think they were right.

What's in a name?

Anna Harris is a common name of little note. Anna herself is chameleon-like, blending in with ease, keen not to draw too much attention. Any plain name would have served the narrative but I wanted to echo the rhythm of Mr Ripley.

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

Not surprised at all. I was drawn to the rebels, the irreverent and the slightly scary and had no interest in the law-abiding school prefects. I’d have been Anna’s friend without a doubt.

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

I’ll opt for endings. I had a very clear picture of Anna’s opening scene and delighted in introducing my amoral character by placing her in a church. Very little changed in the editing process. The ending, however, was revised several times albeit with the same outcome for Anna. I’m not sure I would be able to start writing without knowing the beginning and the end. Everything else is up for grabs as I go along.

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

Anna’s views are, occasionally, similar to my own. Her humour is all mine. (My sister is convinced she’s Anna’s mother-in-law, which she isn’t.) The elderly lady, Jan, is who I want to be at eighty.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

My psychology degree has proved useful when I’m deciding how characters should behave. Being slightly playful, I also gave Anna an interest in pop psychology, and placed her in a copy of my childhood village where, life being stranger than fiction, there was an actual murder while I was writing the book.

Follow Tracy Maton on Instagram and Threads.

--Marshal Zeringue

Helene Wecker

Helene Wecker’s first novel, The Golem and the Jinni, was awarded the Mythopoeic Award for Adult Literature, the VCU Cabell Award for First Novel, and the Harold U. Ribalow Prize, and was nominated for a Nebula Award and a World Fantasy Award. A Midwest native, Wecker holds a B.A. in English from Carleton College and an M.F.A. in Fiction Writing from Columbia University. Her work has appeared in literary journals such as Joyland and Catamaran, as well as the fantasy anthology The Djinn Falls in Love and Other Stories. She currently lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and children.

Wecker's new novel, The Gates of Midnight, is the much-anticipated conclusion to The Golem and the Jinni trilogy.

My Q&A with the author:

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

It took me so long to come up with The Gates of Midnight! It's both a vibes-based title (dark, foreboding, a point of no return) and a direct reference to two different elements of the book. “Gate” comes from the wrought-iron gate to Chava the golem's house in Brooklyn, which is the threshold (both real and symbolic) between her own personal realm and the rest of the human world. And “Midnight” refers to Ahmad's regularly scheduled phone call to Chava, which he places every night at midnight. A long-distance call was an expensive proposition back in 1930, and it was never guaranteed to go through properly -- but since they live thousands of miles apart now, it's the only way to keep their relationship alive. I always second guess myself when it comes to titles, but The Gates of Midnight has really grown on me. And frankly I was shocked that it wasn't already taken!

What's in a name?

There’s so much significance in a name – sometimes too much for comfort! The act of choosing and changing a name, either one’s own or someone else’s, is a running theme in the Golem and the Jinni series. Ahmad used to be known as Ahmad al-Hadid, back when he lived a humble tinsmith's life in Manhattan -- but in The Gates of Midnight he works at an architecture firm under the name John Ahmad, as a concession to the racial realities of white- collar hiring at the time. He knows he needs to blend in, but also resents being expected to conform and knows he'll never truly be accepted, no matter what his name is. It doesn’t say so in the book, but my head canon is that he picked John because it was the least threatening first name he could think of, but then stubbornly reclaimed Ahmad as a last name because he couldn’t bear to part with it.

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

I think she'd be surprised by the true-to-life historical setting more than anything else. I read a lot of fantasy when I was in middle school and high school, but it was mostly high fantasy in invented worlds, quests and dragons and so on. At some point closer to college I got very into Gael Baudino and read her Strands of Starlight series, which begins in medieval Europe and moves forward in time through each book until it reaches the modern U.S.. A number of her characters are near-immortal elves who live among humans, and they pop up here and there through the different time periods. Looking back, that might've been my first exposure to historical fantasy, and the idea that you could bring the same characters forward in time from book to book. My time jumps aren't quite as drastic, though!

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

They're both difficult, but endings are worse. They have to carry so much more weight than beginnings. I tend to shove most of the action into the back third of any given book, and that was certainly true with The Gates of Midnight. The lead-up to the end involves multiple plot threads, each seen from several points of view, as they converge for the final showdown -- at which point the characters have to achieve their epiphanies and/or comeuppances on schedule. It took a lot of tinkering and shuffling scenes around to get the pacing right. And since this is the end of a trilogy, I needed to make Chava and Ahmad's ending feel extra expansive and meaningful so it could be a capstone for the larger story. The larger ending didn’t change much from how I imagined it, except for a handful of details. But the process of getting there made me question my life choices.

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

Oh, my characters definitely have parts of my personality. Especially Chava! We're both neurotic Jewish women who are scared of being noticed, but who also want to be told what a good job we're doing. (I, however, am not afraid of accidentally killing someone with my brute berserker strength.) I also made Chava extremely curious about the larger world, mostly in order to broaden her character -- but it gets her into trouble in the same way that my own curiosity does, especially when I let it push me over a social boundary. Kreindel Altschul, who is one of the main characters of The Gates of Midnight, has my stubbornness and my love of studying. Seriously, I could go to college for the rest of my life and be utterly content. In fact, I wonder sometimes if I only ended up in historical fantasy because a part of me wanted to research something!

Visit Helene Wecker's website.

Writers Read: Helene Wecker (June 2013).

The Page 69 Test: The Golem and the Jinni.

Writers Read: Helene Wecker.

--Marshal Zeringue

Laura Creedle

Laura Creedle is the author of The Deep Well, which Kirkus Reviews called “a fresh take on horror,” and The Love Letters of Abelard and Lily. When they’re not writing, Creedle can usually be found playing pinball or watching indie horror. They live in Austin, Texas, with their husband and a feral cat named Hellman who was found with her head stuck in a mayonnaise jar.

Creedle's new novel is The Girl in Green.

My Q&A with the author:

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

I love a Victorian ghost story names like The Lady in White, or The Woman in Black. I chose the title of The Girl in Green as an reference to those classic ghost stories, but it’s a bit of a bait and switch. The legacy is much darker. I don’t want to give any spoilers, so I’ll leave it at that.

What's in a name?

I consciously gave my main character Jess, a gender neutral name. It’s abrupt and sibilant, and it fits her personality. I spent a lot of time rabbit-holing around historic Appalachian last names. I gave Jess’ love interest, Barlow, one of those names. He is supposedly the scion of his family, and I thought it would be fitting if he carried a maternal last name as his first name.

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

My teenage self would probably not be very surprised by this novel. My character is ADHD and struggles with impulsivity. I drew on my own experiences here.

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

This is such an easy answer! I know exactly how every book ends, but I never know how (or where) they start. I rewrite beginnings over and over.

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

My first book, The Love Letters of Abelard and Lily was really based on my experiences growing up ADHD and dyslexic. I feel like Jess is Lily, if Lily had been abandoned at a horror-ridden boarding school. She would chew her own arm off to get out of school, which is exactly how I felt about high school.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

I love horror movies! One of my favorite horror movies of all time is The Descent, about an all woman group of cave explorers. In The Girl in Green, I wanted to capture the same claustrophobic feeling of being trapped under tons of rock, with limited avenues of escape.

Visit Laura Creedle's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Love Letters of Abelard and Lily.

My Book, The Movie: The Love Letters of Abelard and Lily.

Writers Read: Laura Creedle (January 2018).

Writers Read: Laura Creedle.

--Marshal Zeringue

Randy Boyagoda

Randy Boyagoda is a novelist who writes about books and ideas for publications including The Atlantic, The New York Times, and the Financial Times. He is a professor of English and director of the Jackman Humanities Institute at the University of Toronto.

Boyagoda's new novel is Lords of Serendipity.

My Q&A with the author:

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

I hope the title Lords of Serendipity takes readers into this story by asking themselves two questions. First, who are the Lords? Second, what’s Serendipity? As readers will discover, in a novel about a Sri Lankan village girl who dreams of going to Harvard and then does whatever it takes to get in, people who teach and study at the world’s great universities are like lords, while getting in, as a student, is a source of unexpected joy and beauty, or serendipity. By the way, the word serendipity comes from the earliest European name for Sri Lanka — Serendib — based on their sense of a happy and unexpected discovery of a beautiful island.

What's in a name?

As much as you want to put into it. For instance, in Lords of Serendipity, the main character, a young woman named Devi, applies to Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Princeton, Yale, and Stanford. Devi’s skeptical mother, a Sri Lankan village woman, refers to these places by the shorthand nickname OCHPYS (try saying it aloud). At some point, one of the characters realizes that the letters can be rearranged to spell PSYCHO…

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

My teenage reader self was a Michael Ondaatje wannabe. That self would be surprised by this new novel, because it’s satirical instead of lyrical.

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

I find beginnings far harder to write and I change these frequently. Endings, not so much – these tend to come into being more organically, thanks to the momentum of the story itself.

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

Lords of Serendipity is a global campus novel that explores university experience from the vantages of students, professors, parents, and various outsiders interested in getting in. Since the age of 19, I’ve been a university person – as an undergraduate in Canada, an international graduate student in the United States, a professor, university administrator, and now the parent of college-age children. I think I identify with elements of experience from all of my main characters.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

As I suggested, above, my lifetime of experiences in higher education – in a variety of ways and from a range of vantages — have been significant influences on my writing this novel. Beyond that, in writing a global campus novel, I pursued research in a variety of higher education settings both familiar and unfamiliar, including the Vatican Observatory for research in astronomy, and a range of very different universities in Sri Lanka, the UK, Canada, and the United States. Perhaps the most memorable experience I had along these lines was, well, serendipitous. I was in Sri Lanka to do some research at a local university and unexpectedly found way into an international university fair, where Sri Lankan families learned about opportunities to study at schools around the world. This was a great help to my imagining the combination of promise and peril, gilt and rot, that figures in the university dreams and schemes of young people around the world and the institutions that seek to inspire, educate, and profit from these young people.

Visit Randy Boyagoda's website.

The Page 69 Test: Governor of the Northern Province.

--Marshal Zeringue

Vikki VanSickle

Vikki VanSickle has worked as a bookseller, a menstrual health educator, a creative writing instructor and publishing professional with Penguin Random House Canada. Currently, she lives and writes in Toronto and hosts a book segment on CTV Your Morning.

VanSickle's new novel is The Mystic and the Missing Girl.

My Q&A with the author:

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

The title The Mystic and the Missing Girl establishes two important elements of the book—it’s a mystery, and there’s an element of the supernatural. The title was very tricky to nail down! There are so many elements in the book (cold case, nineties, tarot, mystery, humour, small town setting, ensemble cast, contemporary) that it became very overwhelming. Because I was very much inspired by Nancy Drew, we ultimately went for a retro sounding title that includes two of the key hooks of the book- a mystic, implying a touch of the supernatural, and a mystery, implying the genre.

What's in a name?

I love naming things—characters, towns, stores, you ‘name’ it (see what I did there?) Naming is a very intuitive process for me; a name has to ‘feel’ right. In the case of The Mystic and the Missing Girl, there are a number of names that are direct references to Nancy Drew. My main character’s first name is Drew, her partner-in-crime is Nick (as in Nancy’s paramour Ned Nickerson), her sole employee is George (the name of one of Nancy’s best friends), the diner in town is Gruen’s (named for Nancy’s beloved housekeeper Hannah Gruen), and so on. It isn’t necessary to catch the references to enjoy the story, but it adds a little something for people like me who grew up loving Nancy Drew.

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

I think my teenage self would be thrilled. I always wanted to write in some capacity, whether it was books, plays, or movies. My main character Drew is edgier than I was in high school, so I think teenage me would be amused by this. She would also love how Drew embraces tarot and astrology- something I had an interest in but was a bit nervous to explore given my conservative town. It’s fun to live vicariously through characters who are more rebellious than you.

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

Beginnings are tricker for me. In most drafts I start in the middle or close to the inciting incident and then go back to write the beginning once I have a strong sense of where I’m going. So much needs to happen in those first few chapters—introduce the characters, create the set-up, paint a picture of the world, establish the tone—all while engaging the reader to keep going. Those are high stakes for the writer! I have learned over my career to not get too attached to the beginning as it will always change.

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 a little bit of me in most of my protagonists. I don’t think any of them are dead ringers or even stand-ins for myself, but my attitudes, interests, and beliefs show up from time to time. With Drew Benson, it’s her sense of humour and her interest in (but trepidation of) all things mystical and esoteric that are similar to my own. She also reads tarot cards, which is something I do. Drew’s tarot philosophy essentially is my own tarot philosophy- that it is a great tool for processing, that the cards are a mirror, and all her explanations of the cards are how I would explain them in a reading.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

I love TV, film, and theatre. When I pitched the book to my agent, most of my comps came from television—the small town feel of Stars Hollow in Gilmore Girls, the gentle snark of Schitt’s Creek, and a protagonist that read like a grown-up Veronica Mars. One of my favourite things to write is dialogue. This comes from years of studying (and writing and performing) theatre. When I start my first draft some scenes are strictly dialogue, and then I go back and flesh out the rest of the chapter. I also love how strong TV writing creates arcs that are completed in a single episode while simultaneously exploring longer arcs across a whole season. I’ve been thinking a lot about this while planning my next book, which is a sequel to The Mystic and the Missing Girl. I’d love for it to turn into a proper series, but to be prepared, I need to start thinking like a TV writer.

Visit Vikki VanSickle's website.

Writers Read: Vikki VanSickle.

My Book, The Movie: The Mystic and the Missing Girl.

--Marshal Zeringue