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

Linda Kass

Linda Kass began her career as a magazine journalist and correspondent for regional and national publications. Along with her new novel, World News from Waverley High, she is the author of three previous works of historical fiction: Tasa’s Song (2016), A Ritchie Boy (2020), and Bessie (2023). A longtime civic leader, she is the founder and owner of Gramercy Books, an independent bookstore in Central Ohio. Kass lives in Columbus with her husband, Frank; they have four children, six grandchildren, and a labradoodle named Wally.

My Q&A with the author:

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

Because the setting of my novel is an urban, integrated high school, once I determined the name of the high school, Waverley High, I was set on having this as my title. To me, the high school was both a character and a place. I thought of it as an ecosystem of social bonds and individual relationships as well as a physical space, a container for my story of the late Sixties.

At some point, I began thinking that using only the high school’s name in the title would more strongly attract the YA audience (a secondary crossover audience we did aim to appeal to) rather than the primary adult audience we sought. And I had concerns that adults would see this as a book about a high school with no historical marker. So, we looked for a variation in that title presentation. I thought we should add 1969 into the subtitle, but everyone thought that made it feel like a nonfiction book. My publisher suggested the current title, World News from Waverley High, since the point of view character was a young reporter for the school paper. And she was not just looking at school news but given that the discussions in her Current History class covered the news of the day, her lens was far and wide. That new title stuck.

What's in a name?

Ironically, this is the very first sentence in my novel! And it has to do with protagonist Lena Rosen ruminating on the name of her high school, Waverley High. Why Waverley instead of Jefferson or Peabody, she asks. She looks at the root word, wave, and then she considers the definition itself: enchanting forests and rural countryside, all descriptions pointing to a peaceful, tranquil place. But that’s not the high school I’m writing about and Lena makes it very clear that this is no literal description of Waverley High. No forests or countryside, she shares, “but most of the time it is a haven, a steady respite from a lot of tumult out in the world.” So Waverley High is this place for teenagers like Lena who just want to be loved, to be seen, to fit in. And to be safe.

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

My teenage self would be shocked and thrilled to know that I returned to that state of mind and place of 1969 in a novel to be published more than five decades later. We inhabit our lives at each moment of our present experiences. In fiction—particularly the realistic fiction of World News from Waverley High—I got to inhabit that world again. While no single character reflects me or any of my then classmates, as a group they reflect all of us. And I am there, part of Lena and Jack and Derrick and Adam and…

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

I’ve written four novels, all different from one another so I find it tough to generalize. My second book is a novel in stories, so each chapter is one story that is part of a linked narrative, each with its own start and finish. Regardless of what I’m writing, when I nail my beginning, the narrative flows from there. I do an enormous amount of thinking about the story of my novel and, in general, I visualize the opening and the closing scene, or at least the point at which the story begins and the point in which it ends, and that allows me to journey freely with my characters along the way

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

A part of me lies in every character. How could it not? My life’s experience and my lens on the world meanders into the thinking and decisions that drive my characters’ words and actions, regardless of their gender or age. I inhabit each one of them, even minor characters, and unconsciously transmit myself into those who even appear to a reader to be a world apart from my personality.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

For my first novel, Tasa’s Song, I was filled with many mental pictures from my mother’s childhood in eastern Poland. My fictional character, Tasa, survives the Holocaust through music as a violin prodigy. While my writing was influenced by the classical music she would play or listen to, so did the two visual images, bookends really, that I held onto throughout the writing that helped me think of her entire coming-of-age journey: to begin, an image of her looking out her attic window at her tiny village of Podkamien, and to end, that image of the open sea on a ship heading for America.

A visual image also came into play in my fourth novel, World News from Waverley High, when I started writing: the block-long orange brick building of the high school with two floors of white- framed windows, along with what one would see and hear looking out those windows—buses arriving, cars letting students out, parents yelling after their kids not to forget their lunch, squeals of delight as teenagers reconnect after a long summer. But what really drove me as I wrote this story was the music of the Sixties, from “Everyday People” to “Spinning Wheel,” to “Give Peace a Chance.” I played the songs constantly, the lyrics helping me tell the story of that singular moment in American history when a diverse group of classmates forges friendships and debates over issues of race, politics, and belonging.

Visit Linda Kass's website.

Writers Read: Linda Kass (June 2026).

Writers Read: Linda Kass (July 2026).

Writers Read: Linda Kass (August 2026).

My Book, The Movie: World News from Waverley High.

--Marshal Zeringue

Sara Cooper

Sara Cooper is a novelist and an award-winning playwright-lyricist. She lives in New York with her husband John and their son Theo. Major awards include Richard Rodgers Award, American Academy of Arts and Letters (2022); ASCAP Foundation Lucille and Jack Yellen Award (2021); Grand Jury Prize, Barnstorm Media (2020); Jonathan Larson Grant, American Theatre Wing (2014).

Ravenous, her debut novel, was a Finalist for the 2025 Tucson Festival of Books Literary Awards.

My Q&A with the author:

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

Ravenous is the word that I think best describes the story: our protagonist, Breigh, is ravenous for food, both because she's pregnant and because she is literally starving herself to stay thin while pregnant; she's ravenous for items, because she is a compulsive shopper and unboxer; she's ravenous because she is chronically, endlessly unfulfilled; the baby, who is a character, is ravenous because it's growing; and we are all ravenous because we, as consumers (willing or not), are trapped an endless loop of buying and overconsumption. It's a story about capitalism and what it does to our bodies and minds.

What's in a name?

I noticed a very specific trend: former classmates of mine, fellow elder millennials, who go by only their first and middle names on social media and who try to sell me things on Facebook. This really tickled me, and, thus, Breigh Marie was born.

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

Not very, I think. My work has always been weird and dark. My 9th grade English teacher made me stay after class one time because she was worried about me based on a short story I had written (it was just fiction, Mrs. M! But thank you for your concern!). So, yeah, this seems like the eventual course my fiction would take.

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

I actually tend to know both the beginning and the ending before I start to write. This is my first full-length novel, but I've spent my professional life to this point writing for theatre, and that's always been the way I work. I like to have an opening and closing image, and then I work from the outside in. I generally find myself rewriting the end a few times, but only to tighten it; the idea generally stays the same, and the it's the middle that gets the most rewriting structurally.

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

I am very, very, very different from Breigh. That being said, I suffered from fairly severe postpartum depression, so I understand and empathize with her very deeply.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

Alt rock music from the 90s; that sound is at the core of my soul.

Visit Sara Cooper's website.

My Book, The Movie: Ravenous.

The Page 69 Test: Ravenous.

Writers Read: Sara Cooper.

--Marshal Zeringue

Kevin C. Morris

Kevin C. Morris's debut novel is Untamed Coast.

An engineer, writer, boater, pilot, entrepreneur, and occasional deckhand, he brings a lifelong curiosity about technology and the natural world to his storytelling.

Born and raised in Texas, Morris has made Portland, Oregon, his home for more than forty years, but spends his summers navigating the Inside Passage to Southeast Alaska—a rugged landscape that fuels both his adventures and his fiction.

My Q&A with the author:

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

Untamed Coast is set in the Alexander Archipelago of Southeast Alaska, and the setting is absolutely a main character. The story weaves three narratives across three timelines spanning eighty years, and the wild, magnificent, and dangerous place is the common thread connecting them all together. My working title was Radioville — the name of a remote island along the rugged coast where the lives of all the characters intersect.

In today’s publishing world, publishers decide titles, not authors. And as a result, titles are often more marketing devices than creative opportunities. I’m lucky to have a publisher who worked collaboratively (and exhaustively) with me to find a title that evoked the story and character of the book and was in line with my vision, while also checking the boxes on important marketing considerations such as genre appeal and target demographic expectations. As much as I was in love with Radioville, Untamed Coast does far more work setting reader expectations for a mystery/thriller in a wilderness adventure setting.

What's in a name?

For me, names are an opportunity to be creative, to encode hints about characters’ backgrounds or nature. My main character is Marconi “Marco” Franco. Marco is a grieving widower exploring the coast of SE Alaska in his boat Radio Flyer. He’s also got a lifelong passion for radio as an amateur radio enthusiast, and he is named after Guglielmo Marconi who developed the first wireless radios for transmitting Morse code. Morse code is a theme throughout the book, and I’ve even included little Easter eggs - Morse code chapter titles that readers can decipher. My female lead is Anya Baron, born and raised in SE Alaska, and a reluctant descendant of Alexander Baranov - a brutal Russian colonizer and first governor of Russian America.

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

My teenage-reader self was a science fiction and wilderness adventure nerd. My parents were both school teachers as well as private pilots, and we spent our summers exploring the western US and Canada in our pickup camper and flying light planes and boating across the Southwestern US. I carried that drive to travel and explore into my adult life, along with my passions for science, engineering, writing, and music. Untamed Coast is absolutely an expression of the interests I developed growing up. So, I think my teenage-reader self would be surprised if I hadn’t written this novel.

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

For me, the beginning is everything. I have a vision for my characters, and I put them in an environment and in a situation that uniquely challenges them. From that point on, it’s just gravity. What would that character do in this scenario, and then what would inevitably go wrong? So, the ending ultimately writes itself. But, as a writer we have the spectacularly fun superpower of time travel. Think a scene or an ending would be more exciting or interesting if something different had happened before? No problem, just slip back a few chapters and rewrite history. So, I feel the setup is everything. Get the perfect beginning and the roadmap from there to the end just unfolds like magic.

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

In Untamed Coast, Marco is definitely (and obviously) the character that most closely resembles me. In many ways, he’s just a “me” that was dealt a different set of life circumstances, and who deals with those in (mostly) ways that I’d realistically aspire to. But he’s got some pretty major flaws as well. Other characters are riffs on that idea, but with much more varied starting points. “What would I do if I were a woman in an abusive relationship with a commercial fisherman in SE Alaska?” Still others are amalgamations of characters I’ve known or heard stories of in my travels.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

There’s a pretty solid line from my passion for boating, exploring SE Alaska, wilderness, wildlife, food, and music to Untamed Coast.

There’s a scene in the book where Marco first learns about Radioville that is based almost exactly on my own real-world experience finding Radioville while traveling SE Alaska with my wife on our boat. I like to include as much of the real world in my writing as possible. I work to make the locations, the people, the technologies, the music, the food – everything I depict – as realistic as possible so that the story comes across as authentic, believable, and relatable.

Music, in particular, plays a key role. Untamed Coast weaves three timelines: 1938, 1984, and 2017. I wanted to make the transitions as clear and seamless as possible for the reader. One of the best tools for that was music. Each timeline features music of that era, played on technology of that era. The music selections tell us something about the characters as well, and the music selections usually relate directly to what is happening in the narrative at the time. I also am personally prone to earworms, and thought it would be fun to use music references to put a soundtrack in the reader’s mind as they read different sections of the book.

Visit Kevin C. Morris's website.

--Marshal Zeringue