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

Kate Westbury

Kate Westbury grew up a voracious reader of detective fiction, and unraveling plot twists became her favorite pastime. She now puts her whodunnit obsession to good use writing historical mysteries. Beyond the page, Westbury teaches Latin and dreams of moving to an English village with crimes to solve.

Her new novel is The Oxford Guide to Scandal and Lies.

My Q&A with the author:

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

The original title for this story was A Tutorial in Murder. I loved that it was a play on words (i.e. the Oxford tutorial system), but it also sounds more like an actual midcentury mystery…which probably wouldn’t draw in as many contemporary readers. My agent suggested thinking of a new title, and my critique group helped me brainstorm The Oxford Guide to Scandal and Lies, which my publisher loved and kept. As much as I was fond of Tutorial, the new title also better conveys the humor and hijinks and hint of romance, and I’m glad for the switch.

What's in a name?

I can either name a character immediately or after tedious research. It’s important to me that they roll off the tongue easily and are slightly unique without sounding outlandish. For first names, I often consult baby name data from whatever year that character was born, and for surnames I look more closely at that part of the country. Sometimes I look at meanings for a tie-break if I’m waffling between options, but I tend not to rely upon those too much (especially for suspects’ names because I don’t want to tip off readers). Ginevra and Sidney both happened to be names I had loved and jotted down before starting this book, and they ticked the right boxes.

The Rook is the one name which did get chosen for symbolism since it’s a codename. I liked the double meanings (chess piece and bird), as allusions to his strategic, solitary, slightly taciturn persona.

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

Teenage Kate would be enthralled with this book. It is the product of so many things I’ve loved for decades, especially in high school (mysteries, Oxford, slow-burn romance, espionage). She would also be very excited (and relieved) because I tried writing my first mystery in high school and gave up in despair over plotting mechanics. What would probably shock her is that it took eight years of writing middle grade before switching to adult historical mystery, but that early frustration and overwhelm really left me wary of tackling the genre I loved so much again.

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

I find beginnings harder because there’s so many good places one could start a story, and settling on which one is the best takes so much trial and error for me. But it’s also really satisfying to see the first chapter come to life through the extra polishing and layers created in the process. I don’t have the same emotional connection to my endings, if only because less work goes into them.

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

Ginevra got my snark, and Sidney my tendency to overthink everything. That being said, in some ways I feel like I met these two rather than created them, and they are by far the loudest characters I’ve ever written and sometimes beyond my control. In this book, they frequently shifted the plot from my outline, and the results were always better than whatever I had planned.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

I love to create an immersive experience when I’m drafting, and for this book that brought in a lot of photographs for a mood board and 1950s music in the background (Perry Como ended up a favorite). I also love to make a book-specific playlist with tracks pulled from different scores, and for Oxford Guide I found myself consistently drawn to Daniel Pemberton’s work. I’m also a huge fan of Masterpiece Mystery, and Endeavour certainly left its fingerprints on this book.

Visit Kate Westbury's website.

Q&A with Kate Westbury.

--Marshal Zeringue

Jeanne M. Dams

Jeanne M. Dams, an American, is a devout Anglophile who has wished she could live in England ever since her first visit in 1963. Fortunately, her alter ego, Dorothy Martin, can do just that. Dams lives in South Bend, Indiana, with a varying population of cats.

Her new Dorothy Martin mystery is A Thief's Folly.

My Q&A with the author:

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

A Thief’s Folly was not my title. Readers may not realize that titles are the prerogative of the publisher. My title, Deadly Treasure, says a good deal more about the subject of the book, which concerns an object of value in the home of a good friend of the protagonist, Dorothy Martin. Jane, the friend and neighbor, has suffered a stroke and is unable to talk well enough to tell Dorothy what she (Jane) wants Dorothy to find and hide. The search takes Dorothy and Alan to Paris and ends in a death and a criminal’s reform.

What’s in a name?

My protagonist, Dorothy Martin, is named after my favorite cousin. She’s been gone for a good many years now, but I loved her dearly. To me the name suggests solid Midwestern values. Like me and my cousin, character Dorothy is from Indiana, though now living in England, as I have for many years longed to do.

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

I think she would not be surprised at all. Even at that age I’d read Agatha Christie and Sherlock Holmes and loved the mystery genre, including the adventures of Freddy the Pig—look him up if you don’t know him!

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

Oh, beginnings are easy! All I know when I begin is the setting and a very rough idea about the plot. I knew, for example, that Folly would feature Jane, and would be about values, what really matters. For the rest, I let the characters take over and do what they will. That may sound idiotic, but it works for me. If I get too far ahead of them and start having ideas about the ending, they firmly pull me back into control. If that sounds weird, I admit that it is, and I have no explanation of how they, creatures of my own mind, take on life and ideas of their own.

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

That’s easy: Dorothy Martin is me. Is I? Anyway, her ideas and attitudes, her background and opinions, are entirely mine. Friends say when they read her dialogue, they hear me speaking. The other characters have some things in common with me, but not a lot. Nor are they based on real people I know.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

My books are full of references to music and art that I love, but I don’t think they influence my writing much, except insofar as they have influenced me over the years and helped form my, i.e. Dorothy’s, character. Certainly my faith has influenced every aspect of my persona, including my writing.

Visit Jeanne M. Dams's website.

Writers Read: Jeanne M. Dams.

--Marshal Zeringue

Barbara O'Neal

Barbara O’Neal is the author of more than a dozen award-winning, bestselling novels, including the runaway bestseller, When We Believed in Mermaids, which has been published in 21 countries and spent many months on both the most sold and most read Amazon Charts, as well as the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and Washington Post bestseller lists. O’Neal is an avid traveler and passionate cook, and discovered the Oregon coast on a pandemic-era trip with her husband. She now lives on that rocky, moody coast in a quirky beach house and writes her books from a room overlooking the sea. She lives with her British husband, who has promised to never lose his accent, and their cats and dogs.

O’Neal's new novel is A Thousand Painted Hours.

My Q&A with the author:

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

It's certainly not direct, as some of my titles have been. This one is more lyrical, speaking to time and hope and place.

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

I love this question!!! My teenage self would be thrilled by this novel--it's the kind of big, sweeping book that qualified as The Real Thing when I was that age. Teenage me was already writing novels, so to find out we actually did it, and did it for an entire career, would be major. I think she'd cry tears of joy.

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

Oh, beginnings are much, much harder. Beginnings are like searching for the hidden path to a magic city, and I take a lot of wrong turns before I finally find the right opening. By the time I get to the end of a book, know where I'm going, what issues need to be resolved and who has to change, so driving toward that satisfying end is often a hectic, heated sprint. Sometimes, I leave the very last scene to write the day before I mail it, when I've gone through the manuscript one more time and can clearly see everything it had to say and where the grace note might be. A great grace note is what lingers with readers for a long time.

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

I think there's a lot of us in most of the characters we produce. Elsie is an artist, and hungry to serve that work at a fairly high cost. She's adventurous and passionate and yet she also really loves the people in her world. I think I am all of those things, and I also am a most passionate letter-writer!

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

Everything! Everything! The weather and clouds, the forces of history, repeating and repeating, deep conversations, stumbling over strange facts, and travel for sure. I didn't realize how much I relied on travel for inspiration and keeping my mind fresh until I couldn't go anywhere during the pandemic. It's was illuminating, and I let myself claim it as something that's as much a part of me as the work itself. I will also say that movies influence me heavily. I love them and watch them, some ten times or more. (The English Patient probably planted a few seeds for this book.)

Visit Barbara O'Neal's website.

My Book, The Movie: A Thousand Painted Hours.

The Page 69 Test: A Thousand Painted Hours.

Writers Read: Barbara O'Neal.

--Marshal Zeringue