Melissa Scholes Young

Melissa Scholes Young's new novel is Flood.

From her Q&A with Wendy Besel Hahn for Bloom:

Wendy Besel Hahn: Writing this novel involved a great deal of research into Samuel Clemens, the Mississippi River, and Hannibal, Missouri, as evident in your Notes. What was the most surprising discovery you made while researching?

Melissa Scholes Young: That the Mississippi actually DID run backwards. In 1812 a series of earthquakes on the New Madrid fault line in Missouri caused the river to run in the wrong direction for a few hours. I read accounts of that harrowing event from witnesses on the shoreline, mothers in boats with their babies, and historians trying to explain it all. The idea of recalibrating, of needing to run in the wrong direction to survive, and of how floods destroy but also make fertile ground was the beginning of my writing Flood.

WBH: Like the Mississippi River, which regularly leaves the confines of its banks, your novel breeches some genre boundaries by including expository sections preceding each chapter. Was this risk taking intentional on your part or instinctual?

MSY: I wrote the expository sections when I was researching almost as tales to myself. They were definitely from my subconscious and what was working in my brain behind the explicit plot of the book. The idea to incorporate them as a Tom and Becky manual...[read on]

Visit Melissa Scholes Young's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Melissa Scholes Young & Huckleberry Nacho Finn.

--Marshal Zeringue