Sophie Chen Keller's new novel is The Luster of Lost Things.From her Q&A with Deborah Kalb:
Q: You've noted that the inspiration for this novel came from a "lost" flyer that you saw in Hawaii. How did that eventually turn into the book?--Marshal Zeringue
A: While camping on a volcano in Maui, I stumbled across a “Lost” flyer that someone had posted at the campsite. It was for a missing camera that contained irreplaceable family photos with sentimental value.
It was clear how much the camera meant to whoever posted the flyer, and I couldn’t stop wondering whether they had ended up finding it. I thought about all the things people lost, and what they were really looking when they looked for something like a missing camera. I wondered whether anyone responded to these flyers.
That’s when I had my first idea of who Walter would be—a boy who dedicated himself to answering “Lost” flyers. Naturally, that led me to the intriguing question of why he was doing it.
Upon returning from the trip, I began writing Walter’s story. I thought of it as a grown-up version of the books my mom used to read out loud to me before bed.
I wanted it to bring us back to those childhood classics, to that time when the world was bright and brimming with possibility. As we get older, it becomes...[read on]