Valerie Geary

Valerie Geary is the author of the novel Crooked River as well as the new novel Everything We Lost. From her Q&A with Deborah Kalb:

Q: How did you come up with the idea for Everything We Lost, and why did you decide to make UFOs a part of the story?

A: There wasn’t one thing that sparked this book, rather assorted bits and pieces coming together at the same time. I was on five weeks of bed rest after breaking a bone in my back and was watching a lot of X-Files. I loved the dynamic between Scully and Mulder, the skeptic and the believer.

I was also thinking a lot about memories, how quickly they change, and about the experiences we have as children, how challenging it can be to interpret those memories many years later. Finally, I wanted to write a book exploring big mysteries and those life questions that don’t always have answers.

I wanted UFOs to play a role in this book from the start, but it wasn’t until I started doing research that I understood what exactly this would look like.

As I dove deeper into the history and the beliefs surrounding ufology, I began to see a lot of similarities between ufology and other more mainstream religions. Having been raised in a fundamentalist religion, and having since left that religion, this...[read on]

Learn more about the book and author at Valerie Geary's website.

Writers Read: Valerie Geary (November 2014).

--Marshal Zeringue