Martha Freeman's new novel is Zap!.From her Q&A with Deborah Kalb:
Q: How did you come up with the idea for Zap?Visit Martha Freeman's website.
A: My engineer friend Anthony mentioned a friend of his who was fascinated with the power grid. This made me realize how little I knew about the subject myself. There happened to be a new book about the grid by Ted Koppel, so I read that – and was alarmed by the dangerous scenarios he described. I wanted to know more, and writing a book is a good excuse to do research.
Q: You based your character Luis on a real-life person. What made you decide he would make a good fictional character?
A: As with all my books, there was more than one inspiration. For Zap, my friend Luis’s life story was another. Luis’s parents immigrated to the U.S. from Nicaragua. They worked very hard when they came to New Jersey, and young Luis – born in the USA -- was left to his own devices at times.
He grew up in a tough town and had some harrowing experiences, stuff I had a hard time even imagining. He told me once it was...[read on]
My Book, The Movie: Strudel's Forever Home.
Writers Read: Martha Freeman (November 2016).
The Page 69 Test: Strudel's Forever Home.
--Marshal Zeringue