Katia D. Ulysse is a fiction writer, born in Haiti. Her latest novel is Mouths Don't Speak.From the author's Q&A with Deborah Kalb:
Q: How did you come up with the idea for Mouths Don't Speak, and for your character Jacqueline?--Marshal Zeringue
A: Hi Deborah. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to chat with you about Mouths Don’t Speak.
Jacqueline Florestant, the protagonist in Mouths Don’t Speak, came to me long before I wrote the novel. The novel begins in the aftermath of the catastrophic earthquake that nearly annihilated Haiti in 2010; however, Ms. Florestant lived in my imagination long before then.
She is flawed, as most of us are. She doesn’t have answers to her many problems. She’s a woman trying to keep sane, in the midst of tragic events.
Before typing the first word on a page, I knew that Jacqueline’s husband, Kevin, was a Marine. I knew he was a combat veteran suffering from severe PTSD. I knew they were in love. I knew there was a child. I knew, also, that she had a very strong connection with Haiti; I was not sure exactly what that was until I sat down to write the story.
I wrote and rewrote the story many times before I felt that I had explained the characters’ motives. I imagined these people, who turned out to be composites of dozens of characters; each has a...[read on]