S.K. Perry is the author of the new novel Let Me Be Like Water. From her Q&A with Deborah Kalb:Q: How did you come up with the idea for Let Me Be Like Water, and for your character Holly?--Marshal Zeringue
A: I started writing the book in 2012, when I'd just finished university and was working in a call centre.
I was writing on my journey to and from work and on my breaks, and the scraps of writing ever so slowly became a novel; it wasn't something I initially set out to do, and up til that point I had kept most of my writing very private.
Then I started performing spoken word poetry and so experimenting with work that is written to be heard out loud, and the book started to grow into that; I was trying to shape Holly's voice - speaking as she does to Sam - as an auditory one.
Holly was someone I got to know slowly. It was my first novel and I really enjoyed discovering this about all the characters, how they take over and do their own thing, showing you who they are themselves.
I guess one thing I did deliberately with Holly was make her as young as she is, partly because I had not encountered many depictions of women in their early 20s experiencing such an intimate...[read on]