Sarah Selecky's new novel is Radiant Shimmering Light.From her Q&A with Deborah Kalb:
Q: You've written about your characters Lilian and Eleven before--how did they change from your original story to this novel?Visit Sarah Selecky's website.
A: I’ve been writing about these two women for more than 15 years! Why? They’ve been in my imagination for so long, and I’m still unsure why that is. I guess sometimes characters just hang around and haunt you. I thought I was finished with Lilian after that short story — but then I realized there was more I wanted to know about her.
In many ways, Lilian is the same Lilian. Just older and… wiser? Well, more experienced, let’s say! In relationships, she’s still the same well-intentioned, vulnerable, and insecure woman she was in the story. She’s still searching for where she belongs, and she doesn’t know how to find and nurture true connection. That part of her character was the driving force of both the story and the novel.
In the novel, I gave her a magical superpower and got to spend time developing it — she has the ability to see auras, and she’s an artist.
Eleven is a bit different. She was a mysterious presence in the earlier drafts of that short story. Lilian was obsessed with this person, desperately hoping...[read on]
--Marshal Zeringue