From his Q&A with Jennifer Rubins for the Penguin Random House Audio blog:
Who is the most challenging character you’ve written and why?Visit Steven Rowley's website.
Jacqueline Onassis, without a doubt. Not only was she a living, breathing person, she’s someone I have enormous respect for. I never wanted it to feel like I was using her as a gimmick to attract eyes to my story—she deserves better. I wanted her to have real narrative purpose, to drive the action of the story. On top of that, she’s so incredibly well known; everyone is going to have an opinion on how she sounds and appears. What little leeway I had stemmed from how private she was during this extraordinary third act in her life. She only granted one interview during her entire career in publishing. This made research a challenge, but fortunately there are several books on her time as an editor and I was able to speak to people who had met and worked with her. Additionally, I read several of the books she had edited around the time of my story to inhabit some of the topics that interested her, and to imagine what might have been on her professional mind. From there, I...[read on]
Coffee with a Canine: Steven Rowley & Tilda Swinton.
My Book, The Movie: Lily and the Octopus.
Writers Read: Steven Rowley (June 2016).
--Marshal Zeringue