Trish Doller

Trish Doller is the author of novels for teens and adults about love, life, and finding your place in the world. A former journalist and radio personality, Doller has written several YA novels, including the critically acclaimed Something Like Normal, as well as Float Plan, her adult women's fiction debut. When she's not writing, she loves sailing, traveling, and avoiding housework. Doller lives in southwest Florida with an opinionated herding dog and an ex-pirate.

My Q&A with the author:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

The original title for the book was Apparent Wind, which is an esoteric term regarding the speed of the wind that's hard enough to explain to sailors, let alone to the general public. When I was considering more accessible titles, I remembered that a float plan is something American boaters are supposed to file with the Coast Guard (or with a reliable friend) in case the boater doesn't make their destination. I wondered how many boaters actually file a float plan, and that started me thinking about Anna's journey. In Float Plan, I think the word "float" does most of the heavy lifting until readers get into the story and realize Anna doesn't have much of a plan.

What's in a name?

Anna got her name from a song by Counting Crows called "Anna Begins." The song has no connection to the book; it's just a favorite song that made me love the name. But since the very beginning, Float Plan has been a project very close to my heart, so it seemed fitting to give my main character a name I love.

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your new novel?

Present me and teenage me have a lot in common when it comes to reading tastes. I wrote Float Plan because it's the novel I wanted to read, so I think teenage me (who wrote in secret) would be thrilled--not only that it was published, but that I wrote about something we both really like.

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

Most of the time, beginnings are easier for me because I tend to start with an emotional bang. But it was a little different with Float Plan because the original manuscript started in the wrong place. I kept clinging to the notion that readers needed all of that information. When I cut the beginning and put Anna on the boat much sooner, the urgency became immediate and the energy of the book changed.

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?

I think there's a tiny bit of me in every character. It may not be something recognizable to the general public or that I've talked about widely. Anna in Float Plan is not me, but there are elements of her pain that I have experienced in my own life--and I'm still learning how to be a better sailor, too.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

I get inspiration from places I visit, things that happen in the world around me, and people I meet in real life, but music has the biggest influence on my work. As I mentioned earlier, music gave me the name of a main character. I've written a book based on the way a song makes me feel whenever I hear it. I've listened to a single song on repeat while writing a scene because it helped me channel the anguish the character needed. I make playlists for all of my books, filled with songs that reflect the characters, settings, plot, and emotions.

Visit Trish Doller's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Trish Doller & Cobi.

My Book, The Movie: Float Plan.

--Marshal Zeringue

Julie Czerneda

Canadian, biologist, award-winning author/editor Julie E. Czerneda shares her curiosity about living things and optimism about life through her science fiction and fantasy, published by DAW Books, NY. The 20th anniversary edition of her acclaimed SF novel, In the Company of Others, will be released fall 2021 (Philip K. Dick Award finalist; winner 2002 Aurora for Best English Novel). Her new novel is Spectrum, continuing Esen’s misadventures in the Web Shifter’s Library series, featuring all the weird biology one could ask.

My Q&A with Czerneda:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

Spectrum is my latest Esen novel and readers may have noticed a pattern to her titles. The first sense I considered when I wrote about Web Shifters, aliens who take on, at the molecular level, the form of another species, was vision. The first book was called Beholder’s Eye because what Esen is able to see, with the eyes she happens to have, matters. I’ve played with variations ever since, always about light. Spectrum? Again, a title to reflect the importance of vision, but also a hint to readers that stellar astronomy will be front and center.

For the last three books, we’ve added “Web Shifter’s Library” to cue readers these stories revolve around Esen and her Human friend Paul’s attempt to provide crucial cultural details to those in crisis, a library where you bring a bit of new information in order to receive what you need to know. Who doesn’t love a library?

What's in a name?

A series brings with it a growing list of names, and if you’re dealing with the far future and masses of aliens, some involve spit. For my favourite new character, however, I wanted a name from, well, here. Earth. A simple yet memorable name, one to make a person reading it smile, a little, picturing a quaint little village where nothing much ever changes. I picked Evan, in part because one of Esen’s greatest fans over the years has been an Evan (hi), but also because it’s a pleasant name. When it came to a surname? What came to me was Gooseberry.

Having named the delightful Evan Gooseberry, I chose to explain how, in Esen’s universe, there’d be a Gooseberry at all. This led me to create the Gooseberry Lore, a treasured family document tracing holders of the name all the way back to fabled, long-lost Earth. To that quaint little village. You didn’t, I hasten to add, even have to be Human. You just had to be a Gooseberry, attached legally to that lineage.

Poor young Evan is expected to produce the next generation of Gooseberrys—by adoption if need be—and, his family hopes, become the next keeper of the Lore. Evan’s in no hurry.

So much story tension and fun, all in a name.

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

When writing Esen, both are easy and I don’t change them. In fact, I wrote the final paragraphs of Beholder’s Eye first, then created the rest of the story to get me there. As I look at Esen’s novels, I find that’s continued to be my process for her. Not in precise words, as in Beholder, but certainly I know the tone and direction before I get underway.

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?

Maybe? I’ve often referred to writing the next Esen book as my vacation time. Her stories are the easiest of all for me to write and filled with moments when I burst out laughing. I think it’s the liberation of tossing in everything I love about our natural world, with some tongue-in-cheek alien adaptations, but now that you’re posing the question? Esen’s attitude toward everyone around her reflects mine. The depth of her friendships—that’s me as well, though admittedly my initial inspiration was my dislike for science fiction where no one has friends.

It’s also entirely possible I babble to myself and recite cool bio facts to anyone close when excited, much as Esen does.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

I read and research for every book I plan to write, plus for Esen, I collect weird biology facts and new discoveries. There’s a file drawer. Those inspire me. Attenborough shows like The Perfect Planet definitely get the juices flowing.

Looking way back, an influence on how I structure my novels came from tv westerns. The “back at the ranch” flashes to show what was happening away from the action seemed an excellent approach, as did commercial breaks at “cliff hangers”, a point of tension, to keep watchers glued to the set. When I wrote my first Esen, I put in flashes to an alien point of view called “Out There” to show what the bad thing was doing. My chapters stop at points where you really want to jump to the next page. Even the little hints of more to come at the end of shows, to entice you into watching next week (or right away, in streaming land) I use in Esen’s stories. There’s one at the end of Spectrum by the way.

Visit Julie E. Czerneda's website.

The Page 69 Test: To Guard Against the Dark.

The Page 69 Test: The Gossamer Mage.

The Page 69 Test: Mirage.

--Marshal Zeringue

Kelly Mustian

Kelly Mustian grew up in Natchez, Mississippi, the southern terminus of the historic Natchez Trace. Her work has appeared in numerous literary journals and commercial magazines, and her short fiction has won a Blumenthal Writers and Readers Series Award. She is a past recipient of a Regional Artist Grant from the North Carolina Arts and Science Council. Mustian currently lives with her family near the foothills of North Carolina.

The Girls in the Stilt House is her debut novel.

My Q&A with the author:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

Titles almost never come easily to me, but I was in love with my working title for the book that became The Girls in the Stilt House. I wanted a title that was symbolic, meaningful, and intriguing, with a nod to nature. All of that. My publishing team, however, wanted a title that works to draw readers into the story. The Girls in the Stilt House does that. It introduces the young women who are the main characters and speaks to the setting, which is a stilt house hidden away on a swamp. It hints at intrigue. This title has served the novel well. My first love, though? A Jury of Trees.

What's in a name?

I’m a big fan of symbolism and analogy, but not so much with my name choices. I tend to lean toward names that begin with vowels for soft characters (Ada) and consonants for bolder characters (Matilda). Other than a set of twins who appear briefly (“Serena and Tranquilla—wishful thinking, those names”) and an Easter egg or two, I chose the names in this novel based mostly on the way they sound. The name “Annis,” though, is central to the mystery at the heart of The Girls in the Stilt House.

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your novel?

Not surprised at all. My world view was shaped by books I read growing up in Mississippi while trying to make sense of the world around me during some particularly turbulent years of the Civil Rights Movement. Books like Solomon Northup’s Twelve Years a Slave and Anne Moody’s Coming of Age in Mississippi. An old soul, I came of age reading work by Southern Gothic authors from the thirties and forties—Carson McCullers and Robert Penn Warren and Eudora Welty. So writing a novel set in 1920s Mississippi about two young characters grappling with a disturbing and dangerous cultural landscape is, I think, what my teenage self would have expected.

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

Beginnings are the worst. There are so many possibilities, so many choices to make, so many false starts. But with this project, I began with an image of an overgrown cemetery in the woods and an old, broken tomb with a cracked lid, a scene I remembered from my Mississippi childhood. And that’s where I started with this story—two young women in need of a place to hide a body, a broken tomb in the woods off the old Natchez Trace, and a swamp that lent itself to lush language and a slight Southern Gothic mood.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

Music and time in the woods. I can’t listen to music while I work, but I make a playlist for projects—songs that have a connection to the story or the characters—and load it into an old-school iPod, plug that into an equally old-school docking station with pretty decent speakers, and listen in the kitchen while I cook. Something about the music filling the room gives it more impact, and I find that inspiring.

Also, I made friends with the physical landscape of my childhood early on, as Ada did in my novel: “When she was a little girl, she believed she loved this place, the trees offering themselves as steadfast companions, the wildflowers worthy confidants, but passing through now with eyes that had taken in other wonders and a heart that had allowed an outsider to slip in, she knew she had only been resigned to it. As she was again.” I left Mississippi at nineteen, and my landscapes have been many and varied since then, but I’m always at peace in the woods. Nature is an endless source of inspiration.

Visit Kelly Mustian's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eleanor Morse

Eleanor Morse is the author of White Dog Fell from the Sky and An Unexpected Forest, which won the Independent Publisher’s Gold Medalist Award for Best Regional Fiction in the Northeast United States, and was selected as the Winner of the Best Published Fiction by the Maine writers and Publishers Alliance. Morse has taught in adult education programs, in prisons, and in university systems, both in Maine and in southern Africa. She lives on Peaks Island, Maine.

Morse's new novel is Margreete's Harbor.

My Q&A with the author:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

To give you a little background, Margreete's Harbor traces the life of a family of six people in three generations living under one roof during the 1950s and 1960s. They all end up together because the grandmother, Margreete, who suffers from dementia, burns down the kitchen and is unable to live alone safely. She refuses to leave her home and the rest of the family moves to Maine to be with her.

The structure of the novel is kaleidoscope, with six voices and six interconnected story lines. Because of this, I had a heck of a time coming up with a title that worked for all of those voices. I could have filled pages with titles I considered and rejected. Here are a few: Love, Even So. Keepers of This Place. Lifeboat. Rowing Toward the Light. Anthem for Six Voices. There were dozens more!

I owe the title, Margreete's Harbor, to my agent, who said, "Your book is like a five-pointed star, with Margreete at the center. Why not Margreete's Harbor?" So that was it.

Titles are the first words that a reader reads. Because of that, they feel really important. I wanted these first words to pull a reader into the book with a concrete image. In this case, I hope the word "harbor" does this through an image of water, boats, and a feeling of shelter.

What's in a name?

Out of the six main characters in the book, some of the names came to me and never changed, and others changed a couple of times. Bernie, the oldest kid in the family, first appeared in a short story, walking at a distance across a field with a kind of lumbering walk. He was always Bernie. I can't explain why, but I can't imagine him called anything else. The names of Harry (the father) and Gretchen (the youngest daughter) also came quickly. Margreete (the grandmother) also came to me easily, although she began as Margrete. I added the extra "e" so it would be clearer how to pronounce her name.

I struggled, though, with the mother--Liddie (short for Lydia)--and with the middle daughter, Eva. When I'm coming up with names, I try not to overthink. Sometimes the name comes first and sometimes the character. With Liddie and Eva, I tried out a bunch of ideas, but their names only became clear as I got to know them better.

Margreete's second husband, the love of her life and the father of her children, was named Irving Bright. He was originally from New York City, and was a kind man, a good dancer, with eyes of deep brown and breath that smelled of tobacco. Margreete's life with Irving was filled with color and brightness, so that surname seemed to make sense. His eventual death devastated Margreete (this is backstory, so I'm not giving anything away). Later, (still backstory) she made a mistake and married a banker name Everett Hocking. He was a boring man who cleared his throat importantly. I needed a name that sounded a stiff, like a man who pontificates.

With naming, I'm generally not looking for metaphors or associations as much as something that simply fits the character.

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

I enjoy beginning a book, opening a doorway into a new, still unknown world. I don't know how my books will end when I begin them. I find endings much harder to write than beginnings. By that time, I'm pulling together lots of threads and trying to make sense of it all. So I tend to write and re-write endings way more than beginnings.

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?

I've never been drawn to write highly autobiographical fiction. Margreete's Harbor is probably as close as I've ever come, with a scene or two lifted from real experiences growing up in my family (a disastrous piano recital is one scene that comes to mind). All writing is a combination of memory and imagination, and I tend to draw more heavily from imagination than memory. Having said that, though, every character I've ever written has some connection to me, in the same way that every character in our dream lives is said to be connected to some aspect of ourselves. Finding that connection makes characters more real and more sympathetic, but sometimes it's also a booby trap when I realize, "Hey, that's something I do, too, and I wish I didn't."

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

Music has definitely influenced my writing. I played the piano from a young age, and classical music was my first art form until I realized I wasn't suited to performance (see the "disastrous piano recital" above). I now play for pleasure and often sit down at the keyboard when I'm stuck on a scene--it helps get things moving, and I appreciate that it's wordless. The natural world is another big influence. And in Margreete's Harbor, the political environment matters a good deal: how things changed between the 50s and the 60s, how these changes affected characters.

Visit Eleanor Morse's website.

The Page 69 Test: Margreete’s Harbor.

--Marshal Zeringue

Maria Kuznetsova

Maria Kuznetsova was born in Kiev, Ukraine, and moved to the United States as a child. Her first novel, Oksana, Behave!, was published in 2019. She lives in Auburn, Alabama, with her husband and daughter, where she is an assistant professor of creative writing at Auburn University. She is also a fiction editor at The Bare Life Review, a journal of immigrant and refugee literature.

Kuznetsova's new novel is Something Unbelievable.

My Q&A with the author:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

The title does a lot to take the reader into the thematic ideas in my novel – that, while there is a certain order to a generational family saga that spans centuries and continents, at the end of the day, the result can be called "something unbelievable."

What's in a name?

Names – and nicknames - are so important in Russian-speaking culture. In my book, last names are important, too – Larissa sheds her family name to take the name of her husband, who comes from an illustrious family. Natasha, an actress whose first name becomes a running joke because many of the Russian prostitute roles she tries out for are also for people named Natasha, sheds her last name – which was the same as her grandmother's – to take an American last name that would make her seem like a more Americanized actress. Natasha also gives her daughter, Natalia, the same name as her grandmother's mother – so in the end, there is still something that binds all these generations of women, whether they shared the same last name or not.

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your new novel?

Very surprised! As a teenager, I didn't feel like I had "permission" to write about characters who weren't American - like Natasha the actress, I wanted to fit in and shed my immigrant identity. I would be shocked that all of my characters were born in Kiev and spoke Russian – and I would also be surprised that I took so much interest in my family's past and history.

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

Generally, beginnings! I never know how the story really starts until I find the right ending.

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?

I do see a lot of myself in my characters - usually a worse version of myself for comedic purposes, to be honest.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

The Bachelor!

Visit Maria Kuznetsova's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Nev March

Nev March is the recent winner of the Minotaur Books/Mystery Writers of America Award for Best First Crime Fiction.

After a long career in business analysis, in 2015 she returned to her passion, writing fiction and now teaches creative writing at Rutgers-Osher Institute. A Parsee Zoroastrian herself, she lives in New Jersey with her husband and two sons. Murder in Old Bombay is her debut novel.

My Q&A with the author:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

My novel Murder in Old Bombay is based on a real tragedy. It was first titled The Rajabai Tower Mystery when it won MWA’s award and chosen for publication. However, my publisher and I discussed that “Raja-bai” is unfamiliar, even alien to people in the States and could put off readers. (Search Rajabai Tower Tragedy to find articles about the original events.) “Old Bombay” gives an impression of the Colonial era, so that works well for a historical mystery set during the British Raj.

What's in a name?

My protagonist Captain Jim Agnihotri’s very name is his burden, and central to the plot. It reflects his mixed parentage; James is an English name while Agnihotri is a Hindu Brahmin (high caste) name. He’s Anglo-Indian. “Anglo-Indian” was a term which originally meant British people settled in India. In the 1700s, Englishmen often took Indian wives and mistresses. Later however, the children of such unions were disapproved of by Englishmen as well as Indians, and were treated as outcasts. So yes, names matter. Another key character is feisty Diana. That’s a western name, reflecting her outspoken nature. The Parsi community did well under British rule so they adopted many western names, including Diana, Amy, Jenny etc. In memory of the original victims Bacha and Pilloo, I’ve retained their first names in the story.

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your new novel?

That’s such a strange thing, I don’t think teen Nev would be surprised at all! I had written short stories from a male perspective even as a teen. My first short-story to be accepted in 1990 by a children’s magazine was a spooky adventure story for boys called “Must There be Crying?” I’d read war stories, western novels and classics even as a child. I’m now impressed that my parents allowed us kids to read these regardless of gender.

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

My beginnings fuel my story. All through the narrative, the ending beckons, urging me on. I hold off writing it as a reward for getting through some twisty bits. I usually have a strong idea of the ending, but I’ll admit that I alter it more.

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart? What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

My observations and memories of small moments of life—those linger, germinate and influence my writing. The child waif in my tale, Chutki, comes from an incident decades ago. While waiting in line for a bus, I glimpsed a young mother (a baby in her lap) begging in front of Bandra Train Station. We didn’t even speak, but the look in her eyes when our gaze met--it has never left me. It’s curious how writing pulls these moments from my subconscious! Truly, we write to discover what we think.

Visit Nev March's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Laura Maylene Walter

© Eric Mull Photography

Laura Maylene Walter is a writer and editor in Cleveland. Her writing has appeared in Poets & Writers, Kenyon Review, The Sun, Ninth Letter, The Masters Review, and many other publications. She has been a Tin House Scholar, a recipient of the Ohioana Library Association’s Walter Rumsey Marvin Grant, and a writer‑in‑residence at Yaddo, the Chautauqua Institution, and Art Omi: Writers. Body of Stars is her debut novel.

My Q&A with the author:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

A few years ago, I made lists of potential titles to find a replacement for the working title I’d long been using for my in-progress novel. I scrawled ideas in my writing notebook early in the morning, jotted down more possibilities on my lunch break at work, and emailed my writing friends long strings of (mostly terrible) titles for their feedback. Throughout this process, Body of Stars eventually found its way onto one of those lists, but it took a few days to sink in as the perfect choice.

Now, I can’t imagine any other title for this novel, which is set in a world where the freckles, birthmarks, and moles on the bodies of women and girls predict the future. These markings are arranged into patterns or “constellations,” so celestial bodies serve as a metaphor in the novel. The protagonist, Celeste, views her own markings as both a privilege and a burden. When she discovers a catastrophic prediction about her older brother, she wishes she could erase her markings and live without the weight of knowing what is to come.

The title therefore has a dual meaning: it can refer to literal bodies of stars, but mostly, it speaks to the overarching depiction of women’s bodies as mystical and capable of relaying fate and magic.

What's in a name?

I named many of the characters in this novel in rapid succession early in the process. The narrator’s name, Celeste, speaks to the celestial metaphor I mentioned above, while her friend, Cassandra, is partly named for the prophet in Greek mythology (and partly just because I’ve always liked the sound of Cassandra). I also named Celeste’s brother, Miles, who’s a central figure in the novel, quickly—on the spot, in fact, when I first dreamed up this book while embarking on a writing exercise at a conference.

Since Body of Stars is set in a world where predicting the future is possible, naming at least one character after a prophet seemed like an easy choice at the time. As the years passed and I became more deeply entrenched in the novel, however, I felt less of a need to have the characters’ names highlight the themes so literally—but by then, Celeste was Celeste and Cassandra was Cassandra, so I didn’t consider making any changes.

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your new novel?

This question takes me back to my shy, awkward, hopeful teenage self, the girl who wrote stories alone in her room and dreamed of one day writing novels. In many ways, I don’t think that past self would be surprised by this novel at all. Its themes of women’s autonomy, the magic of considering the future, and sibling relationships are all elements that would ring true to me then.

I do think my younger self would be surprised by the layers in this novel, the artwork, the book-within-a-book element of the fictional guidebook Mapping the Future, and the sheer amount of work and imagination it took to bring it to life. Surely my past self would be surprised that it took years beyond what I anticipated to publish my first novel. Ultimately, I think I’d just be proud of myself for never, ever giving up even in an endeavor that is as difficult and unpredictable as writing and publishing a novel.

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

It’s always hardest to begin, isn’t it? The blank page can be a terrifying beast, especially when you bring to it all your hopes, fears, expectations, and dreams. By the time I approach the end, I usually have a better sense of the world of the story and can find my way through—with the understanding that I will certainly need to revise, of course.

Some minor edits aside, the first few paragraphs and the last few paragraphs of Body of Stars remained largely unchanged from the first draft to the published version. I like to say that it was just the entire rest of the manuscript that needed to be revised time and time again!

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?

I share many qualities with Celeste: her way of observing the world, her insecurities, her anger, her sense of justice, and her slow realization that she has a lot to learn about how the world works and her place in it, to name a few. But in the end, she’s not me. Celeste is of a different world, one where the magic of predicting the future is possible. Even though this fictional world is a mirror of our own, Celeste endures tragedies that I haven’t, and she has to grapple with problems as expansive as the whole of the future. Regardless, she’s meant a lot to me over the years, and I hope I can say I’ve grown and changed with her throughout the writing and revision process.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

So much. Everything, really. Long, solitary walks. The frustration of never knowing how the future will turn out. Any time I’ve felt intrigued by a psychic, palm reader, or medium, even though I don’t believe in such things. When I was a child, the films The Last Unicorn, The Mosquito Coast, and The Shining. The landscape of my hometown. A mountaintop observatory. The anxiety of moving to a new place and not knowing anyone. The friends I’ve been closest to at various stages of my life, and the friends I’ve lost along the way. Planetariums. Art museums, natural history museums, medical museums, and witchcraft museums.

Lastly, something I only thought of this very moment as I typed this up: the night I was fifteen, when I camped out under the stars for the first time. I stared at the sky for ages and it was the most glorious sight I had ever absorbed. Everything was vast, and I felt so small, and meanwhile the stars were way out there, ancient and massive and unreachable.

Visit Laura Maylene Walter's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Jennifer Adam

Jennifer Adam started writing stories when her grandmother showed her how to make books out of construction paper and staples. After living on both coasts, she ended up marrying a farmer and settling down in the middle of the country. A lake covered in swans makes up for being landlocked, though, and she enjoys taking a kayak out whenever she can. She rides a formerly wild mustang and enjoys hanging out at the barn. When she's not on the water or in the saddle, she's probably hiking through trees or hiding in a library. She is a voracious consumer of books, collects fountain pens and colored inks, and adores classical music and ballet.

The Last Windwitch is Adam's debut novel.

My Q&A with the author:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

Quite a bit, actually. The original title was Three Feathers to reflect the symbolic significance of feathers in the story, but when the book sold my agent remarked that they would likely want to change it. My editor pointed out that young readers like to know what to expect when choosing a book and the title is often the first key to unlocking their curiosity. She (and the marketing team) were afraid that my original title didn't give enough clues about what was inside. They sent me a list of suggestions, but while I agreed that a new title should hint at the magic and conflict within the book, none of the alternatives quite fit for me. We bounced ideas back and forth for a couple of months as we worked on edits, and then one morning The Last Windwitch just flew into my mind. Luckily everyone else loved it, too, and here we are!

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your novel?

Well, my teenage self might be quite surprised I actually succeeded in getting one published, to be honest. But she would not be surprised at all by the story itself. This is a book I wrote for myself and it reflects the things I've always loved: magic, horses, bravery, loyalty, friendship, wild forests and rich worldbuilding, our connection to the natural world and climate, and the toxic danger of the abuse of power. I wanted to write my own original fairytale built on all the layers of myth and folklore I loved as a girl. This is definitely a book younger me would have treasured.

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

I find it harder to write endings because my stories are complex and full of tiny threads that have to be woven together in a smooth, satisfying way. The closer I come to the end, the more I struggle to keep things from tangling up or fraying. I find that while the actual events of the end don't change, the way I translate them to the page can be quite different from one draft to another as I work out the best way to describe the emotional beats. However, I tend to change the beginnings more - to my own surprise! It's easy for me to throw myself into a story so the beginning always flows quickly, but as I get farther into a draft I often discover that I've actually started in the wrong spot so I have to go back and adjust the entrance point. The book I'm currently working on has had four different beginnings!

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?

Every character I write contains a piece of myself. Some of those characters are more closely connected to me and my own worldview, of course, but they all hold some aspect: a hope, a fear, an experience. I suppose you could say the wicked queen in The Last Windwitch is a world apart from me because she represents the values I reject, but that's still a link to my own personal philosophy.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

My writing is heavily inspired and influenced by the natural world and the animals I encounter. I live on a farm so the cycle of seasons is an integral part of my family's daily life. Weather is not a topic for small talk here - it's our livelihood. This is why it's a major theme in my story. I have also adopted and gentled five wild mustangs from the western rangelands. These wild horses are so sensitive to their environment, so reactive and aware of every change in their surroundings, they became the basis of the stormhorses in my book. Brida's pony, Burdock, is also directly based on personality traits of my horses. My love of the woods, of birds and wildlife, is woven through the entire world of my story. And I often take myself for long walks around our lake and through our forest when I'm stuck in a plot hole or trying to work my way through a knot - something about water, woods, and a wide sky always opens my mind!

Visit Jennifer Adam's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Ilona Bannister

Ilona Bannister grew up on Staten Island and lived in New York City until she married a Brit and moved to London. A dual qualified U.S. attorney and UK solicitor, Bannister practiced immigration law in the UK before taking a career break to raise her two young sons and unexpectedly found herself writing fiction. When I Ran Away is her first novel.

My Q&A with the author:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

I think When I Ran Away lets the reader know exactly where they're headed when they pick it up and it brings the reader directly into Gigi's mindset at the verge of her breakdown. But hopefully they find that the twists and turns Gigi takes on her journey toward accepting her new self as a woman and mother surprising. I think they'll find her choice of destination interesting as well. I think many readers will relate to the things she's running away from and that many people fantasize about doing the same thing at one point or another, especially after lockdown.

What's in a name?

Gigi's full name before she marries Harry is Eugenia Stanislawski. She readily takes Harry's surname, Harrison, when they marry. It's a nod to my own Ukrainian maiden name, Ilona Lewyckyj, and a life spent with a name many people struggle to pronounce or remember. My husband didn't use my name for our first three dates until he could be sure how to say it! Gigi's father, Jaroslaw Stanislawski, who goes by Jerry, is named for my late uncle, not because he bears any resemblance, just because it's a nice way to remember him.

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your new novel?

She would be shocked. First, she'd be amazed that she became a writer at all since that was never in her life plan. And I think she'd be slightly worried by the content, so we'd have to have a little chat before she read it, and I might tell her to hold off on reading it until she was a little older.

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

I think when you set out to write, you either already know your beginning or your ending. But through the editing process, that can change. My first start to this novel is now chapter seven, so, I've learned that you may have to sacrifice what you imagine your ending or beginning to be in order to give the whole story a better package.

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?

I'm very connected to my characters, not necessarily by personality, but by the emotions they deal with and the feelings they convey to the reader. While I write fiction, I draw on reality for the emotional lives of my characters to make them authentic for the reader and to create characters that readers hopefully relate to.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

People-watching is my go-to inspiration. I have always been a keen observer of people, perhaps from many years of riding the subway in New York City or the tube in London, but people - how they dress, speak, their accents, how they interact, the objects they carry, the way they move - are fascinating to me.

Follow Ilona Bannister on Twitter.

--Marshal Zeringue

Karla Holloway

Karla FC Holloway is James B. Duke Emerita Professor of English, African-American Studies, and Professor of Law at Duke University. As a professor, her classrooms and scholarship focused on literature, law, and bioethics; but in 2017 she turned her full attention to writing fiction. Her debut literary fiction is A Death in Harlem, a mystery set in the moment of the Harlem Renaissance.

Holloway's new book, Gone Missing in Harlem, is a novel about memory, mothering and resilience that bridges the Harlem Renaissance and the Great Depression. Weldon Thomas, NYC's first colored policeman, returns to solve the mystery of a Harlem baby whose disappearance fails to engage the same energies and interest as the contemporaneous Lindbergh kidnapping.

My Q&A with the author:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

I’m a title person. I had a review once that was totally correct but that still embarrasses me. It was my first book and the reviewer wrote that my title was better than the book (The Character of the Word). Ouch! So I was quite conscious in coming to a space where the two at least matched in quality. For a while (for my non fiction writing) I was taken by alliteration (Moorings and Metaphors, Codes of Conduct) – possibly why some say (not incorrectly) that I write for sound before I invest in sense. I do pay close attention to the sounds, rhythms, and tones of language. But fiction was a decided shift for me, and these titles (A Death in Harlem and Gone Missing in Harlem) became about the place that sustains the story – thus, my “in Harlem” repetition. Knowing the place (and era) was a gift because the “who, what, when, and how” remain open to each novel and the story has to find its way to and then blossom in this space. I love that freedom, and it’s an assurance for the reader that ‘Yes, it is indeed one of those books,’ and, at the same time, it gives me permission to wander into the intricacies of wherever the place takes me. (Currently, I’m intrigued by a ‘what?’ – “A Haunting in Harlem”).

What's in a name?

I love choosing “old-school” names for my characters, and since I’m pretty old-school myself, many come from my own friends and family. However, the newest novel has a loving but struggling mother named DeLilah, whose name I chose because the sound of it seemed to fit her (plus I could shorten it to “Lilah”). I totally forgot the Biblical reference and given my character’s character, I’m hoping readers won’t notice, (although, I suspect they will). I almost wish now I’d written a disclaimer: “there is no association between this character and her Biblical counterpart.” Then again, it might become a discussion point and maybe I’ve misread my character!

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your novel?

She’d be shocked, not easily convinced it was me doing it, and insist on reading it before she claimed it. I was a discerning and cautious teenager – eager to be a “credit to the race.” I think she’d take to leaving these books in unsuspecting spots and sticking around to watch readers’ responses.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

Totally, the Turner Classic Movie station and any film between 1920 and 1944. Were there automobiles? Automobiles + horse and carriages contemporaneously? How did the fabric move on women’s bodies? What was on their dresser tables? What’s in the backgrounds? I’m devoted to details of a scene and if you look past the foregrounded action to the background of a scene on TCM, it gives you a sense of place like none other.

Visit Karla FC Holloway's website.

Q&A with Karla FC Holloway.

--Marshal Zeringue

Elissa Grossell Dickey

Elissa Grossell Dickey is a mother, writer, and multiple sclerosis warrior who believes in the power of strong coffee and captivating stories.

Her debut novel is The Speed of Light.

My Q&A with Dickey:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

The book’s title, The Speed of Light, is perfect for the story in numerous ways. It refers to the fact that my main character and her love interest are both Star Wars fans, and they watch the movies throughout their relationship. It also refers to the fact that snowflakes falling against a windshield can make it look like you’re flying at light speed. Most of all, it refers to the fact that life can—and does—change quickly, for better or worse, be it a getting devastating diagnosis, meeting a handsome stranger, or enduring a chilling act of violence at work. You never know what life will throw at you, and The Speed of Light shows how one woman navigates this.

What's in a name?

I chose my main character’s name, Simone, basically just because I liked it! But while she’s not named after anyone in particular, I do think the name fits her character, as to me the name invokes a quiet strength.

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

I think beginnings are harder, and thus, I tweaked my beginning a lot more. You need to pull the reader into the story at just the right time, giving them enough context that they care about the character, while also making it lively enough that they aren’t bored. For Simone’s story, I ended up starting with her getting her annual MRI, since it’s a unique enough experience to hopefully be interesting to readers, while also providing background as to what she’s dealing with.

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?

Simone’s journey and her experiences as she goes through her MS diagnosis and comes to terms with her illness are based on my own, so in that way it’s a very personal story to me.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

The book was very much inspired by my own MS diagnosis. Writing this story and my main character’s journey coming to terms with her diagnosis was very therapeutic for me; in a way, I wrote the story I needed when I was first diagnosed. The fact that it debuted on March 1, the first day of MS Awareness Month, made it all the more special.

Visit Elissa Grossell Dickey's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Speed of Light.

The Page 69 Test: The Speed of Light.

--Marshal Zeringue

Dan Stout

Dan Stout lives in Columbus, Ohio, where he writes noir with a twist of magic and a disco chaser. Stout's stories have appeared in publications such as The Saturday Evening Post and Nature. He is the author of The Carter Archives, a series of noir fantasy novels from DAW Books.

The new title in The Carter Archives is Titan Song.

My Q&A with Stout:

What's in a name?

I love this question. There is so much in a name, and my thoughts about character names changes with what stage the manuscript is in.

First, there’s the process of finding a name that works during the drafting process. This is really for me, in the very early stages. I spend a great deal of time trying on different options before settling on character names. Names have a “feel” to them, and I can be working with a character for a while, trying to find their voice, and then I change their name and immediately they start taking on a different persona.

But I also have to make sure that readers will recognize and remember the names. You can have great characters, but if they’re named Stan, Steve, and Steph, most readers will struggle to keep them separate.

On top of all that, Titan Song is a blend of fantasy and noir mystery. To pull off that combo, I need to deliver a mix of elements from both genres. I can use names to underscore each of those core genres, such as by mixing common 21st Century names with unusual variations or period names to emphasize the otherworldliness of the setting.

Finally, sometimes names are just fun! In Titanshade, all the male members of a specific species have names that begin with A. That’s a bit of worldbuilding that started as me poking fun at myself for giving characters' names that were too similar.

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your novel?

I’m pretty sure my teenage self would give me the highest of fives!

When I was a teenager, I saw a book with cover art that clearly was blending noir and high fantasy. I wasn’t able to buy it at the time, but that idea always stuck with me. I think that teenaged Dan would be proud to know that a few decades down the line, he’d be writing his own take on that concept.

Honestly, finding the joy in writing has a lot to do with finding the overlap in who I am now and who I was at different points, whether I was 15, 25, or 35. All those versions of me wouldn’t agree on much, but the things that we do agree on? Those are deeply held beliefs, and I think the passion comes through in my writing.

(At the same time, if my teenage self saw my modern author photo, he’d be a lot more appreciative of that full head of hair he's got…)

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

The honest answer is that it depends. I’ve written three books, and for two of them, the beginnings flowed out effortlessly, while for the other it was pretty painful going. I’m still early enough in my career that I’m learning what makes the difference between those two states, and how to use that knowledge to make my life a little easier.

On the other hand, endings are always fun. I like to know the ending of the story before I get too far into the book, so that I can set the trajectory of all the various moving parts. Also, I write sequentially, so by the time I get to the end, it’s been a long, difficult process, and writing those final scenes is a moment of great catharsis.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

Oh, man! Everything influences me. I’m a sponge, soaking up details and holding them against each other, looking for conflicts and contradictions, the kind of thing that creates inherent tension in a character and on the page. The news is definitely an influence, but not just the headlines – I love science news and sports.

Film noir is definitely an influence on Titan Song, as well as my writing in general. Individual books are greatly influenced by music, and I often hang a photo or painting over my desk that encapsulates the emotion I’m striving for in a book or specific scene.

My spouse is a theatre person, and we spend hours watching television, film, and stage plays, then unpacking the storytelling craft to see what we thought did or didn’t work.

I keep a bookshelf filled with my journals and scrapbooks, and everything I find of interest gets pasted in on their pages. Whenever I need a jolt of inspiration I know that I can always riffle through those pages and find something that will inspire me.

And honestly, those are just the first things that spring to mind. I've drawn on everything from hikes in the park to old Soviet propaganda posters for inspiration, and hopefully I'll be able to keep drawing on the things around me for more books in the years to come.

Visit Dan Stout's website.

My Book, The Movie: Titanshade.

The Page 69 Test: Titanshade.

The Page 69 Test: Titan's Day.

My Book, The Movie: Titan's Day.

--Marshal Zeringue

Donis Casey

Donis Casey is the author of the Alafair Tucker Mysteries, an award-winning series featuring the sleuthing mother of ten children, set in Oklahoma during the booming 1910s. Her first mystery, The Old Buzzard Had It Coming, was named an Oklahoma Centennial Book. She is a former teacher, academic librarian, and entrepreneur.

Casey's new novel is Valentino Will Die, the sequel to The Wrong Girl.

My Q&A with the author:

How much does your title do to take readers into the story?

I usually suffer trying to come up with the perfect title. Only one time did I leave the title to the publisher, and I was not happy with what they chose. So for Valentino Will Die, I did it myself, and the reader can pretty much glean exactly what the story is about from the title. Most of my titles are taken from something one of the characters says, and Valentino Will Die is no exception. In fact it's Rudolph Valentino himself who utters the fateful line to our heroine, movie star Bianca LaBelle, one evening beside her swimming pool. She prods Rudy to tell her what has been bothering him for several weeks, and he replies he has been receiving threatening notes that say “Valentino will die.” I thought about having the notes say “Valentino must die,” but “must die” titles have been done to death, as it were. Instead, let's be decisive and say he “will die”.

What's in a name?

My protagonist was born Blanche Tucker, the eighth of ten children growing up on a horse farm in Oklahoma during the 1910s. She's originally named after a great-aunt of mine, whom I knew. Great Aunt Blanche was a beauty who ran away with a ne'er-do-well and ended up alone and in trouble. She was a lovely but troubled person, so I decided to give her a happy ending. Blanche became a silent movie star in the 1920s and changed her name to Bianca, oh so exotic and glamorous. Her mentor, another famous actress called Alma Bolding (also named after one of my aunts who deserved some glitz in her life) suggested Bianca change Tucker to LaBelle, after the Keats poem “La Belle Dame Sans Merci,” “the beautiful lady without mercy,” after Bianca smacked a killer in the head with a tire iron.

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

When I write the first draft of a novel, I don't worry about the beginning at all. I just write. After the draft is done, that's when I worry. I search through the early part of the manuscript to find where the story actually starts, an intriguing event or episode that will pose the problem and catch the reader's interest. It's usually there somewhere. When I find it, I move it to the beginning and rearrange the story to suit. When I started Valentino Will Die, I thought I knew how it would end, but I was only half right. The characters always decide to change the trajectory of the plot as it unfolds. I really work on the endings of all my books, and I certainly did so with Valentino. I love a twist, so if I can work in a logical twist at the end, I'll do it every time – and does Valentino have a twist!. I want my endings to be satisfying and memorable for the reader. The end is what makes the reader want to pick up your next book.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

My family history, to begin with. Since I spun off a long, family-inspired series* into the Adventures of Bianca Dangereuse novels, set in 1920s Hollywood, my inspiration comes much more from digging into my own neuroses, especially memories of how I felt about things when I was as young and full of vinegar as my protagonist, Bianca LaBelle. I have come up with some fabulous story ideas from newspapers. When one writes historical mysteries, its fascinating to read contemporary reports of historical events. With the benefit of time, we might now know what actually happened, but it's usually not at all what they thought they knew while events were unfolding.

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by this novel?

My teenaged reader self probably would identify, if she read the book at all, that is. My teenaged writer self would be surprised, all right. She already thought of herself as a deep thinker and an author who would only write existential novels full of angst. Fifty years and a lot of real life existential angst later, I want to write about likable people who eat good food, wear great clothes, and do the best they can.

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?

Though her life and experiences are completely unlike my own, I see my young self very much in Bianca LaBelle's personality. She appears to the world as confident and outgoing but she's been badly burned, so she is wary of others, is drawn to misfits, and something of a loner. I also see a lot of my grown-up self in the villain K.D. Dix, a small, dimpled, elderly woman with a sweet face who runs a many-tentacled crime syndicate. She has to be in charge so no one can get to her. Dix had a tough youth. She dealt with it by becoming a stone cold killer. I write murder mysteries.

*FYI, the earlier series was the ten book Alafair Tucker Mysteries set in 1910s Oklahoma. Bianca is one of Alafair's children.

Visit Donis Casey's website.

The Page 69 Test: Hell with the Lid Blown Off.

My Book, The Movie: Hell With the Lid Blown Off.

The Page 69 Test: All Men Fear Me.

My Book, The Movie: All Men Fear Me.

The Page 69 Test: The Wrong Girl.

My Book, The Movie: Valentino Will Die.

The Page 69 Test: Valentino Will Die.

--Marshal Zeringue

Clay McLeod Chapman

Clay McLeod Chapman writes novels, comic books, and children’s books, as well as for film and TV. He is the author of the horror novels The Remaking and Whisper Down the Lane.

My Q&A with the author:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

Quite a lot, I think... Whisper Down the Lane, or Telephone, is a game of rumors. A group of children sit in a circle. One child whispers a sentence -- I like to eat Lucky Charms in my pajamas -- into their neighbor's ear, then that child whispers the sentence into their neighbor's ear, going around the circle until the whispered statement returns to its originator. But when it goes around the circle, the phrase tends to mutate. Words are forgotten and replaced. Even the original intent behind the sentence alters itself. When it comes full circle and the originator gets to hear the sentence returned to them, they say it out loud (usually to laughter): Eyes do harm to unlucky lamas.

My novel, Whisper Down the Lane, is about the adult version of this childhood game... The rumors that spread and pervert themselves from one neighbor to the next. How something relatively harmless that someone says can take on a life of its own and become dangerous. How lives can be destroyed by lies.

What's in a name?

I was a bit cheeky with my character names... I'm a bit embarrassed to admit this, but if you look at the names of a lot of supporting characters in the book, you'll find my reading list on full display. I wanted to pay my respects to the masterworks that influenced my novel. Consider them satanic panic Easter eggs.

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your new novel?

If anything, I think he'd be relieved to see that he was still writing as an adult... and grateful that he was getting published. As far as surprises go, I'd personally be curious if my teenage self would be aware of how his writing style has -- hopefully -- evolved over the years. Would he still hear his voice in my writing? It's an interesting question. The DNA was there, all those years ago, for sure, but it's definitely evolved and refined itself since then.

Starting back in high school, I became completely enamored with first person narrative. That root is still there, plunging into my writing and growing over the subsequent decades. Now -- finally! -- it's starting to bear wondrous fruit.

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

Well, the ending certainly changed the most for Whisper Down the Lane. Chapters were rearranged up until the very end of the editing process, as well as adjusting how much was said vs. how much we cut in order to leave certain mysteries unsolved. The conversation between my editor and myself always revolved around how much do we want to trust our narrator. Does Richard, our protagonist -- or perhaps antagonist -- even know the truth? How much is he hiding the truth from himself? This meant a lot of dial adjusting. And trimming. Lots of trimming. Less is more, but until you've written it all down on the page, you just won't know what needs to be taken away. I tend to overwrite, which I find is better for those first drafts, because then you just compress and cut.

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?

For most of my work, I'd say no... but with Whisper Down the Lane in particular, I'd say yes. Maybe even for the first time. For better or for worse, I 'cast' myself in the dual roles of both protagonists from the novel: five year old Sean and thirty year old Richard. Since the book times place in both the 80s and 2013, which conveniently follows my own personal timeline as a human being, so I essentially got to write about my own childhood and then my own adult life. It's completely fictionalized, though. This isn't autobiography. I took the tone and terrors of the times -- being a kid and then a parent -- and got to explore them both.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

For this book, it was the early films of Roman Polanski. I think we should all do a movie night of Repulsion, Rosemary's Baby and The Tenant. Who's with me?

Visit Clay McLeod Chapman's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Remaking.

The Page 69 Test: The Remaking.

My Book, The Movie: Whisper Down the Lane.

--Marshal Zeringue

Adam Mitzner

Adam Mitzner is the acclaimed Amazon Charts bestselling author of Dead Certain, Never Goodbye, and The Best Friend in the Broden Legal series as well as the stand-alone thrillers A Matter of Will, A Conflict of Interest, A Case of Redemption, Losing Faith, and The Girl from Home. A practicing attorney in a Manhattan law firm, he and his family live in New York City.

Mitzner's new novel is The Perfect Marriage.

My Q&A with the author:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

Titles are very tricky business. I’ve written 9 novels, and I’m at about 50% whether my title ends up being the title when the book is published. I had the title before I began writing for exactly two of the books.

The Perfect Marriage was one of those two. Before I wrote the first line I knew that the book was going to be about this couple that were very happy together, but that the title would suggest otherwise because no marriage is actually perfect. So it worked well on both levels – before starting the book, the reader knows that the titular couple at least think they’re blissfully happy, but the reader also knows that there’s more to it than that.

What's in a name?

I like to give the main characters names that evoke some feeling in the reader. In The Perfect Marriage, the main characters are named James and Jessica Sommers. To me, Sommers – like summer – is a carefree happy time. And I liked that their first names shared a common first letter, which gave them that cute couple vibe. One of the characters is named Hayley, and she’s a force of nature, like hail. Wayne is a weaker character, and no offense to Wayne’s, but I chose the name because it’s slightly old-fashioned and also because it’s Batman’s alter ego’s name – his weaker part. And Owen is what we might have named my daughters had they been boys.

Minor characters I name after my friends and family, often to their chagrin.

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your novel?

This is a funny one for me because I would say that my younger self would be shocked because I do not recall ever having any interest in being a writer until I was in my forties. However, since I’ve published, I’ve heard from friends from my teenage years who remember that I always had such an interest. So, I’m not sure who to believe.

On substance, however, I think the themes I explore in my novels are the ones that intrigued me even as a teenager. What’s the “right” thing to do? What price do we pay for pursuing our passions? What will we do for the people we love? Can good people do bad things?

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

Like the famous Mad Men line, I am like Don Draper in that I prefer the beginnings of things. Writing the beginnings are more fun because it’s like meeting people for the first time. You get to know them slowly, imagining things about them that may or may not be true, fantasizing a little bit about who they truly are. At the end, all those mysteries have been revealed.

I do not know the ending when I start writing, which requires that I go back to the beginning once the ending is finished to make sure that the characters are true to themselves throughout the book. Another reason that I edit the beginning more is simply because I am constantly editing as I write, as opposed to

doing a first draft completely and then beginning to edit. So the beginning is around longer and therefore subject to more edits.

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?

There’s a school of thought that you are all the people in your dreams. I think the same is true of writing. Which is my way of saying that all of the characters are me, in some form or another. The way I am, the way I’d like to be, the way I think others see me. Sometimes the characters are based on people I know, but even then they’re really how I think those people see the world. Obviously, I have no idea whether that’s right or not, so in that way I still think even those characters are more like me than the people I’m actually basing them on.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

My family, first and foremost, because the issues in my books usually revolve around family dynamics. The Perfect Marriage hews closer to my life in some regards than most of my books, as my wife and I are both previously divorced and have children from our prior marriages. And I think my marriage is perfect, of course. But all of my books are at their core about personal morality and the ties that bind people, and to find that place I am most influenced by my own relationships.

I’m also very influenced by television, especially the type of limited series you see on Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime. I watch them with an eye toward the visual cues as well as the story telling techniques. Over the past few years I’ve noticed that I’m often able to guess the endings, which I think is because I know what I’d do if I were writing the show.

Visit Adam Mitzner's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Perfect Marriage.

The Page 69 Test: The Perfect Marriage.

--Marshal Zeringue

Paula Munier

Paula Munier is the USA Today bestselling author of the Mercy and Elvis mysteries. A Borrowing of Bones, the first in the series, was nominated for the Mary Higgins Clark Award and named the Dogwise Book of the Year. Blind Search was inspired by the real-life rescue of a little boy with autism who got lost in the woods.

Munier credits the hero dogs of Mission K9 Rescue, her own rescue dogs Bear, Bliss, and Blondie—a Malinois mix as loyal and smart as Elvis—and a lifelong passion for crime fiction as her series’ major influences.

She’s also written three popular books on writing: Plot Perfect, The Writer’s Guide to Beginnings, and Writing with Quiet Hands, as well as Fixing Freddie and Happier Every Day.

Munier lives in New Hampshire with her family, the dogs, and a torbie tabby named Ursula.

Her new Mercy and Elvis mystery is The Hiding Place. My Q&A with the author:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

When I was writing Blind Search, the publisher didn’t like the working title (which was so bad I’ve forgotten it). So I came up with a list of 100 titles I could live with. The publisher liked Blind Search, and the editorial director liked The Hiding Place. So my editor told me, “This novel will be called Blind Search, but your next novel will be called The Hiding Place.” So I began plotting the story knowing it would be called The Hiding Place, but without knowing why. I had to write the book to find out. In retrospect, it seems inevitable, but it didn’t seem that way when I started.

What's in a name?

Mercy Carr is my heroine. I wanted to use a virtue name, as there’s a long tradition of virtue names in New England where the series is set. I chose Mercy because it’s pretty and it reminded me of one of my favorite songs, "Mercy Now" by Mary Gauthier. Carr is a family name of one of our New England forebears. So it all fit.

How surprised would your teenage reader self be by your new novel?

Since I went to high school in New Orleans—every teenager’s party dream town—and had never set foot in New England, I’m sure my wilder, younger self would wonder how the heck I ended up here in the snowy woods. And why.

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings? Which do you change more?

I really can’t begin until I have an image in my mind. That image usually becomes the beginning. In A Borrowing of Bones, it’s the image of a woman and a dog home from Afghanistan marching off their grief in the Green Mountains of Vermont. In Blind Search, it’s the image of a little boy with autism lost in the woods. In The Hiding Place, it’s the image of a dying man asking Mercy to solve the cold case that has always haunted him. So I rarely change the opening, because I have this image in mind. The endings are a lot more fluid, because the ending I have in mind when I begin the novel—if I have one in mind—may not be satisfying enough.

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart?

I think there’s a bit of the writer in every story’s characters. That said, for me, writing fiction is less about autobiography and more about roads not taken. Most of my characters are composites drawn from real life, research, and my imagination.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

The more stories you write, the more material you use up. So you end up priming the pump with everything and the kitchen sink. That’s half the fun, weaving all these disparate elements—your dogs, your garden, TV interviews with law enforcement, murders that make the headlines, what you saw on your last hike in the mountains, that dessert you had in Alsace, and more—into a story that makes sense. It’s a form of alchemy—and if you’re lucky, you get gold.

Visit Paula Munier's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Paula Munier & Bear.

My Book, The Movie: The Hiding Place.

The Page 69 Test: The Hiding Place.

--Marshal Zeringue