Bryn Turnbull

Bryn Turnbull is the internationally bestselling author of The Woman Before Wallis and The Last Grand Duchess. With a master of letters in creative writing from the University of St. Andrews, a master of professional communication from Toronto Metropolitan University and a bachelor's degree in English literature from McGill University, Turnbull focuses on finding stories of women lost within the cracks of the historical record.

Her new novel is The Paris Deception.

My Q&A with the author:

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

Apparently, I’m terrible at choosing titles for my books, because my publisher has changed the names of all three! Over the course of writing a novel, I find the title tends to evolve with the book itself. Originally, The Paris Deception was called Avant Garde, but somewhere through the course of the story taking shape it changed into The Art of Deception, which I thought was rather clever, but my publisher coaxed me into calling it The Paris Deception, to geographically ground the story in the reader’s mind from the very outset.

Happily, I was able to keep The Art of Deception as a title in the epilogue, but I won’t spoil it by explaining how!

What's in a name?

Having grown up with a unique name myself I would say there’s quite a lot in it, including the preconceptions of others. That’s why two of my characters, Sophie and Dietrich, change their last name upon moving to France before the war, shedding their German origins in order to integrate into 1930s French society without stigma. Several of my secondary characters are loosely named after friends of mine, which tends to have an effect on how I characterize them: Dufy, for example, is inspired by an old boss of mine, and shares his staunch sense of loyalty and dogged determination. Sometimes, though, a name is just a name: I chose Fabienne for no other reason than I thought it sounded beautiful.

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

Not very surprised. I’ve been fascinated by Second World War since the sixth grade, and always envisioned writing a book set in the time period. I suppose the art angle might come as something of a surprise: I’d always pictured writing something more traditionally “woman in the resistance”, a story about a British spy or a French radio operator. But sometimes an idea comes to mind that you can’t help following, and for me it was the Nazi notion of “Degenerate Art” – and the idea of someone deceiving the Nazis, who believed themselves to be incredibly cultured.

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

It depends on the book! I’m a plotter so I tend to know where the story is going to go, but I don’t always know exactly how I’m going to get there. With my second book I knew the ending from the very start, but with this one I had to think it through for quite a bit of time before the threads came together. I find talking through the story out loud is helpful in envisioning how it wraps up.

In terms of my beginnings, they always shift. I’m notorious for rewriting my opening chapters: with my first book, I’d written 180 pages before realizing it needed to start ten years later!

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

My two main characters, Sophie and Fabienne, are entirely different people but they’re both very much reflections of different facets of my personality. I share Sophie’s awkwardness and tendency to overthink, but I’m much more like Fabienne in my sense of style and wit. I suppose Sophie is my introverted self while Fabienne is my extroverted self.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

History is always my inspiration: whether it’s an individual, an event, or a specific time period, I absolutely take inspiration from diving into the historical record and seeing what I can find. For this book, art was a definite inspiration, too: I loved learning about the different artistic movements, artists, styles and specific paintings that comprise the “degenerate” art that Sophie and Fabienne are working to save.

I’m also inspired by place. I was fortunate enough to travel to Paris when I was writing this book, and I must have filled four notebooks by the time I came home. I love getting a sense of a different city.

Visit Bryn Turnbull's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Paris Deception.

The Page 69 Test: The Paris Deception.

--Marshal Zeringue

I.S. Berry

I.S. Berry spent six years as an operations officer for the CIA, serving in wartime Baghdad and elsewhere. She has lived and worked throughout Europe and the Middle East, including two years in Bahrain during the Arab Spring. She is a graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law and Haverford College. Raised in the suburbs of Washington, DC, she lives in Virginia with her husband and son.

Berry's new novel is The Peacock and the Sparrow.

My Q&A with the author:

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

A fair amount. I’m partial to titles with literary references, like For Whom the Bell Tolls or Tender is the Night—titles with layers of meaning that prompt the reader to think or do a bit of research. And I lean toward the poetic and oblique more than the literal and straightforward. Darkness at Noon, a reference to Stalin’s searing power juxtaposed against its black consequences, is one of my favorites.

My novel actually began with a different name, but another author happened to publish a book along the way with the same title! Luckily, I had a backup, which I ended up liking more than my original. The Peacock and the Sparrow is a reference to a parable in 1001 Arabian Nights: a sparrow ignores a peacock’s warning, strays from his path, and gets caught in a net. It’s about the futility of trying to outrun your destiny—one of my book’s themes—but there’s another, hidden meaning that readers won’t discover until the end.

My title doesn’t scream “spy novel,” but I do think it hints at an interesting, perhaps contentious, relationship between two people or sides.

An unexpected bonus: I’ve come to realize how many illustrious books have birds in their titles. To Kill a Mockingbird, The Falcon and the Snowman, Red Sparrow…

What's in a name?

A lot. The most interesting name in my book, perhaps, is one I never reveal. Shane Collins, my protagonist, refers to his love interest as simply “Almaisa,” which he borrows from a portrait of the same name by artist Amedeo Modigliani. The character Almaisa is enigmatic and inscrutable, and I deliberately wanted her name (or lack thereof) to reflect this. Collins, looking back, observes, “It’s an apt moniker, I’ve come to believe, a name borrowed from a painting. Because she was, in many ways, the brushstrokes of my imagination: facets of her person, her self, that did not bridge the gap between reverie and reality, that were formed solely from my expectations and interpretations and reflections, my inner artist’s eye.”

Another character, the Admiral, commander of the U.S. Fifth Fleet, never gets a name. For me, he was a symbol of American military might, not a specific person.

Shane Collins’ name reflects his background: Irish ancestry, a childhood in a rough immigrant neighborhood. And CIA station chief Whitney Alden Mitchell’s middle name is a reference to Alden Pyle, the young spy in The Quiet American who represents American optimism, arrogance, and naivete.

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

Moderately surprised. I read a ton of classics and literary fiction in my youth. I was inspired by personal journeys like Pilgrim at Tinker Creek or On the Road (though I did have a soft spot for dark authors like Poe, Nabokov, Dostoevsky). I tried my hand at writing a novel several times, mostly stories of young women trying to find their way in the world or the “great American novel,” whatever that meant. I didn’t predict I’d someday write about a middle-aged, washed up, alcoholic male spy engaged in international espionage. Then again, I knew the stories I was attempting to write weren’t quite right for me. And I did anticipate that life experience would eventually inform my writing. When I became a spy for the CIA and lived in the Middle East, I finally had the right raw material. (And I’ve come to firmly believe that the terms “literary fiction” and “spy novel” aren’t mutually exclusive.)

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

I found the ending and beginning of my novel about equally easy to write. I’d mapped out my book’s ending in my mind when I started writing, even the exact scene. The Peacock and the Sparrow is such a twisting, complex journey, I knew the ending would have to do justice to the story and leave readers satisfied and legitimately surprised. So this dictated a fairly specific finale. Also, when you fully  develop a character, his/her ending writes itself. Once I knew who Shane Collins was, his destiny became obvious.

On the other hand, the first sentence of my book also came naturally to me; I never changed it. The first line tells the reader that Collins hates the smell of his informant’s cigarettes—but at a pivotal point in the story, this changes; Collins goes so far as to buy his informant a pack of smokes. So those first words hold great weight and ripple through the pages.

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

On the surface, my protagonist, Shane Collins, and I have nothing in common. He’s a jaded, divorced, cantankerous alcoholic man. But in writing, I realized how much we shared: weariness from the profession of spying; a sense of being battered and worn down from years of manipulating; an anguish from past decisions; a realization that ends don’t always justify means. The beauty of writing (and reading), in my view, is that you find connections to characters and people in unexpected, transcendent ways.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

International relations and politics definitely influence my writing. Living in Bahrain for two years during the Arab Spring sparked the idea for The Peacock and the Sparrow. My book also incorporates real-life events like the 2012 Adliya bombings in Manama or the 2011 assassination attempt against the Saudi ambassador in Washington, DC. And my travels inspire me: the uniqueness of each place—its local perfumes, the tint of its sunsets—becomes fertile soil for my writing.

Noirish and gritty but beautiful films like The Third Man or the Babylon Berlin series probably rattle around my subconscious when I’m envisioning and writing certain scenes. Clearly, art too influences me; I named my central female character after a painting! (Side note: after writing my book, I came across the real Almaisa painting in a museum in Vienna, Austria; no pictures were allowed, but I couldn’t resist snapping one… I’d written an entire character based on this painting!)

Leonard Cohen songs played in my head while writing The Peacock and the Sparrow. Cohen’s lyrics and melodies are so haunting and dark. The narrator I chose for my audiobook sounds like Cohen as well. It was a moment of serendipity: when I heard his voice, I knew he was the one.

Visit I.S. Berry's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Jasmin Iolani Hakes

Jasmin Iolani Hakes was born and raised in Hilo, Hawai'i. Her essays have appeared in the Los Angeles Times and the Sacramento Bee. She is the recipient of the Best Fiction award from the Southern California Writers Conference, a Squaw Valley LoJo Foundation Scholarship, a Writing by Writers Emerging Voices fellowship, and a Hedgebrook residency. Dance has always been central to Jasmin's life and creativity. She took her first hula class when she was four years old and danced for the esteemed Halau o Kekuhi and the Tahitian troupe Hei Tiare. She worked throughout college as a professional luau dancer. She lives in California.

Hula is her first novel.

My Q&A with the author:

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

There was never a question of what the title was going to be for this book. Ancient Hawaiʻi was an oral culture full of epic poetry and performative arts. Hula and chants were ways to pass down the histories and explanations of various people, gods and goddesses, geological happenings like volcanic eruptions and valleys chronically full of mist, of flora and fauna, and of other ancient practices. I wanted to write a story about my hometown of Hilo that somehow captured the complexities of contemporary Hawaiʻi, its subtle cultural nuances, and present it in all its layered glory. So in that way, Hula is not a book about hula, it is a hula, in literary form. The word Hilo means to braid, so I laid out the book in verses and weaved the stories together to present a Hawaiʻi that not a lot of people might be familiar with.

What's in a name?

I struggled with names. I wanted local names, ones that felt true to me, but I also wanted to steer clear of overused Hawaiian names or ones people would struggle to read and visualize. In the end, I tied each of the main characters to Hawaiian mythology. Hiʻi is short for Hiʻiakaikapoliopele, younger sister of Pele and patron goddess of hula, chant, and medicine. Her mother Laka pays tribute to the goddess Laka, the goddess of forest growth and hula, in that Laka is said to be the inspiration and origin of a dancer’s movement. The word Hulali means a shining surface or a reflector of light. Her grandmother Ulu is names after ʻulu the breadfruit, which in Hawaiʻi is a symbol of resilience and security.

It is from Ulu that Hulali inherits the mission of her life, the cultural stories kept safe and hidden from years of missionaries and commercial exploitation. Hulali must reflect and shine a light on those stories and life ways, Laka must keep it alive by embodying the physicality of hula itself, and so on.

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

Enormously surprised. During my senior year of high school I went to school in the mornings and worked as a book shelver at the Hilo Public Library in the afternoons. I usually figured out a way to shelve all my books in under thirty minutes, leaving the rest of my shift open to hide from the librarians and read. I read indiscriminately, but there was always a part of me that longed for a book that reflected the world I lived in, full of island concerns and challenges, people who spoke and thought like me, and set in my hometown. I was used to people only talking about Honolulu or Maui, and when Hawaii was ever depicted in the media, it was never representative of Hilo.

In many ways I wrote this for my teenage self. I think she would have loved it!

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

Even with years of editing, the beginning of Hula is more or less exactly as it was from the very first draft. What felt impossible was the ending. The historical milestones that are covered in the story are still unresolved for the most part – we still have a sovereignty movement fighting for self determination and international acknowledgment that America is illegally occupying the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi, we still have the definition of a Hawaiian being laid out by America that is subtractive and requiring of a blood quantum minimum for land, we still have land being leased for enormous profit without the permission of Native Hawaiians – so when I was drawing near to the ending when writing the first draft I was loathe to artificially tie up all the loose ends in a way that is satisfying and expected of fictional stories.

In general, I think endings are harder for me because I write with an idea and then see where it leads me. I have found it is rarely where I think I’ll end up. So I find myself writing to find out what happens next.

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

Hiʻi, Laka, and Hulali represent different generations, and that was done very deliberately. Our opinions are so influenced by our context – what is happening in the news, what is going on with our parents and community as we’re growing up – and this story introduces you to the evolution of both the Hawaiian sovereignty movement as well as its cultural renaissance. What I wanted was for a reader to see the hows and whys of what led us to the Hawaii of today.

So there was always that to consider, but primarily I would say that I approached these women, their characteristics, their strengths and flaws and mannerisms, very much in relation to each other. Who they were as mothers and daughters revealed nearly everything you needed to know about them. And that was definitely something I connected to personally. I was raised by my mother and was always surrounded by aunties. I had a strong, very smart grandmother. In my memories, it was the women running the show. The stories I was told when I was little more often than not featured a female ancestor who was very much her own person. That subconsciously trickled into the way I approached raising my daughters when they were little. My sometimes challenging relationship with my mother also played a role.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

Hula, certainly. I started dancing when I was very little, and that form of storytelling stuck with me. So when I wrote Hula the book, I wrote very much by ear, relying on cadence and rhythm to show me the way forward. The sway of the islands and the sing song of pidgin also very much inspired the story’s musicality – I wanted a reader to feel like they were experiencing the pace and feel of my hometown while they were getting to know it through the Naupakas.

Visit Jasmin Iolani's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Samantha Jayne Allen

Samantha Jayne Allen is the author of the Annie McIntyre Mysteries. She has an MFA in fiction from Texas State University, and her writing has been published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, The Common, and Electric Literature.

The new Annie McIntyre Mystery is Hard Rain.

My Q&A with the author:

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

Hard Rain works on multiple levels. On a purely marketing level, the sound of it is punchy and dark, communicating to readers that this is a gritty crime novel. The story begins with a devastating flood in which a woman nearly drowns and is rescued by a mysterious stranger. The woman hires Annie, a rookie PI, to find the man who saved her, and after a different victim—shot dead, not drowned—turns up, Annie wonders if the hero she seeks is actually a killer. So, the title works on a literal level as reference to the flood, but also on a thematic level; there's nothing—no person, no place—in this small Texas community that wasn't touched by the devastation, and Annie, too, must now reckon with her conflicting feelings of agency and powerlessness. I also chose the title as a reference to the Bob Dylan song, "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall." The mysterious stranger is a blue-eyed wanderer, and Annie's search for him will take her to bear witness to all variety of troubles.

What's in a name?

Annie McIntyre is a name I chose when I wrote my debut novel, Pay Dirt Road, before I knew it would be a series, but was hoping — I wanted to pick something that emphasized that she was a person you want to know and stick with. Annie is a name I think is strong, classic, but also warm. It was the name of my family's favorite dog growing up, a collie who was sensitive, intelligent, and fiercely loyal, qualities my main character shares. McIntyre I liked simply because it has a ring to it, a snap in that "mack" sound.

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

My teenage self would be delighted more than she'd be surprised, I think. I've always wanted to be a writer, and when I was a teenager I was obsessed with writing (bad) poetry about storms, both literal and metaphorical. I can see now that something along the lines of Hard Rain has been brewing for a while! I also loved reading mysteries as a teenager, and was always very into the strong female investigator—Kinsey Millhone, Deborah Knott, and before them, Nancy Drew and Miss Marple.

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

I think that the beginning is harder to write than the ending, and I usually rewrite it many times. For me, if the ending seems wrong, it's because it hasn't been set up correctly, which is therefore actually a problem with the beginning. Once I have the opening, when I know what this story is truly about, I gain a sense of momentum and the rest clicks into place. A good ending to any book, but particularly a mystery, I believe, is one that it feels surprising but inevitable. Mine are character-driven mysteries, and so I hope that my endings feel earned, and that the reader has gone on a journey in lockstep with Annie.

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

I was raised in small towns in Texas and in California, so my worldview is similar to Annie's, and my experiences having lived in a place like Garnett, TX are infused throughout. Annie's a romantic, like me, and is at times ambivalent toward this place and the people in it—a bittersweetness, a nostalgia for something I'm not sure ever truly existed.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

Music certainly has influenced my writing, as in the aforementioned Dylan, also classic country music, specifically western frontier ballads like those of Marty Robbins. I also am influenced by environmental issues. In Pay Dirt Road I wrote about eminent domain in relation to the oil and gas industry in Texas, and in Hard Rain, I was inspired by studies showing that flooding in Central Texas is being exacerbated by rapid urbanization and climate change. I wanted to explore the juxtaposition between what we see as acts of God—rainfall—and what troubles we've brought upon ourselves.

Follow Samantha Jayne Allen on Twitter.

--Marshal Zeringue

Allison L. Bitz

Allison L. Bitz hails from Lincoln, NE, where she lives with her spouse and two kids. Her superpower is empathy, and she’s been known to have resting tell-me-your-life-story face. Bitz holds a PhD in Counseling Psychology and has worked as a licensed psychologist since 2012. When she’s not working on a novel or counseling, Bitz is more than likely writing a song, getting riled up about something political, or trying to track down a pastry to enjoy with her coffee. She has a soft spot for rescue animals, which are vying for species majority in her home (two perfect dogs, two ornery cats). The Unstoppable Bridget Bloom is her debut novel.

My Q&A with the author:

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

The journey to Bridget’s title was, as is the case with many contemporary books—well, a journey. This book’s original working title was Fish Out of Water¸ which is clearly much vaguer than where I landed and pretty reflective of me being new to the world of publishing. The next title, and the one it was acquired under, was In the Key of B, which I still think is clever, but my marketing and sales team at HarperCollins wanted a title that was less music focused (though this book is very music-y!), more inclusive. The Unstoppable Bridget Bloom is far and away my favorite title this book has had, and that is partially because it absolutely does a lot of work on behalf of the story. Right away, between the title and the cover, we get a peek into Bridget’s personality and goal, and I love that.

What's in a name?

I have always really loved the name Bridget, and as this character started to form in my mind she felt like a Bridget to me. I tend to like alliteration, so Bloom as her last name came easily—I love the way Bridget Bloom rolls off the tongue. Bridget’s best friend Liza is named for Liza Minnelli (by me and that’s how she’s named by her Broadway star mother in story canon!). The academy Bridget attends, Richard James, is named for both of my grandfathers (who both happened to be named Richard) and for my spouse (James). One of the love interests, Duke, was jokingly named by my critique partner, and then I kept the name. When it comes to naming characters, sometimes I think long and hard and go for a deeper meaning or names that have sentimental value for me. And other times, I go with something that sounds good, no meaning attached. (And this process is very reflective of me as a person—half very serious, half whimsical).

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

My teenage self would be not at all surprised that I did write a book—I was always a writer—but I think she’d be surprised by the content of this book. Bridget is a fat teen who lives comfortably and unapologetically in her body. I was also a fat teen, but always with the worry I was taking up too much space, both physically and emotionally. I wrote Bridget into the body my high school self wore for precisely this reason—a love letter to my past self and a battle cry to contemporary teens. This isn’t a story about weight loss or shrinking in any way, this is a fat teen living her life, failing and falling in love, beautiful, graceful, talented just the way she is. I think my teen self would have been equally shocked and gratified to read a character like this, and to see how far her future self had come in loving all versions of herself, no matter what size her body happened to be at that moment.

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

I love beginnings, and writing Bridget was no exception. It was a joy to introduce readers to her larger-than-life personality and voice, to make people laugh right away with how out of touch she can be. (The reader can see right off the bat that she’s often an unreliable narrator!) Hilariously, I almost always start my stories in the wrong place, so Chapter 1 in this book was my seventh version! Endings are harder for me, both in writing and in life; however, they are extremely satisfying when done right. I always knew how Bridget needed to grow by the end of the book, but nailing the exact scene and pacing of that was a challenge that also took a few tries. As it is, I do think Bridget ends on a note of growth, hope, and happiness.

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

My characters always have at least a little bit of me in them—after all, they come from me! When she read Bridget, my grandma thought Bridget was me, so this is my big chance to go on record saying: no! No, she absolutely is not! What Bridget and I share is a love of music that runs so deep we would pursue it as a career (I was heavily involved in music as a teen and a music minor for a time in college), naturally curly hair, and feeling out of place in our rural hometowns. Where we diverge is basically everything else. I gave Max my love of Queen and Freddie Mercury. I gave Duke the easy charm that I’d always wished I had. To Liza, I gave my affinity for wearing black. The roommate dilemma between Bridget and Ruby was heavily inspired by what transpired between myself and my college roommate.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

This book is very, very musical. In fact, I think there’s at least some reference to music in every chapter. Broadway standards, pop classics, and classical music are all represented here and influenced the way I saw and wrote the book. I even wrote sheet music for this book—there are two original songs, written by me, in the back of this book! (Also, I have a Spotify playlist of every song that’s in The Unstoppable Bridget Bloom. Come find it on my Spotify account if you’d like to listen along.) The TV show Glee and also the movie/musical Legally Blonde both impacted how I wrote the book, as did my original inspiration, The Little Mermaid (in which a girl loses her voice in exchange for a new home and chance at love). The political landscape is always a part of my head and writing, and you’ll see those influences sneaking out at times, here and in everything I put to page.

Visit Allison L. Bitz's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Sarah Cypher

Sarah Cypher is the author of The Skin and Its Girl (Ballantine 2023) and holds an MFA from the Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College, where she was a Rona Jaffe Creative Writing Fellow in Fiction. She grew up in a Lebanese Christian family near Pittsburgh and lives in Washington, D.C., with her wife.

My Q&A with the author:

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

I love titles that create a syntactical hiccup. For instance, there's Carmen Maria Machado's Her Body and Other Parties and Andrea Lawlor's Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl. The title for The Skin and Its Girl came very late, but I warmed up to it as I thought about all the ways that the various members of my fictional Rummani family struggle with identities determined by the bodies they're in.

I wanted to know, what determines agency: the body or the person? What is the tension between these alternatives? There's Betty with her cobalt-blue skin, Nuha and Saeeda as aging Palestinian women in post-9/11 wartime America, Nuha with her body's queer desires, and Betty's father with his missing hand and scarred arm.

Readers will see the hospital staff reacting to Betty's newly blue skin in the first scene, so there is an early connection to the title. Of course, as the story unfolds, the title takes on new layers, gathering toward a late twist. This novel is an unconventional narrative--stories wrapped in stories--and it deserved a title that hinted at its strangeness.

What's in a name?

So much! My narrator, Betty Rummani, is born into a family with a storied history in the ancient Nabulsi soap-making trade. Rummani means pomegranate in Arabic, and as Betty narrates when reminiscing about difficult love affairs, "We come from an old and thorny shrub...so dense that to wade into it is to be blessed only with scratches and blood." This says a lot about many of my characters' personalities.

Betty's given name is Elspeth, which is a diminutive of "Elizabeth," and connects to the family's blue-skinned ancestor, Alissabat. The Rummanis are Orthodox Christians, so the name has some resonance there. Moreover, though, Betty's mother tends to make things difficult for her traditionalist relatives--here by choosing this difficult-to-pronounce name. She's dubbed Betty by her great-aunt Nuha, the family's storyteller and matriarch, and the name sticks.

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

Shocked, I tell you. The Skin and Its Girl is so queer! I grew up in a small, conservative, steel-mill town in Western Pennsylvania in the 1980s and '90s. I didn't know anyone who was gay, did not have language for imagining a life in which I'd be as happily married (to a woman) as I am now, and certainly didn't see myself represented in the books that were available to read.

Yet perhaps my teenage self would connect with this novel deeply anyway, as it is so concerned with the experience of being a misfit.

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

I find beginnings much easier, just as it's easy to walk up to a gong and hit it. It's easy to say something that calls attention to itself.

Also, beginnings are wonderfully sensitive to small changes: when I'm writing a novel, I'm aiming at a point very far off on the horizon, so I find myself making frequent, minute adjustments to the opening lines. That trajectory is powerful, holding in itself a whole world, and it's a source of excitement to me.

Joan Didion famously said in a Paris Review interview, "Everything else is going to flow out of that [first] sentence. And by the time you’ve laid down the first two sentences, your options are all gone. ... The minute you start putting words on paper you’re eliminating possibilities." Hence, by the time I get to a novel's ending, I only have a few possibilities, and in the case of The Skin and Its Girl, those options did not feel very malleable.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

In almost every writing group I've participated in, my work gets flak for being too ornate--certainly much more formal-sounding than I speak. My family took me to church for a lot of my childhood, and the Orthodox liturgy is quite beautiful; it's chanted, and even in English, it has a very grandiose, formal register. It's impossible to get that golden, transcendent sound out of my bones when I sit down to my writing, which is, in many ways, my only religious practice.

As for the content of what I write, I have an absurdist imagination that came from being a weirdo nerd in anti-intellectual spaces, growing up. It's fun to shoot this irreverence through the formal registers that I mentioned--mixing high and low, subverting what I can.

In my new project, I am exploring nonhuman ecosystems, wild spaces, suicide, and wildlife photography, which sounds like a mishmash, but it comes out of how I spent time during the early part of the pandemic and the sort of thinking I did about humanity in those years. I think the common thread with my past work is that I'm always trying to see how far the novel's form will stretch, even to the limits of human language.

Visit Sarah Cypher's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Trish Esden

Trish Esden loves museums, gardens, wilderness, dogs and birds, in various order depending on the day. She lives in Northern Vermont where she deals antiques with her husband, a profession she’s been involved with since her teens. Don’t ask what her favorite type of antique is. She loves hunting down old bottles and rusty barn junk as much as she enjoys fine art and furnishings.

Esden's new novel is A Wealth of Deception.

My Q&A with the author:

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

The title of A Wealth of Deception pulls a lot of weight as far as telling readers what to expect from the book. For one thing, it’s the second novel in the Scandal Mountain Antiques Mystery series. As such, the title has a similar word structure and physical appearance to the title of the previous book in the series, The Art of the Decoy. Along with the series title and dark tone of the cover image, A Wealth of Deception’s title is intended to tell readers that the book is a traditional mystery with a slightly ominous tone and a rural setting. The word ‘deception’ hints at the crime which a reader can expect to encounter. ‘Wealth’ is a word that has more than one meaning—and all apply in this case. In truth, the title is intended as a word puzzle for the reader to untangle as they read the novel and solve the story’s central mystery.

What's in a name?

My husband doesn’t read my novels while I’m working on them or even afterwards, but he does help me brainstorm sometimes. When I told him I needed an old fashion New England name for a twenty-something character that was smart and strong-willed, he immediately suggested Edie Brown, the name of his very independent and down-to-earth grandmother. As soon as he said it, I knew the name was perfect for the character.

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

Teenage me wouldn’t be shocked in the least. Well, maybe she might be surprised that the romance in the novel doesn’t play a larger role. In my teens, I was reading gothic romance novels and writing them in my room at night by candlelight. I also first started buying and selling antiques in my teens (a business that I now do fulltime). Antiques, art, and writing have always played a large part in my life.

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

I actually write the beginning and the end of novels at the same time, and any changes I make to one is immediately reflected by revisions to the other. Let me explain, one of the things that makes a novel feel satisfying to me is when the end mirrors the beginning in one or more ways—setting, tone, emotion, repeated words, or images…. At the same time, the end needs to show how the main character has changed due to the events she’s been through. A Wealth of Deception is my eighth traditionally published novel and I’ve used this technique for each and every one of them.

Visit Trish Esden's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Zhang Ling

Zhang Ling is the award-winning author of nine novels and numerous collections of novellas and short stories, including A Single Swallow, translated by Shelly Bryant; Gold Mountain Blues; and Aftershock, which was adapted into China’s first IMAX movie with unprecedented box-office success. Born in China, she moved to Canada in 1986 and, in the mid-1990s, began to write and publish fiction in Chinese while working as a clinical audiologist. Since then, she has won the Chinese Media Literature Award for Author of the Year, the Grand Prize of Overseas Chinese Literary Award, and China Times’s Open Book Award. Where Waters Meet is her first novel written in English.

My Q&A with the author:

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

I did sweat a bit over the title of this book. Despite the myriad of ideas flying around in my mind, the central image of water had been crystal clear even before I started writing the first line. Among the alternatives were Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall, Rain’s Ashes, Where Water Meets Sky, etc. The present title Where Waters Meet didn’t materialize until the editing process started. Both the editorial team and I myself feel this title relates to the story well, because one of the main characters’ name is Rain, and the major events that occur in her and her daughter’s lives are centered around rivers. The present title serves a dual purpose: it’s a road sign pointing, subtly, to the direction of the plot development; and it also creates a symbolic association with the course of life and the process of migration. The image of water, I hope, can lead the readers effectively into the depth of the story.

What's in a name?

“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet”, says Shakespeare, but I beg to differ. The name matters, as it can potentially produce a unique quality that separates a person from the multitude. There are two main characters in Where Waters Meet, a mother and a daughter. The mother’s name is Rain, which, in the beginning of the novel, is just a mere reference to the spring rain that falls around the time of her birth. As the story unfolds, the name Rain gradually reveals its layers of meaning, as a symbol for many “rains” that have fallen into her life; and as an indication of the nourishing and sustaining power she harbours within her, despite her sufferings.

The daughter’s name is Phoenix (Ah Feng in Chinese). Phoenix in Chinese culture carries complex and profound symbolic associations: an outstanding leader or a person of great success and fame; a creature with invincible strength and vitality that rises from the ashes; and a bird with powerful wings that can soar above the sordid realities... This name also serves several functions, as an indication of a mother’s expectation, though unrealistic at times, of her daughter’s success in life; a foretelling of the many difficulties and obstacles that the daughter has to overcome in order to survive; and her fate of eventually leaving the small and stifling hometown filled with dark memories, to live in a big and faraway world.

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

I grew up during China’s Cultural Revolution when most books were banned and public display of emotions and feelings discouraged. What filled my mind then was secret longings for love and romance, a forbidden land in the era of revolution. If I were to write a book then, I probably would have created a fantasy tale about an omnipotent hero coming to rescue me from my complete boredom and loneliness, and to take me away to a world where I could have a life. My adolescent self would never have expected, nor believed, that my adult self would be writing sagas and historical novels.

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

In general, I have more difficulty dealing with beginnings. I have a habit of patiently building up the momentum and keeping the suspense, or rather, the shock effect, till the very end. As a result, my opening chapter might read slow and flat to myself upon a second or third reading. Then I would go back to revise or even rewrite it. The endings are usually well-planned, ready to jump out at me at any moment. Normally I do very little changing to my endings.

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

I write family sagas and historical novels such as Where Waters Meet and A Single Swallow, exploring themes of war, trauma and healing. Empathy and compassion are the core of my creative process. However, I’ve been careful not to allow my emotions cloud my judgment. Logic and common-sense are what I usually resort to when I plot my characters’ trajectory of life and course of action. The story is theirs but the eyes that perform the observation and perception are entirely mine. I can totally see myself in my characters, yet I keep a rational distance from them at the same time.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

My family is probably the most important source of inspiration. I grew up surrounded by many strong women in my extended family. My maternal grandmother gave birth to 11 children (in addition to a few miscarriages) through wars and incessant social turmoil. The fact that ten survived to adulthood is nothing short of a miracle as infant mortality rate was very high in those days. With unbelievable courage, tenacity, and a great deal of common sense, Grandma kept her huge family afloat despite all sorts of social unrest and economic hardship. Ever since I was a little girl, my mother has been telling me the remarkable survival stories of the women in her family. Although Rain in Where Waters Meet and Swallow in A Single Swallow are fictional characters, they are a true reflection of these women in spirit.

Learn more about Where Waters Meet at the publisher's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Erica Bauermeister

Erica Bauermeister is the author of the bestselling novel The School of Essential Ingredients, Joy for Beginners, The Lost Art of Mixing, and The Scent Keeper, which was a Reese’s Book Club pick. She is also the co-author of non-fiction works, 500 Great Books by Women: A Reader’s Guide and Let’s Hear It For the Girls: 375 Great Books for Readers 2-14, and the memoir, House Lessons: Renovating a Life.

Bauermeister has a PhD in literature from the University of Washington, and has taught there and at Antioch University.

Her new novel is No Two Persons.

My Q&A with the author:

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

A lot, I hope. No Two Persons comes from the saying “no two persons ever read the same book.” It’s a concept I’ve thought a lot about over my years of teaching and writing books, and meeting with book clubs. We may all read the same words, but we never see the same story. I wanted to write a book that would explore the effect of one fictional book on its writer and nine very different readers, each character with their own story and chapter. I knew it was a complicated concept with an unusual structure, and it would be useful if the title could help set expectations. It didn’t hurt that I liked the sound of No Two Persons.

What's in a name?

My characters usually arrive in my imagination with their own names, but the writer in No Two Persons needed to be Alice—as in Alice in Wonderland. Her brother is Peter, as in Peter Pan. Each of those names is a tiny moment of rebellion on the part of their mother in the face of her authoritarian husband. My guess is that few readers will ever realize the meanings behind the names, but I love leaving Easter Eggs for readers who like to dig in.

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

In some ways not at all. The first fictional piece I ever wrote was presented from the points of view of a mother, a daughter, and her grandmother. The entire idea was how differently the three of them saw the same scene. But then I decided for some reason that I couldn’t write fiction, and I stepped away from it for almost twenty years. No Two Persons feels like coming full circle, writing the book I was always meant to. It did help to have forty years of life experience under my belt when I returned to the idea, though.

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

I love writing beginnings. Sometimes I write them first, and sometimes I write them last, but I love the challenge of setting a scene and creating a narrative atmosphere. In addition, there is the challenge of including the major themes so that later a reader can go back and see that everything was there from the very first moment.

Endings are trickier. When you are writing a novel, there is one ending, and the expectation is that it will wrap everything up in a (fairly) neat bow. But with interconnected short stories, which is really what No Two Persons is, the job of each ending is to open up its story, potentially sending the reader back to the beginning with a new and different perspective. And the final ending is that concept on steroids, because you are bringing a whole set of narrative threads together. To find that ending, I had to let all the stories simmer in the back of my brain until one morning I woke up and just knew what it would be. I think it’s my favorite of all the endings I have written, but I can’t tell you what it is.

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

I agree with authors who say all our characters are us and none of them are us. I never base any of my characters on people I know, or on myself. But there are elements in all of my characters—an insight, a fear, a love—that are intrinsic to me as well. And I often find when I am done writing a story it can feel as if I wrote it to figure something out for myself. Those unexpected lessons are one of the most fascinating aspects of writing for me.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

My goal is to learn something new with every book I write. My topics often have something to do with the subliminal—the way that food, or our sense of smell, or the lay-out of our houses affect us without our ever consciously knowing. In No Two Persons the larger theme is how reading a particular book can change us, but in order to create deeply immersive worlds for each character I ended up researching free diving, intimacy coordination in movies, ghost towns, leap seconds, homelessness, audiobook narration, curious animal facts… the list goes on. So I suppose I would say my non-literary inspiration is the desire to never stop learning.

Visit Erica Bauermeister's website.

The Page 69 Test: The School of Essential Ingredients.

The Page 69 Test: The Lost Art of Mixing.

The Page 69 Test: The Scent Keeper.

The Page 69 Test: No Two Persons.

--Marshal Zeringue