Ken Jaworowski

Ken Jaworowski is an editor at the New York Times. He graduated from Shippensburg University and the University of Pennsylvania. He grew up in Philadelphia, where he was an amateur boxer, and his plays have been produced in New York and Europe. He lives in New Jersey with his family. Small Town Sins is his first novel.

My Q&A with the author:

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

Small Town Sins was fairly easy to write, but the title gave me headaches. I was foolishly enamored of the working title, The Second Girl I Ever Kissed, which was taken from a line a character says. Luckily, my agent and editor talked me out of it and we brainstormed Small Town Sins. That, I think, gives the reader a sense of the setting, and an inkling of the plot.

What's in a name?

The character names are taken from real family names of people in that area. Every time I'd get stuck on what to name a character, I'd google "popular Pennsylvania names" and look to that for inspiration.

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

My teenage self would be incredibly surprised. I grew up as a city kid who roamed the Philadelphia streets. I'd rarely left the city limits. But then I moved to a small town -- Shippensburg, Pa. -- for college, and was completely perplexed by, and soon in love with, small town life.

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

The middle is the hardest to write. I find myself racing through beginnings and plotting out endings. But it's the middle section -- the 'How do I get from here to there?' -- that sometimes gives me a bit of trouble.

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 only heard this quote once, but I've loved it ever since: 'We are all the same person, expressed differently.' Meaning, we are all equipped with the same basic emotions, though perhaps in different quantities. In that vein, we are all like our characters, in small ways or large ways. That's why readers are drawn to news stories like 'Man Beats Up His Boss at Work.' We've all been frustrated, and all of us have fantasized about doing something like that. Thankfully, though, even if we all feel like that at one time or another, most of us resist that urge.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

I take inspiration wherever I can get it. Mostly it comes from people who tell me stories. Later on I'll be writing and will take a story that I've been told, alter it, and it becomes part of the plot.

Visit Ken Jaworowski's website.

--Marshal Zeringue