Constance Sayers

Constance Sayers is the author of the best-selling novels A Witch in Time and The Ladies of the Secret Circus, the latter receiving both a Publishers Weekly and Library Journal starred reviews. Her work has been translated into six languages. In her spare time, she is the Chief Revenue Officer for a media and information company. She splits her time between Alexandria, Virginia and West Palm Beach, Florida.

Sayers new novel is The Star and the Strange Moon.

My Q&A with the author:

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

Usually, my agent or my editor take my original title and improve upon it, but this is the first book title that came from me. The novel is about an actress who, in 1968, goes missing on the set of a French horror film and is never seen again. The film’s title is L’Étrange Lune which translates into The Strange Moon. Since the book focuses on her disappearance and one man’s obsession to find her (the star), I think it is an elegant and provocative title that nails the mysteriousness of the story.

What's in a name?

Naming my characters is the first thing I do. I cannot move forward with them until they have their names. I also know when I haven’t nailed the name and, as a result, I don’t connect with them as characters. The name Gemma Turner came to me before the idea for the book was fully formed. She just leapt off the page with that name and provided a great deal of direction for the plot. Thierry Valdon is just a great name for a French director. I loved the painter Suzanne Valadon who was the partner of Erik Satie and named the director in her honor. Probably the name Thierry came from the French designer Thierry Mugler. I say “probably” because some of this stuff runs in the background, and I just settle on it. Thierry Valdon was a great creative mashup from two great creative minds in French history.

I probably need to spend a minute talking about the demon, Althacazur who appears in this book as well as A Witch in Time and The Ladies of the Secret Circus. Readers love him and no one can pronounce the name. It is All-tha-CAZAR. He is based on a demon that appears in many texts, but just didn’t want to work with real demon names. It started as Alcazar and I added a flourish to it. I wanted the name to sound weird and otherworldly.

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

I’d like to think my teenage self would be proud. As a kid, I wrote a weighty tome on my sister’s Smith Corona typewriter so my teenage self would think that nothing had changed!

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

I used to find beginnings sacred. Like so many writers, I probably fixated too much on the first fifty pages of a book. Now, I realize the first chapter is the icing on the cake after the book is completed. I know where I want to start the story but that doesn’t mean that is the point where I will begin the book. Always, my process has been to write a soft ending to the book and then provide an epilogue which is the true ending. Always, the epilogue is the final piece.

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

The character of Christopher Kent has a lot of me in him. Growing up, I had a tumultuous childhood and that shows up in each book. When I was writing The Star and the Strange Moon, my mother died. She had suffered from dementia for a few years, so she had been fading, but finally losing her just gutted me and I channeled that grief into his character. The idea of a search for her is something that I find at an existential level. Where did she go? It was a raw wound. His character personified that grief for me.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

Music. I went into college as a vocal performance major and my father really wanted me to be an opera singer, so my childhood was filled with voice and piano lessons. I changed my major to English my freshman year and never looked back but I did feel like I let my parents down because they sacrificed so much for me to have a music career. I loved music, but in my own way and I really didn’t want to perform. I became a midnight-to-six DJ at a commercial radio station in Pennsylvania for four years and it taught me so much.

Visit Constance Sayers's website.

My Book, The Movie: A Witch in Time.

The Page 69 Test: A Witch in Time.

Writers Read: Constance Sayers (February 2020).

--Marshal Zeringue