Marilyn Simon Rothstein

Marilyn Simon Rothstein is the author of four novels: Who Loves You Best, Crazy To Leave You, Husbands And Other Sharp Objects, and Lift And Separate. She grew up in New York City, earned a degree in journalism from NYU, began her writing career at Seventeen magazine, married a man she met in an elevator and owned an award-winning advertising agency for more than twenty-five years.

My Q&A with the author:

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

I think the title --along with the cover--makes it clear Who Loves You Best is a warm and humorous contemporary story and that there is a competition going on. From the cover, it’s also clear that the people in the book wear shoes.

The working title for Who Loves You Best was Battle of the Bubbies.

What's in a name?

A lot. I go for names of people who are gone but meant and still mean, a lot to me. Often, I utilize someone’s name to say thank you for being there for me. In my first two books, the main character is Marcy Hammer. Hammer is my mother’s maiden name. In Crazy to Leave You, Lauren Leo is the protagonist. Leo was my dad’s name. His nickname was Honest Leo.

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

Shocked. As a teen, I could never have imagined myself as a woman with the life experience to write about older mothers, adult daughters and too many grandmothers.

Do you find it harder to write beginnings or endings?

Endings are the most difficult for me. On the other hand, not one of my four books begins with the words I originally envisioned.

Which do you change more?

It’s probably a tie. I can rewrite the beginning or the ending endless times. 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 are of my world. The protagonists have a sense of humor, lean on the ability to laugh while experiencing sadness and sorrow. I do that a lot.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

My idea of research is going to lunch with my daughters. Or, walking around the reservoir with a friend. Or, listening in intensely while at Starbucks. Do not sit in Starbucks telling your secrets to a friend. I like to listen in.

Visit Marilyn Simon Rothstein's website.

The Page 69 Test: Who Loves You Best.

--Marshal Zeringue

Tony Wirt

Tony Wirt was born in Lake Mills, IA, and got his first taste of publication in first grade, when his essay on Airplane II: The Sequel appeared in the Lake Mills Elementary School’s Creative Courier.

He's a graduate of the University of Iowa and spent nine years doing media relations in the Hawkeye Athletic Department. He's also been a sportswriter, movie ticket taker and Dairy Queen ice cream slinger who can still do the little curly thing on top of a soft serve cone.

He currently lives in Rochester, MN, with his wife and two daughters.

Wirt's new novel is Pike Island.

My Q&A with the author:

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

Most of the excitement in Pike Island takes place on Pike Island, so I think the title puts readers right in the middle of the action. I always thought the name of the island would be a great title for the book, unfortunately, the real place I set this book is called Mystery Island, and that sounds way too much like something out of an episode of Scooby Doo. So my agent, my editor, and I put our heads together to think up a new name that sounded both realistic and a little spooky.

What's in a name?

Not much, honestly. I never name any of my main characters after anyone. Minor characters, however, I'll sometimes toss in a mixture of old friend's names. In an early draft I had a character named after an obscure Minnesota Indie Rapper, but by the time the book sold and was published, Lizzo's career had exploded and she definitely didn't fit the 'obscure' description.

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

Half of the story in Pike Island revolves around a group of guys on a trip to the lake. While no character is based on me and my group of friends individually, they are definitely inspired by the group dynamic we had. We took many trips up to my grandparent's cabin together, so I definitely mined those memories for some color.

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

I don't outline things out, but I usually have an ending in mind when I start. The beginning usually changes more, because I'm always looking for a better way to hook the reader.

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 always some of the author in their characters. For me, there's usually a lot of me in the early drafts, but with each re-write the characters establish more of their own personality and act like themselves instead of me.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

I always listen to music when I write, and each book tends to feed off a different genre. Pike Island needed a lot of 80s and 90s College Rock (R.E.M., Husker Du, The Replacements). My book Just Stay Away fed off of Hall of Fame hip-hop (A Tribe Called Quest, Erik B & Rakim, Wu Tang Clan). I never know what a particular book is going to need.

Visit Tony Wirt's website.

The Page 69 Test: Pike Island.

--Marshal Zeringue

J. T. Ellison

J.T. Ellison is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of more than thirty novels and the Emmy Award–winning cohost of the literary TV show A Word on Words. She also writes urban fantasy under the pen name Joss Walker.

With millions of books in print, her work has won critical acclaim and prestigious awards. Her titles have been optioned for television and published in twenty-eight countries.

Ellison's new novel is A Very Bad Thing.

My Q&A with the author:

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

I think it’s a rather straightforward title, quite literal and easy to understand, as it sets the stakes for the whole story from the jump. It was not the first title I entertained—mine rarely are—but it was one of the first lines I wrote for the book. It starts with a letter. My darling daughter. Many years ago, I did a very bad thing. Even I wanted to know what that very bad thing was, and what I thought wasn’t what it ended up being. So I tricked myself! Columbia Jones is an author, and she’s killed in the opening pages of the book. The letter gives us a peek into her mind, one of the few we get, as the story revolves around the people closest to her, the ones with motive to kill her.

What's in a name?

I have exactly zero idea how or why, but I was starting to think about my next book, and I tend to journal quite a bit as I do so. There’s an entry on November 26, 2021, that says only Columbia Jones. It just appeared, handed to me by the writing gods. I followed on quickly with Who killed Columbia Jones? Columbia Jones. Totally unique first name coupled with a very common last name—it’s actually the perfect moniker to represent the two sides of my main character—public and private. I do like a unique androgynous name, though. It allows the reader to create an impression of the character in their head right away. Naming all my characters I something I take seriously. They’re your children in many ways. They need just the right one.

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

I think my teenage self would be shocked, honestly, because she would be so thrilled and grateful to realize she’d fulfilled her lifelong dream of being a writer on such a big stage. She was still writing poetry and just learning how metaphor and simile worked. To see a complete manuscript—and know it was the 30th published novel? I think she’d be pretty darn happy and proud.

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

The beginnings are always harder—in that they take longer. Setting the stage is everything for a crime fiction novel. You must open with a question, establish the stakes, introduce the characters, and if you’re doing it with a standalone, you’re recreating the wheel every time. It usually takes me six months to write a book—five months for the first half and a month for the second half.

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, the good, the bad, the sinister, the sweet, is a little piece of me. They have to be; they live in my head and talk all the time. My challenge is to allow myself into the heads of characters who are nothing like me. I lead a quiet, boring life. I’ve been married to a great guy for 30+ years; I have a wonderful family, loving parents, and a simple, regular existence. But there’s drama in the edges of everything, and I have to go searching to find it, make it mine, identify with it, and bring it to the page in a relatable way.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

  Everything influences my writing, from the news cycle to cold cases to overheard snatches of conversation. Music is always a big player, from lyrics that create titles to sweeping symphonies that encapsulate the story for me. I read and watch everything I can, too, which helps!

Visit J.T. Ellison's website and follow her on Twitter or Facebook.

The Page 69 Test: Edge of Black.

The Page 69 Test: When Shadows Fall.

My Book, The Movie: When Shadows Fall.

My Book, The Movie: What Lies Behind.

The Page 69 Test: What Lies Behind.

The Page 69 Test: No One Knows.

My Book, The Movie: No One Knows.

The Page 69 Test: Lie to Me.

My Book, The Movie: Good Girls Lie.

The Page 69 Test: Good Girls Lie.

Writers Read: J. T. Ellison (January 2020).

--Marshal Zeringue

Galina Vromen

Galina Vromen began writing fiction after more than twenty years as an international journalist in Israel, England, the Netherlands, France, and Mexico. After a career with Reuters News Agency, she moved to the nonprofit sector as a director at the Harold Grinspoon Foundation.

Vromen launched and directed two reading readiness programs in Israel, one in Hebrew (Sifriyat Pijama) and one in Arabic (Maktabat al-Fanoos). During her tenure, the two programs gifted twenty million books to young children and their families and were named US Library of Congress honorees for best practices in promoting literacy.

Vromen’s stories have been performed on NPR’s Selected Shorts program and appeared in magazines such as American Way, the Adirondack Review, Tikkun, and Reform Judaism. She has an MA in literature from Bar-Ilan University in Israel and a BA in media and anthropology from Hampshire College in Massachusetts.

The author and her husband divide their time between Israel and Massachusetts.

Vromen's new novel is Hill of Secrets.

My Q&A with the author:

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

Hill of Secrets is very much about secrets — personal and national ones. And it takes place in Los Alamos, New Mexico, a mesa (flat-topped hill) which was where the world's first atomic bombs were built, and arguably the most secret place in the United States in the 20th century. So, yes, I think the title takes the reader right into the heart of the story. In the book, all the main characters have their own personal secrets, except for one — a teenager — who very much wants to know everyone else's secrets, or at least thinks she does.

My original title was Nuclear Families, since the book is about family life for those living at Los Alamos during the war, but the publisher didn't like it. There was a lot of back and forth and it was my husband who came up with a title we could all agree on.

What's in a name?

The last name of the German Jewish refugee family in the book is actually the family name of some of my own relatives. My main consideration in the first names of the characters was to make sure the main characters have names that start with a different letter from each other.

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

My teenage self would not have been surprised by the novel. She probably would have related very well to the teenage character, Gertie, and she would have probably paid particular attention to the steamy sections, as teenagers are wont to do. Like Gertie, my teenage self tended to get along better with adults than with kids my own age. She would have been pleased that the novel actually got written because, even then, she wanted to be writer.

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

I find beginnings much harder to write. I kept changing my first chapter because I have two main characters — Christine, a 30-something woman who had to stop her career to join her husband at Los Alamos, and Gertie, a teenage Jewish German refugee — and each chapter starts with the point of view of a different character. Initially, Gertie had the first chapter, but I was afraid the book would be classified as a young adult book if it started with a teenage point of view, so I switched to Christine. I must have written the opening scene at least 20 times.

I did change the ending somewhat, to make it more open ended. Some readers find this unsatisfying; they want more closure, but I am very comfortable with leaving the reader wondering what might or might not happen next and whether secrets are a good thing or not. To my mind, it makes the book more thought provoking and it raises questions that have no easy answer.

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

I certainly drew on my teenage self in depicting Gertie although I was probably not as curious as I make her out to be. In general, though, I prefer to write about characters who are not related to me. Just like most actors do not want to be type cast — I don't like to effectively type cast myself in my writing. So the further away I get from myself, the happier I am as a writer, because that is when I really let my imagination soar, when I try to see the world through the eyes of someone who is different from me, which is interesting and also challenging.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

Politics definitely influenced me. As far back as I can remember, I have worried about nuclear war. I grew up during the Cold War of the 1960s and the concept of mutually assured destruction, which dominated US-Soviet relations at the time, seemed to me even then both a dangerous and stupid way to conduct ourselves. As a child, I remember school drills where we would have to line up with our backs to our lockers in the hallway — in case of a nuclear attack! Today, it is ludicrous to think that anyone could have possibly believed this would keep us safe. I suspect it was intended to inculcate in us a fear of nuclear war and of the Soviet enemy, while simultaneously encouraging a totally unfounded belief that we could protect ourselves from an attack by standing rigidly against our lockers in the hallway of our school. The origins of that arms race started to some extent with Los Alamos. In recent years, I have been very worried about the potential for nuclear war in the Middle East and the horrific damage it could inflict.

Visit Galina Vromen's website.

The Page 69 Test: Hill of Secrets.

My Book, The Movie: Hill of Secrets.

--Marshal Zeringue

Sydney Graves

Sydney Graves is a pseudonym for Kate Christensen, an Arizona native and the author of eight novels, most recently Welcome Home, Stranger. Her fourth novel, The Great Man, won the 2008 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. She has also published two food-centric memoirs, Blue Plate Special and How to Cook a Moose, which won the 2016 Maine Literary Award for Memoir. Her essays, reviews, and short pieces have appeared in a wide variety of publications and anthologies. She lives with her husband and their two dogs in Taos, New Mexico.

Graves's new book is The Arizona Triangle: A Jo Bailen Detective Novel.

My Q&A with the author:

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

The word Arizona tells the reader where the book is set. It's an economical way to invite her into the book's world, and it's also a lovely state name. Arizona carries metaphorical implications too, the romance of the west, the visual of dramatic mountains against deep blue sky and saguaro silhouettes, so it instantly gives the reader so much of the atmosphere the book is imbued with.

The word Triangle does double duty, as a play on the Bermuda Triangle, a place of danger and mystery, as well as a reference to the love triangle at the heart of the mystery.

What's in a name?

I wanted Jo Bailen's name to work on several levels. First, she's queer and mixed-race, and both vulnerable and strong. I chose Jo because, of course, we all associate that name with the invincible heroine of Little Women. It's a plausibly masculine name with a feminine spelling, and I liked the interplay of those two qualities. Her last name is a Spanish name, not a Mexican one. Her Mexican-based family is offensively proud of their European heritage, and I wanted a name that reflected Europe rather than Mexico, and that also had an English pronunciation, because her mother is Anglo. Jo deplores her Mexican relatives for their racism and wants nothing to do with them, just as her late father didn't. In terms of naming her, I wanted to get at the contradictions and depths of her character. And I also like the way Jo Bailen looks on the page, from an aesthetic standpoint. It’s a very good name for a detective.

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

When I was a teenager, I was an avid, passionate fan of Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Dick Francis. My teenage self would be absolutely thrilled to know that she would someday be publishing her own detective series. In part, I wrote this book for her.

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

Beginnings are harder. Ironically though, I also find beginnings more fun. Starting a book opens a world of possibility, suggestion, intrigue, and interesting characters. By the time I get to the ending, I already know what's going to happen, so it's a matter of wrapping up what I've said in motion rather than a thrilling process of discovery.

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

All of my characters contain parts of myself, and all of them have qualities I don't, both traits I wish I had and ones I'm glad I don't have. I try to create flawed and complex people who feel as real as anyone we know.

Visit Sydney Graves's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Stephanie Booth

Stephanie Booth has an M.A. in English from the University of New Mexico and an MFA in Creative Writing from Emerson College. Her work has appeared in Cosmopolitan, Real Simple, O, Marie Claire, The Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times. Booth has been a contributing editor at Teen People and an advice columnist for Teen, and she has helped with casting for MTV’s award-winning documentary series, True Life.

Her new novel is Libby Lost and Found.

My Q&A with the author:

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

My original title was The Falling Children Find Their Way Home, which is a nod to the mega-best-selling fantasy book series, The Falling Children, that the main character, Libby Weeks, writes. It took a lot of soul-searching to admit that while I was fond of the title, it wasn't the best entrance into the story.

Libby Lost and Found kinda says it all: Libby has been recently diagnosed with early-onset dementia and feels absolutely adrift in her life. But as she enlists her biggest superfan, an 11-year-old girl named Peanut Bixton, to help her finish her last book in the Falling Children series, they both find parts of themselves they didn't know existed.

So...some heartbreak, but not all heartbreak!

What's in a name?

When I first started writing, the main character's name was Elizabeth. But I started thinking that it felt too competent, if that makes sense. Libby is softer. It sounds like a character in a nursery rhyme or the name of a favorite stuffed rabbit -- something you want to care for. And there's an intentional meekness to her last name, "Weeks."

Libby's 11-year-old sidekick is Peanut Bixton. I wish I could trace back the roots of that name, but it just popped in my head one day. (Maybe there's an unconscious nod there to Turtle Wexler in The Westing Game?) Peanut's the opposite of Libby and her name conveys that. It's odd and doesn't easily roll off the tongue.You have to think about Peanut Bixton as you say it.

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

My teenage self would be too busy getting in trouble to notice this book. There were a few years of my adolescence where I didn't do a lot of reading. But my younger kid self would be thrilled! And probably have a bunch of notes and questions.

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

To me, the beginning of a story feels like a house that I have to circle hundreds or thousands of times — in the dead of night! Without a flashlight!— before I find a way in. For Libby Lost and Found, that entrance wasn't where I thought I was. I hit so many dead-ends until a sentence formed in my head one day on a walk: "The Children are still in the forest." I kept hearing that, and each time I did, another sentence would be attached to it. That became the prologue and helped me understand, "Oh, this is a story within a story." It's not just Libby's life which is in crisis, but her fictional characters.

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 in this book feels so alive and distinct from me. I felt like a fly on the wall, watching them go about their lives and hoping they wouldn't notice me.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

There are so many ways I could answer this question, but I'll go with this: Research shows that the average person processes 74GB of information every day, or the equivalent of 16 movies. So what do our brains do with all that information? Where does it put the scrap of conversation you overheard, the SNL joke that made you laugh, the song lyric that won't leave your head, the person who sped by you on the highway who was clearly eating a bowl of hot oatmeal.... I love imagining that writing is your unconscious spinning all this data into something distinct and meaningful.

So in answer to your question...Keeping an open mind, because inspiration is everywhere.

Visit Stephanie Booth's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Rachel Robbins

Rachel Robbins received her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is a tenured assistant professor at Malcolm X College, one of the City Colleges of Chicago. A visual artist and two-time Pushcart Prize-nominated writer, her paintings have materialized on public transit, children’s daycare centers, and Chicago’s Magnificent Mile. Robbins is the author of In Lieu of Flowers and The Sound of a Thousand Stars. She lives in Chicago with her husband, children, and Portuguese Water dog.

My Q&A with the author:

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

My original working title was actually Enola Spelled Backwards, which was a nod to the Enola Gay. I thought it was fascinating that Paul Tibbets, the pilot who flew the aircraft that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, named the plane after his mother Enola, who was named for the titular character in the novel Enola: Or Her Fatal Mistake, by Mary Young Ridenbaugh. I loved the self-fulfilling prophecy in that name; when it was reflected in the water over the Pacific, the nose of the plane would spell out the word alone. That’s why I also wrote the storyline of my Japanese character, a Hibakusha who has survived the bomb and must suffer its consequences, in reverse. Through his eyes, we time travel backwards, beginning with the toll the bomb has taken on his world by the end of his life, all the way back to its horrific inception.

In the end, we landed on the title, The Sound of a Thousand Stars, because it connected thematically. I liked that it was a nod to Fred J. Olivi’s famous words on the evening news after the bombing of Nagasaki: “Suddenly, the light of a thousand suns illuminated the cockpit.” It’s also apt because it’s a nod to understanding the world through numbers, and the book is inspired by my grandfather, who was always solving math riddles and quizzing us on square roots. Finally, it’s a paradox. Because there’s no sound in space, so stars don’t make sound. These scientists were driven to explore beyond the known universe—to hear things that had never been heard before.

What's in a name?

I named my protagonist Alice initially because it just felt right. Early on, there’s a character in the novel who scoffs: “I feel like Alice in Quantum Land.” And the puzzle pieces fell into place. What was Los Alamos if not a rabbit hole? I also needed to change surnames to protect my family’s privacy since in early drafts, I had used our family names. I updated Kahn to Katz, which felt appropriately erudite for a Jewish heiress to the de Young fortune. The other character is Caleb Blum, who began as Caleb Fisher. I chose Blum because I loved that it was the Yiddish word for flower since there is so much in the book about toxic oleander blooming in Hiroshima in the aftermath of the bomb. In the novel, Caleb explains that his last name was given to his family at the Romanian border by a Border Patrol Agent who had an affinity for gardening. This story is actually true. My paternal great-grandfather did not have a surname when they emigrated. They were too poor. We became the Fisher family because a Border Patrol Agent asked my great-grandfather whether he liked to fish, and not speaking a word of English, he responded in Yiddish, “Yo.” In the end, flowers seemed more poetic than fish.

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

My teenage self was largely oblivious to my grandfather’s lived history and the plight of his work in defense. To me, he was my grandfather with twinkling eyes. I loved him so much. He was larger than life—a flawless being. So, the most shocking part of my book for my teenage self would be the removal of those rose-colored glasses and seeing my grandfather for who he really was—a person with ego, fear, flaws and all, who got caught up in something. I would have to reckon with his inherent faults—the same misgivings that make us human.

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

I wrote a whole storyline in reverse, so I suppose I have to say endings are my thing. Starting at the end and working backwards is kind of my process. I started writing the book itself on the flight home from my grandfather’s funeral, so that’s kind of the ultimate ending because the book began with a death. For me, it was a way of processing the loss and keeping my grandfather present. I also got to know him as a young person through archival documents and interviews, and that was a bit like meeting a ghost. I started having dreams about him as a young man. That’s a beginning I could never have written from the get-go.

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

My grandmother is the inspiration for my Alice character, and my grandfather is the inspiration for Caleb. But I spent so much time researching these amazing Herculean women scientists. They were called that, of course, because the term scientist was presumed to be male. And I was so taken with them—from stories about being restricted from experiments for fear of what the radiation would do to their reproductive organs, to proving useful in the end because their small hands could more effectively manipulate machine parts. So, my main character morphed from my grandmother—a philanthropist who wrote a book about the bomb and spent her life vying for a peaceful future—into a steminist scientist inspired by these lived histories. I suppose I’m in there a bit too because how could I not be? Every character is an iteration of the author, right? But I was able to maintain a distance from my own identity in the writing. It was primarily my grandparents that I envisioned coming to life on the page.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

Mostly, I’m influenced by visual art since I’m also a painter. I paint large-scale murals and work with collage, so I’m inspired by enormous stories walking across buildings, like the kinds done by Vhils (a Portuguese street artist who uses a jackhammer to chip away at walls), or Blu, an Italian painter who turns whole abandoned city blocks into paintings that he then animates. Both are extremely narrative in their work. Vhils tells the story of displaced people, celebrating the portraiture of those who have been removed from their homes, be it from railway construction or gentrification. And Blu tells stories that take on everything from evolution and gun violence to corporate greed.

Another of my favorites is Mickalene Thomas. Her collage work is so maximalist and fabulous. It’s a celebration of seeing. I love that she refuses the male gaze and depicts female subjects who possess their own sexuality and relish being seen. In many ways, my book started with similar visuals since I spent so much time painting my grandmother over and over, collaging in her letters and her fabrics, inspired by Thomas, and searching for answers as I always do in the beginning, through paint.

Visit Rachel Robbins's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Sound of a Thousand Stars.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eugenie Montague

Eugenie Montague received her MFA in fiction from the University of California, Irvine. Her short fiction has been published by NPR, Mid-American Review, Faultline, Fiction Southeast, Amazon and Flash Friday, a flash-fiction series from Tin House and the Guardian Books Network, and was selected by Amy Hempel for The Best Small Fictions (2017). She currently lives in El Paso, Texas with her family.

Montague's new novel is Swallow the Ghost.

My Q&A with the author:

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

I like what my super-smart and talented friend and writer, Brendan Park, has to say about titles: that they should open up rather than shut down, evoke, rather than diagnose. And, actually, he suggested the title here. I had originally chosen another title, and my (also super-smart and talented) editors encouraged a change. When I mentioned that I needed a new title to Brendan, he recommended "swallow the ghost," which came from a line in the book. The specific sentence the title comes from did not make it into the final book, but I think Swallow the Ghost is a title that begins to make sense within the context of the novel and that it works on both plot and thematic levels.

What's in a name?

With almost all of my writing, I hear a rhythm in my head. I wouldn't be able to pinpoint it. It's not related to pentameters or syllables or stresses on any conscious level; but when I write a sentence, it either sounds right or wrong to me, and I'll edit over and over until it sounds "right" in my head. I have a similar relationship to names. A character name either feels right or it doesn't. Sometimes that comes immediately, but I often change them over and over as I write (which can lead to some funny "Replace All" situations down the road). My "office" is a desk a closet--not a walk-in closet, just a normal closet with the doors taken off. It has a shelf on the back wall for sweaters and such that I have filled with books. The name "Jesse Haber" came about when I looked up at that shelf and saw a book by Jesse Ball and one by Mark Haber, and put them together—mainly to survive the sentence. But this name felt instantly right and I never changed it.

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

What an interesting question—I've never thought about it. But, no, I don't think she would be very surprised. She might be surprised she finished a novel, but I think the themes and subject matter would seem of a kind. Hopefully, she would see some growth from how she thought about them at sixteen though!

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

I think this might depend on the story or the book but, I have always found middles pretty difficult. I generally subscribe to the notion that if the ending isn't working, the problem lies somewhere else. I do think endings and beginnings can feel hard to change, so it's good to have a trusted reader to help you see it. There are some snake-eating-its-own-tail aspects of revision for me; I write from the beginning and at some point realize what I am doing (hopefully), so then I have to go back and incorporate what I have learned into the beginning of the book, which refines the middle and the end—again making it necessary to work on the beginning. At some point, this process ends or at least, the amount and importance of what I have to revise or refine approaches zero (if never actually getting there).

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 are aspects of myself in my characters, especially major characters. It's not a one for one certainly and it's not autobiographical, but the major characters are likely guided by or interested in at least some of the questions that I have about the world and art and other people, though their path and personalities and how they go about trying to answer these questions may differ.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

Well, for this book, certainly the internet, and I do think about the internet a lot. There’s infinite creativity working within the formal structures of the tweet or the Instagram story, or the Tik Tok; in the same way, for centuries, writers have been playing with the novel. For example, Alena Smith, who created the TV show Dickinson, had a number of fake Twitter accounts, including Tween Hobo: tweets in the voice of a tween who was riding the rails; also Eighties Man (self explanatory). I also had friends who were always playing with Wikipedia, and a friend who once started a crime story on Yelp. The character left reviews at restaurants that were part of the story, slightly more narrative than one would usually leave. No one really noticed but, then, he left a review where there was a shootout—and the restaurant very much noticed, and he got kicked off Yelp. So I was thinking about all these things, and the little I knew about the publishing industry from being mostly an outsider; I wrote but had not had a book published, but I followed writers on Twitter who posted about the shrinking media market, less places for reviews, the importance of follower counts in the process, et cetera. All of this was in my head when I thought about Jane and Jeremy and this Twitter mystery they created to help promote Jeremy's book.

I also thought about the internet in how we read. There are the radical differences in tone, fragments, but also there's this contingency. It’s fairly common now to read a text, and then there’s the think piece on the text, and then there’s the twitter thread on the think piece, and then maybe there’s a new think piece on the twitter thread. Along with that, there’s the whole milkshake duck of it all—that one day we’re all laughing at something online, new information comes out, and we realize we shouldn’t be laughing. So, there’s this instability that's more a part of the reading process, as I experience it, and this is mirrored by the instability of all the platforms, which are subject to the whims of a few billionaires, really. A book is never stable, the reading changes with each reader, even the same reader at different times--but this cycle on the internet, specifically, there's a Rashomon aspect about it that I thought about with this book.

Visit Eugenie Montague's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Barbara Gayle Austin

Barbara Gayle Austin writes crime fiction. She grew up in Houston, Texas, but has spent most of her adult life in the Netherlands and the UK. She now lives in Amsterdam with her two children and her dog.

What You Made Me Do is Austin’s debut novel, a thriller set in Amsterdam and a Dutch island in the Wadden Sea. The novel was longlisted for the esteemed Crime Writers’ Association Debut Dagger award (under the title Lowlands). Her short stories have been longlisted in the Margery Allingham short mystery competition and in the Aestas 2022 competition.

My Q&A with Austin:

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

My novel is a dark psychological thriller. The original title, Lowlands, doesn’t say what kind of book it is or what it’s about.

The publisher wanted a title that would appeal to readers of thrillers, so I brainstormed with my daughter, and we suggested ten options. What You Made Me Do is a variation of one of those suggestions. The title is brilliant—it works on multiple levels. As the reader delves into the book, they will wonder which character(s) the title refers to.

What's in a name?

The novel is set in the Netherlands, and the characters are Dutch. But I wanted to avoid names that are difficult for native English speakers to pronounce. If I had known that there would be an audio edition of the book, I would have picked names that are even easier. Fortunately, Andy Arndt, who narrates the audio book, has studied Dutch. So her pronunciation is spot on.

Part of the novel takes place on Wexalia, a fictional island inspired by the real island of Terschelling—one of the barrier islands off the northern coast. Wexalia is the medieval name for eastern Terschelling. I didn’t use the real/modern name, because I changed the geography of the island to accommodate the story.

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

My teenage self dreamed of writing mysteries, but she never…ever… imagined that she would be living in the Netherlands and set her debut novel there.

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

I love writing both beginnings and endings. One isn’t harder for me to write than the other. But I end up changing the endings more than the beginnings because sometimes the characters take on a life of their own and defy my original plans for them. For example, in the thriller I’m writing now, there’s a murder near the end of the book. In the current draft, the character I had originally intended to be the killer becomes the victim, while the supposed victim turns into an accomplice.

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 little of me in each character. I can step into their shoes and pretend to be them. I imagine how they feel and how they would react in a scene, but I promise I have never committed a murder!

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

My adopted city of Amsterdam has deeply influenced my writing. The rich history, the mix of nationalities, the canals, and the crooked houses all play a part. Not to mention the unstable wooden poles supporting the older parts of the city—a constant reminder of an invisible threat beneath the surface.

Visit Barbara Gayle Austin's website.

The Page 69 Test: What You Made Me Do.

--Marshal Zeringue

Samantha Greene Woodruff

Samantha Greene Woodruff is the author of Amazon #1 bestseller The Lobotomist’s Wife. She studied history at Wesleyan University and continued her studies at NYU’s Stern School of Business, where she earned an MBA. Woodruff spent nearly two decades working on the business side of media, primarily at Viacom’s Nickelodeon, before leaving corporate life to become a full-time mom. In her newfound “free” time, she took classes at the Writing Institute at Sarah Lawrence College, where she accidentally found her calling as a historical fiction author. Her writing has appeared in Newsweek, Writer’s Digest, Female First, Read 650, and more.

Woodruff's new novel is The Trade Off.

My Q&A with the author:

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

This was not an easy book to name! From the moment I had the idea to write about a woman trying to be an investor in the stock market in the lead up to the Great Crash, I loved the title “What Goes Up.” For me it was fun and inviting but also foreshadowed the catastrophe that was coming (you know, because of the adage: “what goes up always comes down.”) But no one else liked it. They felt it sounded too rom-com for historical fiction and I saw that too. In the end, we came up with over fifty titles before we landed on The Trade Off. Two of the other finalists were Her Side of the Street and Rhapsody in Gold, but I felt that The Trade Off did just enough to play on Wall Street and hint at the fact that it isn’t going to be easy for the protagonist to achieve her goals, without giving much away.

What's in a name?

My protagonist, Bea Abramovitz’s family dynamic was based on stories I’d been told about my grandmother, Pauline. She was the only daughter of Polish immigrants who were extremely wealthy, lost everything when they immigrated, and her mother treated her like a servant and her brothers like princes. She was my favorite grandma and passed away when I was only ten, so I wanted to honor her and my grandpa Lew (who my daughter Lila is named after), by calling Bea’s parents Pauline and Lew.

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

My teenage self would be surprised that I was a novelist at all. My high school pipe dream was to be a rock star, not a novelist. I sang in bands and wrote angst-ridden poetry. I also wrote an incredibly wordy children’s book for a senior project but I never thought I’d make a career out of writing. I loved to read (most writers do,) and I favored mysteries and sci-fi thrillers. When everyone else was reading Sweet Valley High, I read a series of books called Dark Forces. I devoured Nancy Drew and then graduated to Agatha Christie. I guess that explains why my pure pleasure reading is still psychological thrillers. I didn’t find historical fiction, as a reader, until I was a full-blown adult with a BA in history, and I didn’t start writing until I was in my forties.

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

For The Trade Off, the whole idea hinged on the ending, so that was set from the beginning. In general, I have a loose outline for the major beats of my novels before I write them, but I let the details, and the individual scenes evolve over time (and adjust the outline accordingly). I didn’t know where we would enter Bea’s story or how the “chicken little” aspect of the novel—Bea seeing that a market crash was coming and no one believing her—would evolve. And it changed as I wrote it. The ending stayed the same, although the way it happened wasn’t what I had initially planned.

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 of writing characters like method acting. Even when they have different personalities and life experiences than mine, I look to my own relationships and feelings to find authenticity in my characters’ reactions to events and people. So, I’m always in there somewhere.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

A recent event in the stock market sparked the idea for The Trade Off: the GameStop short squeeze of 2021, which was also the subject of the movie Dumb Money. I was fascinated that the investors selling the stock short were perceived as villains and the buyers of the stock were the heroes. This got me thinking about the complex morality of wealth, especially on Wall Street when fortunes can be made and lost in a matter of hours. Since I write historical fiction, I looked to the past for my actual story, but this more recent event is where the idea originated. More broadly, I’m a huge TV and movie person and I think there is a certain pacing that I try to achieve in my writing as a result. Probably, I write for those with shorter attention spans.

Visit Samantha Greene Woodruff's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Lobotomist's Wife.

My Book, The Movie: The Trade Off.

--Marshal Zeringue

Melody Maysonet

Melody Maysonet is the author of the critically acclaimed novel A Work of Art and has been an English teacher, editor, columnist, and ghostwriter. After growing up in Illinois, she moved to South Florida to see how much greener the grass could be ... and discovered that life is what you make of it, wherever that happens to be.

What We Wish For is Maysonet's second novel.

My Q&A with the author:

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

My working title for a long time was Out of Mind because the main character’s mom is out of her mind, but it was also a play on “out of sight, out of mind,” as in, Layla, the main character, is trying to hide who she really is.

Then I settled on What We Wish For as the title, which is a play on the phrase, “Be careful what you wish for.” Layla thinks she gets everything she wishes for when her rich aunt and uncle swoop in to save her from the homeless shelter, sending her mom to fancy addiction rehab and moving Layla into their mansion. Layla thinks all her dreams have come true but finds out that getting everything she wished for comes with its own price tag.

The title is also a reference to hope—as in, there are so many things we wish for, and oftentimes we don’t get them, but the point is to keep hope alive. In What We Wish For, Layla longs for a better life—for herself, for her mom. She longs to be a better person, to be a better friend, a better daughter. She struggles and gets knocked down and falls backwards, but she never gives up hope, and that’s her saving grace.

What's in a name?

One of Layla’s love interests in the novel is a teenager named Gabriel. I picked that name for a few reasons. The seed for this book was planted when I was volunteer teaching at a homeless shelter and I was introduced to some new residents, including a mom and her teenage son. The kid’s name was Gabriel, and I remember wondering what his life was like. Did he resent his mom for their living situation? Did the kids at school know where he was living? I know nothing else about this real-life kid except his name, which I thought would be a good name for someone who has a positive influence on Layla. Like Layla, Gabriel lives in the homeless shelter, and to me, he’s the epitome of cool. But he’s also a sort of mentor for Layla—an angel, if you will—so I thought the name was appropriate.

Layla’s snotty cousin (who Layla ends up living with once she moves in with her aunt and uncle) is named Celeste, and I chose that name because I like how it implies something celestial or otherworldly, which plays into the theme of wishing. Celeste herself isn’t exactly angelic. In fact, she starts out pretty unlikeable, but I think she redeems herself by the end, and that plays into another of the book’s themes, which is to look beyond the surface of things.

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

Once I know where a book is going, the ending kind of writes itself. But the first chapter? That’s a tough one. One of my earlier drafts had Layla whining about living in a homeless shelter, and I realized that it made her unlikeable. Chapter one went through a bunch of rewrites, and now it begins with Layla sitting in an AA meeting with her mom. And yeah, they’re homeless, and yeah, her mom is struggling to stay sober, but Layla is determined to stay positive, even though all the evidence is sending up alarm bells.

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

Layla is definitely based on me. Like her, I was poor growing up, and like her, I struggled in high school. I tried to project this attitude of “I don’t care what you think of me,” but I did care, and I felt very much less-than. I also wrote quite a bit of poetry when I was a teen, just like Layla, and like her, I was told by an English teacher at my school that my poems were “too filled with teenage angst.”

Layla’s mom, the struggling alcoholic, is also based on me. I’m an alcoholic, and though I’ve been in recovery for almost 18 years, I remember how awful it was to wake up telling myself I wouldn’t drink that day only to fail over and over. For years, I was a shell of a human being, but thankfully I found a way out, and for that, I am so very grateful.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

My sister Dawn Freeman is one of the coolest people I know, and she had a huge influence on me. Dawn wrote poetry in high school, which made want to write poetry. In fact, Layla’s poetry shirt is based on a sweatshirt my sister wore in high school that she’d covered in lines from her poems, each of them written in different-colored Sharpie. I’m pretty sure people made fun of that shirt, so it took a lot of bravery for her to wear it. That’s the kind of person Layla wants to be—someone brave—but she’s too embarrassed to show off her own poetry, so her shirt is covered with famous poems instead of her own.

Visit Melody Maysonet's website.

The Page 69 Test: What We Wish For.

--Marshal Zeringue