D. W. Gillespie

Born and raised in Middle Tennessee, D.W. Gillespie has been daydreaming for as long as he can remember. His first short story was in second grade, and it involved (unsurprisingly) monsters wreaking havoc on some unsuspecting victim. Some things never change, and now Gillespie writes a healthy mixture of horror, sci-fi, and supernatural fiction.

He began writing seriously in 2002, and after winning the MacDougal Award for his short story "The Home", he's since been published many times in print and online. Gillespie's body of work includes a dozen novels and dozens of short stories, including the novels Still Dark, The Toy Thief, and One by One. In recent years, he’s moved into middle grade horror, and his new novels include Give Me Something Good to Eat and Grin.

My Q&A with the author:

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

With Grin, I knew I needed a title that could double duty. It’s the name of the book, but also the name of the arcade game inside the book. It’s short, simple, and hopefully intriguing for readers, especially when paired with that absolutely awesome cover.

What's in a name?

For me, names are always a gut feeling. I don’t spend a ton of time going through deeper meanings or trying to be overly symbolic with my character names, but they do have to feel right if that makes sense.

Danny is a sweet kid, but he’s also anxious and unsure of himself. Contrast that with Uncle Bill who is straight to the point, simple, and uncomplicated.

One fun bit of trivia about his friend Jodi… I don’t know where the name came from, but it just sort of landed on the page and I ran with it. She’s artistic and a little quirky, and the name just clicked. But during edits, my publisher was a little concerned that the name might seem out of place for a kid that age (admittedly, it does sound like an 80’s name). I was prepared to change it, but on the next round of edits, they said, “Nevermind…she’s Jodi. It just fits!”

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

I have asked myself that question a lot, and I usually don’t have a great answer. But for Grin, I’m pretty sure my younger self would be thrilled. Knowing that I took my lifelong love of videogames and turned it into a book is something both thrilling and special to me.

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

I usually know where I’m going, even if I might change paths to get there. Very early on in the process, I knew exactly how the “big showdown” at the end of the book was going to play out, and it was more a case of just getting the chess pieces in place so to speak. I will say the “to be continued” final chapter was a surprise!

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

It’s a boring answer, but yes and no to both questions. They’re all me. The good guys, the bad guys, the ones that are more heroic than I could ever be, and the ones that do horribly unspeakable things. I’m all of them, which is another way of saying, I’m none of them!

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

This is another easy answer, but when people read this book, they’ll understand that it wouldn’t exist without my love of gaming. I’m sure someone could have conjured this same idea, but it would likely be drastically different. There’s a nuance to my pointlessly encyclopedic knowledge of gaming’s history that bleeds through the pages. If anything, I had to tone some of that back to keep from boring non-gamers.

Visit D. W. Gillespie's website.

My Book, The Movie: Grin.

--Marshal Zeringue

Arbor Sloane

Arbor Sloane grew up in the Midwest and earned her master’s degree of English at Iowa State University. She now teaches community college courses and resides with her family in the Des Moines area.

Sloane's new novel is Not Who You Think.

My Q@A with the author:

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

Titles are a tricky thing. The author might come up with a title that they feel encapsulates their book perfectly, but publishers could find that it's not as marketable as they would like. This is the case of Not Who You Think. Originally, I called the book Beyond the Glass because the book is about monsters who hide behind a computer screen, pretending to be harmless when they're really predators looking for their next victim. But I could see how that idea might not be immediately apparent to readers, so I think the alternate title works better. It hints that people are not always what they seem in a catchier way.

What's in a name?

Generally, I don't use a lot of symbolism when naming my characters. I usually just research the time frame in which the story takes place and select the most popular baby names. However, in Not Who You Think, I named the main character Amelia Child because before she begins her research on serial killers, she is obviously much more innocent than she is once she's learned the entire story of Gerald Shapiro, the original catfish killer. There might also be some more significance to the name, but I don't want to spoil the story too much.

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

I don't think I would be too surprised that I ended up writing thrillers. My favorite author when I was in high school was Stephen King, and I always enjoyed reading darker, more disturbing stories.

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

I think beginnings and endings are both difficult in their own ways. Beginnings are tough, at least for me, because I have no idea what direction they will take (I'm a true panster through and through), and the road ahead of me is long and uncertain. And, because I write thrillers, endings are hard because they have to tie in all the clues and everything has to make sense. Since I'm a pantser, I tend to go on a lot of side quests, and not all of them end up being significant. I end up having to go back and rewrite the beginning to make it all cohesive.

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

In particular, the main character in Not Who You Think struggles with some of the same things I am navigating at this time in life. There's a lot of exploration of female relationships, specifically the mother-daughter dynamic. Like me, Amelia Child is plagued by the atrocities that humankind is capable of and wants to explore what contributes psychologically to shape the minds of such monsters. She has written a book that she's apprehensive about her teenage daughter reading due to its focus on violence. Amelia has also lost her mother, which is a grief I'm still working through. Essentially, there are questions about how a mother's negative experiences might affect her daughter and whether that trauma may be mitigated somehow.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

As I mentioned in the previous question, I'm extremely interested in what drives people who commit terrible crimes. I remember being in college when Columbine happened, and I just couldn't fathom what went on in the heads of those boys to have so little regard for human life. Even worse was Sandy Hook. What horrific experiences did that kid have that could make him so evil that he'd be able to put a gun in a child's face and pull the trigger? I think that question is what drove me to write this book. Are serial killers born or made? Is there any way to prevent such annihilation in the future?

Follow Arbor Sloane on Instagram.

The Page 69 Test: Not Who You Think.

--Marshal Zeringue

Stig Abell

Stig Abell believes that discovering a crime fiction series to enjoy is one of the great pleasures in life. His first novel, Death Under A Little Sky, introduced Jake Jackson and his attempt to get away from his former life in the beautiful area around Little Sky, followed by Death in a Lonely Place and The Burial Place. Abell is absolutely delighted that there are more on the way. Away from books, he presents the breakfast show on Times Radio, a station he helped to launch in 2020. Before that he was a regular presenter on Radio 4’s Front Row and was the editor and publisher of the Times Literary Supplement.

My Q&A with the author:

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

I think The Burial Place is a fairly, and straightforwardly, descriptive title. Location is a central character in my story, and indeed the whole series in which Jake Jackson investigates murders in the depths of the British countryside. I've found that my working titles never make it to the book itself - I am too whimsical, publishers are (rightly) commercially-minded. Titles are almost the last thing that get agreed in my experience.

The Burial Place is set on an archaeological dig, and I called it "The Dig" as my working title. I then entered into a protracted discussion into whether the published title should have "Death" in it (the first two books of the series were respectively called "Death Under a Little Sky" and "Death in a Lonely Place"). I'm fond of series with threaded titles - I think of the colours in John D. Macdonald's wonderful tales about Travis McGee, or Kathy Reichs and her "Bones" - but I do think they can be a bit limiting. I plumped for The Unquiet Land for this one, with the whiff of fugitive poeticism about it. The publishers wanted it more prosaic, and that's fine with me.

What's in a name?

This is the third book of a series, so I am stuck with many of the names I've already come up with. I wanted my hero to be pleasingly alliterative, and Jake has been my favourite literary name since I read Fiesta by Hemingway when I was 14. His girlfriend is named after a Roman empress, for no good reason, other than I think it adds a touch of class to her (I'm in love with her more than a little myself). A main character in The Burial Place is a woman of Indian heritage called Daisy, given an English name by her parents to help her fit in. She resents this, and it gets to the heart of her sense of belonging, which is vital to the story. My mum had an Asian friend called Daisy, real name Harmeet, so I plucked that from real life.

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

Books were the most important part of my childhood. I read to escape, to learn, to be thrilled and challenged and entertained. I am the last of the pre-technological generation (I got my first email at 18, my first phone at 21), so the last also of the generation for whom books could be the dominant cultural experience. With that in mind, my teenage self would be simply thrilled that I was joining a genre - crime fiction - that had given me such joy, the genre of Sherlock Holmes, Dorothy Sayers, Raymond Chandler, Ed McBain, and on and on. And surprised that I'd worked my way somehow into print myself.

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

I'm a bit of a planner, so I tend to have a beginning, a middle and an end in mind when I start - with a few big plot beats along the way. My favourite part of writing is the climax, which I do quickly and hungrily (the same way I read them, desperate for the final conclusion). I often then need to slow it down a bit in the second draft (it's a regular note I get from my editors), to obscure some of my own eagerness.

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

This is a dangerous question for a novelist, who never wants to admit to being limited in their creativity or having a dearth of inspiration. I started writing Jake Jackson during Covid, when I became preoccupied - as we all did - with questions of proximity and mortality, the sense of the modern world closing in and intruding - via technology - upon all parts of our existence. Jake has the chance to leave the city, leave behind his phone, and live more freely, closer to nature. In that sense, he is a fantasy extension of my urban self, a bit of an idealisation. He is also hairy and scruffy, which I undoubtedly am too.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

My novels are tributes to the beauty of the natural world, which are a consistent inspiration. So I spend plenty of time on the textures and sights and smells of the rural landscape. The Burial Place is also testament to the inexorable return of the past, the power of history. I use as an epitaph a magnificent line from the historian G M Trevelyan, which gets to the heart of the wonder of living in a small, old country, where every step you take has been trodden before by a nameless ancestor:

"The poetry of history lies in the quasi-miraculous fact that once, on this earth, once, on this familiar spot of ground, walked other men and women, as actual as we are today, thinking their own thoughts, swayed by their own passions, but now all gone, one generation vanishing into another, gone as utterly as we ourselves shall shortly be gone, like ghosts at cockcrow".

In the end, The Burial Place is my tribute, I guess, to the poetry of history.

Follow Stig Abell on Instagram and Threads.

--Marshal Zeringue

Peter Rosch

Peter Rosch is the author of multiple dark fictions born from the various addictions he chased while living in New York City as an award-winning writer and creative director. He’s many years sober now but remains an addict’s addict. What the Dead Can Do is his debut novel.

Rosch grew up in the Southwest, lived in New York for nearly 20 years, and now resides midway between Austin and San Antonio in Wimberley, TX where he works as an author, freelance creative director and copywriter in advertising, and most importantly, full-time dad.

My Q&A with the author:

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

I’d say quite a bit of work. There are dead people in my book. Check. We are going to see what they can and can’t do. Check. It sounds ominous and dark, and this book is that and more. Check and check. I like the title What The Dead Can Do for a whole host of reasons, but it was not the original title. Tend was the original title. That one word drove a lot of the plot, too. This is the story of a mother tending to her child from the afterlife. My interpretation of the word had always been tinted with empathy, love, care, and all the things that society expects from perfect mothers. Amanda, the mother here, is pushing the envelope on what it means to tend to her child—she’s trying to kill him to bring him to her so she can continue to care for him and ensure his well-being. In the end, though, I came to realize that the word tend was dated. Many people think of money first when they hear the word. It was doing nothing to take readers into the story and, in many cases, was confusing them. I count myself lucky that it did, to be honest—I was forced to re-evaluate. And I think What The Dead Can Do sets up the story and, more importantly, the vibe I want people to feel when they crack open the book.

What's in a name?

Everything. And nothing. Personally, I love to read about the meanings of names and their origins. That said, I also know that I don’t always look into why an author named someone what they did. Amanda, the mother who is seeking a way to kill her still-living two-year-old from the afterlife, is a complex character. “Worthy of love” is one of the meanings assigned to the name Amanda. The grief she experiences in this book puts her on a path to do a thing that real-world mothers do from time to time: kill their children. I went down the rabbit hole on filicide while developing this novel. Are those women worthy of love? Forgiveness? I don’t think the answer can be yes or no because the circumstances around their stories matter. Will Amanda be worthy of a reader’s love by the end of this book? I guess we’ll be finding out.

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

He’d be very surprised, I think. The teenage version of me and even the version of me up until I met my wife, Ariele, didn’t think he’d have any children. Side note: When I met Ariele, I knew I wanted to have a child with her immediately. My whole being knew. Of course, he probably wouldn’t know the backstory to this book, which is that it started as love letters to my own son in a year that I believed I was going to die prematurely, so maybe he wouldn’t be surprised. Even so, I think a lot of the complex themes in this book would go right over his head, too. He’d probably enjoy it, but I don’t think he’d truly get it. It is readily apparent to me at this moment that I don’t think much of teenage Peter Rosch.

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

Beginnings. I always have a ton of ideas for how a story can begin. I usually have an idea of where a story is going to end, too, but that changes. I’m a pantser, not an outliner, for a whole host of reasons. One of the reasons is that I believe the real ending will reveal itself to me as I walk the journey with my characters. I have some idea of where I want them to go, end up, achieve, or fail at, but I don’t really know until I’m deep into the story. Even then, a good beta reader or editor has often been the reason other ideas for an even better ending pop into my head.

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

There is a little bit of me in every character. I don’t set out to put anything of myself into my characters intentionally. I often don’t even realize what aspect of their personality is like my own until I’ve had a good bit of time away from the manuscript. With What The Dead Can Do, I’ll be curious to hear from friends and family which character they think is me or is most like me, if any. In my fifty-two years, I’ve been many different versions of myself: an addict and alcoholic, a musician, a filmmaker, a New Yorker, a Texan, a rockstar of a sort and a cowboy of a sort, too, a curmudgeonly cynic, and an optimistic Pollyanna. I am grateful for all the lives I’ve led. I don’t have Dissociative Identity Disorder, but it is not hard for me to wear a former mask or draw upon the characteristics of the people I’ve lived as in this life.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

My sobriety, the sobriety of others, and the dark lives we left behind in becoming sober have heavily influenced my writing. On the whole, I don’t know that I view the world that much differently than I did as a drunk and addict, but I certainly know that old Peter could rarely find the time to sit still long enough to write a novel or be anywhere other than a bar. Music inspires me. That there are people in this world who don’t like music still blows my mind. Tons of non-literary stuff moves me. But I have to say this: my mother inspires me. On paper, her journey probably seems like an easy one, but I know better. Love you, Mom.

Visit Peter Rosch's website and follow him on Facebook, BlueSky, Instagram, and Threads.

--Marshal Zeringue

Carla Malden

Raised in Los Angeles, Carla Malden began her career working in motion picture production and development before becoming a screenwriter. Along with her father, Academy Award winning actor Karl Malden, she co-authored his critically acclaimed memoir When Do I Start?

Carla Malden’s feature writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, highlighting the marvels and foibles of Southern California and Hollywood. She sits on the Board of the Geffen Playhouse. Her previous novels include Search Heartache, Shine Until Tomorrow, and My Two and Only.

Malden lives in Brentwood with her husband, ten minutes (depending on traffic) from her daughter.

Her new novel is Playback.

My Q&A with the author:

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

When I landed on the title, Playback, I knew that was it. That happened relatively early on. Before that, for a brief spell, I toyed with the title Backspace which communicated the idea of going back in time, but had a writerly (typewriterly) connotation that didn’t work. Writing is not at the heart of the book; music is. Playback evokes that music element, as well as the concept of getting a do-over at a lost relationship and at life in general.

Playback also conjures the idea that you might hear something new, something missed when you listen to something second time, much like Mari’s return trip to Haight-Ashbury, 1967 reveals different aspects of that time and place from the ones that impacted her the first time.

As an aside, I also like that the word “play” is embedded in the title. Subconsciously, it provides a sense of whimsy that suits the story of time travel, tie-dye, and tender regrets.

What's in a name?

Coming up with characters’ names is great fun for me, often an inside joke I have with myself. No one may ever know why I chose the name, but I like to think the reason floats along on a subterranean level. In Playback, Mari’s full name is Tamara Caldwell. I chose “Tamara” because it sounds like “tomorrow” and her relationship with time is so significant. And “Caldwell” because she was “called well” – a.k.a.: named well. The song “Tamara Moonlight” lies at the nexus of the time travel. Mari was named for the song which was her parents’ song when they were young and in love and, in one of those head-exploding time travel conundrums, Mari was the inspiration for the song.

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

My teenage self would probably be surprised only to discover that I haven’t grown up very much! The romance of the singer/songwriter still holds allure for me. In Playback, that’s Jimmy Westwood. I suppose I wrote him as the guy I would have fallen for when I was young so in that way, I brought that teenage self to the process. The revelation is how easily I could call upon that self. It was on tap the whole time.

If my teenage self were to read Playback and see how much music is a driving force in the story, she would say, “Of course.”

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

Apologies for sidestepping the question, but I find middles hardest to write. I usually know the beginning and have some sense of the ending. But Act II? Often a challenge. That’s when all the moving parts have to propel the story forward without the grinding of the gears showing.

With Playback

, I wrote the first four pages late one night and they never changed. It’s a bedtime story scene between mother and daughter. I wasn’t exactly sure how, but I sensed the ending would bookend that scene in some way. And it does. The epilog is one of my favorite scenes in the book. That was nearly a one-draft, straight-off- the-keyboard scene, too.

The middle, however, went through multiple outlines and then multiple drafts. I must confess that I am not a big-time travel reader, so crafting the time travel element was tricky for me. I worked hard to assure it isn’t cumbersome. To me, the time travel is just a means for the character of Mari to grow; it’s not the main attraction though I hope it’s a fun ride.

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

I carve out parts of myself for different characters, like an actor finding an aspect of her own personality that can provide the key to unlocking a character. Again, as with an actor, even the antagonists or “villains” must harbor some motivation I can relate to. In Playback, Royce plays that role. He’s a sexist jerk, but I understand him. He had to sacrifice his dreams of personal stardom to ride the coattails of someone with actual talent. I think we can all understand how painful it must be to take that route.

As for the main character, Mari, she embodies some of my more idiosyncratic characteristics – and psychology – but on steroids. She has a whole bag of tricks – verbal and emotional – to keep people at a distance. I like to think that’s no longer me, but a version of that behavior might have been me when I was younger.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

Music influences many aspects of my writing – not just my rather unabashed tendency to incorporate song lyrics, but also the striving for a certain musicality and rhythm in the language.

With Playback, I tried something new by writing the song that figures in the story. I’d written the lyrics in the body of the book when I had the idea that it might be fun to turn them into an actual song. I found a songwriter/music producer who composed the melody and produced the song. (Thanks to Adam Brodsky and Jeff Peters.) I’m beyond thrilled with the song, “Tamara Moonlight” – precisely the kind of folk-rock ballad I had in my head. And a spectacular music video besides!

Visit Carla Malden's website.

My Book, The Movie: Playback.

Writers Read: Carla Malden.

--Marshal Zeringue

Michael Chessler

Michael Chessler was born and raised in Los Angeles. He graduated from Harvard College with a degree in English and American literature, and also studied Italian literature at the Università di Firenze. After working various odd jobs in the entertainment industry—perhaps the oddest being a short stint as a motion picture literary agent—he began a career writing, producing, and directing television. Chessler has developed pilots for all the major networks, and has been a showrunner, producer, director and writer on a number of TV series.

His new novel is Mess.

My Q&A with the author:

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

My one-word title Mess does a good job of encapsulating my novel, which is about a personal organizer whose life’s work is tackling physical messes, yet is woefully inept at trying to organize her own internal messes—the tangles of negative thoughts and the overstuffed boxes of suppressed emotions.

What's in a name?

I chose the name Jane Brown for my protagonist because I think you’d expect someone named Jane Brown to be brisk and efficient. Also, the name “Jane” has always been a favorite of mine, certainly influenced by the associations with one of my favorite 19th century novelists, Jane Austen, as well as one of my favorite 19th century novels, Jane Eyre.

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

My teenage self would not be terribly surprised by Mess, in fact, I think he’d be stoked! I’ve always gravitated towards perceptive characters with lots of internal conflicts who are also blithely unaware of their own contradictions. Two very LA novels with vivid, almost grotesque characters were baked into my psyche at a young age: Nathanael West’s The Day of the Locust and Evelyn Waugh’s The Loved One, and I hope their profound influence is manifested in Mess in some way.

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

In this case, definitely the ending. A lot of this has to do with the fact that Mess began as a short story. Early readers asked me if it was the beginning of a novel, and even though I hadn’t conceived of it as such, once asked, I immediately envisioned how the novel would unfold and knew what I wanted the culmination of the romantic arc to be. While I had an end point, this ending needed to be earned. I wanted it to be surprising but seem inevitable at the same time, so mapping out the journey from the beginning to what I hope is a satisfying ending required lots of adjustments and fine tuning.

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

Those closest to me would probably say I’m very neat and organized, yet I’m also probably inordinately preoccupied with what I perceive to be my organizing failures, especially the one project I have been putting off forever: going though my old papers and digitizing those I want to keep. So like Jane, I am a type-A perfectionist whose constant struggle to live up to impossible ideals creates a lot of unhelpful noise in my head.

Visit Michael Chessler's website.

The Page 69 Test: Mess.

--Marshal Zeringue

Patrick Tarr

Patrick Tarr’s novel, The Guest Children, comes after a long career in film and television. He won a Writers Guild of Canada award for his first produced script before gathering over a decade of experience as a staff writer, creative producer, and showrunner. For his work as head writer and executive producer on the international hit series Cardinal, Tarr was awarded 2021 Canadian Screen Awards for Best Writing in a Dramatic Series and Best Dramatic Series. A graduate of the Canadian Film Centre, he returned as Executive Producer in Residence for the 2022 Prime Time TV program. He lives in Toronto with his family.

My Q&A with the author:

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

I think it gets them about halfway there, and the cover does the rest. ‘Guest Children’ was the term used for kids evacuated to Canada from cities in England that were under threat of bombing during World War II. I do think there’s something inherently spooky about those two words together, but the title in combination with a creepy photo of a remote, forested lake gives readers a pretty strong sense of what they’re in for. The original title was The Sand Palace, which is a structure that holds symbolic meaning in the story. But along the way, that element became less central and I needed a new title. The Guest Children was just sitting there, already waiting in the text. It felt just right.

What's in a name?

While they’re not the main characters in the story, the young brother and sister at the centre of the plot are named Frances and Michael Hawksby. I did choose these names deliberately to evoke the child characters from Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw - Flora and Miles. That story, like mine, deals with children in a remote place, and a character who’s called there who begins to question what is real. Their last name of Hawksby was a bit of a hat tip to Richard Brautigan’s The Hawkline Monster, another story set mostly at a remote house. In the setting of that story, anything can happen, and I wanted to evoke that same unpredictability - at least for myself - in writing The Guest Children.

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

Horror really got its hooks into me from about twelve, and I spent most of my teen years borrowing paperbacks I was probably too young to read from the revolving horror rack in my local library. So I don’t think I’d be too surprised that I’d written a ghost story. I’d probably be more surprised that I’d managed to get a book published, as it just didn’t seem like an attainable dream to me at the time.

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

Endings, no doubt. When I started out writing, I thought I had so many great beginnings. But the truth is, it’s can’t be a great beginning if it doesn’t serve a great ending. It’s just a piece of something. I think my work as a television writer helped me become stronger as a storyteller. Outlining is a vital piece of that process, and I’ve since learned that I need to put the work into an outline when writing a novel as well. Outlines aren’t fun, but getting stuck midway into your novel isn’t fun either. By the time I sit down to write my beginning, I already know what my ending is - or what it might be. An important part of moving to a first draft is being flexible enough to change a plot point - or your entire ending - if you realize it’s not suitable anymore. But just because you may decide to change your destination, that doesn’t mean you wasted time drawing a map.

Usually the changes I make to my beginnings involve the delete key. Once I truly know my story, I realize I have more material than I need at the beginning, and need to get things in motion faster.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

The films The Others and The Devil’s Backbone are highly atmospheric ghost stories about children during wartime, and both were major influences on The Guest Children. They’re quite different films visually and thematically, but I found strong resonances in them both when I was trying to nail down how my story would feel. Apart from those, my setting and atmosphere were inspired by walks in the Canadian wilderness. The idea for this novel sprang forth after I read a bit of history about these children who came to Canada to shelter during the war. Walking in the woods, I found myself wondering what it must have been like for kids from the huge city of London to find themselves plunked down in a remote location in Northern Ontario.

Visit Patrick Tarr's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Gabriella Buba

Gabriella Buba is a mixed Filipina-Czech author and chemical engineer based in Texas who likes to keep explosive pyrophoric materials safely contained in pressure vessels or between the covers of her books. She writes epic fantasy for bold, bi, brown women who deserve to see their stories centered. Her debut Saints of Storm and Sorrow is a Filipino-inspired epic fantasy out with Titan Books. Saints has been named one of Spotify’s Best Audiobooks of 2024, and Buba a Spotify Breakout Author of 2024, and Saints was one of Reactor’s Reviewer’s Choice: Best Books of 2024.

Buba's new novel is Daughters of Flood and Fury.

My Q&A with the author:

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

I know some people think its overdone, but I have a real soft spot for blank of blank and blank title formats for epic fantasy, so Daughters of Flood and Fury does a great job setting genre and tone expectations for readers before they’ve even opened the first page. I want you to read the title and immediately think Southeast Asian seafaring Fantasy Feminine Coming of Rage.

What's in a name?

To be entirely honest I’m not very good at names! My character’s names change a lot. Four times for the whole cast in Daughters of Flood and Fury. The only reason I don’t get accused of lazy naming is not that many people know Tagalog. I often share about my FMC Lunurin’s name meaning “to drown” in Tagalog, one of the few names I developed myself rather than pulling from 17th century baptismal records/census naming/and ship manifests, but I didn’t stop there. My MMC Alon Dakila has an equally symbolic and matched name to his wife, Lunurin. Alon in Tagalog means wave, which is especially fitting for my tide-touched healer. His last name Dakila means great or noble, what better name for the family of the Lakan of Aynila (their chief of chiefs).

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

Beginnings are very difficult for me. I often have to give myself permission to write the worst beginning in order to start in on the story and actually make progress. My motto is that anything can be edited better, but only once it exists, so my beginnings also change the most, as I work to make the worst beginning that got me started a good beginning. I usually go into my drafts with a pretty clear vision for the end already.

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

Oh yes, I don’t actually believe that a writer can divorce themselves from the characters they write. What I like to do is to take one facet of my personality and dial it to 300% and then watch the plot hit the fan. Lunurin has the most of me, my anger and my grief. Alon has all the stubborn damned inconvenient morals and none of the internal snark monologue. Inez is very much the wounded inner child who doesn’t want peace, she wants to create problems, and I support her.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

Many of my inspirations are historical. For Daughter of Flood and Fury I drew on the sinking of the Spanish Armada, the history of piracy and karakoa raiding in the Philippines from Luzon and the South China Sea down to the Sulu Sea. I’m a big believer that reality is weirder than fiction. And for some more fun pop-culture hits I was absolutely influenced by Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, because it sent me down the research rabbit hole on Piracy in Asia, and Trese, a Filipino Netflix Anime and before that a komik that was my first pop culture interaction with Filipino folklore outside of family stories.

Visit Gabriella Buba's website.

My Book, The Movie: Daughters of Flood and Fury.

Writers Read: Gabriella Buba.

--Marshal Zeringue

Leigh Dunlap

Leigh Dunlap is the screenwriter of the hit Warner Bros. movie A Cinderella Story. A native of Los Angeles, she attended film school at the University of Southern California. She now splits time and personalities between South Carolina and South Kensington and dreams of one day giving it all up and searching for buried treasure. Until then, she writes movies and books. Including Bless Your Heart, her debut novel.

My Q&A with the author:

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

Bless Your Heart. It sounds nice, doesn’t it? As if someone is wishing you well. In the south, however, it’s a passive-aggressive put down. It’s someone smiling while stabbing you in the back. It’s a great title for a murder mystery about the rich and powerful people of Atlanta. The original title for my novel, though, was The Buckhead Betties. They are the Karens of Atlanta. Beautiful, rich and insufferably entitled. The publisher wanted to change the title because they didn’t think people would understand what a Buckhead Betty was, and that’s a fair point. Bless Your Heart was a fine alternative. You thought this was a romance novel? Well, bless your heart…

What's in a name?

Along with the title of the book, the publisher questioned all the weird character names. Birdie. Hampton. Poppy. Wade. Auggie. Cash. Kolt. I had to get rid of a few others. That’s the south, however. Or at least in Buckhead, the Beverly Hills of Atlanta. Unusual names, usually old family names, are just the norm. I even know someone named Matthews. With an ‘s’. This is not a story of Johns and Marys.

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

My teenage reader self was a dreamer with a head full of mayhem. It was a swirling cauldron of worry, anger, love, happiness, misery, and angst. I don’t think teenage me would be at all surprised that I wrote a novel about a murder. Murderous thoughts were always lurking below the surface of teenage me! I hope she would just be relieved to know that she made it out of her teenage years and found an outlet in writing for all those feelings.

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

Every character in my novel is some part of me. Male or female. Rich or poor. Killer or victim. It’s as if all of my life was put in a blender and the result is a novel that has bits and pieces of me on every page.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

Again, I’m going back to the blender! I’m definitely the person you want on your trivia team. I know a little about a lot. (What is the capital of Bhutan? Thimphu, of course.) I’m a media junkie and take it all in and reformulate it. Having grown up with television being my babysitter, and also being a screenwriter, means that movies and TV and their structure and references influence everything I write.

Visit Leigh Dunlap's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Amy Rossi

Amy Rossi received her MFA from Louisiana State University, and she lives in North Carolina, by way of Massachusetts, with her partner and two dogs. The Cover Girl is her first novel.

My Q&A with the author:

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

The Cover Girl is about just that: the girl on the cover of albums and magazines. The girl who exists in the context of an ad and is a projection of everyone who sees her – and the woman she becomes. It’s the story of an aging model, Birdie Rhodes, who looks back on her relationships with the two people that defined her life: the rock star who made himself her legal guardian after she posed for his album cover at age 15 and her legendary former agent.

This is the third title for the book; it went on submission under Look Away – a nod to the Iggy Pop song about his role in the 70s baby groupie era and the amount of silence that made situations like Birdie’s possible – and it was announced under another. We finally decided on The Cover Girl to give readers that immediate hint that they were getting a book that deals with the modeling industry.

What’s in a name?

When I first started writing, the main character’s name was Libbie, short for Olivia, which I changed to Elizabeth, because it suited her New England WASP background better. The nickname Birdie also did more work in that sense – hinting at that kind of old money tendency toward nicknames that don’t have an obvious root in the given name. Birdie also connotes a more delicate figure, suitable for a tall, thin model.

In the book, 56-year-old Elizabeth has shed young Birdie; it’s easier for her that way. References to her old name help prompt her reckoning – people from her past look at her and still see the girl she has tried to rid herself of, forcing her to realize she cannot keep two halves of her life separate and live wholly.

The rock star who upends Birdie’s life, however, remains nameless. This was my way of keeping the book firmly focused on her. Too often, the Birdies of the world are only considered in relation to the men who harmed them. Those men do not want for additional attention. It doesn’t matter who he is; it matters what he did. By not naming the rock star, I hoped to make it more possible for Birdie, and for readers, to name everything else that happens.

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

Not surprised in the least, and in fact, she’d be thrilled. As a teenager, I was obsessed with classic rock and with all the women I saw on Behind the Music who had been girls with the band, girls whose stories were always the liner notes to someone else’s. I had it in my mind early on that I was going to write about this one day. I also really wanted to be an actress and had gone to weekend classes at a modeling school, so that I ended up writing about these things wouldn’t be a surprise either.

However, as a teenager, I think I did romanticize all those songs about girls my age, so I might not have anticipated my older self wanting to see more accountability in that space.

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

The beginning is definitely harder for me. It’s the entry point, the tone-setter, and it has to be exactly right. It’s also the part that naturally gets fiddled with and overthought the most because it’s the part that has been in existence the longest. At some point in drafting, I knew what the ending of The Cover Girl would be, and when I got there, my writing speed probably tripled. Once I could see that end in sight, I got out of the way and let the story do its thing.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

Music, for sure. It’s the most common starting point for me. But as someone who came of age at the turn of the millennium, I’m also really influenced by commercialized nostalgia, pop culture, and misremembered or misjudged women. My early teen years were marked by the Clinton impeachment and the explosion and pillorying of pop princesses like Britney Spears. I think that definitely shaped what I am most interested in writing about.

Maybe all of this is to say that I’m deeply influenced by early 2000s VH1: all the rock docs and the construction of a story of the 70s and 80s on the Sunset Strip and the pulling together of a particular narrative of how things were then based on what we choose to bring forward from the past now – and who gets to do the telling.

Visit Amy Rossi's website.

Writers Read: Amy Rossi.

--Marshal Zeringue

Mara Williams

Mara Williams drafted her first novel in third grade on a spiral notebook—a love story about a golden retriever and the stray dog who admired her from beyond the picket fence. Now she writes about strong, messy women finding their way in the world. Williams has a BA in English Literature from the University of California at Berkeley, takes creative writing from Stanford Continuing Studies, and actively engages in writing groups and critique circles. Williams’s novel The Second Chance Playlist was a winner of the 2024 Emily Contest. When not writing or reading, Williams can be found enjoying California’s beaches, redwoods, and trails with her husband, three kids, and disobedient dog.

Her new novel is The Truth Is in the Detours.

My Q&A with the author:

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

I find that titles either arrive immediately while drafting or are endlessly evasive. The Truth Is in the Detours was the tenth title for this book. I tried on several while drafting, none of which quite fit. When my editor bought it, she suggested a new title, so we changed it again. Further into the editing process, we decided the new title didn’t capture the wit and lightness. So, I went back to the drawing board and suggested The Truth Is in the Detours. It captures the spirit of the book with a bit of whimsy and a nod to the major themes but isn’t literal. My characters embark on a road trip in search of the truth related to a family secret, but they also discover truths about themselves and what they mean to each other.

What's in a name?

My main character is named Ophelia. It’s a name I’ve always loved because of the softness of the sounds and melodic syllables. However, because of its literary legacy, it’s not a name I would be brave enough to give to my child. So, in creating a character who had been abandoned and lied to by her parents, I thought it fitting that she would be given a beautiful name with a painful history. The book isn’t a direct nod to Shakespeare, but the Hamlet reference is stitched into cultural consciousness, so the name hints at her tragic origin. Her journey and character growth are about subverting that expectation. My other main character is Beauregard, although he now goes by Beau. I wanted a mouthful of a name that could embarrass an awkward, nerdy teen, but would evolve with him as he grew into himself.

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

My teenage self would be very proud but not surprised. I’ve wanted to be an author as long as I can remember. I was an avid reader as a kid, and I was always searching for books like this one. At the time, I didn’t know how to find an assortment of rich, emotional, funny books with a central love story. I read a lot of Maeve Binchy as a teen and loved the layers of storytelling that wove romantic threads into family dramas. I’ve written exactly the book I would have devoured as a teen and young adult.

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

Beginnings are, without question, harder to write. I will rewrite an opening chapter a few dozen times to get it right. The opening pages have to do so much heavy lifting—character development, scene setting, intrigue, while providing the exact amount of context. But until it’s complete, it’s not always clear where the book should start. However, I always know how a book will end. By the last third of the book, my fingers can’t keep up with my brain. The ending writes itself. By then, the characters have the wheel and are steering me downhill at a breakneck pace. After the first draft, I rarely change the ending beyond minor tweaks. But the beginning is an invitation to the book, and an introduction to the characters the reader will have to commit to for three hundred pages. It requires a lot more finesse than a first draft can offer it. For this one, however, the opening scene and first line outlived my endless revisions.

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

Typically, I do share some personality traits with my protagonists. However, with The Truth Is in the Detours, I was looking to stretch myself. My point of view character, Ophelia Dahl, couldn’t be more dissimilar to me, so writing her was both liberating and challenging. She’s flippant where I’m earnest. She’s impulsive while I’m measured. She struggles to apply herself to a particular goal, while I’m often too persistent even when I should cut my losses.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

I am inspired by my family and reality. There’s a reason for the cliché that the truth is stranger than fiction. So, I pay attention to life’s absurdities and splendor and create a catalogue of small and big moments to draw from. Characters and stakes are always pure fiction, but the details and texture are often inspired by real life. For example, The Truth Is in the Detours was inspired by a real-life moment. When my husband and I were newlyweds, we bought his childhood home and launched a DIY renovation to make it our own. The catch was that we had to clean out a lifetime’s worth of memories, debris, and clutter. I found my late mother-in-law’s wedding gown in a sideboard in my dining room. Later, I found my husband’s original birth certificate in between the pages of the Pennysaver in a dresser drawer. There’s much to learn about the things people choose to keep—either by choice or avoidance. Each artifact has a story to tell. But I began to wonder about the fictional possibilities. What if we found a secret inside a hand-carved Chinese antique chest—instead of fifteen years of youth soccer photos? What if we uncovered evidence that a missing loved one was still alive—instead of cherished mementos saved after their passing? What if we found mysterious legal documents rather than boxes of old copies of the Honolulu Star-Advertiser and dance recital programs? The first line of The Truth Is in the Detours is “It’s been an hour since the truth fell out of an accordion file,” which arrived in my head like a premonition long before I sat down to write the book.

Visit Mara Williams's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Christina Dotson

Christina Dotson is an Eleanor Taylor Bland Crime Fiction Writers of Color Award runner-up. In addition to writing, she is a licensed clinical social worker for a palliative care practice and lives in Kentucky.

Dotson's new novel is Love You To Death.

My Q&A with the author:

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

I always envy writers who can create the perfect title. Unfortunately, that is not a gift I possess. I initially titled this book A Good Place To Stop, which my agent vetoed right away because it’s obviously terrible. We wanted the book’s title to have a wedding theme, but we knew that choosing one could potentially lead readers to think this was a romance novel. In the end, after several rounds of brainstorming, it was someone from my editor’s team who came up with the title, Love You To Death. And while we know this isn’t necessarily a unique title, it does give readers a deeper understanding of Kayla and Zorie’s bond. It’s a perfect reminder of the book’s themes surrounding loyalty, manipulation and obsession.

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

I doubt my teenage self would be surprised by my novel. Even as a child, I loved dark and twisted stories. I read Stephen King’s Pet Sematary when I was thirteen years old, and loved every single word, until it was time to go to bed.

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

Beginnings are definitely much harder for me to write than endings. If I can complete a paragraph or two, after multiple rounds of revisions, I’m golden and can take it from there. But figuring out that first line is a million times harder than that final line before the glorious THE END. Of course, since I’m not a plotter, I don’t always know what will happen at the end of the book, but my characters always guide me there, and I never second-guess their decision.

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

Like most writers, I’m an introvert, so writing gives me the chance to explore the more extroverted side of myself through characters. In Love You To Death, I identify more with Kayla—the more reserved of the duo. Zorie is more free-spirited, loud, and wild. So, obviously, she was more fun to write.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

I’m a huge fan of reality shows and find a lot of inspiration in them, especially for dialogue. Also, my twenty-two-year career as a social worker has provided me with a spectacular blueprint for human behavior.

Follow Christina Dotson on Instagram and Threads.

--Marshal Zeringue

Nicky Gonzalez

Nicky Gonzalez is a writer from Hialeah, Florida. Her fiction has appeared in McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, BOMB, The Kenyon Review, Taco Bell Quarterly, and other publications. She has received support from the Elizabeth George Foundation, the Granum Foundation, Millay Arts, Lighthouse Works, and the Hambidge Center. She lives in Massachusetts.

Gonzalez's debut novel is Mayra.

My Q&A with the author:

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

Mayra is both a friendship novel and a Gothic novel, so I wanted a title that straddled both of those subgenres. There are a few Gothic novels that are titled with simply a person’s name (Rebecca, Dracula) and the same goes for friendship novels (Sula, Marlena). It’s definitely a subtle nod, but I hope it communicates the friendship/gothic connection to some readers, at least subconsciously.

What's in a name?

When it comes to naming Mayra, not much! I met a few Mayras (pronounced “my-ruh”) growing up and I always loved the way the name sounded. Euphony was the number one factor.

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

I think she’d say, “Wait, this is published? I’m published?” As for the book itself, I think she wouldn’t be very surprised. In response to the storyline in the fictive present, she’d say, “Okay, so we still like weird stuff.” But a good chunk of the novel is comprised of flashbacks to the narrator and Mayra as teenagers. Those flashback scenes and settings would feel familiar to teenage Nicky, but she might be surprised to learn that anyone would want to read about some kids messing around in Hialeah.

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

I find beginnings much harder because the possibilities are literally endless. I write very slowly when I’m in the early stages of a project, and as I continue to work and more of the story is revealed to me, I pick up speed. Very rarely do I know the ending of a story when I begin, but as I work on the story, the ending or possible endings start to coalesce. When it comes to short stories, I’ll sometimes arrive at the ending by surprise. I’ll write the last sentence and think, “Oh, of course that’s the end.” Beginnings are tough. There are so many ways into every story. It’s hard to choose.

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

I think there’s a least a drop of me in every character, but I also see a at least a drop of myself in every person I meet. It’s a chicken and egg situation. Did I consciously place aspects of my personality in that character or did I write that character and then find myself empathizing with them after the fact? I don’t know!

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

I watch a lot of TV and movies. I was heavily influenced by anthology shows growing up: Twilight Zone, Are you Afraid of the Dark?, Goosebumps (though there were a few episodes of Goosebumps I was too afraid to watch). I also watched a lot of absurdist cartoons growing up and continue to watch them now, which I think gives my work a surrealist and sometimes comic undertone.

Visit Nicky Gonzalez's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Carolyn Dasher

Carolyn Dasher grew up in a military family, which meant she lived in ten different places before she graduated from high school. It also meant that every 4th of July she got to climb around on tanks and helicopters and watch the Blue Angels buzz overhead in tight formation. When she learned about the WASP—amazing women who stepped up during World War II to serve their country, and, as soon as the war was over, were told to step right back down again and transfer their talent and energy to home and family life—she knew she had to write about them.

American Sky is Dasher's first novel.

My Q&A with the author:

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

The original working title of the book was American Girls. That was too close to other titles already out in the world, so my publisher requested a change. Between my editor, my agent, myself, and my family, we generated a list of probably twenty possibilities, none of which fit the book. After a lot of back and forth, and some growing despair on my part, the words American Sky popped into my head. And that was the one.

The title nods at the aspirations of the characters and the tone of the book, but it doesn’t suggest much about the plot. It’s more of a vibes title.

What's in a name?

One of the main characters in the book is a young, female pilot who becomes a WWII WASP (Women Airforce Service Pilot). I called her Georgeanne, because I think it’s a beautiful name, and I wanted her to go by a “male” nickname: George. The name also fits the WWII setting of the book. George’s last name, Ector, comes from my nerdy, lifelong affection for the Arthurian legend. Ector was the foster father who raised King Arthur. In American Sky, Georgeanne raises a daughter who is not biologically hers. The two names read well together. It’s a strong name, and it suits George’s strong character.

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

My teenage self would be shocked that I’d written a novel at all. I loved reading and enjoyed creative writing, but I didn’t dream of writing books myself. I didn’t know any writers. Whatever magic conjured words onto the page, pages into books, books onto shelves, happened far away in some mystical, mysterious place. It wasn’t until I was grown that I realized—or allowed myself to realize—that I wanted to be a writer.

My teenage self would be even more shocked that I wrote a book about women repairing cars and flying planes. My mechanical inclinations are nonexistent, although I’m somewhat astonished by the complexity and beauty of certain machines. Obviously, writing this book required a lot of research.

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

I love writing beginnings. So much freedom and possibility! It begins with a mental image of my main character, in this case, Georgeanne/George, in a specific setting or situation. In the original first scene of American Sky, George is fifteen—tall and awkward and trying to hide her hands, because she has grease under her fingernails from working on the family car—and she and her friends are watching a barnstormer fly loop-de-loops. When George realizes the pilot is a woman, she forgets all about her hands and her height; she just knows she has to go up in that plane. It’s a catalytic moment for her. And those moments are always fun to write.

This scene now appears on page 51, so, yes, I make big changes as I write and revise. My agent suggested I start the story earlier, focusing on George’s mother, Adele. Which turned out to be great advice. The book now begins with Adele, an independent and unusual woman for her time, and readers keep telling me how much they love her.

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

I’m too private a person to intentionally put myself in a book. But the characters all come from my head, and small parts of me live in each of them. Mostly, though, I love how these characters are different from me, especially the ways they are braver than I am. The women in this book dare to live their differences out loud in a time and place when that just wasn’t done.

Visit Carolyn Dasher's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Shelly Sanders

Shelly Sanders is the bestselling author of the adult novel Daughters of the Occupation and the acclaimed young adult historical novels The Rachel Trilogy. She began her writing career as a freelance journalist working for major publications, including the Toronto Star, National Post, Maclean’s, Canadian Living, Reader’s Digest, and Today’s Parent. She lives in Ontario.

Sanders's new novel is The Night Sparrow.

My Q&A with the author:

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

My working title was Red Army Woman, because my novel is about a female Red Army sniper. Still, this is not exactly a gripping title and you can’t assume 2025 readers know what Red Army means. Then, I came across a sniper’s diary entry which reads: “We are but a sparrow’s feather.” This enthralling comparison led me on a tangential search for everything about sparrows. I discovered that these small birds are actually mighty in numbers (like snipers), look identical in their grey and brown feathers (like snipers in uniform), and nest in trees (like snipers in camouflage). I wanted “sparrow” in the title but couldn’t come up with a catchy title. My editor brainstormed the idea with the marketing department, which is hugely involved in choosing the title, and they came up with The Night Sparrow. I like the oblique metaphor which alludes to the story, ignites curiosity, and is memorable. And I do reference sparrows a few times in the narrative, giving readers a chance to ponder its significance within the narrative.

What's in a name?

Elena Bruskina’s name comes from the two real women who inspired this novel, Yelena (Kagan) Rzhevskaya and Masha Bruskina. Yelena, a Jewish Red Army interpreter during the war, witnessed “the long and bloody Rzhev Operation of February 1942-March 1943,” as reported in Yad Vashem’s International Institute for Holocaust Research. “She was shocked by this operation, which historians have called "the Rzhev Meat-Grinder" and took Rzhevskaya as her pen-name.”

In 1945, was chosen for a secretive three-person SMERSH unit. The acronym for SMERSH means, death to spies. She was tasked with translating for German prisoners interrogated by the other two members of her unit. She played a pivotal role towards the end of the war, and after, but became terribly dismayed when she learned the fate of two German civilians who helped fulfill the unit’s mission. Determined to tell the world what really happened during her time with SMERSH, Elena tried for years to get uncensored articles published in the Soviet Union, to no avail. But she didn’t give up and, in 1965, her heavily censored memoir was published. Twenty years later, a much less censored version was published. In Russian, Elena means ‘shining light’, and this is why I kept this name, as her character shines a light on a story that Stalin hid for decades.

Masha Bruskina was a Jewish 15-year-old who was forced into the Minsk ghetto. Restless, she went underground and, as a nurse, helped wounded Red Army soldiers recover so that they could quickly return to the front line. One night, she was caught. A few days later, she was paraded down the street by the Germans, with a sign hanging around her neck, a false statement that she had killed German soldiers. I was so moved by Masha, I decided to weave her story through the narrative and make her Elena’s younger sister.

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

My teenage self would be shocked that I’ve written about a Jewish female sniper! Not only am I a lifetime pacifist who is afraid of guns, my grades were average. I was never singled out by a teacher for a well-written essay. And after decades of criticism about my behavior, due to undiagnosed ADHD, I had a very low opinion of myself compared to others. It took years of writing as a journalist, and the discovery of my Jewish roots, for me to believe in my ability as a writer and to realize I have stories to tell, inspired by history.

Looking back at my favorite novel in high school, Catcher in the Rye, I probably would have said, at the time, that if I were to write a book, it would be one of female teenage angst, written in the style of Catcher in the Rye, set in suburban Chicago where I grew up. There was nothing about female snipers on my radar!

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

I spend hours rewriting the beginning when I start my first draft, as I feel it will be far more visceral as a whole, if the base is as strong as steel. I start in the middle of a scene, with the protagonist interacting with other characters or responding to something within the setting. In The Night Sparrow, the editors had me restructure the novel to balance the war scenes with Elena’s time as an interpreter, which dramatically improved the pace. I thought I would have to rewrite the beginning, but my editor in New York suggested I move an action scene from the middle of the book, to the front. Not only does this throw Elena into action immediately, on the front facing the Germans, it adds urgency to the beginning which draws readers in right away.

The ending is always a long process of revisions, because I want to leave the reader curious about what happens next while staying true to the characters’ emotions. Life is not a series of events that can be resolved easily, and I want my novels to end on a note of uncertainty. I want readers to discuss what they think will happen next, to ruminate over the ending, to feel slightly unsettled when they finish reading.

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 to make sense of circumstances, places, people, and history, so it’s not surprising that traces of myself slip into my characters. In The Night Sparrow, you’ll find glimpses of me in Elena’s love of language, in Raisa’s persistence and, I must admit, in Zina’s up-and-down moods. This is not intentional yet, as I write, as I dig deep into the characters’ interiority, as I try to figure out how they would respond to obstacles, my own emotions seep through my characters’ skin.

Because I write historical fiction, you would think the characters should be worlds apart from me and my contemporaries, but I don’t think this is necessarily true. I believe characters should be relatable in some way, no matter the genre and, by inserting a dash of modern sensibilities, Elena becomes more true, more diverse, more relevant.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

Discovering my furtive maternal ancestry upended my world and changed everything I thought I knew about myself. I didn’t know I was Jewish until I was 18 years old and about to go to college. Eight years ago, I found out my roots were planted in Latvia in the late 1700’s. Then, I discovered 30 relatives who were murdered in the Latvian Holocaust. Standing in front of the mass grave in the Rumbula forest, in Riga, I was resolved to tell my family’s story, to remember the names of relatives seen in dozens of photos with my grandmother. The exploration of what it means to be Latvian-Jewish and the generational trauma perpetuated by secrets are what motivate me to write. My grandmother kept her Judaism and her Latvian-Jewish family a secret, probably because of what she endured as a Jewish girl living under the last Tsar. Her well-meaning decision meant she didn’t live authentically, as a Jewish woman after coming to Canada in 1936. She had to deal with the grief of relatives who vanished during the war, privately. When I began unpacking her story, through photos, research, and interviews with Latvian-Jews, I saw how the threads of antisemitism had gutted my family, once thriving in Latvia as Jews, to one shaky branch devoid of culture and traditions. I stared at the photos of my great-grandmother’s sisters, killed during WWII, along with their husbands and children, and at my great-grandfather’s brother whose entire family was murdered. Something inside me shifted. At that moment, I knew my writing would be shaped by loss, by antisemitism, and by Judaism. I felt as if my purpose, going forward, was to tell the stories of those forgotten and neglected.

Visit Shelly Sanders's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Night Sparrow.

--Marshal Zeringue