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

Samuel Hawley

Samuel Hawley is a Canadian writer with BA and MA degrees in history from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. He was born and grew up in South Korea and taught English there and in Japan for many years. His books include The Imjin War, the definitive account in English of Japan’s 16th-century invasion of Korea and attempted conquest of China; Speed Duel, about the 1960s rivalry between Craig Breedlove and Art Arfons for the world land speed record; Ultimate Speed, the authorized biography of land speed racing legend Craig Breedlove; and The Fight That Started the Movies: The World Heavyweight Championship, the Birth of Cinema and the First Feature Film.

Hawley's new novel is Daikon.

My Q&A with the author:

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

The title Daikon is the nickname that the Japanese give to the atomic bomb they recover from the wreckage of the B-29 that crashes in chapter one. The bomb is very much a main character in the story in its own right. The other main characters Dr. Keizo Kan and Petty Officer Yagi open it up and explore it and get to know it, and then must put it together again for use in a suicide mission.

Actually, the title of the book was originally One Hundred Million Eat Stones, a reference to the determination that the Japanese people (the “Hundred Million”) would fight to the death rather than surrender. The Japanese had several popular slogans like that during the war referring to the “Hundred Million.” In the early days of victory the slogans were upbeat, like “One Hundred Million Hearts Beating Together.” Toward the end of the war, with defeat looming, they had become grimmer, “One Hundred Million as a Suicide Squad,” that sort of thing.

My agent suggested that a shorter title would be better, maybe something enigmatic and even whimsical to contrast with the seriousness of the story. “The Americans referred to the bomb as ‘Little Boy’ or the ‘gadget’ or the ‘gimmick,’” he said. “Maybe the Japanese came up with a nickname for it too. That could be the title.” He was right. It was a great idea. So that’s what I did. One of the characters observes that the bomb looks like a big black daikon radish. So it became "the Daikon," and that became the title of the book.

When the book was purchased by Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster, the publisher wanted to try other titles. I struggled for ages to come up with something else, but nothing worked. “The Light That Falls,” “We Live in Ruins,” and “The Flowers of Adversity” are three I came up with. The more I struggled to find another title, however, the more convinced I became that “Daikon” was the best title. And eventually we just stuck with that. Thank goodness!

What's in a name?

When I’m writing fiction, I compile lists of interesting names I encounter in research and reading, a stockpile of names to draw on as needed. With Daikon, since the characters are all Japanese, this stockpile was no use. There was some method to my name selections, though.

For the antagonist in the story, the army officer who wants to use the recovered atomic bomb against the Americans in order to stave off defeat and keep the war going, I wanted a name starting with an “S” like the hissing of a snake, and consisting of several syllables. So he became Colonel Sagara.

For the protagonist, the main character at the heart of the story, I wanted a one-syllable name to stand in contrast to the three syllables of Sagara. There are not many one-syllable names in Japanese. The first one to come to my mind was Kan. When I first went to Japan back in 1988, one of the Japanese teachers I had was named Kan. So I borrowed her name. It seemed perfect with the hard “K” too, another contrast to the hissing “S” of the nemesis Sagara. That “Kan” as spoken is also the English verb “can” (Keizo can do it!) never even occurred to me until later.

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

My teenage self would no doubt be surprised by my novel, but also very pleased. I was no Truman Capote in my teens, equipped to write brilliant novels, but I did have a longing to write books. It was the main reason I stayed on in university to do a master’s degree in history. I wanted to write a master’s thesis, a longer work. It was kind of like writing a book.

By my late 20s the yearning to write actual books that would be published had become stronger, but it took me a long time to make it happen. I was living in Japan then, and then later Korea, and doing a lot of traveling, so my earliest writing was travel pieces for magazines and newspapers. Some titles of articles I remember: “The Fishing Ponds of Tokyo” (a quirky Japanese hobby); “Snoring to Glory on the Mahalmaxi Express” (train travel in India); “Support Your Local Sekitori” (sumo wrestling in Japan); “Sri Lanka’s Bit of Britain” (a visit to Nurawa Eliya in Sri Lanka); “Down the Nile by Felucca” (Egypt travel in a traditional sailboat). There were many others. I ended up throwing everything away when I left Canada in 2021. All that stuff if gone now.

A writer back then who really impressed me was travel writer Paul Theroux, starting with his Great Railway Bazaar. His painting of scenes, his ability to capture language—absolute perfection. On the final page of that book, as Theroux is nearing the end of his long train journey, about to arrive back home, he flips back to the first page in his notebook and reads the entry he wrote when he first started out: “Ever since childhood, when I lived within earshot of the Boston and Maine, I have seldom heard a train go by and not wished I was on it.” The story ends with Theroux reading the same words he wrote back at the beginning, making the journey a circle. The journey is a circle that takes you back home. The beauty of that just blew me away. I read it several times, flipping back and forth from first page to last, marveling at the brilliance. To write something like that, something so perfect—what a satisfaction it would be!

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

I don’t find one more difficult than the other. I do like being able to write the ending first, though. Knowing how the story ends, knowing the actual scene, means that you know where you’re going, that the journey you’re taking your hero on isn’t just going to meander off into an uncharted wilderness where you can get bogged down as a writer.

With Daikon, it took me a long to to get the story right. But I had both the beginning and the ending written from very early on, and they stayed more or less unchanged. The novel opens with a bombing mission taking off from Tinian Island, bound for Japan with an atomic bomb. And it ends with our two main characters in a train station in Tokyo, on their way home. This is where I wanted them to be, reunited, with hope for the future. One of the first sentences I wrote for Daikon was in fact the very last sentence: “They followed the Americans onto the train.”

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

Maybe inescapably, elements from an author’s own makeup find their way into the characters he writes about. In Daikon, I guess this applies most to the main character of Keizo Kan. I used some of my own fears and insecurities in my depiction of him, exaggerating them because he has been traumatized by the war and has had a nervous breakdown and is emotionally broken.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing? Music? Pictures? Movies? The news? The environment? Politics? Family?

For non-literary influences, it far and away would be movies. I actually took a long detour into writing screenplays during my career as an author of books. I’ve written 10 or so screenplays so far, including a spec script for a TV series based on my land speed racing nonfiction book “Speed Duel.” A few of my screenplays have been optioned over the years (“Homeowner With a Gun,” “Kill Them All,” “The Falls”), but none have ever made it into production.

When I first started writing narrative nonfiction, I would often think in terms of a scene from a movie to help frame a chapter, make the writing more interesting and alive, not just a recitation of facts. This is even more the case when I’m writing fiction. I’m often seeing in my mind’s eye the chapter I’m writing as a scene in a movie.

I also sometimes refer to screenplay structure when outlining the plot for a novel. This is a really useful tool to refer to when plotting out the story. It helps to build momentum.

Visit Samuel Hawley's website.

The Page 69 Test: Daikon.

--Marshal Zeringue

Terrence McCauley

Terrence McCauley is the author of The Twilight Town: A Dallas ’63 Novel. This first book in a trilogy about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy has received early acclaim from authors like I.S. Berry, Meg Gardiner, James Grady and others.

McCauley has published more than thirty novels across three genres, including the acclaimed University Series thrillers, the Charlie Doherty 1930s crime novels, and two award-winning western series. He has also ghostwritten for several projects. He grew up in the Bronx, New York and now calls Dutchess County, New York home.

My Q&A with McCauley:

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

My original titles always give the reader an idea about the book and the series overall. My first techno-thriller was Sympathy for the Devil. It alluded to the sinister nature of the protagonist, James Hicks. Later books had avian themes – A Murder of Crows and A Conspiracy of Ravens that played to the dark quality of those books. Others like Prohibition and Slow Burn and The Fairfax Incident were placeholders that wound up being the final titles. The Twilight Town is also a fitting name for the first book in my JFK assassination series as it takes place in a city where the underworld meets the overworld in the months before President Kennedy’s death.

Some editors have changed the titles of many of my books during production, particularly my western novels. I never complain about a title change because I assume the editors understand what will sell. It’s ultimately their decision anyway, so I don’t fight it.

What's in a name?

The names of characters are very important to me, but they’re never set in stone. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve had a character’s name in my head while thinking about a story, only for it to change as soon as my fingers hit the keyboard. It sounds odd, but my characters tend to tell me what their names are.

In The Twilight Town: A Dallas ’63 Novel, Dan Wilson was an exception. His name didn’t change from my mind to the page. I wanted something clear and recognizable that could fit in everywhere. It wasn’t too ethnic, but decidedly American. That’s what I was going for in that particular story.

But The Twilight Town characters offered me a unique challenge. It’s a novel about the JFK assassination and includes many characters from real life. I used only real names in the first draft, but decided to change them later on. I did this to avoid readers pointing out factual inconsistencies in the story. I wanted to avoid criticism, such as ‘Captain Westbrook didn’t look like that’ or ‘those two people never met in Dallas’. The book is a fictionalized account of an actual event based on a lot of research, but I changed certain names to make sure the truth didn’t get in the way of a good story.

I kept some names the same, of course, like Oswald and Ruby. They’re both pillars of the event, so I couldn’t change their names without undermining the entire story.

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

My teenage self would’ve been surprised I’d written a book at all, much less thirty of them. Back then, I wanted to be a director or a comic book illustrator. I wasn’t much of a reader of prose or books. I was more of a movie fan than a reader. A lot of the story ideas I had way back then have come to fruition as books throughout my career, so I’d like to think my teenage self would approve.

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

Neither, because I never really know where one of my books begin or end. I have an idea when I start writing it, but I don’t stress over it. I fully expect the story to evolve over time. The ending I’d planned has often turned out to be the middle of the book. The same goes for the beginning. Maybe I have to add more detail in the beginning so the story is more complete. Sometimes my beginnings and endings get discarded entirely because the story needs something different.

That’s why I don’t take the time to outline. For me, an outline becomes a document onto itself. The more time I spend writing it, the less likely I am to want to deviate from it. I have a natural inclination to make the time I put into creating something count for something. That free-wheeling preference causes me trouble sometimes, but it’s a good problem to solve.

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 I’ve created and every book I’ve ever written is part of me in some way. It’s not just a product of my creativity, but often reflects where I am in my life at the time I’m writing it.

My Jeremiah Halstead westerns, for example, were written at a time when I was going through a lot of personal turmoil in my life. Unfortunately, that meant poor Jeremiah had to go through some turmoil, too.

I believe a writer’s emotions can serve the story well if channeled properly. Emotion is a variable that keeps an artist’s work from becoming formulaic and predictable. Including a bit of myself in my books and my characters is also therapeutic. I spent twenty-five years in government, so I met a lot of interesting people and saw a lot of surprising events along the way. Some of those people and events make it into my work as well.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

Movies played a big part in my early creativity, which has fueled my work as a writer. My parents were classic movie fans, so I grew up watching the classics starring Spencer Tracy and Joan Crawford and Clark Gable. Even though those movies were black-and-white in the age of color television, I appreciated how scenes looked and how actors delivered their lines. Later, I was able to notice the stripped-down, gritty quality of thrillers made in the 1970s as opposed to the glitzy action-driven films of the 1980s and 1990s.

Music has also played an important role in my writing life. I have no musical talent whatsoever, but my grandfather used to play the piano in silent movie theaters in New York. He died long before I was born, but I grew up hearing about him and knew the importance that music could play in telling a story. That’s why each of my books has a theme song I keep in mind as I’m writing.

Oddly enough, the song almost never fits the genre I’m writing in. For example, the theme song of The Twilight Town, which is set in 1963 Dallas, isn’t a 60’s song, but a hard-edged Electric Dance Music piece called ‘King’ by GG Magree released in 2023. One wouldn’t think that kind of song has any place in a Kennedy novel, but it works for me.

Visit Terrence McCauley's website.

My Book, The Movie: A Conspiracy of Ravens.

The Page 69 Test: A Conspiracy of Ravens.

Writers Read: Terrence McCauley (October 2017).

The Page 69 Test: The Twilight Town.

My Book, The Movie: The Twilight Town.

--Marshal Zeringue

Kashana Cauley

Kashana Cauley is the author of the newly released The Payback, a student loan industry heist novel.

She is also the author of The Survivalists, which was published in January 2023 and named a best book of 2023 by the BBC, the Today Show, Vogue, and many other outlets. She’s a TV writer who has written for The Great North, Pod Save America on HBO, and The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, and a former contributing opinion writer for the New York Times. She has also written for The Atlantic, Esquire, The New Yorker, Pitchfork, and Rolling Stone, among other publications.

My Q&A with the author:

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

So far people associate The Payback with the James Brown song of the same name, which is correct. James Brown is singing about getting revenge on someone who crossed him, and The Payback is also a revenge story. My editor and I went through many titles, but when the book went out on submission, before it sold, its working title was Student Loan Payback. No matter how many titles my editor and I went through, I remember both of us gravitating towards the idea of payback over and over again. I like payback because it has the double meaning of what you’re supposed to do with your student loans as well as revenge, so it captures the spirit of the book.

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

Since I started writing novels at age ten, my teenage self would be unsuprised by The Payback’s general existence, but since I didn’t tell jokes then, she’d be shocked by all the humor in the book.

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

Beginnings are tougher, since I’m a write until the characters have distinctive voices person. I can only outline when I know what the characters sound like, dress, want to listen to music-wise, etc. After I get to know the characters’ voices, the endings of my books tend to announce themselves. I tinker with beginnings a lot more because I assume the reader will take any opportunity to put the book down, so my beginnings have to be airtight.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

Music and movies. When I find the voice, I write while listening to songs that match that voice, which helps keep me emotionally connected to the story. And movies have taught me a lot about act structure and plotting that I tend to bring into my writing as well. Along with books themselves, Movies help me to outline books, and to think about what book pacing should feel like.

Visit Kashana Cauley's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Alie Dumas-Heidt

Alie Dumas-Heidt lives in the Puget Sound with her husband, adult kids, and two Goldendoodles – Astrid and Torvi. Growing up she wanted to be a detective and a writer and spent a few years working as a police dispatcher. Now, working is writing in her home office with the dogs at her feet. When she’s not writing she enjoys being in the forest, creating glass art, yarn crafts, and watching baseball.

Dumas-Heidt's new novel is The Myth Maker.

My Q&A with the author:

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

I think my title, The Myth Maker, is intriguing enough to catch readers attention, but does it completely spell out that this is a story about a detective on the hunt for a serial killer? I say no, but, funny enough, my agent wasn’t sure we’d be able to keep it because she did worry it gave too much away. I have old outlines and early chapters all with the title The Myth Maker and it was hard for me to consider it being called anything else. We played around with a few other titles, different ideas pulling from bits of what the killer was doing, but nothing stuck. I had an easier time changing the name of my lead character! I was thankful that a new title wasn’t part of the To Do list from my publisher during final edits.

What's in a name?

I am a little bit of a name nerd in real life. I’m that annoying friend that will gladly put lists together for anyone naming a baby, puppy, or kitten. With The Myth Maker, my lead character went through a name change between pitching to my agent and us pitching to publishers. I started to realize how many other characters in all media formats were variations of Kat and I wanted to make sure my Kathryn stood out in that crowded space instead of blending in. She went through a metamorphosis and became Cassidy Cantwell, Cas to friends, and Cassi to only one person.

I was surprised by how much I struggled to adapt to her being Cas instead of Kat, and it actually took me changing a few other things about her past and her character to make the new name stick. The other characters have names you’d run into in real life, because that’s how I wanted it to feel. I did apologize to a friend though after I realized I’d used both her name and her sister’s name as victim names. Whoopsie.

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

I was an insatiable reader as a kid and by the time I was eleven I was stealing my mom’s books off the bookshelf to fill in between trips to the library and school book orders. My mom read a lot of true crime, and I have always been interested in detective work, so those were the books I started stealing most. By seventh grade, I was alternating between things like The Outsiders, to Ann Rule, then Anne Rice. I don’t think teenage me would be surprised to know that we grew up and wrote a detective story. I was barely out of my teenage years when I started writing The Myth Maker, and I think she’d be proud to know I made this dream of being a writer a reality for us.

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

Endings! Finding the exact right moment to declare things done isn’t always as easy as I want it to be, and there were a few different endings written for this project, can’t deny that. I honestly find it easiest to write the middle when I’m starting a new story. I’ve completed two novels, and both started with middle scenes. With The Myth Maker, I wrote one of the high climax scenes first before I even knew why Cassidy and Bryan were where they were. It became a target to write the events to get Cas to that moment and figuring out what obstacles would be in her way. It’s a lot of answering the question, “Why?”

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

I tried to separate myself from Cassidy, starting with the physical traits. She’s taller than me, skinnier than me, has a different hair color. I gave her a big family, and an unsteady relationship, all different from mine, but I think every writer, subconsciously or not, ends up injecting a bit of their own personality into their characters. One area that is similar, and intentionally so, is the car Cassidy drives. We both drive Mini Coopers, although she has a Justa and I drive a Clubbie. All of that makes sense to Mini drivers, and she actually had hers first because I’ve been in love with them forever. No matter what happens in Cassidy’s future, she will keep driving her Mini.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

I’ve been influenced by a lot of things with my writing - other writers, TV characters - but my childhood dream of being a police detective definitely inspired my subject matter the most with The Myth Maker. I started writing the story when it was just an idea in the mind of a 21 year old, while I was working as a 911 operator/police dispatcher. That work, and the people I met while doing it, definitely inspired the characters and even some of the interactions. While all of the story and characters are fictional, there were moments of my time as a dispatcher, small interactions between myself and the cops I worked with, that I reworked and worked into the story to create interactions from real life. They’re some of my favorite small moments, and most of them made final cuts.

Visit Alie Dumas-Heidt's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Turner Gable Kahn

Turner Gable Kahn grew up in the extra-hold-hairspray ribbon of sunshine between the Everglades and the Atlantic’s best beach. Her higher education took place along the banks of the Schuylkill, and then the Hudson. She commuted endlessly across the East River in the blood, sweat and tears of a design career, before leaving her heart on Victoria Harbor’s dance floors and the South China Sea’s cliff hikes. She now writes in the bright heat near the Singapore Strait during the school year; in the summer she greets the sunset with her family, on a back deck overlooking the Puget Sound.

Kahn's new novel is The Dirty Version.

My Q&A with the author:

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

The Dirty Version does a lot of subtle heavy lifting. It hints at what’s going on behind the scenes — both in Hollywood and in the emotional lives of the characters. There’s a cheeky nod to “dirty” in the steamy sense, but the title also points to creative compromise, blurred boundaries, and the messier corners of power and control. The story centers on a feminist author whose novel is being adapted for TV — only to find that the project has landed in the hands of a macho director who insists on “sexing it up.” He says he wants the “dirty version” of the story.

The title is also a little meta. There’s no explicit sex on the page — but that doesn’t mean it isn’t sexy. It’s all about foreplay, tension, and emotional intimacy. I wanted to write a slow burn that made space for desire without defaulting to a standard template.

I actually came up with the title at the eleventh hour. I’d been calling it Very Hands-On as a placeholder, and just before I sent out my first query, I typed in The Dirty Version instead. It stuck — and now I can’t imagine it being anything else.

What's in a name?

I wanted names that carried meaning but didn’t hit readers over the head. Tash is short for Natasha — sharp, modern, unadorned. She’s someone who guards her story fiercely and doesn’t open up easily, so the clipped version felt right for her: no extra syllables, no softness. Caleb, on the other hand, has warmth and calm built into it. He’s an intimacy coordinator — someone who brings empathy, clarity, and safety into the room — and I wanted his name to reflect that grounded presence.

Together, Tash and Caleb sound like they come from totally different worlds — which, of course, they do. That contrast was intentional.

And then there’s Ram Braverman — the Hollywood director with the worst kind of creative ego. That name just wrote itself. I pictured a silver fox with a Napoleon complex, and somehow... Ram Braverman appeared fully formed. A lot of early readers told me they laughed out loud when they got to him — which I took as a very good sign.

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

Oh, very. My teenage self pictured a future writing emo, experimental capital-L Literary Fiction — stories full of difficult people in stark settings, probably with ambiguous endings and no quotation marks. And now here I am writing a contemporary romance set in South Florida, complete with lush beach scenes and behind-the-scenes Hollywood drama.

But I think she’d recognize the thread. These are still stories about people grappling with power, identity, and vulnerability — just with more heat, more humor, and a much more satisfying emotional arc than she might have imagined back then.

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

Beginnings are much harder for me. There’s so much pressure to get everything right from the first page — voice, tone, stakes, world. It’s like hosting a dinner party where the first five minutes determine whether your guests stay. Endings, for me, come more intuitively once I know where the emotional landing should be. But the beginning? That gets rewritten two dozen times, easily. I want readers to know what kind of ride they’re in for — and feel pulled in, not pushed.

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

Definitely. Tash is part me — the overthinker, the control freak, the person trying to fiercely protect something that matters. Her bond with her best friend is pulled pretty directly from my own life and my own female friendships. But Tash is also a lot more defensive than I am, and she’s much more blunt. She says the things I’d maybe just mutter in my head.

Caleb, on the other hand, is my unicorn book boyfriend — the kind of emotionally intelligent, deeply respectful, quietly super-hot romantic lead I wish more stories centered. I’m a longtime romance reader, so I built him with intention. He’s pure wish-fulfillment.

So no, they’re not me — but they come from me.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

A few big ones. First, the real-world rise of intimacy coordinators in film and television — that felt like such a fascinating cultural shift, and it gave me the idea for Caleb. Second, I’ve spent a lot of time in live storytelling spaces, and performing personal stories taught me how to pace emotional beats and pull people in through voice and vulnerability. And lastly, friendship — especially female friendship — has been a huge influence. The idea that love stories can be romantic and platonic shaped the emotional heart of the book.

Visit Turner Gable Kahn's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Miriam Gershow

Miriam Gershow is the author of Closer, Survival Tips: Stories and The Local News. Her writing is featured in The Georgia Review, Gulf Coast, and Black Warrior Review, among other journals. She is the recipient of a Fiction Fellowship from the Wisconsin Institute for Creative Writing, an Oregon Literary Fellowship, and is a two-time finalist for the Oregon Book Award. Gershow is the organizer of “100 Notable Small Press Books,” a curated list of the year’s recommended books from independent publishers.

My Q&A with the author:

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

As soon as I typed the last sentence of my first draft, I knew the title of Closer would be Closer. Even if I also know that I was choosing a title that could be read one of two ways. I began saying, almost immediately: “Closer as in opposite of further, not closer as in the last person to close down the bar at night.” So why choose this title? It’s similar to when I knew in my first trimester that my son would be Eli. When you know, you know. The idea of closer - getting closer, being closer - embodies everything this story is about. This novel is the story of a community, full of people who make heedless mistakes, often at a very high cost, all in service of trying to get closer to those they love, whether that be a child, a lover, a spouse, a friend. They get it wrong more than they get it right, and that’s what interests me. Closer is different than already being close to someone. Closer is aspirational; a want for more, a want for better.

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

I think my teenaged self would be impressed that I’m still obsessed with high school. So much of the action of Closer takes place in and around West High School, involving both the kids and adults of the school. Or maybe my teenage self would be shocked that the sights and sounds of that era are still lodged so firmly in my soft palate. I also think my teenage self would be a little disappointed that I don’t have a peekaboo cover featuring a sullen, haunted teen a la Flowers in the Attic or Petals on the Wind. She’d want way more creepy grandmother, questionable brother/sister dynamics, and a fat, breakable book spine.

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

Beginnings are so easy! The unfurling of possibility! So much freedom! With a beginning, you can write a check that your narrative doesn’t have to cash (yet). The are easily hundreds of fat beginning and middle pages before I have to make good on the promises of the beginning. But of course, the ending is where you have to bring it all home. One of the biggest challenges of Closer was having to write a triple ending because I’d set up three central point of view characters, each with their own distinct conflict to be resolved. I tend to either nail the ending or the beginning in early drafting, with the other taking up my attention in revisions. But for Closer, I rewrote the beginning and one of the three endings over and over and over. Both needed recalibrating and more recalibrating, and I just stuck with it.

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

I see myself in all of my characters! So much of my writing is an exercise in empathy: understanding why characters behave in the way they do especially when the behavior is not particularly wise or defensible. Closer is the novel of a community, and I see at least a kernel of myself in every character. Stefanie, a parent of high schooler, is fiercely devoted to her teenage son, Baz. I started writing this book when my son was eight, but now, seven years later, I have grown into a parent who is similar to Stefanie—lulled by the sweetness of boyhood but with a teenager who strains to be his own person. With Woody, the guidance counselor swept into the spotlight of the school’s current controversies, I have that urge to be seen as vital and important like he does, to be the hero of the story. With Lark, the students who struggles to find her place alongside her best friend, Livvy, as Livvy is swept up into her first love, I am forever that awkward, clingy kid, needing reassurance as the sands shift under my feet. I see each of my characters - even the secondary ones - as tapped into some vulnerability of mine. I’m often asked about characters in terms of unlikablity: are they likable? Should they be likable? But the question that’s more interesting to me is if they are credibly human? Can you feel their thumping heart on the page?

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

I do not write melodrama, but I do love for a good melodrama to punch me deep in the feelings. It’s a reminder of what I want out of art and what I want others to get out of my art - to be moved. I was singularly obsessed with Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga in A Star is Born for a good couple of years. I loved the family drama, Kingdom, even though I would never ever have believed anyone who told me I’d love a show about MMA. Same with Friday Night Lights and football. I love a good cry. I am a sucker for the weepy, folky, haunting tunes of Novo Amour and Ocie Elliott. I spent more days than I’m willing to admit listening to TALK’s “Run Away to Mars” on repeat because I’d heard it on the radio and it socked me in the throat in the most pleasurably painful way.

Visit Miriam Gershow's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Local News.

--Marshal Zeringue

Sarah Strohmeyer

Sarah Strohmeyer is a bestselling and award-winning novelist whose books include the new thriller A Mother Always Knows, We Love to Entertain, Do I Know You?, the wildly popular Bubbles Yablonsky mystery series, The Cinderella Pact (which became the Lifetime Original Movie Lying to Be Perfect), along with many stand-alone novels for adults and young adults including Smart Girls Get What They Want and This Is My Brain on Boys. A former newspaper reporter, her writing has appeared in numerous publications, including the Cleveland Plain Dealer and the Boston Globe. She lives with her cat and husband in Middlesex, Vermont, where she is the elected Town Clerk. Adult children come and go.

My Q&A with Strohmeyer:

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

A Mother Always Knows relates to the beginning of the novel – in which the mother is murdered in front of her daughter while trying to flee a Vermont cult – and throughout the rest of the book, all the way to the end. Do mothers always know? Can a mother beyond the grave know? (There’s a supernatural element to the book since it involves a cult of “spiritual dowsers.”) Or, does a mother think she knows, when she really doesn’t? In the end, A Mother Always Knows is about mother/daughter relationships and how a mother’s poor decision(s) can affect her child’s future years later.

What's in a name?

This is a great question for A Mother Always Knows. For example, the protagonist’s common name is Stella, which means star. However, when Stella was living in a cult as a little girl with her mother, she was called Astraea, or “star maiden,” a goddess of justice. As a grown woman, Stella is pursuing justice for her mother whose murder has gone unsolved for twenty years.

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

My teenage self would be thrilled and, also, pushing me to go further. I pledged at age ten – the same age as my protagonist when she witnessed her mother’s demise – to become an author. And so I have. But what I’ve learned is that it’s barely enough to become a writer and be published by a major publisher. There are so many talented voices out there elevating this genre into forms not seen when I was in my teens that you have to be on your toes! So, the real fun has been the challenge of contributing to this evolution in some small way. I’m in such awe of my fellow mystery/thriller authors. They surprise me at every turn.

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

Both! (Is that a cop out?) Like my friend and fellow mystery writer Nancy Martin says, the only way to start a book knowing you’re going to rewrite the beginning to death is by lying to yourself that this time you’ll get it right from the get go. I never do. But endings are key. They’re what the readers will remember (if they get that far) and you want them to be surprised and satisfied and hopefully not pissed. It’s a tall order! I change them constantly….

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

When I write a character in the first person, I can’t help incorporating some of my flaws and failings, my humor and observations. But that’s about it. I’m always amused when people accuse me of putting them in my books or mistakenly assume I’m writing about myself. As any writer will attest, sitting and writing for X # of hours in a day does not make for an adventurous personal life. We have to make it up – because we’re so boring!

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

The book I’m working on now, Worst. Wife. Ever, was sparked by an article I read in the New York Times about a certain movement among conservative families. Do I Know You? was inspired by my experience on the terrorist watch list (still on there, by the way) when, detained by Scotland Yard at Heathrow, they chatted to me about “super recognizers.” We Love to Entertain was the product of my own house rehab. So I guess I’m very triggered by the crazy world around us!

Visit Sarah Strohmeyer's website.

The Page 69 Test: This Is My Brain on Boys.

My Book, The Movie: This Is My Brain on Boys.

My Book, The Movie: We Love to Entertain.

Writers Read: Sarah Strohmeyer (April 2023).

The Page 69 Test: We Love to Entertain.

--Marshal Zeringue