DeAndra Davis

DeAndra Davis is New York–born and Florida-bred. She’s a hopeless musical theater nerd (Wicked is definitely her favorite), a perpetual student and teacher, and always trailed by a kid or a dog because she has way too many of both. She has an opinion for everything, an argument ready, and a hug for everyone, and she thinks you should, too. She is the author of All the Noise at Once, winner of the William C. Morris Award for best young adult debut book, and The Lovers, the Liars, and Me.

My Q&A with Davis:

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

Titles are widely important to me and the first thing that I consider is not hating my title because I’ll have to say it so often once it’s chosen and out there. I like for titles to do at least half the heavy lifting as well. I don’t like for them to be so divorced from the book that you don’t know what to expect. I like for them to leave a little mystery but also be connected enough that you can understand it once you’ve read the book.

I definitely agonized over my title a bit because originally it had a title that really took you right into the story and the fleeting nature of my main character leaning into this single summer, but that title happened to already be in use by a really recent book, so I pivoted.

Ultimately, I decided to lean into the tarot and secret elements of the story, thinking to myself, what tarot card really represents the book and landed on the lovers. From there, the rest of the title came easily because of how trapped my character is with her love triangle, her tarot, and her secrets. It’s all entangled and I love that the title captures those elements and brings them to life.

What's in a name?

Names are kind of funny for me because I definitely put a ton of thought into how I feel they represent the character, how they represent culturally, and then how they connect personally. First off, I will admit I steal a lot of names from my family members, haha. That doesn’t mean the characters reflect those family members in any way, I typically just feel the name fits.

For my main character Jaliya, I took her name from familial connections, though her name isn’t a typical Jamaican name which is on purpose, and her last name is also a family name. I think because this story especially tied so much into my own culture and identity, it was personal enough that familial connection felt like the right move. For Shevaughn, India, Deon, and Andre, I wanted to tap into names that fit culturally as well. Names that could conceivably be Jamaican names. This is even true for Jaliya’s uncle Ian, which is a popular Jamaican name. I think about how a name can set you in a place and tell you about a person. I wanted that for my characters.

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

Beyond surprised. I think she’d be shocked at my audacity to be so honest on the page—so forthcoming and so unlike how I was as a teenager. I think I write stories that are close to me and mean something to me but I also have a habit of writing the bravery into my characters that I wish I once had. The bravery I had to grow into, and sometimes still struggle with. Teenage me would definitely be like, “Girl, you’re telling on yourself!” which is hilarious and likely true, but I think she’d be proud that I got to a place where I felt so comfortable doing so.

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

I change beginnings much more than endings and this has been true for all my books so far. Jaliya’s beginning had to be with her indecision; it had to be with her floundering and utilizing outside support for answers. That was always true. I had to figure out how to bring that to life in practice outside of just her tarot cards. How could I show everyone how much she flounders and how people think of her? What better way than a party? I loved writing the party scene because there’s nothing better than a fish out of water element and I think her uncomfortability was almost palpable. Beginnings are tough, but who doesn’t love some teasing, meeting a bully, getting your hopes up and then dashed, and then a good angry cry to usher us into a story?

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

Both? Is that a cop out? I tend to pull pieces of myself and insert them into my characters, but I also pull wildly different pieces and put them in the same character as well. Pieces of other people—friends, enemies. Pieces I haven’t yet truly seen explored in anyone I know but want to see play out.

I connect to Jaliya because she’s Jamaican but born in the United States. She’s raised entirely with Jamaican values and culture at home to the point where it can ostracize her from peers in the states, but then still told she isn’t enough of her own culture because of where she was born. I understand that deeply. I pull tarot cards (though not with the same vigor and necessity as Jaliya). I have uncles (and other family) who live in Jamaica that I’ve been visiting since I was just a baby. There are definitely pieces of me in Jaliya and there’s also pieces of me in her friend group. Deon got my sarcasm and humor. Shevaughn got my ability to hold a grudge sometimes. India got my thirst for adventure and quickness to take in a new friend. Andre got my shyness in romantic situations. How can a character show up real if they don’t reflect something real?

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

Movies and shows always! For this book To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, XO, Kitty, and The Summer I Turned Pretty especially were great to tap into for the right vibes.

Otherwise, my experiences and family are constant influences on my writing. I am always considering where I, or the people around me, fit into my stories.

Visit DeAndra Davis's website. She can be found on most socials @DeAndraWrites.

My Book, The Movie: The Lovers, the Liars, and Me.

Writers Read: DeAndra Davis.

--Marshal Zeringue

Tracy Lynne Oliver

Tracy Lynne Oliver is a writer based in Los Angeles. She has been published online at a variety of places such as Medium, Fanzine, and Occulum. She co-authored the graphic novel, The Sacrifice of Darkness, with Roxane Gay. Her story, “This Weekend” was included in Best Microfiction 2019.

Her new book, Magician, is "dark magic debut novel featuring the Boy who becomes the Magician and the villainous Mother whose sadism might end it all."

My Q&A with the author:

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

I really struggled with titling my book. The story started with a powerful image; an old black man, head in his hands, sitting on the edge of a bed in a decrepit hotel room or some sort of run-down apartment. I needed to write his story. After putting words down, and learning where it was going, I eventually just used Magician as a working title. I referred to my work in progress as such until the book was complete.

But when the novel was finished, the question I asked myself was what to call it. I did my best to come up with alternatives but nothing else seemed to fit. I kept Magician.

As the book’s story takes you through the life journey of one man, Magician doesn’t seem to capture what the totality of the book is. Magician is only the final version of this man. His story begins even before he is the Boy. So, it might not be the best representation of what the novel is fully about, but it does highlight the gravitas of what he becomes and in that, overcomes.

What's in a name?

My main character doesn’t have a name. Neither do most of the characters in this book.

For many people, names have associations. You know an Ashlee, a Tom, a Vicki or a Steve and you have experiences and feelings about those people, both good, bad or indifferent. For this novel, I wanted my characters to be clean slates. Plus, the novel is set in a world that is ours yet is also kind of not. I wanted my Magician to feel outside the world we are from. Same for his Mother and his Her. If my Magician was named Brad, well, the entire vibe of the book would be different. (No offense to any Brads out there.)

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

I think the only surprise my teenage self would have at my novel was that I wrote one. At that time in my life, I was primarily a reader who loved English class the best and enjoyed every writing assignment given by said English class. If my future-self handed my teenage self my very own novel, I think I would’ve been stunned. (It probably would’ve set me on my writing path a lot earlier than it started).

However, I don’t think teenage Tracy would’ve been surprised by the novel itself. I had dark subject matter vibes threaded through me since I bought ghost story books at every Scholastic Book Fair in elementary school. I think teenage me would’ve devoured and loved my novel.

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

Beginnings are harder for me. While I usually start with strong imagery and feeling, I don’t know where it’s going until I start writing words down. So, with no clear direction or outline, I hesitantly write my beginning, all the while trying to just ‘let go’ and not think, knowing I’ll eventually come back to polish and shine.

Endings eventually reveal themselves. Why constrict my story to build to an already decided ending when my characters may take me elsewhere?

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

I don’t exactly see myself in my characters. They are my creations and I put myself into them rather than the other way around.

At least for now. At least until I write a ‘closer to me’ story, perhaps.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

A bright red pair of pants worn by a cooler than I’ll ever be 70-year-old.

A Playschool table and chairs set carefully arranged and ready, sitting in an old creek bed.

A spatula owned for the entirety of the marriage and years after the divorce.

Two cocktails made, poured, garnished and set out, in a sad way, for one.

An offer to a man holding one pack of steak to go ahead of me in a grocery store, who then shakes his head no, then gives me a perverted up and down stare-smile.

Any impactful thing.

Visit Tracy Lynne Oliver's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Tessa Yang

Tessa Yang is a reader, writer, and shark enthusiast from New York State. She received her MFA from Indiana University where she served as the Editor of Indiana Review.

Her debut novel is The Jellyfish Problem.

Yang's story collection, The Runaway Restaurant, was published by 7.13 Books in 2022. Her stories have appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, The Cincinnati Review, Foglifter, and elsewhere, and her flash fiction has been featured in Best Small Fictions 2024, Flash Fiction America, and Wigleaf's Top 50 Very Short Fictions of 2018 and 2019.

My Q&A with the author:

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

“Jellyfish problems” was the thoughtless title I gave the Microsoft Word file where I was writing. It evolved into the title of the book because, as it turned out, it was doing quite a bit to take readers into the story. What problem is being caused by a jellyfish? How will the characters solve it? The book actually sold as Clementine; or, The Jellyfish Problem, à la Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, and was shortened during edits to just The Jellyfish Problem. I appreciate that it’s a mysterious title with a touch of whimsy, like the story.

What's in a name?

I love a name with nickname potential. The protagonist of The Jellyfish Problem is named Josephine Ness, and in the first chapter, we learn that she’s been called Josephine, Jo, Josie, Jo-Ness, and Nessie depending on the context. I think you can discover a little something about the relationship Jo has with each side character based on what they’ve chosen to call her.

The name of the main setting is Shattering Point, which I came up with by drafting a list of 20 potential names and picking the least terrible. I wanted something that sounded ominous but believable, that would maybe have the reader thinking, “Hmm…that doesn’t sound like a place where good things are going to happen.”

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

I read mostly fantasy as a kid, so my teenage self would be surprised that The Jellyfish Problem is so grounded in realism. I’ve seen it on a few sci-fi lists, which makes sense, but no one’s going to shelve this book as straight-up fantasy. I was also still closeted at that age. I didn’t read a book with a lesbian character until I was in college. My teenage self would be like, “Why are you writing all this gay stuff?” Well, she’ll know the answer soon!

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

I changed both for The Jellyfish Problem, but the ending was harder. For the longest time, I had no idea how to solve the titular “problem” that Jo experiences. I was in the dark with the characters, trying to find my way out.

The beginning kept backing up, taking Jo farther from the island where the main drama takes place—the opposite of Vonnegut’s “start as close to the end as possible”—because I discovered there was important emotional backstory readers needed to absorb before they reached Shattering Point.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

The earliest thematic inspiration for The Jellyfish Problem was the movie Jaws. I ended up rewatching it (also Alien and Nope) while I was revising; I literally mapped out the structure of all three movies into a sort of timeline, recording what major plot developments happened at 25%, 50%, and 75% of the way through and trying to mimic those beats in my book.

Because The Jellyfish Problem was so research-intensive, I also took a lot of influence from nonfiction: podcasts, lectures, articles, interviews, and reference books. I decided to have Jo working on her own book within The Jellyfish Problem, partially to give me a vehicle for sharing all the amazing stuff I was learning!

Visit Tessa Yang's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Kerri Hakoda

Kerri Hakoda has worked in and out of Alaska in advertising and marketing, marine transportation, cable television and trade magazine ad sales. She was born and raised in Hawaii, but now calls northwest Washington her home, where she lives with her husband (himself a veteran of the Alaska fishing industry) and writes mystery, historical, and young adult science fiction.

Hakoda's new novel is Too Deep to Cross: A Thriller.

My Q&A with the author:

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

I believe that title and cover design play a huge role, especially for a fairly new (but chronologically old) author like myself! My publisher and I labored over the title to Too Deep to Cross, far more so than for the first book. Since my first novel was titled Cold to the Touch, and Too Deep to Cross is a sequel, I think initially we were both stuck on the “Cold” theme. Considering that most of the action of the second book takes place in the summer, we ultimately thought a “Cold” title would be a stretch. I think that I came up with Too Deep to Cross early in the process and it made the cut each time. After much discussion, we agreed that it seemed like a “conversation” between the titles of the first and the second books. Since much of the book takes place on the Yukon River in Alaska, and there are themes of alienation and irreconcilable differences throughout, I think it works.

What’s in a name?

I had a lot of fun with character names – especially with my protagonist and his family. DeHavilland Beans is named after an aircraft as are his siblings Hercules, Piper and Otter. His oldest brother was named Lindbergh after the famous aviator. Their father was a bush pilot and obviously had far too much say in naming his offspring. One of my early reviewers thought my naming scheme was “silly” – maybe, but I allowed myself this indulgence.

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

Very surprised, since my teenage self had never left the Hawaiian Islands. My teenage world, although idyllic in many ways, was very small. The thought of writing a series of mysteries set in Alaska would have never occurred to me back then.

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

I love writing beginnings and endings! It’s the mushy middle part that sometimes gets away from me. Beginnings usually come fairly easily. Although I almost always know how I plan on ending the book, I do tend to change it more often than the beginning. Pesky loose ends suddenly appear and need tying up, especially in the mystery genre.

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

My characters share some of my cultural experiences and my insecurities, but ultimately, they give me the opportunity to step outside myself. So I’d have to say that no, I don’t normally see a whole lot of myself in them.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

The initial idea for my first book Cold to the Touch was kindled by the real-life tragedy of Samantha Koenig, a young barista who was kidnapped and killed by serial killer Israel Keyes. While I don’t strictly model my novels after actual events, I do keep a file of intriguing news “clippings,” that may or may not make their way into my books. Truth being stranger than fiction, and all that. Those of us in the Pacific Northwest remember a few years ago when human feet, encased in athletic shoes, began washing up on British Columbia beaches. I think the seed of Too Deep to Cross germinated from these real-life events, but grew in a different direction. Unlike Cold to the Touch, which is more linear in structure, Too Deep to Cross employs historical elements and events throughout.

Visit Kerri Hakoda's website.

Writers Read: Kerri Hakoda.

--Marshal Zeringue

Samantha Silva

Samantha Silva is an author and screenwriter based in Idaho. Over her career, she’s sold film projects to Paramount, Universal, and New Line Cinema. Sometime This Century is her third novel, following Love and Fury: A Novel of Mary Wollstonecraft and Mr. Dickens and His Carol, her debut.

My Q&A with the author:

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

Sometime This Century began life as a screenplay (sold to Universal 25 years ago) called What You Wish For about a young woman transported to Regency England who gets everything she’s ever dreamed of, or does she? It’s hard to give up a title you’ve lived with that long, but my editor thought it didn’t do enough to suggest the time-travel in the book. We brainstormed for weeks to come up with a title that nodded to that or the Regency era or Jane Austen (since my book riffs on hers). Then I stumbled onto a line for my heroine, Annabel Blake, that she utters in an early scene when she’s roundly rejected by her hot literary crush. “Well, it would be nice to be kissed sometime this century!” And there it was, the perfect title.

What's in a name?

Early in the novel, Annabel Blake arrives at Kidlington House charged with sorting out her English ex-pat boss’s “crumbling old pile” of a country home. It’s a good long walk from the village of Wakefield, where Annabel attends her first ever ball. “Kidlington” felt playful to me but also suggests that Annabel and her companions haven’t quite progressed from kids to mature adults when the story begins. “Wakefield” gives both a sense of the countryside, as the town is surrounded in fact by open fields, and signals that Annabel will have an awakening over the course of the story, which is the heart of the novel.

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

My teenage self would be utterly delighted that I had the wherewithal to finish a novel at all! I wanted to be a writer since about age six, then lost the plot and got distracted for years before I turned back to it. This novel would feel like it captured some of the pull I felt between being a straight-A student, bookish, and introverted, a bit lonely, and wanting to be a messier version of myself, a devil-may-care party girl who could do or say whatever she wanted. But it very much has my sense of humor (from wit to broad comedy) and my soft, romantic heart.

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

I’ve twice written the beginning chapter of a novel that ended up being its ending, so apparently for me they can be fungible! I think the unconscious writer mind knows things the conscious writer doesn’t and it’s worth following one’s nose in the early going but staying open to where it might lead. Because Sometime This Century started as a screenplay, I knew the beginning, middle, and end before I started adapting it as a novel. The beginning and the ending were great fun to write and didn’t change much at all, except to go deeper than one can in a screenplay. The middle, where all the complication happens, is the tricky part, but also offered up rich opportunities for things to go awry, which is all the more satisfying when Annabel Blake overcomes them, becoming who she was always meant to be.

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 writers often pick projects that help them work out their own unconscious longings and issues, so it’s natural that our characters represent aspects of who we are. I’m far more the book-loving, introverted Annabel Blake—the Elinor Dashwood of my novel—than I am Cassie Blake, her party-girl-slash-influencer sister, who has more in common with Marianne Dashwood, of Austen’s Sense and Sensibility. Annabel is more Sense; Cassie's more Sensibility, or, in modern parlance, Demure and Brat. But as with Austen’s masterpiece, my sisters come to value how the other lives in the world. The sisters become more whole as they integrate that other part of themselves. Living as a woman in the world, with its never-ending conversation about how we ought to be, I like the idea of integration and wholeness, of being both/and, not either/or.

Visit Samantha Silva's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

J.P. Lacrampe

J.P. Lacrampe received his MFA in creative writing from Saint Mary’s College. His short fiction has been published by Glimmer Train, McSweeney's, Instant City, and in Howl: A Collection of the Best Contemporary Dog Wit. He is a professor at Santa Clara University & SJSU, where he teaches courses in composition, fiction, and screenwriting.

Lacrampe's new novel is Valet.

My Q&A with the author:

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

A lot, I hope. Valet is an acronym within the story, the occupation of the main character (a robot butler), and a homage to Wodehouse's Jeeves. My aim was that the title would set up the dynamic between the narrator and his human ward.

What's in a name?

I love this question! And my answer is: it depends. Sometimes you just need a name. You don't need to overthink or over complicate it. George. Emily. Jake. Other times, you want to play against type (i.e., give a character a name that seems ironic or unique in light of the characteristics you've established). Other times you want a name that helps establish those characteristics. I usually decide on this by feel: how important is the character, how many times will the reader see the name, what work have I already tried to do with the other characters' names, etc. One thing I learned from successive rounds of edits for my forthcoming novel is: don't make the names similar. It's needlessly confusing for the reader.

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

I was a cynical, pretentious teenager, so I think he'd mostly be surprised that it took me this long to write a novel.

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

Much harder to write endings, I think. Finding something that feels believable within the story but delivers a satisfying sense of closure to the reader is a tricky balance to strike! And I typically want an ending that extends the story outward just a little. So it's tough to get right. But I change the beginning more. Not just the exact moment that opens the story, but the details that help establish the world, characters, and conflicts for the reader.

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

I see a lot of myself in my characters: their flaws, their ever-failing efforts to hide those flaws from the world, their ambitions, etc. I primarily write in first-person, and it would be very hard, for me, to do that without connecting my personality to theirs in some way.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

So many! I grew up watching British comedy on PBS every Saturday night -- Are You Being Served?, Keeping Up Appearances, Fawlty Towers, etc. -- and those had a major influence on my sense of humor and tone. But I draw inspiration from so much: basketball, TV/film, music, etc. Marveling at what other people can do inspires me.

Visit J.P. Lacrampe's website.

The Page 69 Test: Valet.

--Marshal Zeringue