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