Alicia Beckman

Alicia Beckman adored living in Seattle as a college student and young lawyer, but is happiest back home in her native Montana, where she lives with her husband, a musician and doctor of natural medicine, and their full-figured gray tuxedo cat. As Leslie Budewitz, she’s the bestselling author of the Seattle Spice Shop and Food Lovers’ Village mysteries. A three-time Agatha Award winner, for Best Short Story (2018), Best First Novel (2013), and Best Nonfiction (2011), she is a past president of Sisters in Crime and a current board member of Mystery Writers of America.

Beckman's new novel is Bitterroot Lake.

My Q&A with the author:

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

The title Bitterroot Lake appeared as I neared the end of the first draft, and like love at first sight, I recognized it instantly. My previous novels are cozy mystery—the light-hearted side of the mystery world—and I was headed down an adjacent road, with a proposal for a traditional mystery series. The acquiring editor thought the first had the potential to be stand-alone suspense and I knew she was absolutely right. That meant my working title no longer fit, and also meant using a pen name. I didn’t mind either change. Only a handful of my books have come to print with their original titles, and the pen name gave me a chance to honor my late mother.

Bitterroot Lake is the story of four women who reunite unexpectedly after twenty-five years and are forced by murder to reconsider the tragedy that tore them apart. It’s also a story of fractured friendships and family ties, of the connections between women across the generations, and of the ways a place can influence us.

Not far from my home in NW Montana is a small mountain lake called Little Bitterroot. The name worked so well for this book that I didn’t hesitate to borrow it. The real lake is fairly remote and not near a town, but the surrounding area is very much that of the fictional place.

The connotations of the word “bitterroot” fit the story perfectly. The bitterroot is a ground-flower with pinkish-lavender petals native to the Northern Rockies, wild and impossible to cultivate. Meriwether Lewis, he of “undaunted courage” as historian Stephen Ambrose titled his biography, borrowing a phrase from Thomas Jefferson, named the plant, which is sacred to the native tribes of Western Montana. It is now the state flower. It is pure loveliness, a brief life that returns each year. And yet, the name hints at secrets, that something deeply rooted has left a bitter taste, sown discord.

The unexpected gathering at the center of the story takes place at a lakeside lodge owned by the family of the main character, Sarah McCaskill Carter. And there is something inherently mysterious, even ominous, about “lake” in a title.

So the title is both geography and metaphor, taking us to a place and setting the mood for the journey. Ultimately, like that flower blooming on the hillside high above the water, good and beauty triumph, but at a cost.

What's in a name?

Sarah and her brother and sister are each named for a long-gone relative or family friend. They know it, but they don’t know much about their namesakes. I firmly believe that a woman’s journey—a heroine’s journey—is one of identity. For Sarah and Holly, discovering the truth about the women whose names they bear gives them a stronger sense of connection to their family and its history, and ultimately, a stronger sense of themselves.

But it was actually finding the brother’s name, Connor—through a suggestion from a reader—that helped me see the connections between the three siblings and their ancestors, and decide to make that a stronger element in the story.

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

My teenage self worked as a bookseller, the second best job I’ve ever had. (First? Novelist, of course.) One of my favorite books from those days was “. . . And Ladies of the Club” by Helen Hooven Santmyer, a fat paperback I still have. It begins in 1868 in a small town in Ohio, when two young girls are invited to join a local book club, and ends in 1932 when the last of them dies. In between, the girls become young women, wives, mothers, widows, and old ladies, but the constants are their friendship and the club. Clearly, the themes of women’s friendships and of women helping each other cope with ordinary life and extraordinary tragedy—a huge part of Bitterroot Lake—took hold a long time ago.

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

While I can’t say one is harder than the other, for most of my books, the beginning changes more. That seems natural: We find the story as we write it, and what we thought was the beginning might turn out to have happened years before, fifty pages in, or not at all. That said, the first chapter of Bitterroot Lake is pretty much what I wrote in the original proposal, although the finished book has a short prologue that both sets up and reflects the rest of the story.

I always knew the choices Sarah and her friends would make at the end. I did not know how they would get to those choices or the discoveries they would make along the way. Finding out what happens, and how it affects the main characters, is a big part of why I write, and I think it’s the main reason we read fiction: to have an emotional experience, to make an emotional connection, that helps us better understand the world around us.

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

There’s a piece of me or something that intrigues me in most of my characters, even, I have to admit, the villains. The key is to take that bit and push it, stretch it, see how an experience makes one person behave one way, while another person responds completely differently.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

So many things! I’m deeply rooted in Montana, the setting of Bitterroot Lake and my Food Lovers’ Village mysteries, and I loved going to college in Seattle, the setting of my Spice Shop mysteries. A sense of place and history are key to my writing. I paint a little, and art and artists work their way into most of my stories. Food. Travel. Dogs and cats. The sense of discovery. Knowing a lot of artists, writers, and musicians, as Mr. Right and I do, has expanded my sense of the creative process. Central to it is the ability to bring together disparate ideas, and I’m grateful for the ways that writing, by doing that, connects me to the world and the people in it.

Visit Leslie Budewitz's & Alicia Beckman's website.

The Page 69 Test: Bitterroot Lake.

--Marshal Zeringue

Anne Hillerman

Anne Hillerman continues the Navajo detective stories her father Tony Hillerman made popular. Her debut novel, Spider Woman’s Daughter, received the Western Writers Spur Award as best first novel. That book and the four novels that followed were all New York Times best sellers. Her newly released sixth mystery is Stargazer. When she’s not working, Hillerman likes to read, cook, ski and travel. She lives in Santa Fe with frequent trips to the Navajo Nation.

My Q&A with the author:

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

Stargazer is a one-word work horse. It describes the victim, an astronomer whose murder drives the mystery. It also speaks to at least two of the main subplots---one that concerns aviation and a second that involves planning for the future, seeing ahead, and the like—metaphorically studying the stars to see what they hold. Because the story concerns both the murder of an astronomer, fear of flying, and at least two of the major characters’ struggle with how to shape their destinies, I love this title.

Titles usually arrive in my brain around the time I’ve finished the first draft. That was true for Stargazer and I am especially fond of it.

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

I find both beginnings and endings to be challenging and both get a lot of massaging before I let them be. In Stargazer, I added a new beginning to my original first chapter a few days before I declared the first draft finished. It’s the only place in the book that offers the reader a chance to meet the dead man. That mattered to me because his death drives the story. I wrote this scene as a literary snapshot, which meant leaving out details that could have spoiled the reader’s fun in figuring out who did it. I found it a delightful challenge.

In a traditional mystery both the writer and the reader understand that the crime must be solved by the end of the book. It’s reassuring to work in this template as the story races to its conclusion. In Stargazer, as is usual for me, I did a lot of tightening to enhance the action and deepen the tension. The result put Bernie Manuelito, my police officer protagonist, in greater danger more quickly. After the climactic scene where she confronts the villain with the news that the gig is up, I add a brief wrap- up chapter to deal with loose ends. I changed that, too.

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 bit of myself, both strengths and faults, in all the major characters even though, as the question suggests, we are a world apart.

Part of the joy of writing a mystery fiction series is the freedom the genre gives an author to explore issues that arise in human relationships, be they professional, social, or of the heart. Besides their jobs as crime solvers, each of my main characters negotiates the sometimes stormy territory of personal relationships in different ways. Bernie, my main crime solver, juggles a job, a marriage, a sibling relationship, and an aging parent--- as I did for many years. Her husband, Sgt. Jim Chee, works at a job he loves and wonders what’s next in his career--- the same position I was in when I switched from writing non-fiction to fiction. And Joe Leaphorn, like many people I know, failed retirement and enjoys the mental stimulation and the social connection of continuing his involvement in the world of law enforcement where he once made a living.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

I love writing about real places, such as the Alamo Navajo community and the Very Large Array astronomy center that are featured in Stargazer. Not only does this result in two less things to pull from my imagination, it also gives me a solid base for information.

The amazing scenery of the American Southwest is one of my main inspirations. The expansive vistas lead to big thoughts, and give ideas plenty of room to grow. If I ever get stuck on a story, a trip to the landscape where the fictional action unfolds usually shakes the words free.

Some of my inspiration comes from driving through this vast, largely empty, amazing country, usually with little traffic and time to quietly focus on the conflicts and joys of the book in progress.

My years as a food writer also provide some magic to the stories. When in doubt, my characters often review cases over a meal. I enjoy switching from evil to endive for a few paragraphs.

Learn more about the book and author at Anne Hillerman's website.

My Book, The Movie: Spider Woman's Daughter.

The Page 69 Test: Spider Woman's Daughter.

The Page 69 Test: Song of the Lion.

The Page 69 Test: The Tale Teller.

--Marshal Zeringue

James L. Cambias

James Cambias has been nominated for the James Tiptree Jr. Award and the 2001 John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer.

Cambias's new novel is The Godel Operation.

My Q&A with the author:

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

I picked The Godel Operation very specifically because it sounds like one of a series of adventures. I plan to write other adventures in the Billion Worlds setting, involving some of the same characters, so I wanted a name with an obvious structure for future variations. So at present I'm writing another novel in the same setting called The Scarab Mission, and I just finished a short story for an upcoming Baen anthology called "The Paoshi Puzzle."

Now for short fiction I don't plan to be quite as locked into the structure of "The Name Thing" forever but since that particular short story is sort of a prequel to The Godel Operation it seemed appropriate. I have two other Billion Worlds stories which don't follow that pattern: "Calando" in Athena Andreadis's anthology Retellings From the Inland Seas, and "Out of the Dark" in John Joseph Adams's collection Lost Worlds and Mythological Kingdoms.

The title does have significance within the story. The "Godel Trigger" is the legendary MacGuffin my characters are pursuing in the novel. So one of the characters could well refer to these events as the "Godel Operation." Though they'd probably call it the "Godel Fiasco" instead.

What's in a name?

I put a lot of effort into coming up with character names. I make heavy use of translation software to find words in other languages with a nice sound and appropriate meaning. My narrator, Daslakh, is an artificial intelligence in a small spider-shaped body. Its name is deliberately chosen to sound anonymous: it's derived from the Hindi word for a million. So it's kind of as though this machine is calling itself "John Smith."

My second protagonist, Zee, is a young man who starts the novel feeling a bit depressed because he is anonymous — one of a quadrillion humans living in the Solar System at the end of the Tenth Millennium. So his name is just literally the letter Z. I knew it had to be a short name for contrast with Daslakh. The two names together make a nice team: Daslakh and Zee.

The two main female characters have names taken from different languages. Adya's name is derived from the Indian language Malayalam (not to be confused with the Malay language spoken in southeast Asia). Her rival Kusti's name comes from Kazakh. In a story taking place 8,000 years from now the last thing I want is to have people named Bob and Sue and Tiffany.

Other characters have names with more obvious derivations. Pelagia, a spaceship with an orca brain, has a name derived from a word meaning deep ocean. The space habitat Summanus is permanently in Jupiter's shadow and is named for the somewhat obscure Roman god of nighttime thunder.

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

I think Teenaged Me would be pleased and delighted with The Godel Operation, but not very surprised. One of the early wellsprings of my Billion Worlds setting was a nonfiction book by the British science writer Adrian Berry, called The Next Ten Thousand Years. I read it way back in the late 1970s so a lot of the concepts have been bouncing around my skull since I was a teenager.

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

In the case of The Godel Operation I wrote the first chapter as a kind of "proof of concept" for the characters Daslakh and Zee and the Billion Worlds setting. When I saw it was something I thought I'd like to write, I then had to sit down and plan out the rest of the story. I have learned the hard way that I really do need to know how it's going to end before I start, so I plotted it all the way out. Only then did I pitch the novel to my publisher.

In general beginnings are easier than endings.

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

I definitely see a connection between myself and my characters. Each one has some little bit of my own personality. Of course, I do draw on other people, both people I know and historical figures. But when I'm coming up with behavior and dialog for the characters in the story I need to be able to "play" them like an actor, at least inside my own head. As a result each one has a viewpoint I can adopt. Yes, that includes villains.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

Since I was a skinny 13-year-old science fiction fan when Star Wars came out, I'd be lying if I said that hasn't been a tremendous influence on me. The grungy, "lived-in" look of the spaceships and other worlds in George Lucas's movies definitely affected how I imagine the future.

But in general I try not to let current events affect what I write. When I'm doing science fiction, I want to immerse the reader in a future or alien world, and the quickest way to pop that bubble of belief is to throw in some gratuitous reference to some damned thing on Twitter or CNN in 2020 which nobody will remember by the time the novel gets printed.

I also don't let my personal grudges and quarrels into what I write. I don't think I have ever modeled a villain on someone I personally dislike. You won't find the kid I feuded with in middle school or the girl I broke up with in college hiding under a false name in my fiction.

Visit James L. Cambias's website.

My Book, The Movie: A Darkling Sea.

My Book, The Movie: Arkad's World.

The Page 69 Test: Arkad's World.

My Book, The Movie: The Godel Operation.

--Marshal Zeringue

Sofía Segovia

Sofía Segovia was born in Monterrey, Mexico. She studied communications at Universidad de Monterrey, mistakenly thinking that she would be a journalist. But fiction is her first love. A creative writing teacher, she has also been a ghostwriter and communications director for local political campaigns and has written several plays for local theater. The Spanish edition of her bestselling El murmullo de las abejas (The Murmur of Bees) was an Audie Award winner and named novel of the year by iTunes, and the English translation by Simon Bruni and narrated by Xe Sands and Angelo Di Loreto was one of Audible’s Top 10 of 2019 and a Voice Arts Award winner. She is also the author of Peregrinos (Tears of Amber), Noche de huracán (Night of the Hurricane), and Huracán (Hurricane).

My Q&A with Segovia:

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

The original title in Spanish is Peregrinos — Pilgrims— in honor of the oldest and most shared human story of exodus and migration. It didn’t work in English, especially in the US because of the foundational story, and so it had to change. I love the title Tears of Amber because it shows the subtle fantastical element of the story, but it also directly connects the stories of Arno and Ilse. I chose both (Spanish and English titles) in the hope to intrigue, but I know they are still on the abstract side of things. In other words, they don’t give the story away from the get go, but I hope they become clear in the process and still resonate strongly when the reader reaches the end and closes the book.

What's in a name?

I do believe names are crucial. In The Murmur of Bees, Simonopio became what the root of his name signifies —the one who listens—, and I didn’t even know the meaning until after publication. For Tears of Amber it was a bit different: the names Arno and Ilse are the names in real life of my characters, and in honor of their struggle I kept them. For some others, real or imagined, I had to consult the encyclopedia of German or Polish names. My requisite was simple: I had to be able to pronounce them! Having said that, I couldn’t dismiss my past experience with Simonopio. I chose the name Janusz for a character in Tears of Amber because to me, it sounded melodic and benign. Janusz turned out to be as endearing as his name and a favorite character, not only for me, but for most readers.

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

I like to think that my teenage self would love to read Tears of Amber, and that the characters would give her an important insight into the human condition and the human experience. Although, she would be surprised to learn that she was the author, because my teenage self — as much as she loved reading and writing — didn’t believe in herself, so she didn’t even dare dream. Yet.

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

To each its own. In previous novels I’ve known the ending — even to the precise wording— before starting. In Tears of Amber I found the ending to be the biggest challenge to date. From the start I wanted to underscore the continuation of Arno’s and Ilse’s journey —the Mexican connection— but I knew I shouldn’t extend the story even further. I did have to rewrite until I found the perfect approach and the perfect “amberine” solution.

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

Writing myself in my characters would be boring! I love becoming and feeling “other”, a superpower we, as willing readers, acquire through good fiction. As a writer I make an even more pronounced effort to leave my sense of self behind. Having said that, as I write, I do build an undeniable connection to my characters, whomever they may be. I learn through them. In that exercise, I’ve been old and newborn, of diverse nationalities, evil and good, man and woman, and even bee (in The Murmur of Bees) and dog (in Tears of Amber). I do create them, but I know they transform me. I get back to myself with new insight.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

Even when I leave my sense of self behind, current events and politics are ever present in the themes of my novels. The anguish provoked by the daily news moves me. In the paper, every day, one can read the universality of gender violence, the eternal war between good and evil, or the constant rise and fall of totalitarians, for example. I’ve found that they are concepts better analyzed, absorbed, and comprehended through fiction. I take the cold hard facts and figures of the news as inspiration to change the telling of them. The characters in all my novels are common folk like us, like me: people who live and suffer their own current news or circumstances without much say in the matter. In other words, just statistics found in the news. Through fiction, characters can become more real than people in reality, in a way, because they tell of the human experience and condition, something mere statistics can never do.

Also, as I write, I realize that I am combining the cinematic language with the literary, which results in what I feel are some strong cinematic scenes expressed through written language.

Visit Sofía Segovia's website.

The Page 69 Test: Tears of Amber.

--Marshal Zeringue

Trish Doller

Trish Doller is the author of novels for teens and adults about love, life, and finding your place in the world. A former journalist and radio personality, Doller has written several YA novels, including the critically acclaimed Something Like Normal, as well as Float Plan, her adult women's fiction debut. When she's not writing, she loves sailing, traveling, and avoiding housework. Doller lives in southwest Florida with an opinionated herding dog and an ex-pirate.

My Q&A with the author:

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

The original title for the book was Apparent Wind, which is an esoteric term regarding the speed of the wind that's hard enough to explain to sailors, let alone to the general public. When I was considering more accessible titles, I remembered that a float plan is something American boaters are supposed to file with the Coast Guard (or with a reliable friend) in case the boater doesn't make their destination. I wondered how many boaters actually file a float plan, and that started me thinking about Anna's journey. In Float Plan, I think the word "float" does most of the heavy lifting until readers get into the story and realize Anna doesn't have much of a plan.

What's in a name?

Anna got her name from a song by Counting Crows called "Anna Begins." The song has no connection to the book; it's just a favorite song that made me love the name. But since the very beginning, Float Plan has been a project very close to my heart, so it seemed fitting to give my main character a name I love.

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

Present me and teenage me have a lot in common when it comes to reading tastes. I wrote Float Plan because it's the novel I wanted to read, so I think teenage me (who wrote in secret) would be thrilled--not only that it was published, but that I wrote about something we both really like.

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

Most of the time, beginnings are easier for me because I tend to start with an emotional bang. But it was a little different with Float Plan because the original manuscript started in the wrong place. I kept clinging to the notion that readers needed all of that information. When I cut the beginning and put Anna on the boat much sooner, the urgency became immediate and the energy of the book changed.

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 tiny bit of me in every character. It may not be something recognizable to the general public or that I've talked about widely. Anna in Float Plan is not me, but there are elements of her pain that I have experienced in my own life--and I'm still learning how to be a better sailor, too.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

I get inspiration from places I visit, things that happen in the world around me, and people I meet in real life, but music has the biggest influence on my work. As I mentioned earlier, music gave me the name of a main character. I've written a book based on the way a song makes me feel whenever I hear it. I've listened to a single song on repeat while writing a scene because it helped me channel the anguish the character needed. I make playlists for all of my books, filled with songs that reflect the characters, settings, plot, and emotions.

Visit Trish Doller's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Trish Doller & Cobi.

My Book, The Movie: Float Plan.

--Marshal Zeringue

Julie Czerneda

Canadian, biologist, award-winning author/editor Julie E. Czerneda shares her curiosity about living things and optimism about life through her science fiction and fantasy, published by DAW Books, NY. The 20th anniversary edition of her acclaimed SF novel, In the Company of Others, will be released fall 2021 (Philip K. Dick Award finalist; winner 2002 Aurora for Best English Novel). Her new novel is Spectrum, continuing Esen’s misadventures in the Web Shifter’s Library series, featuring all the weird biology one could ask.

My Q&A with Czerneda:

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

Spectrum is my latest Esen novel and readers may have noticed a pattern to her titles. The first sense I considered when I wrote about Web Shifters, aliens who take on, at the molecular level, the form of another species, was vision. The first book was called Beholder’s Eye because what Esen is able to see, with the eyes she happens to have, matters. I’ve played with variations ever since, always about light. Spectrum? Again, a title to reflect the importance of vision, but also a hint to readers that stellar astronomy will be front and center.

For the last three books, we’ve added “Web Shifter’s Library” to cue readers these stories revolve around Esen and her Human friend Paul’s attempt to provide crucial cultural details to those in crisis, a library where you bring a bit of new information in order to receive what you need to know. Who doesn’t love a library?

What's in a name?

A series brings with it a growing list of names, and if you’re dealing with the far future and masses of aliens, some involve spit. For my favourite new character, however, I wanted a name from, well, here. Earth. A simple yet memorable name, one to make a person reading it smile, a little, picturing a quaint little village where nothing much ever changes. I picked Evan, in part because one of Esen’s greatest fans over the years has been an Evan (hi), but also because it’s a pleasant name. When it came to a surname? What came to me was Gooseberry.

Having named the delightful Evan Gooseberry, I chose to explain how, in Esen’s universe, there’d be a Gooseberry at all. This led me to create the Gooseberry Lore, a treasured family document tracing holders of the name all the way back to fabled, long-lost Earth. To that quaint little village. You didn’t, I hasten to add, even have to be Human. You just had to be a Gooseberry, attached legally to that lineage.

Poor young Evan is expected to produce the next generation of Gooseberrys—by adoption if need be—and, his family hopes, become the next keeper of the Lore. Evan’s in no hurry.

So much story tension and fun, all in a name.

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

When writing Esen, both are easy and I don’t change them. In fact, I wrote the final paragraphs of Beholder’s Eye first, then created the rest of the story to get me there. As I look at Esen’s novels, I find that’s continued to be my process for her. Not in precise words, as in Beholder, but certainly I know the tone and direction before I get underway.

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

Maybe? I’ve often referred to writing the next Esen book as my vacation time. Her stories are the easiest of all for me to write and filled with moments when I burst out laughing. I think it’s the liberation of tossing in everything I love about our natural world, with some tongue-in-cheek alien adaptations, but now that you’re posing the question? Esen’s attitude toward everyone around her reflects mine. The depth of her friendships—that’s me as well, though admittedly my initial inspiration was my dislike for science fiction where no one has friends.

It’s also entirely possible I babble to myself and recite cool bio facts to anyone close when excited, much as Esen does.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

I read and research for every book I plan to write, plus for Esen, I collect weird biology facts and new discoveries. There’s a file drawer. Those inspire me. Attenborough shows like The Perfect Planet definitely get the juices flowing.

Looking way back, an influence on how I structure my novels came from tv westerns. The “back at the ranch” flashes to show what was happening away from the action seemed an excellent approach, as did commercial breaks at “cliff hangers”, a point of tension, to keep watchers glued to the set. When I wrote my first Esen, I put in flashes to an alien point of view called “Out There” to show what the bad thing was doing. My chapters stop at points where you really want to jump to the next page. Even the little hints of more to come at the end of shows, to entice you into watching next week (or right away, in streaming land) I use in Esen’s stories. There’s one at the end of Spectrum by the way.

Visit Julie E. Czerneda's website.

The Page 69 Test: To Guard Against the Dark.

The Page 69 Test: The Gossamer Mage.

The Page 69 Test: Mirage.

--Marshal Zeringue

Kelly Mustian

Kelly Mustian grew up in Natchez, Mississippi, the southern terminus of the historic Natchez Trace. Her work has appeared in numerous literary journals and commercial magazines, and her short fiction has won a Blumenthal Writers and Readers Series Award. She is a past recipient of a Regional Artist Grant from the North Carolina Arts and Science Council. Mustian currently lives with her family near the foothills of North Carolina.

The Girls in the Stilt House is her debut novel.

My Q&A with the author:

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

Titles almost never come easily to me, but I was in love with my working title for the book that became The Girls in the Stilt House. I wanted a title that was symbolic, meaningful, and intriguing, with a nod to nature. All of that. My publishing team, however, wanted a title that works to draw readers into the story. The Girls in the Stilt House does that. It introduces the young women who are the main characters and speaks to the setting, which is a stilt house hidden away on a swamp. It hints at intrigue. This title has served the novel well. My first love, though? A Jury of Trees.

What's in a name?

I’m a big fan of symbolism and analogy, but not so much with my name choices. I tend to lean toward names that begin with vowels for soft characters (Ada) and consonants for bolder characters (Matilda). Other than a set of twins who appear briefly (“Serena and Tranquilla—wishful thinking, those names”) and an Easter egg or two, I chose the names in this novel based mostly on the way they sound. The name “Annis,” though, is central to the mystery at the heart of The Girls in the Stilt House.

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

Not surprised at all. My world view was shaped by books I read growing up in Mississippi while trying to make sense of the world around me during some particularly turbulent years of the Civil Rights Movement. Books like Solomon Northup’s Twelve Years a Slave and Anne Moody’s Coming of Age in Mississippi. An old soul, I came of age reading work by Southern Gothic authors from the thirties and forties—Carson McCullers and Robert Penn Warren and Eudora Welty. So writing a novel set in 1920s Mississippi about two young characters grappling with a disturbing and dangerous cultural landscape is, I think, what my teenage self would have expected.

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

Beginnings are the worst. There are so many possibilities, so many choices to make, so many false starts. But with this project, I began with an image of an overgrown cemetery in the woods and an old, broken tomb with a cracked lid, a scene I remembered from my Mississippi childhood. And that’s where I started with this story—two young women in need of a place to hide a body, a broken tomb in the woods off the old Natchez Trace, and a swamp that lent itself to lush language and a slight Southern Gothic mood.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

Music and time in the woods. I can’t listen to music while I work, but I make a playlist for projects—songs that have a connection to the story or the characters—and load it into an old-school iPod, plug that into an equally old-school docking station with pretty decent speakers, and listen in the kitchen while I cook. Something about the music filling the room gives it more impact, and I find that inspiring.

Also, I made friends with the physical landscape of my childhood early on, as Ada did in my novel: “When she was a little girl, she believed she loved this place, the trees offering themselves as steadfast companions, the wildflowers worthy confidants, but passing through now with eyes that had taken in other wonders and a heart that had allowed an outsider to slip in, she knew she had only been resigned to it. As she was again.” I left Mississippi at nineteen, and my landscapes have been many and varied since then, but I’m always at peace in the woods. Nature is an endless source of inspiration.

Visit Kelly Mustian's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Eleanor Morse

Eleanor Morse is the author of White Dog Fell from the Sky and An Unexpected Forest, which won the Independent Publisher’s Gold Medalist Award for Best Regional Fiction in the Northeast United States, and was selected as the Winner of the Best Published Fiction by the Maine writers and Publishers Alliance. Morse has taught in adult education programs, in prisons, and in university systems, both in Maine and in southern Africa. She lives on Peaks Island, Maine.

Morse's new novel is Margreete's Harbor.

My Q&A with the author:

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

To give you a little background, Margreete's Harbor traces the life of a family of six people in three generations living under one roof during the 1950s and 1960s. They all end up together because the grandmother, Margreete, who suffers from dementia, burns down the kitchen and is unable to live alone safely. She refuses to leave her home and the rest of the family moves to Maine to be with her.

The structure of the novel is kaleidoscope, with six voices and six interconnected story lines. Because of this, I had a heck of a time coming up with a title that worked for all of those voices. I could have filled pages with titles I considered and rejected. Here are a few: Love, Even So. Keepers of This Place. Lifeboat. Rowing Toward the Light. Anthem for Six Voices. There were dozens more!

I owe the title, Margreete's Harbor, to my agent, who said, "Your book is like a five-pointed star, with Margreete at the center. Why not Margreete's Harbor?" So that was it.

Titles are the first words that a reader reads. Because of that, they feel really important. I wanted these first words to pull a reader into the book with a concrete image. In this case, I hope the word "harbor" does this through an image of water, boats, and a feeling of shelter.

What's in a name?

Out of the six main characters in the book, some of the names came to me and never changed, and others changed a couple of times. Bernie, the oldest kid in the family, first appeared in a short story, walking at a distance across a field with a kind of lumbering walk. He was always Bernie. I can't explain why, but I can't imagine him called anything else. The names of Harry (the father) and Gretchen (the youngest daughter) also came quickly. Margreete (the grandmother) also came to me easily, although she began as Margrete. I added the extra "e" so it would be clearer how to pronounce her name.

I struggled, though, with the mother--Liddie (short for Lydia)--and with the middle daughter, Eva. When I'm coming up with names, I try not to overthink. Sometimes the name comes first and sometimes the character. With Liddie and Eva, I tried out a bunch of ideas, but their names only became clear as I got to know them better.

Margreete's second husband, the love of her life and the father of her children, was named Irving Bright. He was originally from New York City, and was a kind man, a good dancer, with eyes of deep brown and breath that smelled of tobacco. Margreete's life with Irving was filled with color and brightness, so that surname seemed to make sense. His eventual death devastated Margreete (this is backstory, so I'm not giving anything away). Later, (still backstory) she made a mistake and married a banker name Everett Hocking. He was a boring man who cleared his throat importantly. I needed a name that sounded a stiff, like a man who pontificates.

With naming, I'm generally not looking for metaphors or associations as much as something that simply fits the character.

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

I enjoy beginning a book, opening a doorway into a new, still unknown world. I don't know how my books will end when I begin them. I find endings much harder to write than beginnings. By that time, I'm pulling together lots of threads and trying to make sense of it all. So I tend to write and re-write endings way more than beginnings.

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

I've never been drawn to write highly autobiographical fiction. Margreete's Harbor is probably as close as I've ever come, with a scene or two lifted from real experiences growing up in my family (a disastrous piano recital is one scene that comes to mind). All writing is a combination of memory and imagination, and I tend to draw more heavily from imagination than memory. Having said that, though, every character I've ever written has some connection to me, in the same way that every character in our dream lives is said to be connected to some aspect of ourselves. Finding that connection makes characters more real and more sympathetic, but sometimes it's also a booby trap when I realize, "Hey, that's something I do, too, and I wish I didn't."

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

Music has definitely influenced my writing. I played the piano from a young age, and classical music was my first art form until I realized I wasn't suited to performance (see the "disastrous piano recital" above). I now play for pleasure and often sit down at the keyboard when I'm stuck on a scene--it helps get things moving, and I appreciate that it's wordless. The natural world is another big influence. And in Margreete's Harbor, the political environment matters a good deal: how things changed between the 50s and the 60s, how these changes affected characters.

Visit Eleanor Morse's website.

The Page 69 Test: Margreete’s Harbor.

--Marshal Zeringue

Maria Kuznetsova

Maria Kuznetsova was born in Kiev, Ukraine, and moved to the United States as a child. Her first novel, Oksana, Behave!, was published in 2019. She lives in Auburn, Alabama, with her husband and daughter, where she is an assistant professor of creative writing at Auburn University. She is also a fiction editor at The Bare Life Review, a journal of immigrant and refugee literature.

Kuznetsova's new novel is Something Unbelievable.

My Q&A with the author:

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

The title does a lot to take the reader into the thematic ideas in my novel – that, while there is a certain order to a generational family saga that spans centuries and continents, at the end of the day, the result can be called "something unbelievable."

What's in a name?

Names – and nicknames - are so important in Russian-speaking culture. In my book, last names are important, too – Larissa sheds her family name to take the name of her husband, who comes from an illustrious family. Natasha, an actress whose first name becomes a running joke because many of the Russian prostitute roles she tries out for are also for people named Natasha, sheds her last name – which was the same as her grandmother's – to take an American last name that would make her seem like a more Americanized actress. Natasha also gives her daughter, Natalia, the same name as her grandmother's mother – so in the end, there is still something that binds all these generations of women, whether they shared the same last name or not.

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

Very surprised! As a teenager, I didn't feel like I had "permission" to write about characters who weren't American - like Natasha the actress, I wanted to fit in and shed my immigrant identity. I would be shocked that all of my characters were born in Kiev and spoke Russian – and I would also be surprised that I took so much interest in my family's past and history.

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

Generally, beginnings! I never know how the story really starts until I find the right ending.

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

I do see a lot of myself in my characters - usually a worse version of myself for comedic purposes, to be honest.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

The Bachelor!

Visit Maria Kuznetsova's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Nev March

Nev March is the recent winner of the Minotaur Books/Mystery Writers of America Award for Best First Crime Fiction.

After a long career in business analysis, in 2015 she returned to her passion, writing fiction and now teaches creative writing at Rutgers-Osher Institute. A Parsee Zoroastrian herself, she lives in New Jersey with her husband and two sons. Murder in Old Bombay is her debut novel.

My Q&A with the author:

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

My novel Murder in Old Bombay is based on a real tragedy. It was first titled The Rajabai Tower Mystery when it won MWA’s award and chosen for publication. However, my publisher and I discussed that “Raja-bai” is unfamiliar, even alien to people in the States and could put off readers. (Search Rajabai Tower Tragedy to find articles about the original events.) “Old Bombay” gives an impression of the Colonial era, so that works well for a historical mystery set during the British Raj.

What's in a name?

My protagonist Captain Jim Agnihotri’s very name is his burden, and central to the plot. It reflects his mixed parentage; James is an English name while Agnihotri is a Hindu Brahmin (high caste) name. He’s Anglo-Indian. “Anglo-Indian” was a term which originally meant British people settled in India. In the 1700s, Englishmen often took Indian wives and mistresses. Later however, the children of such unions were disapproved of by Englishmen as well as Indians, and were treated as outcasts. So yes, names matter. Another key character is feisty Diana. That’s a western name, reflecting her outspoken nature. The Parsi community did well under British rule so they adopted many western names, including Diana, Amy, Jenny etc. In memory of the original victims Bacha and Pilloo, I’ve retained their first names in the story.

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

That’s such a strange thing, I don’t think teen Nev would be surprised at all! I had written short stories from a male perspective even as a teen. My first short-story to be accepted in 1990 by a children’s magazine was a spooky adventure story for boys called “Must There be Crying?” I’d read war stories, western novels and classics even as a child. I’m now impressed that my parents allowed us kids to read these regardless of gender.

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

My beginnings fuel my story. All through the narrative, the ending beckons, urging me on. I hold off writing it as a reward for getting through some twisty bits. I usually have a strong idea of the ending, but I’ll admit that I alter it more.

Do you see much of yourself in your characters? Do they have any connection to your personality, or are they a world apart? What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

My observations and memories of small moments of life—those linger, germinate and influence my writing. The child waif in my tale, Chutki, comes from an incident decades ago. While waiting in line for a bus, I glimpsed a young mother (a baby in her lap) begging in front of Bandra Train Station. We didn’t even speak, but the look in her eyes when our gaze met--it has never left me. It’s curious how writing pulls these moments from my subconscious! Truly, we write to discover what we think.

Visit Nev March's website.

--Marshal Zeringue