Leah Franqui

Leah Franqui's new novel is America for Beginners.

From her Q&A with Adam Vitcavage at Writer's Bone:

Adam Vitcavage: Starting with a few questions directly related to this book, the novel follows a woman named Pival dealing with grief. Was there a particular event that inspired this plot?

Leah Franqui: There absolutely is an event that inspired this novel, but the plot about Pival’s grief was an act of imagination. When my now-husband and I graduated from graduate school, his parents and older sister came to our commencement from India. They had never been to the United States, nor outside of India much if at all before they came, and they had decided that after the graduation events they would take a tour of the United States, despite my husband’s loud and vocal protests. All their friends had done it, this is what people do, and for a lot of people there is this mentality in travel that if you are going to do it you have to cover as much ground as possible, it’s like Pokémon Go, you gotta catch ‘em all! Americans do this in Europe, you know, cover five countries in seven days or something like that. So even though it went against his foundational principles, my husband decided if his parents were going to take this trip covering seven cities in 11 days, he would have to go with them.

It was that trip, which, by the way, expressly guaranteed 11 Indian dinners, and really meeting my now-in-laws for the first time, that inspired this novel. Getting to know them also really informed this story. But it was also my mother-in-law’s negative reaction to homosexuality, which was...[read on]

Visit Leah Franqui's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Fiona Davis

Fiona Davis began her career in New York City as an actress, where she worked on Broadway, off-Broadway, and in regional theater. After getting a master's degree at Columbia Journalism School, she fell in love with writing, leapfrogging from editor to freelance journalist before finally settling down as an author of historical fiction. She's a graduate of the College of William & Mary and is based in New York City.

Davis's new novel is The Masterpiece.

From her Q&A with Nancy Gilson for The Columbus Dispatch:

Q: What made you decide to write “The Masterpiece” about the Grand Central School of Art?

A: The idea came during an author talk for my second book (“The Dakota”). A reader said she could get me a behind-the-scenes tour of the Grand Central Terminal. The tour was spectacular. We got to go into the crosswalks, so we were looking down at the concourse ... and to an abandoned train car that supposedly belonged to FDR.

But it all didn’t really connect until I read about the School of Art, which no one seems to know about. It was founded by (painter) John Singer Sargent. ... I didn’t know much about fine arts, and it terrified me to start writing about painters and illustrators, but I did a lot of research.

Q: Your main characters are based on real artists who taught at the school: painter Arshile Gorky and illustrator/industrial designer Helen Dryden. How different are the characters from the real people?

A: I would say they are more...[read on]

Visit Fiona Davis's website.

My Book, The Movie: The Address.

My Book, The Movie: The Masterpiece.

--Marshal Zeringue

Cherise Wolas

Cherise Wolas's new novel is The Family Tabor.

From her Q&A with Deborah Kalb:

Q: How did you come up with the idea for this new novel, and for the members of your fictional Tabor family?

A: The fictional Tabors have been with me for a very long time. I first imagined them during a snowstorm when I was living in a small town in Washington.

They lived in a rambling house, knew how to speak a dead language, and the youngest child was a hemophiliac who created alter egos for himself. That first iteration is in a tiny story called "Aramaic" that was published in Narrative magazine.

Their second iteration was in a long story called "An Unexpected Conversion." A new version of the Tabors appeared. They were clarifying themselves as a contemporary family and refusing their quasi-magical components.

Their third iteration appears in my debut novel, The Resurrection of Joan Ashby. Joan Ashby is an acclaimed story writer and her second collection, Fictional Family Life, is about a 15-year-old hemophiliac named Simon Tabor and his alter egos; and a 15-year-old boy named Simon Tabor who throws himself off the roof of the family home because...[read on]

Visit Cherise Wolas's website.

Writers Read: Cherise Wolas (November 2017).

The Page 69 Test: The Resurrection of Joan Ashby.

--Marshal Zeringue

Laura van den Berg

From NPR's Scott Simon's Q&A with Laura van den Berg about her latest novel, The Third Hotel:

SIMON: What is it about you and horror?

VAN DEN BERG: Well, I think my favorite horror films are really grounded in human psychology, which is to say I think through sort of extreme dislocations of reality. Whether it's via the monstrous or the paranormal, horror actually can really get at some of the most fundamental human questions.

If I may, there's a really fantastic horror movie called "The Babadook." And it centers around a mother-son relationship. And this mother is raising her son as a widow, and so they're on their own. And the son is having trouble. And they both become very isolated. And then, they begin to be menaced by this creature, this outside force.

And that's a movie that really beautifully navigates the ambiguity of - is there a monster in the house in the literal sense, or is this sort of feeling of the monstrous being generated by the psychic state of the characters? And I think that's the sort of aspect of horror, the strand of horror that interests me most powerfully in terms of...[read on]

Visit Laura van den Berg's website.

Writers Read: Laura van den Berg (January 2010).

--Marshal Zeringue

Lillian Li

Lillian Li's work has been published in Guernica, Granta, Glimmer Train, Bon Appetit, and Jezebel. Originally from the D.C. metro area, she lives in Ann Arbor.

Li's new novel is Number One Chinese Restaurant.

From her Q&A with Deborah Kalb:

Q: How did you come up with the idea for Number One Chinese Restaurant?

A: Whenever I start to talk about writing Number One Chinese Restaurant, I find I always begin with the summer before I wrote the novel, which was the summer I was a waitress at a Chinese restaurant.

When most people hear this, they assume I must have known I wanted to write about the restaurant before I started working there, but that wasn’t the case. I just wanted to make some money before grad school. The fact that the restaurant was a Chinese one was a complete accident.

I didn’t realize at the time that I could get a waitressing job by strolling into an Applebee’s and asking if they were hiring; my mom ended up finding the job through the classified section of the local Chinese newspaper.

As soon as I was hired I realized it was going to be an…awkward fit. For one, I was younger than all the other waiters by at least two decades, though most were in their 50s and 60s.

I was also the only American-born Chinese—everyone else had emigrated from China—and English was my first language while it was their second, third, sometimes fourth language.

But most importantly and egregiously of all, I ...[read on]

Visit Lillian Li's website.

Writers Read: Lillian Li.

--Marshal Zeringue

Tiffany Brownlee

Tiffany Brownlee was born in San Diego, California, and, as with many authors, her love for reading and writing began at an early age. Because her father was in the Navy, she and her family moved around far more often than she would have liked (she went to five elementary schools–not kidding!), but despite the many moves, her love of education, books, and writing remained.

Her family’s final move brought her to New Orleans, Louisiana, where she went on to study for and earn her B.S. in Psychology at Xavier University of Louisiana. Immediately after graduation, Brownlee began work as a Teacher’s Assistant while also pursuing a teaching certification from The University of Holy Cross. Juggling both school and work as a full-time teacher’s assistant was a little hectic for her, but she still managed to squeeze in some time to read and work on a YA novel idea that she’d thought up while rereading Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights (one of her favorite classics). That idea eventually became Wrong in All the Right Ways, her newly released debut novel.

Brownlee currently works as a middle school English teacher in New Orleans.

From her Q&A at Liv's Wonderful Escape:

What inspired you to write Wrong In All The Right Ways?

I was inspired to write Wrong in All the Right Ways when I finished rereading the book Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. Originally, I ready her book while in high school, and I’m partly embarrassed to say this, but I hated it. So I gave it a few years, and after I graduated college, I picked it back up and I fell in love with it! I was obsessed, so much so that I ended up fashioning a novel that centered on a relationship just as complicated as Catherine and Heathcliff’s but this time, putting a YA spin on it to answer a new question: What would happen if foster siblings and fell in love? That’s the whole basis of Wrong in All the Right Ways: forbidden love and how to handle falling in love with...[read on]

Visit Tiffany Brownlee's website.

My Book, The Movie: Wrong in All the Right Ways.

Writers Read: Tiffany Brownlee.

The Page 69 Test: Wrong in All the Right Ways.

--Marshal Zeringue

Abby Fabiaschi

After graduating from The Taft School in 1998 and Babson College in 2002, Abby Fabiaschi climbed the corporate ladder in high technology. When her children turned three and four in what felt like one season, she resigned to pursue writing.

Fabiaschi's debut novel is I Liked My Life.

From her Q&A with Deborah Kalb:

Q: You note that your novel initially was inspired by a loss you experienced as a teenager. How did you end up creating the characters of Eve, Madeline, and Brady?

A: Yes, I set out to explore grief compounded by guilt during those tender teenage years where we are all still in search of our voice and true self. With that goal in mind, I created a what-if scenario, tapping into the perspectives of the mother and the father as well, in the hopes of creating a holistic, layered narrative.

Q: You started an initial version of the book when you were 24, and put it away for seven years. How did your vision for the novel change over that time?

A: The heart of the story didn’t change, but the mother and husband’s perspective matured. When I completed the first draft I’d been married about a month and had no children.

When I revisited the story, I had a much better understanding of the institution of marriage, its roots and complexities, and I also had...[read on]

Visit Abby Fabiaschi's website.

The Page 69 Test: I Liked My Life.

Writers Read: Abby Fabiaschi (February 2017).

--Marshal Zeringue

Will McIntosh

Will McIntosh's new novel is The Future Will Be BS Free.

From his Q&A at Adventures in YA Publishing:

Will, what was your inspiration for writing THE FUTURE WILL BE BS FREE?

I was giving a test in the 300-student Intro to Psychology class I taught at William and Mary until recently. With so many students, you need at least two proctors, so a graduate student with a background in physiology was helping me. When the room was nearly empty, we got talking about future developments in her field. I asked if it might be possible to use a brain scan to tell when people were lying, and she told me about a part of the brain whose function was to resolve internal discrepancies. When people lie, that part of the brain is very active, and a brain scan, an fMRI, might one day be sensitive enough to detect this. That got me thinking about the implications of someone inventing a portable, foolproof lie detector.

What scene was really hard for you to write and why, and is that the one of which you are most proud? Or is there another scene you particularly love?

There's a scene where the brilliant teens who invent this portable lie detector realize that...[read on]

Learn more about the book and author at Will McIntosh's website.

My Book, The Movie: Soft Apocalypse.

Writers Read: Will McIntosh (December 2011).

My Book, The Movie: Hitchers.

--Marshal Zeringue

Kent Wascom

Kent Wascom's new novel is The New Inheritors.

From his Q&A with Deborah Kalb:

Q: How did you come up with the idea for The New Inheritors, and for your character Isaac?

A: While Isaac is the primary focus of the novel (it begins and ends with him), he came along much later in the book’s development. I worked on this book for almost a year before I settled on Isaac as the central character.

Up to that point I'd written a ton of backstory for the Woolsack family members, some of the Rule Chandler section, but the manuscript was basically a series of false starts and flashbacks.

I'd been nursing the germ of an idea for a story about an artist on the Gulf Coast in the early 20th century, inspired in part by Walter Anderson, whose relationship to nature in his life and work stands in stark opposition to the rapacity of his and our time.

Isaac's backstory, the first 50 or so pages of the book, came pretty close to...[read on]

Visit Kent Wascom's website.

Writers Read: Kent Wascom (July 2015).

--Marshal Zeringue

Gina Wohlsdorf

Gina Wohlsdorf's new novel is Blood Highway.

From her 2016 interview at The Reading List:

Which book has had the biggest impact on your career so far?

So far? Jealousy by Alain Robbe-Grillet. Security was this cool little seed of an idea for a long time, but I didn’t have the faintest notion how to get it to sprout and grow. A professor at my MFA program assigned Jealousy, which has this super-detached narrator — so detached that he never identifies himself as the narrator. My mind just clicked, and Security slammed into focus. I wrote the first draft in 19 days, and I knew I had...[read on]

Visit Gina Wohlsdorf's website.

The Page 69 Test: Security.

Writers Read: Gina Wohlsdorf (June 2016).

My Book, The Movie: Security.

--Marshal Zeringue