Amanda Sellet

Debut author Amanda Sellet had a previous career in journalism, during which she wrote book reviews for The Washington Post, personal essays for NPR, and music and movie coverage for VH1. She has an M.A. in Cinema Studies from NYU and spent a year in England as au pair to an actress who has played in her share of period dramas. These days she lives in Kansas with her archaeologist husband and their daughter.

Her new novel is By the Book.

My Q&A with the author:

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

The main title is fairly on-the-nose: By the Book is the story of a girl who lives her life according to the rules of fiction, specifically 19th-century morality tales. The subtitle (A Novel of Prose and Cons) could be construed as either a warning or an enticement, depending on your tastes. It’s like a mapmaker writing “Here be dragons” to indicate uncharted territory. Warning: silly wordplay ahead.

What's in a name?

As befits the offspring of two literature professors, all five Porter-Malcolm kids have names inspired by the life and/or works of Virginia Woolf. The main character, Mary, has always felt drab in comparison with older sisters Adeline, Vanessa, and Clarissa (who goes by Cam), not to mention younger brother Jasper Orlando.

One of Mary’s great fears in life is that like her name, she’s an afterthought – stodgy, bland, and old-fashioned. It thus comes as a considerable thrill when over the course of the story she acquires not one but two nicknames: Lady Mary and [redacted].

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

I fear my teen self would say, “what took you so long?” She expected destiny to come knocking a lot sooner.

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

Beginnings are harder for me, to the nth degree. I’m very much a forest-for-the-trees writer, who will fuss endlessly over every joke in Chapter One and only then stop to ask whether the story starts in the right place. The number of documents on my computer with some version of the name “By the Book New Beginning” is my personal walk of shame.

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

Mary’s bookishness and habit of classifying people according to literary types are slightly exaggerated versions of my own youthful proclivities.

At the same time, since I am an oldest child and she is the penultimate member of her large family, I tried to channel my younger siblings’ sociability and openness to making new friends. It would have been inauthentic to make Mary bossy yet reserved, like her creator.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

My large family (see above), the TV series Gilmore Girls (for the quirky small-town setting and slightly magical slant on reality), and a lifetime of watching what one of my brothers dubbed “crumpet movies.” The latter definitely shaped my taste in verbal slapstick and slow burn romance.

Visit Amanda Sellet's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Isla Morley

Isla Morley grew up in South Africa during apartheid. She is the author of Come Sunday, which won the Janet Heidinger Prize for Fiction and was a finalist for the Commonwealth Prize. Her novel Above was an IndieNext pick, and Best Buzz Book, and a Publishers Weekly Best New Book. She lives in the Los Angeles area with her husband, daughter, three cats, and five tortoises.

Morley's new novel is The Last Blue.

My Q&A with the author:

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

The best book titles are distinctive, easy to remember and arouse curiosity. Paired with a compelling image, the book cover is to book sales what the tinder profile is to hook-ups. Given how many books are out there, it’s a mostly “swipe-left” world, let’s face it. The main character of my novel (based on the real “blue people of Kentucky”) is Jubilee Buford, a woman who has been isolated in the Appalachian wilderness all her life on account of her shocking blue skin, the subject of all manner of superstitions and prejudices. Color aside, Jubilee is unforgettable for many other reasons, so it made sense that the early titles featured her name: The Year of Jubilee and The Blue Song of Jubilee. Neither quite worked. The Last Blue was the candidate that seemed to have all three ingredients. Swipe-right? Let’s see.

What's in a name?

Give a character a name, and you give her a destiny. The last thing I’ll do is willy-nilly ascribe names to characters, no matter how minor their roles. The protagonist’s name, Jubilee, comes from the mandate in Leviticus that after every six years is a Sabbath year, and after the seventh Sabbath (forty-nine years) is the Jubilee Year, which is when debts are forgiven, prisoners are freed and land rights are returned to the original owner. Big name, big destiny. Even if the day of justice never actually materializes, does it not speak to great hope? As for a minor character, consider “Verily Suggins.” Doesn’t she sound like a wheezy, sanctimonious busybody?

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

My teenage self would have trouble believing I’d written any book, let alone three. What happened to art, she might ask. Or the hotel for cats?

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

Here we have the binary problem again. Both are equally hard. With The Last Blue, I changed both the beginning and the ending several times. Beginnings are tricky because they have a tendency to go on way too long, rather like that one pontificating relative at family gatherings, and endings can be a bugger because they sometimes run out of steam and end rather abruptly before the cake is served.

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

Though my characters’ personalities and experiences are so different from mine, my access to them is by way of emotions, that universal tide which doesn’t respect the sea-wall between fiction and real life. I haven’t lived a banished life, like the main character of The Last Blue, but I know what loneliness feels like, and what it feels like to be invisible sometimes, to not belong anywhere, and then to belong. Similarly, I’d never threaten anyone the way the novel’s antagonist does, but I’ve seen first-hand how suffering can turn a person into a self-despising monster who contributes to the suffering of others.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

My rather indefatigable belief in the power of forgiveness and the transcendence of hope are the result, no doubt, of having lived through Apartheid-era South Africa. Hobbling ungainly along a path of faith for the past twenty-seven years has been an influence too.

Visit Isla Morley's website.

Writers Read: Isla Morley.

My Book, The Movie: The Last Blue.

The Page 69 Test: The Last Blue.

--Marshal Zeringue

Louisa Treger

Louisa Treger has worked as a classical violinist. She studied at the Royal College of Music and the Guildhall School of Music and worked as a freelance orchestral player and teacher. Treger subsequently turned to literature, gaining a First Class degree and a Ph.D. in English at University College London, where she focused on early 20th century women’s writing and was awarded the West Scholarship and the Rosa Morison Scholarship “for distinguished work in the study of English Language and Literature.” The Lodger was published in 2014, The Dragon Lady in 2019 and she is currently working on her third novel.

My Q&A with the author:

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

The Dragon Lady is a fictionalised life of Lady Virginia Courtauld, a woman who was as unconventional as she was pioneering, the tattoo of a snake running the length of one leg sealing her reputation as a boundary-breaker.

As soon as I found out that Virginia’s real-life nickname was The Dragon Lady – a reference to her tattoo and her feisty nature – I knew it had to be the title of my book. For a time, my publisher wanted to change it, because if you Google The Dragon Lady, a fearsome looking person who has cut off their ears and nose and tattooed themselves all over comes up as the first result. But none of the alternative titles we came up with were nearly as good. In the end, it had to be The Dragon Lady, because if you have an unforgettable boundary-breaking heroine at the centre of your story, how can you not name it after her?

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

My teenage self was shy, bookish and introspective; a late bloomer. She wouldn’t have been surprised by me writing books, but she might have been surprised that I chose such a spirited, flamboyant and unconventional heroine.

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

I always knew that The Dragon Lady would start the way it did – with a shooting in her garden in Rhodesia. The garden was beautiful and eerie; wilderness with paths and deep shade, dense with trees, ferns and flowering creepers. The opening scene and its exotic, creepy, tense atmosphere were imprinted in my mind. But I found the ending a lot harder, because it had to bring all the threads of the novel together. Also, the ending is what lingers in a reader’s mind, long after they have closed the pages of a book, and I felt the pressure of that.

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

Virginia Courtauld has a very different to personality to mine, but there’s a part of me that would love to be like her.

After I’d finished writing, I realized there was an autobiographical element to one of my characters, a thirteen-year-old called Catherine, who is an uncomprehending witness to racial segregation in Rhodesia. I spent part of my childhood with my grandparents in Durban during apartheid. Like Catherine, I saw things that I knew were unjust and wrong, but didn’t have the maturity to understand them. Catherine’s confusion, isolation, and sense of being up against powerful, unexplained taboos were also my feelings.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

Music. The natural world. My children. My other half.

Visit Louisa Treger's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Louisa Treger & Monty.

The Page 69 Test: The Lodger.

My Book, The Movie: The Lodger.

My Book, The Movie: The Dragon Lady.

--Marshal Zeringue

Timothy Hallinan

Timothy Hallinan has written 23 novels in three series and was awarded the Lefty for Best Humorous Crime Novel for Herbie's Game. He has been nominated for the Edgar, the Macavity, the Nero, and the Shamus. For years he divided his time between Los Angeles and Bangkok, alternating between them to write two series of books, one set in each city. The ninth and final book in his Bangkok series, Street Music, has just been released in ebook form; production of the hardcover was slowed by the Coronavirus outbreak and will be available shortly. Hallinan is fortunate enough to be married to Munyin Choy.

My Q&A with the author:

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

Probably not much. Titles come to me out of the ether. I can easily be halfway through a book before a title declares itself, and when it does, it's rarely as literally germane to the story as, say, Moby-Dick is. It's just as likely to be something purely emotional. In this case, “street music” is one character's term for how the noises of the city – Bangkok – turn orchestral when she's high. It's almost the only experience of beauty left in the life she leads as a homeless person, squatting on baking sidewalks by day and sleeping beneath a bush in the park.

Although the readers of the series have never met her before, this lost soul holds the key to the last great unsolved mystery of the little family of three - an American travel writer, his Thai wife, and the street-child daughter they adopted – that lays at the heart of the books. Every city has street music, but it's possible that only the most abject inhabitants hear it.

What's in a name?

I rarely think about names, which may be why my protagonists – Simeon, Junior, and Poke – have such odd ones. But unlike titles, which usually come when a book is well underway, names invariably appear the moment I think of the character; he/she immediately has a name, as though they were born wearing one of those cards you're handed at conventions.

But usually I know within seconds why I chose the name. For example, Poke Rafferty, the American travel writer who's the hero of Street Music was given the nickname by his father because, as a child, he poked his nose into everything. His wife who worked in Bangkok bars to support her parents and siblings, was given the name “Rose” by a customer who couldn't remember her real name, and it was adopted by the bar owners because it was easy – so, in the course of becoming a commodity, even her name was taken from her. Miaow, their adopted daughter, has a common Thai nickname that reflects the sound a cat makes, and it's the real name of the real-life street child on whom I based her.

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

My teenage self, reader or not, would be surprised that I finished anything, much less all these books.

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

Beginnings and endings are both easy for me. I almost always start with an opening scene that leaves a lot of unanswered questions, and since I don't plot in advance, the ending is just something I'm finding blindfolded, so to speak, a kind of spiritual piñata. All the big problems for me arise in what I think of as The Dread Middle. This is the desert through which I wander for months, wondering why I didn't pack more water, a map, and a deck of cards.

And eventually, I change most everything except the beginning.

How emotionally involved do you get with your characters?

Very, very involved with the more sympathetic ones. When I realized, halfway through Street Music, that the book would answer the last big unresolved question about my three main characters, I immediately thought, This could be the last book. And it is, and I'm already missing these characters almost as deeply as I've missed any of the people I've lost in “real life.” I had originally thought the series would end when Miaow moved into her own place at the age of 19 or 20, leaving Poke and Rose aimlessly wandering around their little apartment, which suddenly feels bigger than Versailles. Instead it's ending here, and I am bereft.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

Oh, boy. One of the seminal aspects of my childhood was that we moved literally all the time; I rarely got more than two years in any school. That gave me the opportunity – since I wanted, like almost any kid, to be popular – to edit myself, to mess with the way I presented myself, to see which sides of me people seemed to like, and which encouraged them to give me space in the halls. It made me keenly aware, over time, that people aren't always (or even frequently) what they seem.

I use that all the time in my writing. I love writing characters who have assumed an entire persona.

Visit Timothy Hallinan's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Kimberly McCreight

Photo credit: Beowulf Sheehan

Kimberly McCreight is the New York Times bestselling author of Reconstructing Amelia, which was nominated for the Edgar, Anthony, and Alex Awards and was called Entertainment Weekly’s Favorite Book of the Year. Reconstructing Amelia has been optioned for film by HBO and Nicole Kidman’s Blossom Films. McCreight’s second adult novel, Where They Found Her, was a USA Today bestseller and a Kirkus Best Mystery of the Year.

Her new novel is A Good Marriage.

My Q&A with McCreight:

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

In this case, my title really is everything! A Good Marriage goes to the heart of the novel’s themes, as well as much of its plot. I was interested in looking at what really makes a good marriage and challenging the idea that there are any true golden rules. My title poses the central question that’s at the heart of the book, which is most definitely also a thriller. What’s funny is that I actually wasn’t sure I wanted A Good Marriage to be my final title. Because it had been my working title all along, I wanted something shiny and brand new for the polished final draft. It was my editor, Jennifer Barth, who wisely convinced me otherwise. She was convinced from the start that it was exactly the right title. I’m so grateful because she was absolutely right. I can’t imagine now the book being called anything else.

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

Not very. My parents divorced when I was very young, so I’ve long wondered what a good marriage looks like. As a teenager, I can also distinctly remember an adult telling me that as you get older you only have more questions about life, not less. (A sentiment I’ve found to be very true.) I think A Good Marriage lies at the intersection of those two ideas—having spent my early life wondering what a good marriage looks like, and realizing that the answer to that question only gets harder as time goes by.

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

Endings! Hands down, endings are harder than beginnings. Perhaps that’s especially true with mysteries. But I know for sure that the ending is the hardest part of my books. Setting up suspense is actually pretty easy—a threatening scene, some sketchy characters, the careful parceling out of information—and, boom, you’ve got it. Not only do all the pieces of the puzzle need to click into place by the final pages, but the ending needs to be emotionally satisfying, too. In other words, at the beginning you can keep your cards close to your vest, controlling the show by bluffing your way through. But when the end arrives and you’ve got to lay down that hand, you best be holding a royal flush.

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

On a fundamental level, I’m a lot like Lizzie, the main character in A Good Marriage. That actually made her quite hard to write at first. Early on, I was underexplaining aspects of her personality, assuming they were self-evident. I worked hard to create enough distance between Lizzie and myself so that she stood on her own as a uniquely nuanced, well-rounded character. In the published book, she and I are still similar, but we are not at all the same. That said, I share something in common with many of the other main characters in A Good Marriage, which is maybe a little frightening! For instance, like Sam, I am a recovering alcoholic and had long wanted to write about managing an addiction in a marriage.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

Conceptual modern art has always been a huge source of inspiration for me. There is nothing more fearless than an artist expressing themselves through something completely abstract. It’s a true act of courage. Maurizio Cattelan’s exhibition a decade ago at the Guggenheim comes immediately to mind. Cattelan makes these irreverent, arresting sculptures that also serve as incisive political commentary. In that particular exhibition at the Guggenheim, he’d suspended his sculptures from the museum rotunda like this enormous mobile. It was so bold and forceful and it utterly took my breath away. (Google it, you can still find images online.)

At the time, I was finishing up yet another draft of Reconstructing Amelia—my fifth unpublished novel—all of them written in a similar epistolary fashion with multiple narrators and shifting timeframes, a style I had been told repeatedly was fundamentally unsellable. And had, in fact, not sold. In fact, I’d already been told if I wanted to ever sell Amelia, I needed to pick a lane and simplify the story, take out all the social media elements and make it from a single character’s point of view. I distinctly remember standing in that soaring Guggenheim rotunda, all those insane, brilliant, beautiful Cattelan sculptures floating overhead, and thinking: You know what? I’m not changing a fucking thing.

Visit Kimberly McCreight's website.

The Page 69 Test: Reconstructing Amelia.

The Page 69 Test: The Scattering.

The Page 69 Test: The Collide.

--Marshal Zeringue

Sarah Zettel

Sarah Zettel is an award-winning author. She has written more than thirty novels and multiple short stories over the past twenty-five years, in addition to hiking, cooking, stitching all the things, marrying a rocket scientist, and raising a rapidly growing son.

Zettel's latest novel is A Mother's Lie.

My Q&A with the author:

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

Hopefully a lot. When we talk about food, the saying goes we eat with our eyes first. It’s the same with a book. The cover and the title are what pique the interest first, especially if the author is new to the reader. So, I plan my titles fairly carefully, usually with a lot of help from my editors.

What's in a name?

Like the title of a book, the name is one of the first impressions the reader is going to get of the character, so, it’s very important. A name can denote race, ethnicity, time period, and class. I take a long time to pick out a character name, and may end up changing it as the draft develops and I get to know the character better.

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

Very. My teenaged self wrote exclusively fantasy, science fiction and horror. She never even considered writing contemporary suspense.

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

Actually, the really hard part is the middle. The middle wanders. It’s the place where all the lovely side thoughts I’ve had try to settle in. I have to keep cutting and redirecting it so I’ve got a straight line between the beginning and end. I do, however, tend to rewrite the beginning more than the end. By the time I actually get to the end, I usually know where I need 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 expect all my characters have a connection to me, whether I see it or not. But they are from the same brain that shaped the rest of my life, so nothing I create can be seen as fully separate from the experiences that helped shape me. The question is, which part of me do they come from? It could be from hopes, fears, aspirations, or memories, but probably, for most of them, it’s probably some combination of all of these. Some times I’ll recognize it, sometimes I won’t.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

Travel, definitely. The people I meet and talk to. Reality is always going to be weirder and more amazing than anything an author can imagine. Music. Current events, or attempts to hide from current events. History.

Visit Sarah Zettel's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Florence Gonsalves

Florence Gonsalves is the author of two books of young adult fiction, Love and Other Carnivorous Plants and Dear Universe.
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In 2015 she graduated from Dartmouth College where she majored in Philosophy, while taking as many poetry classes as she could.
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Her work experience ranges from publishing in NYC, to farming in Maine, to one really bad holiday shift at UPS. She currently lives in Portland, Maine.

My Q&A with the author:

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

Initially I was calling Dear Universe The Opposite of Seventeen because Cham is experiencing hardships that feel antithetical to the fun, carefree existence associated with her age. Though both my agent and editor liked The Opposite of Seventeen, with each draft that title felt a little more convoluted and detached from the heart of the story. I wanted the title to be a big clear statement that demands the reader’s attention the way Cham demands the attention of the universe in all her pleas to it throughout the novel.

What's in a name?

When I’m starting a book, I find myself latching onto a quirky name with a funny backstory for the protagonist so I can get a sense of who she is. Though the backstory didn’t make it into the final draft of Dear Universe, this is why Cham uses a nickname: “Don’t call me Chamomile or I’ll have to tell you about how my mom named me after her favorite goat and I’ve spent the last seventeen years living up to the legend of the three legged, one eyed Chamomile Sr. who survived cancer and coyotes and lived to the ripe old age of nineteen by figuring out how to nurse on her own teet.”

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

My teenage self would be shocked to see me writing a story that revolves around a father with Parkinson’s disease. I never acknowledged my dad’s illness as a teen, and truly hoped to never have to talk about it ever. That being said, teenage me would forgive 27 year-old-me thanks to the romantic plot line in Dear Universe. I always wanted to read stories where someone fell in love, believing then as I do now, that romantic love is the only reason it’s better to be a human than a house cat.

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

I struggle more with endings than beginnings, though truthfully I make a lot of edits to both in the many drafts it takes me to get to the real story. I believe, though, what Joan Didion says in “Goodbye to All That”: “It’s easy to see the beginnings of things and harder to see the ends.”

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 big old hunk of myself in Cham. My dad does have Parkinson’s disease and a lot of Cham’s hardship stems from real things that happened to me and my family. I can’t seem to write a character that isn’t some version of me in a parallel or perpendicular universe, and Cham – with her anger, sass, and imperfections – is no exception.

Visit Florence Gonsalves's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Kylie Logan

Kylie Logan is the national bestselling author of the Jazz Ramsey Mysteries, The League of Literary Ladies Mysteries, the Button Box Mysteries, the Chili Cook-Off Mysteries, and the Ethnic Eats Mysteries.

Her new novel, The Secrets of Bones, is the second Jazz Ramsey Mystery.

My Q&A with the author:

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

I hope my titles convey the flavor and energy of a story. For The Secrets of Bones I wanted that “secret” part not only to let readers know it was a mystery, but also so they got a sense that the mystery isn’t simply So-and-So clunks So-and-So over the head and kills him. Secrets to me imply knowledge. Knowledge implies familiarity. Suddenly the mystery—the murder—is personal. As for “bones,” again, wanted the mystery to be clear, but that word is especially important because Jazz Ramsey, my heroine, trains and handles cadaver dogs and of course, bones are one of the things they’re trained to find.

Do I sweat picking a title? Absolutely. For me, the idea for a book never fully comes together until I have the title. I spend a lot of time playing with and discarding titles until I come up with exactly the right one.

What's in a name?

Names are vitally important, especially in a mystery series. Listen to mystery readers talk and they’ll often refer to a series by the main character’s name. The Bosch books. Or the Gamache books. As a writer, that tells me I need to come up with a name readers are going to remember and immediately identify with my series. Jazz Ramsey’s name fits the bill. Not really sure where I came up with Jazz, just I knew I wanted something short and snappy. She’s a no-nonsense woman who is devoted to her volunteer work as a cadaver dog handler. I couldn’t picture her as anything but Jazz. But of course, names can also be used to convey family dynamics. Jazz’s mom always calls her Jasmine. That tells you something about their relationship.

I went through more gyrations with other characters in the series. For instance, Jazz’s boyfriend, Nick Kolesov, was originally Dan Warren. I came to my senses on that one when I realized that the city of Cleveland, the setting for the books, is actually a character in every story. Cleveland is gritty. Cleveland is interesting. The city’s population is an amalgam of ethnicities and cultures. It’s what makes Cleveland so unique. Dan Warren was way too white bread a name for a Cleveland cop. Once I got Nick’s name right, I knew more about him, his background, his family.

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

Hmm…intriguing to think about! My teenage self was always reading. I loved historical fiction (Dorothy Dunnett’s Game of Kings is still a favorite), so I suppose I would have imagined myself writing something similar. Something heavy on research—I love research. Something set in the British Isles—I’m a confirmed Anglophile. And yet, I always loved mystery, too. In fact the first books I published were historical romances set in England and they always had a twisty turny plot that included some mystery. It took me a while to realize that the mystery was what I really wanted to concentrate on. But then, that teenage self, just like the adult self, always loved Sherlock Holmes!

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

While no part of a book is easy to write, beginnings give me an opportunity to lay out the scene, re-visit characters, set up what’s going to happen. Endings, especially in mystery, are tricky things. All the loose ends need to be brought together, and every one of them needs to make sense. I am an outliner so I spend a lot of time planning every book and I have some idea where a book is headed before I start into the writing. Even so, The Secrets of Bones is the first book I’ve ever changed drastically from the ending I had planned. I’d thought about another murderer all along and yet as I was writing, I realized that just wasn’t right. It’s a sobering experience, that’s for sure, when that sort of realization hits you over the head and you need to read over everything and see what needs to be changed, what can stay, and what absolutely has to go.

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

I hope my characters aren’t at all like me because I’m not all that interesting. I sit in front of my computer all day. I stare into space. I don’t have Jazz’s drive or energy or her patience with training dogs. I’m not nearly as kind and understanding as Sister Eileen who is the principal at the school where Jazz works. I’m not crazy over-the-top like Jazz’s best friend, Sarah. Or as willing to put my life on the line to keep the city safe as Nick is. I think rather than being like me, my characters are a mixture of people I’ve known throughout my life. I take a little of this person, a little of that person. The looks of one, the way another one walks. It’s kind of like baking a cake, throw the ingredients in, mix them up, and come up with a finished product that’s the sum total of all the different parts!

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

Family, certainly. My dad was a Cleveland Police detective. He’s the one who first introduced me not only to Sherlock Holmes but to the art of detection. Early in his career, Dad worked in what was called the Auto Bureau. On his days off, we’d ride around in the car together and search for stolen cars. There was usually an ice cream cone involved, too. Not sure what that’s called in psychology, but I think it means that when I think of solving crimes, it brings back a lot of good memories.

Visit Kylie Logan's website.

--Marshal Zeringue

Demetra Brodsky

Demetra Brodsky is an award-winning art director and designer turned writer. She has a B.F.A. from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design and lives in Southern California with her family of four and two lovable rescue dogs. Dive Smack, her debut YA thriller, is dedicated to the Monarch butterfly she once saved from the brink of death.

Brodsky's new novel is Last Girls.

My Q&A with the author:

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

The original title of Last Girls was The Juniper Sisters. I never even imagined another title until my agent suggested we pick something that was more in line with the book’s genre (thriller) and we took that thought to the publisher. The story of the Juniper sisters and how they came to be named was such a huge part of their backstory that I was a little resistant to the change, if I’m being honest. I made long lists of alternatives, my agency threw some suggestions into the mix, and we went back and forth with the publisher until we found something that stuck. There are several places in the book where the term last girls comes into play. For example, in chapter one their mother tells Honey, “You could be the last girls on this compound.” I can’t confirm or deny if that’s true. You’ll have to read the whole story to find out.

What's in a name?

Honey, Birdie, and Blue Juniper. They are unusual names, aren’t they? More like nicknames than something you might see on a birth certificate. If I gave you the whole story of how and why they have these names, I would seriously mess up some major plot twists for you. I hate to be this vague, but you’ll have to read the story to find out. Remember, the tagline for the book is This is how their world ends. Not how the world ends. I know this is a big tease without a payout, but you’ll have to trust me. The mystery is on this one is worth the wait.

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

Naming characters is one of my favorites parts of the process and I can’t wait for you to meet Honey, Birdie, and Blue. They display a helluva of a lot of grit. A necessary trait I think we’re all displaying these days, given our current global health crisis. Honey, in particular, is probably the most like me, even though in my family I’m the youngest of my parents three daughters. Writers have to put something of themselves in their characters, even when they’re not carbon copies, so we can draw from our own emotional experiences. Still, while writing them, I took special attention as to not give them similar emotional characteristics to each other so I could differentiate their voices in my head. Because of that, I had to dig deep into my psyche. I hope that spilled onto the pages for you, the uniqueness of each of the girls, despite their close relationship. Honey is ruled by big R responsibility and curiosity. She’s not one to take answers at face value, nor is she quick to trust. I struggle with some of those traits myself. I have a strong drive to finish and see things through, to keep promises, and do what’s right, and protect the people I love. And like Honey, I have the heart of an artist. I’ve made so many paintings that I’ve given away or left behind. If I’m being honest, I’m also impulsive like Birdie. Quick to anger, but able to admit when I’m wrong. And like Blue, I have a deep love for animals and a need to find solace in my own thoughts.

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

Last Girls was inspired by so many things that were non-literary. I’m the kind of writer that does lots of research before I can even begin putting words on the page. Because of that, I tend to write twisty, multi-threaded stories, which makes my influence list fairly long. Music? Check. Movies? Check? Family? Check? History? Check. Politics? Check. Check. Check.

Here’s a list of the influences you’ll be sure to find in one form or another between the pages of Last Girls. Hang on to your seat, folks. It’s a wild ride.

· Mother, by Pink Floyd

· The current political climate and thoughts on our POTUS

· The beauty of the Pacific Northwest

· Falconry and Hawking

· Archery

· Weapons usage, ballistics, and wounds

· Red Dawn

· Doomsday Preppers TV Show

· Prepper slang

· Booby Traps

· Bunkers

· Tinctures and Poisons

· Group Dynamics

· Survivalist

· Kidnapping

· U.S. Military terminology and slag

· High School and advanced chemistry

· Rattlesnake Venom Usage

· Devil’s Breath, a Columbian Mind-Control Drug

· Homesteading and Animal Husbandry

· Street Art techniques

· Chemistry

· Pigpen Cipher

· Psychiatric experimentation performed by universities on students

· The Arts (primarily painting, embroidery, and comics)

· Family Dynamics and Birth Order

· Operation Paperclip: a covert affair where roughly 1,600 German scientists were brought to the U.S.A. to work on America’s behalf during the Cold War

Visit Demetra Brodsky's website.

Coffee with a Canine: Demetra Brodsky & L.B. and Ponyboy Curtis.

--Marshal Zeringue

Brady Hammes

Brady Hammes lives in Los Angeles by way of Colorado and Iowa. His short stories have appeared in Michigan Quarterly Review, Guernica, The Rattling Wall, and Harper Perennial’s Forty Stories Anthology. His debut novel The Resolutions is now out from Ballantine/Random House.

He’s also an Emmy-Award winning documentary film editor whose most recent project, Tom vs. Time - about NFL quarterback Tom Brady - won a 2018 Sports Emmy. Before that, he edited the feature film Social Animals, which had its world premiere at the 2018 SXSW film festival.

My Q&A with the author:

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

The title works on a couple different levels. All three of the my characters have run their lives into the ground and are now forced to correct their crooked paths. So in a way, they’re all resolving to do better, though the mechanics of that process elude them for most of the book. The novel is also set around the holidays, with the final scene taking place on New Year’s Day, so the idea of a resolution seemed sort of fitting. The title actually came late in the process. When I sold the book it was called The Bygones, and it wasn’t until about a year before publication that we arrived at this new title.

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

Very. I was not a particularly bookish kid, so I don’t think my teenage self would have even considered that I might someday write a novel. I came to fiction fairly late - I didn’t really start until I was about 30 - so this isn’t something I’ve been working toward since I was a kid.

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

Endings are harder for me. With The Resolutions, the ending didn’t change too drastically - at the least the very last scene - though the entire third act of the novel went through many different iterations. I always knew how the book would end, but the circumstances leading up to the end were less clear.

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

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t pull from my own life. But that doesn’t mean my characters are autobiographical. One of my characters is a ballerina and one is a research scientist, and I can assure you I’ve never danced on stage and I’m terrible at science. A lot of research went into those parts of the book, but the underlying feelings of loneliness and career stagnation are things I can relate to. I think Ann Patchett once said something to the effect of, “None of it happened, but all of it’s true.”

What non-literary inspirations have influenced your writing?

Everything from my Midwestern youth to neo-classical music to my travels throughout the world. This book was written over a long period of time starting when I was much younger, and in a different place in my life. Although the concerns of the book aren’t ones that are as relevant to me now, I still think the book stands a good reminder of a specific period in my life, and hopefully one that others can relate to as well.

Visit Brady Hammes's website.

--Marshal Zeringue