A Conversation With I’m Glad About You Author Theresa Rebeck

Theresa Rebeck (Photo credit: Monique Carboni

By Daniel Ford

Theresa Rebeck has written everything from award-winning Broadway plays to hit television shows (Admit it, you had “Smash” on your DVR).

Rebeck’s recently published novel, I’m Glad About You, features star-crossed lovers, Midwestern sensibilities, New York City Millennial drama, quippy dialogue, and plenty of dark, twisted angst. 

The author/screenwriter/playwright (when does the woman sleep!) graciously took some time away from her production schedule to answer my questions about her writing career, what inspired I’m Glad About You, and what aspiring authors need to do to succeed. 

DF: Did you grow up knowing you were going to be a writer, or is it a passion that grew over time?

Theresa Rebeck: I thought I was going to be a writer when I was about 3 years old. That’s not to say that I fully believed it. Even when I was young and a dreamer, it felt like a very bold choice. And certainly everyone I knew in Cincinnati thought I was somewhat insane to think that someday I might be a writer. 

There were a lot of other dreams in there. I dreamed of being a chemist, or a mathematician, or a doctor. I’m good at math and chemistry, improbably, so my pragmatic Midwestern roots argued in that direction. Eventually reality caught up with me, at which point that first dream looked more like what it was—determination. 

DF: You’ve written critically acclaimed Broadway plays and hit television shows. Were there any disciplines you learned that you were able to transfer to writing I’m Glad About You? 

TR: The novel remains a mystery and a challenge to me. One of the things you learn in the theatre and in TV is that you just have to keep working until you finish it, and then you have to finish it again. There’s a lot of forward motion, always. And that turned out to be a very useful tool to have in my toolkit when facing the complexities that arise in the writing of a novel.

DF: When you sit down at your computer to write, what’s your process like? Do you listen to music? Outline? Was your writing process for I’m Glad About You any different than your screenwriting process? 

TR: I think in screenwriting and in television writing, there’s generally too much outlining. So when I’m working in fiction, I try to keep things looser. I have a general idea of where I’m going, but I don’t want to have too much settled on before I’m actually writing. I feel like the writing reveals a lot of surprises and deeper secrets when you haven’t made too many decisions ahead of time. That’s not to say you should just go blindly into something, I don’t believe that. I try to hold some tension between what I know is going to happen and what I don’t know.

DF: What inspired I’m Glad About You? 

TR: I’m from Cincinnati and I live in New York. I used to think that at some point, those two aspects of my personal story were going to make more sense to each other.  But, they didn’t. And I became aware over time that this is a real problem in our country—I feel like no one knows how to talk to each other anymore, and I wondered what that would look like if I had a pair of lovers who ended up in that situation.

DF: Kyle and Alison could have easily been caricatures we’ve seen in past novels, movies, and television shows, but you ground them in reality and give them honest-to-god issues to wrestle with. How did you go about developing these two, and how much of yourself landed in each one? 

TR: Developing characters is something that comes to me over time. I did know when I started working on the novel that I was going to have Kyle stay in one place, and that Alison, by contrast, was someone who would rise, in visibility, in the wider world. Kyle’s journey was always going to be more and more interior, more and more isolated, more and more centered on this lonely quest for a spirituality that would often elude him. His innate decency is not enough, finally, for Kyle: He truly wants to be a good man. But what does that mean, to the soul? 

Alison’s journey is more like Sister Carrie’s, in a way: as she rises as an actress, she becomes more and more of an object. But Alison surprised me. She refused to accept that destiny. She never saw herself as an object, so she never fell prey internally to what was happening to her externally.

DF: As a playwright/screenwriter by trade, did you start with the dialogue and fill in the prose or did you have the story in mind and craft the dialogue organically? 

TR: I don’t do anything like that—start with the dialogue and then fill in the prose. I start at the beginning, and when I get to the end, I stop. And when I rewrite, sometimes I add things in, sometimes I take things out. Only one time in my life did I write a story in pieces, different scenes that weren’t connected, that were connected only later. If there’s anyone out there who writes the dialogue first and then fills in the prose, I’d like to talk to them. That sounds kind of interesting to me.

DF: How long did it take you to write I’m Glad About You? Did you settle on the novel’s structure during the writing or editing process? 

TR: It took me a really long time—it felt like a really long time. It took me about six years. I came up with the structure during the editing process. Because there are two sides in the story, I did have a lot of material I ended up cutting. It wasn’t clear to me from the onset how the two strands of the story would sit next to each other. So that was something that emerged with greater clarity as I worked on later drafts. 

DF: I’m Glad About You has garnered rave reviews from critics and readers alike. What’s next for you? 

TR: Right now I’m in pre-production for a movie I wrote starring Anjelica Huston, Bill Pullman, and David Morse. I’m directing it as well. And then I have some other ideas that are starting to emerge. I’m so compelled by fiction right now but it’s a lot of work, it requires a lot of space and silence and I haven’t had that lately. 

DF: What’s your advice for aspiring writers? 

TR: Learn how to finish drafts. So many people get caught up in the process and don’t ever see the point where it says, “The End.” So even if you have to push through sections that aren’t working—I’m not saying force it, though sometimes you do have to force it—finish a draft. Also, I think writing a lot is a good thing. Like practicing scales on a piano. The more you write, the better you get...hopefully.  Don’t be precious: learn how to cut. Learn how to edit.

DF: Can you please name one random fact about yourself? 

TR: I have the best collection on Earth of tiny stone bears. I also collect Peruvian retablos.  I guess that’s two facts but seriously the little bears are great and so are the retablos.

To learn more about Theresa Rebeck, visit her official website or follow her on Twitter @TheresaRebeck. 

The Writer's Bone Interviews Archive

Writing in the Rain: 10 Questions With Noah’s Wife Author Lindsay Starck

Lindsay Starck (Photo credit: Victoria McHugh Photography)

By Daniel Ford

What the $%(&$&^ was Noah’s wife thinking?

Her husband starts seeing signs during a biblical rainstorm, builds an ark, and tells her to get on (in author Lindsay Starck’s words) “a floating zoo.” It would take a loyal and flinty woman to step aboard and buy into her man’s faith, right?

Starck’s debut novel, Noah’s Wife, not only gives us a better understanding what that woman might have been like, but also provides the literary world with yet another strong young voice.  

The book, which goes on sale Jan. 26, finds our heroine arriving in “a gray and wet town” that has been inundated with rain for “as long as anyone can remember.” Noah’s wife has to grapple with her “eccentric” neighbors, her husband’s “internal crisis of faith,” and, of course, zoo animals.

The author recently talked to me about her early publishing efforts, dealing with rejection, and the inspiration behind Noah’s Wife.

Daniel Ford: Did you grow up wanting to become a writer, or was that something that grew organically over time?

Lindsay Starck: I wanted to become a writer from a young age. I wrote a number of stories, and in middle school I very optimistically sent one off to a publisher. (It was called The Stranded Island Dudes. It featured a group of house pets that went on an adventure to a tropical island. Now that I think about it, I guess I’ve always liked to write about animals!) The publisher, understandably enough, rejected it—and I was so disheartened that I stopped writing creatively for many years. I didn’t know then that rejection is an inevitable part of the writing process.

But I always loved literature. I loved reading books, and I loved writing about them. My writing career as an adult grew out of this deep engagement with books in high school, college, and graduate school. I remind my writing students now that to become better writers, they must first commit themselves to becoming better readers. It’s a cliché, but (like so many clichés) it’s true.

DF: Who were some of your early influences?

LS: Lucy Maud Montgomery, certainly—I read Anne of Green Gables many times over. I also read and reread Eloise Jarvis McGraw’s Greensleeves, a fantastic YA novel in which the heroine eventually realizes that she wants to become a writer. Perhaps that’s where I got the idea! As I recall, Anne of Green Gables was a writer, as well.

DF: What is your writing process like? Do you listen to music? Outline?

LS: I know that some writers prefer solitude, but I like to work in coffee shops—that way I can look up and see what everyone else is doing. My writing is character-driven, so I usually start with the idea of a personality and then build from there. 

Because Noah’s Wife is organized into forty chapters, when I was writing it I assigned each chapter its own Post-It note. (Even this organizational strategy was based on characters: each chapter was assigned to a single character’s perspective, and the notes were color-coded accordingly.) Then I stuck the Post-Its up on a door in my apartment, arranged in eight rows of five, so that I could visualize the storyline. At times, when revising and rewriting, those Post-It notes were scattered all over the place. Editing is a pretty messy process.

DF: What inspired your debut novel Noah’s Wife?

LS: When I began writing this novel, I was in my mid-twenties and my friends and colleagues were beginning to pair off. As I watched people navigate the tumultuous waters of romance and friendship, I wondered over the nature of “pairings” more generally. What makes a marriage work? Why do some friendships fall apart, while others last for decades? What qualities make a good mother, a good daughter, a good neighbor?

The idea of “pairs,” along with my conviction that the flood story was darker and more complex than it often appears to be in popular culture, led me to Noah—and from there, to his wife. What sort of woman, I wondered, would be willing to abandon her community and follow her husband into a giant floating zoo? What if she were afraid of reptiles or allergic to feathers? How could she continue to believe in Noah, if she could not see the signs that he saw? If she were given a voice, what would she say? 

DF: How much of yourself—and the people you have daily interactions with—did you put into your main characters in the book? How do you develop your characters in general?

LS: There is a little bit of me in every character, certainly—I feel as though I share Noah’s wife’s desire to please, Mrs. McGinn’s fear of change, Leesl’s oddly fatalistic sense of hope, Noah’s anxiety over disappointing those who love him.

In general, I piece together characters from things that I’ve heard, stories that I’ve read, people that I’ve known. A friend of mine did take an empathy class in med school, as Dr. Yu does; I imagine Mrs. McGinn’s daughter looking a lot like a former roommate; and at times Mrs. McGinn sounds a lot like my mother. Sometimes I hear sentences that stick with me, and sooner or later I’ll find one of my characters speaking those words aloud on the page.

DF: When you finished your first draft, did you know you had something good, or did you have to go through multiple rounds of edits to realize you had something you felt comfortable taking to readers?

LS: I felt comfortable sending out the draft almost immediately—but I was young and hopeful and a little naïve. When I signed a contract with a publishing house, I assumed that the book would be coming out in a matter of months. But I spent four full years revising the novel after the contract was signed. My editor bought the novel because she liked the writing and she liked the concept, but she knew that I didn’t yet have enough of a real story (plot, tension, etc.) to hold readers’ interest. She also knew that it would take time to find that story. Fortunately for me, she was willing to be patient while I rewrote and rewrote and rewrote until finally the narrative began to emerge. 

DF: How long did it take you to land an agent and publish Noah’s Wife?

LS: Once I finished the manuscript, I bought one of those giant books of literary agents and began making a list of everyone I thought might be a good fit for the novel. I decided to send out five queries per day, every day, until I found someone. I steeled myself for rejection, and I got a lot of it. But I knew I only needed one “yes,” the right “yes”—and after a few weeks, I had it. I found an agent who loved the book and, more importantly, who was willing to work with me to improve it.

Of course, there was a whole other round of rejections when my agent sent the new draft out to publishing houses. But once again, we only needed one good yes. And after a slew of “no’s,” we finally heard it.

It’s a lot like dating, or job-hunting, really. You have to manage a lot of heartbreak and rejection; but when you find the right fit, you know it. And you only need the one.

DF: Now that you have your first book under your belt, what’s next?

LS: Well, since I’m a graduate student by day (novelist by night!), my next task is to finish my dissertation. I’m writing on modernist literature and gossip. But I’ve also begun sketching characters and scenes of a second novel. It may take a few years, but it will come.

DF: What’s your advice to aspiring authors?

LS: Remember that everything is a work in progress. Noah’s Wife only emerged as a novel after years of intensive revisions. I had to cut out whole characters, come up with new plotlines. It was exhausting. And even though the novel is stronger for it, the book isn’t perfect. There are things about it that I would change, if I could. As a perfectionist, this is hard for me to accept—but it’s the inevitable result of growing as a writer and a person.

DF: What is one random fact about yourself?

LS: I used to play the viola. I chose it as my instrument because I knew that viola players were always in high demand—so even if I wasn’t very good (and I wasn’t), people would still ask me to play in groups with them. And they did! 

To learn more about Lindsay Starck, visit her official website or like her Facebook page.

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A Conversation With Author Hester Young

Hester Young (Francine Daveta Photography)

By Daniel Ford

Author Hester Young’s debut novel The Gates of Evangeline is landing on multiple must-read lists for the fall season, and garnering plenty of love from readers.

Young graciously took time away from promoting her book to talk about how she fell in love with writing at a young age, her path to becoming a published author, and how her grandmother helped inspire The Gates of Evangeline.

DF: Since you’re a Boston native, we have to ask: What’s your favorite place to eat in the city?

Hester Young: I grew up in Cambridge, and for sentimental reasons, my favorite place is probably the S&S Deli and Restaurant in Inman Square. It’s been there for nearly a hundred years now, and I became a lifelong fan when they surprised me with a giant piece of birthday cake the year I turned seven.

DF: When did you decide you wanted to be a writer?

HY: I was 6 years old when I knew I wanted to be a writer. Six! I look at my son now, who’s 5 year old, and this seems ridiculous. But as soon as I knew that writing was an actual profession, that’s what I wanted to do.

DF: What is your writing process like? Do you listen to music? Outline?

HY: Writing is often just a long and intense battle with myself to stay focused. I avoid music, writing outdoors, or anything that serves as a distraction from the task at hand. If I’m working from home, I’m always hungry, no matter how much or how recently I’ve eaten. That is just my body trying to avoid writing. I can’t let it win. I find that the library is usually best, because it’s quiet, they don’t allow food, and my local branch has incredibly spotty Internet.

I do outline, partly because that allows me to jump forward in the plot should I get stuck. When I find myself really shunning one section, I move to another, and that helps me stay productive.

DF: What inspired your debut novel, The Gates of Evangeline?

HY: The book was inspired by my grandmother, Margaret. As a young mother, she had a recurring nightmare about her 4-year-old son, Bobby, falling from a window. One day, while in someone else’s care, he did indeed fall and died from his injuries. After Bobby’s death, my grandmother woke to find him in her bedroom one night. He reassured her that he was okay and left her with a feeling of great comfort.

My grandmother was a skeptical woman who didn’t believe in what she couldn’t see and touch. The fact that she’d had this terrible premonitory dream and claimed to have seen a ghost—although she never used that word—really struck me. And so I began to imagine Charlie, a grieving mother who finds her own skepticism challenged by her strange, premonitory dreams. When the Louisiana setting turned up in my own dreams, I knew I had a novel.

DF: What were some of the themes you wanted to tackle in the novel?

HY: I was interested in exploring ideas of faith and skepticism without taking a particular stance. And I wanted the novel to be about how we construct meaning in our lives when faced with a tremendous loss. What I love about the end result is that I think it’s respectful of and open to different viewpoints. I’ve had everyone from atheists to fundamentalist Christians tell me the book resonated with them.

DF: How much of yourself—and the people you have daily interactions with—did you put into your main characters in The Gates of Evangeline? How do you develop your characters in general?

HY: I love almost all my characters and feel a great deal of empathy for them, but the only character in my book who strongly resembles a real person in my life is Charlie’s grandmother. She is very much modeled after my own grandmother, who passed away shortly after I started writing the novel. I love that my grandmother can live on in the pages of my book—she would really have enjoyed her fictional self.

DF: How long did it take you to write the novel, land an agent, and publish it?

HY: All told, it took about seven years. I wrote a few chapters of the novel in the summer of 2008, but didn’t really do much with it until I became a stay-at-home mom in February 2011. Once at home, I began to write quite regularly and finished the book in February of 2013. The novel sat around for months while I revised and over-revised until finally my husband gave me a deadline.

After that, it all happened very quickly (for the publishing world, at least). I sent an email query to just one agent, whose agency I had interned with 15 years earlier. Within 15 minutes, he’d asked for the full manuscript, and I’d signed with him by the end of the month. I spent a few months making revisions under his guidance, and then, in March 2014, he sent my manuscript out. I’d signed a three-book deal with Putnam by the end of April, and my book hit stores on Sept. 1, 2015.

DF: The Gates of Evangeline has landed on quite a few fall reading lists from a variety of publications. What has that experience been like and what’s next for you?

HY: As a writer, it is amazing when anyone notices your work at all. This book has gotten more attention than I ever imagined, and from such a diverse group of sources—from People Magazine and the U.K.’s Daily Mail to Library Reads and IndieBound. My head is still spinning. Honestly, though, it’s a lot of pressure, too! The Gates of Evangeline was purchased as the first in a trilogy, so I have two more books that need to measure up. I am just finishing up with the second, and should be moving on to the third book in a few months.

DF: What’s your advice to aspiring authors?

HY: I’ve said this elsewhere, but I think it’s an important paradox to wrap your brain around: as a writer, you need both the humility to accept criticism and the dumb confidence to withstand rejection. Learn to be grateful for thoughtful criticism, not afraid of it, because that will shape your work more than any compliment. Also, people tend to romanticize publication, to see it as a sign that your work is at last “good enough.” In an age of Amazon and Goodreads and book blogs, however, publishing means you are opening yourself up to more rejection than ever before. At the end of the day, the writing has to be for you.

DF: Can you please name one random fact about yourself?

HY: I’ve gone both hot-air ballooning and scuba diving, which means I’ve been both higher and lower than many people ever get to go. I’m sure there’s a writing metaphor in that somewhere, but I’ll let you find it.

To learn more about Hester Young, visit her official website, like her Facebook page, or follow her on Twitter @HesterAuthor.

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