What Lies Beneath: 10 Questions With Author Nicole Blades

Nicole Blades

By Lindsey Wojcik

Author Nicole Blades wanted to examine compassion and the human condition that people can so often forget about in her new novel, The Thunder Beneath Us (out Oct. 25), which follows the story of international style magazine writer Best Lightburn.

On the outside, Best seems to have it all. Not only is she a rising star in the magazine world, she’s dating a gorgeous up-and-coming actor and counts New York City’s fabulous socialites as her friends. Yet, beneath the surface of her seemingly amazing life, Best is struggling with the burden of an accident that happened on Christmas Eve a decade ago. While taking a shortcut over a frozen lake with her two older brothers, the ice cracked, and Best and her brothers fell in. However, Best was the only survivor. The guilt Best has carried with her for 10 years resurfaces after every aspect of her life starts to unravel. As the obstacles arise, Best has to learn to carry her loss without breaking, so she can heal and forgive.

Blades recently chatted with me about what inspired The Thunder Beneath Us, how her journalism career helped prepare her for writing fiction, and how the experience of scribing her second book was different from the process of writing her debut novel, Earth’s Waters.

Lindsey Wojcik: You've been writing since a young age. What are your earliest memories with writing? What enticed you about storytelling?

Nicole Blades: Yes, I’ve been writing stories since elementary school. My third grade teacher, Mr. Polka, was very supportive of creative writing. He encouraged us to dream up stories and put them down in our notebooks. I can still see those Hilroy 3 Hole Punched Exercise Books so clearly, without even closing my eyes. And he showed remarkable interest in what these eight-year-olds had to say. He put a lot of stock into our imaginations.

Storytelling has always intrigued me. It’s at the core of being a human being. It’s what makes us, us. Through it, we can learn about ourselves, about the world, and our place in it. My father is an excellent storyteller. As far back as I can remember he would have us rapt, just enchanted by these tales about his life growing up in Barbados—all the funny, quirky sayings and characters in the neighborhood and his crazy adventures. All of it came alive through his words, and I found it completely fascinating, even back then as a child. To be honest, I’m also really curious (fine—some might call it nosy!) and like being able to get a glimpse into someone else’s world, see how they make certain choices, good or otherwise.

LW: Who were your early influences and who continues to influence you?

NB: There are so many! It’s always tough to winnow it to a few names, otherwise I would be writing long, 3,000-word term papers on my influences for you right now.

Early inspiration definitely came from my dad, my third grade teacher, and authors like Judy Blume, Jamaica Kincaid, Margaret Atwood, Maya Angelou, Toni Morrison, Derek Walcott, and—this might sound a tad odd—the World Book Encyclopedia. We had the full set, including the year in review specials, and I would sit in our basement for hours reading up on an insect with a strange name or some human organ’s superior function or about the phases of the moon. I read those books a lot, plus we also had this crazy-thick, atlas-like book that laid out all these cultural tidbits along with facts about the different countries of the world. I just loved it.

For those who continue to influence me now, the list is exceedingly long. It’s the early influences, plus authors like Alice Munro, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Jhumpa Lahiri, Junot Díaz, Edwidge Danticat, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Kazuo Ishiguro, Octavia Butler Zadie Smith, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and magazine writer Rachel Kaadzi Ghansah. Then there are screenwriters and artists like Issa Rae, Donald Glover, Sarah Polley, Ava DuVernay, and Vince Gilligan. And then there’s another jumbo list of one-off books or short stories that I could re-read every year—if somehow we tacked on extra months to the calendar.

LW: What is your writing process like?

NB: I can see certain aspects of my fiction writing process that stem from my career as a journalist. How I approach a story is quite similar to how I would a magazine feature. For example, I do a lot of research, ask questions, interview people, and venture down plenty of rabbit holes to try to understand something from all sides. Also, I take writing seriously. It’s my vocation. And when I’m actively writing, I’m very focused on it. That means devoting large chunks of the day to writing and editing and re-writing and working on it. I write even when I’m not writing. That might sound corn-dog, but it’s the truth. If I’m in the middle of a story, it’s parked on the brain all the time. While I’m out running or eavesdropping on two people at a café (come on, who doesn’t do this?) or acting out dialogue in the shower or just letting my mind float free—I’m always thinking about the story and writing it.

That’s the bulk of my process: writing it down, getting words on the page. I like to edit as I go instead of waiting until I’m completely “finished” with the first draft. That comes from being a journalist and editing other people’s work. I don’t typically do a full-on outline, but I did write a very detailed synopsis for Book No. 3 that I just finished in September, and I found it so very helpful. Knowing where I wanted to end up and the specific plot points and being able to manage the pacing, it was all due to having that synopsis on hand. So, this is me saying I might just go sit with the outline or bust people’s table.

LW: What inspired The Thunder Beneath Us?

NB: Five or six years ago, I read this magazine story about these three brothers who went duck-hunting as part of their Christmas tradition. But it all turned tragic when the family dog accidentally punched a hole in the lightly frozen lake. And while trying to save the dog, all three brothers were sucked down into the freezing water. Two of the brothers drowned and one survived. 

The story stayed with me. I kept thinking about the level of guilt and second-guessing and why-me that the surviving brother carried with him. I also thought about how that psychological torment could influence—and not in a good way—how he saw himself moving forward. In that real life story, the men were in their 30s at the time of the ice accident, but then I wondered how the heaviness and utter despair around what happened would be different if the survivor were just a teenager when, after one horrible night, their entire world fell apart.

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

NB: I think many writers fold some facets of their real world into the ones that they create. Whether it’s a particular sentiment or experience that they’ve lived or observed someone else go through, it gets embedded in their creative skin and finds a way to seep out. With this story, there are definitely certain aspects drawn from real people and real issues in my life and experience. I took some of that and pulled it apart and refashioned into other fresh storylines and characters that become their own new thing.

As for developing my characters, I don’t think I have a set formula. Sometimes it’s based on someone that I’ve met or observed, and then I start wondering about their lives beyond the slice that I was allowed to see. For example, in Thunder there’s a character that was in this horrible car accident where her taxicab crashed into a double-parked delivery truck and she suffered serious facial wounds. The horrible cab accident actually happened to someone I know long before I met them, and I’ve always wondered about the recovery and dealing with the trauma of it and having your face basically rebuilt. So I used that pivotal moment in this character’s life and built on it to develop who she is and why she’s so bitter and feels blighted. Other times a character emerges from a wholly dreamed-up place, based on something that I’ve long been curious about, and then I dive into that world, researching it and “reporting it out,” like I would a freelance magazine feature. Yes, yes, we’ve all been told write what you know. But you can also write about what you don’t know; just research it and peel back the layers to it.

LW: When you were writing The Thunder Beneath Us, was there something in particular you were trying to connect with or find?

NB: I’m very interested in compassion, in general, and with this book I wanted to look in that. We have no idea what’s rumbling beneath the surface of someone’s life, no matter how filtered and fabulous and hashtag blessed it may appear. We all need to feel valued and heard and supported as we make our way through this life. I’ve said it before: The human condition can knock the wind out of you. It’s crucial to understand that we’re allowed to make mistakes. We can have a misstep or even a total wipeout and still get back up, knowing and believing that we are all worthy of honest love and acceptance and compassion.

Another central theme in the book is forgiveness. Everyone in it—Best Lightburn, her parents, her actor boyfriend, her best friends—they all have to forgive someone or themselves (or both!) in order to move forward and begin living a full and real life. 

LW: How was the process of writing The Thunder Beneath Us different from writing your debut novel Earth's Waters?

NB: One major difference is that I became a mother in between writing when my debut novel and now Thunder. And parenthood changes every single process or routine you thought you had, basically overnight! I went from “me” to mom, and that meant settling into this new identity while trying balancing it with the other parts of myself, and ensuring that those other vital parts don’t get tucked away. It’s a lot. But it had allowed me to learn so much about myself and develop an even finer sense of compassion.

The other big difference is social media. Back when I was writing my first book, Twitter had just launched. My friend Larry Smith (of Six-Word Memoirs fame) actually introduced me to Twitter while I was working on edits for Earth’s Waters. I was in that early crew that joined, but I was like, “What even is this??” I didn’t get the point of it. So I hopped out only to return several years later, and now I’m all in. Social media definitely changed the process of writing books for me. The procrastination element aside, it’s an incredible tool for research and interaction, and getting a peek through other people’s lenses and lives.

LW: How did your journalism career prepare you for writing and publishing fiction?

NB: One word: deadlines. I met one of my good friends when we were both editors at a women’s magazine. She moved out of journalism a few years back, but we often laugh about how the deadline anxiety is still there, soaked into our bones, so much so that no matter what we’re doing, if you give us a deadline, we are compelled to meet it. More important, journalism has also forced me to pay close attention to details. It’s the details that make something feel authentic or relatable. And those details are what help a fiction writer draw the reader in and, often, keep them there.

Being a journalist has also taught me to appreciate the anatomy of a story and making sure I honor those different parts of it so that I don’t lose my audience. I’ve also learned that all stories—fiction or non—are essentially about conflict. It’s the essence of storytelling, and I make sure I fully understand what that conflict is in what I’m writing. Trying to resolve it—or not—that helps drive the story forward.

LW: What's next for you?

NB: Next up for me is promoting Thunder and getting folks excited to buy the book and talk about it with their friends and book clubs. I have a few book events coming up, and I’m really looking forward to it! Then, there’s book number three. I just finished writing that one in early September. It’s another story about secrets and family and working through knotted relationships, but this story has a big race piece to it that I find fascinating and hope others will too. At its heart, this next book is about identity and the lengths that we’ll sometime go to create and protect our ideal selves. It’s being published by Kensington again and will be out in November 2017.

LW: What's your advice for aspiring journalists and authors alike?

NB: First, I would say read. I know, I know. It feels like there’s not enough time to read this link and that news story, plus this book as well as the other nine that everyone is screaming about on social media. But you have to make the time. You do. Writers read and read and read. That’s just how it goes. Next, write. Writers write. Find a schedule that works with your life—getting up before the sun or blocking off two hours at night after everyone’s gone to bed—and write, and try to do it every day. Storytelling is a craft, and you have to continue to work on it.

Lastly, find your voice and rock with that. Don’t bother emulating your favorite writer. That’s their voice. Use yours to tell the stories you want to read. Getting your mind tangled in what sells or what other people are doing is just not worth it. Focus on one goal: telling a great story. All the other stuff—genre, loyal readers, book deals—they are byproducts that often show up when you’re fixed on telling a good story in your voice.

To learn more about Nicole Blades, visit her official website, like her Facebook page, follow her on Twitter @NicoleBlades, or follow her on Instagram @nicole_blades.

The Writer’s Bone Interviews Archive

‘Writing Is Re-Writing:’ 11 Questions With Author Anne-Marie Casey

Anne-Marie Casey (Photo credit: Brigid Harney)

By Daniel Ford

Liddy James, the “modern-day superwoman” featured in author Anne-Marie Casey’s recently published novel The Real Liddy James, has more job titles than most caped crusaders: top New York City divorce attorney, best-selling author, and mother.

Casey, who is also a screenwriter and playwright, dramatically explores what happens when James’s world beings to unravel. Author Elin Hilderbrand calls The Real Liddy James a “whip-smart and crackling with energy,” and author Marian Keyes says the tale is, “witty, clever, elegantly-written, fascinating, and wise.”

Casey talked to me recently about being a vociferous reader, what inspired The Real Life Liddy James, and, of course, beef stew!

Daniel Ford: My fiancée and I recently traveled to Ireland and fell in love with the country. Before anything else, I need to know where to go to find the best beef stew the next time I’m there! 

Anne-Marie Casey: I think it’s hard to find a good beef stew in a restaurant anywhere (I recommend my own really) but people tell me the best is to be found in The Quays Irish Restaurant in Temple Bar, Dublin.

DF: Did you find writing or did writing find you?

AMC: I was always a vociferous reader and studied English at University, so I suspect a career involving literature was somehow inevitable. But in my twenties I was very focused on being a television and film producer and running my own production company, so becoming a writer evolved when my life priorities changed and, bluntly, I got married and had kids. So the answer to your question is that it was a combination of both.

DF: Who were some of your early influences?

AMC: From a young age I adored the Brontës, then at University I became obsessed with George Eliot and Virginia Woolf. In terms of contemporary writers who have influenced me as a novelist, of course, Norah Ephron, Melissa Bank, Rachel Cusk, and, my current top favorite, Elizabeth Strout.

DF: Since you’re also a screenwriter and playwright, I’m curious to know if your writing style differs widely when you’re writing fiction.

AMC: Because I started my career as a script editor, then producer, then screenwriter I am a natural plotter and find structuring a story comes relatively easily to me. I also tend to rely heavily on dialogue. When I decided to write fiction, my challenge was to loosen up a bit and allow space for character description and interior monologue.

DF: What is the premise of The Real Liddy James and what inspired the tale?

AMC: Liddy James is one of New York City’s top divorce lawyers, a successful author and a single mother of two, who seems to juggle her complicated life with ease. But it turns out that she doesn’t! The inspiration for the book was the Anne-Marie Slaughter article from 2012, “Why Women Can’t Have It All,” and that became its main theme.

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

AMC: Inevitably, I draw on my own experiences and those of my friends when I am writing. It happens that my first two novels have been contemporary and feature characters more or less around my age (at least when I started writing them!) But I know from writing plays and screenplays that emotional experience is valid whatever the setting. When I am developing a character I always consider the person’s flaws, as I think that is the best way to make them interesting.

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?

AMC: I knew there was a compelling character in the first draft, but it took a few drafts to ensure that I was telling a story rather than dramatizing the issue of work/life balance for women.

DF: The Real Liddy James has garnered praise from critics, your fellow authors, and readers. Do those reactions give you more confidence as a writer?

AMC: Yes. Every time one person likes your work you know some other people will too. I want readers and I want them to enjoy what I’m doing. However, I think it’s important that all writers step back and view their careers over the long haul. In a lifetime of writing there will be some projects that are better received than others, some even may be disastrous, the point is to keep going.

DF: What’s next for you?

AMC: I am currently writing a screenplay based on a novel The Master by Jolien Janzing about Charlotte Brontë’s time in Brussels and her secret love for her professor, which inspired Villette and Jane Eyre.

DF: What’s your advice for aspiring authors and screenwriters?

AMC: If you are determined to write something keep going, however dreadful you think your first draft is, as writing is re-writing. And always stop writing when you are in the flow so you have something to pick up on the next day.

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

AMC: I love cooking and if I weren’t a writer I’d work in a restaurant kitchen.

To learn more about Anne-Marie Casey, visit his official website or like her Facebook page.

The Writer’s Bone Interviews Archive

Literary Agent Sharon Pelletier Explains How Research and Twitter Can Advance A Writer’s Career

Sharon Pelletier

By Lindsey Wojcik

Literary agent Sharon Pelletier loves Twitter.

I know this because I’ve followed her for years and have always appreciated her witty take on "The Bachelor," plus our shared obsession with wine, and love and appreciation for Justin Timberlake. She also happens to hail from my home state of Michigan.

While I appreciate following her commentary on our shared interests, I also find her tweets offer important information for writers looking to land a literary agent or anyone seeking information on the publishing industry in general. Pelletier currently works as a literary agent at Dystel & Goderich Literary Management in New York City. She counts Amy Gentry, author of Good as Gone, which The New York Times recommend as one the best nine thrillers to read this summer, as a client.

Recently, I noticed Pelletier tweeting with the Manuscript Wish List hashtag (#MSWL), which inspired me to dig deeper and find out more on her manuscript wish list, what she looks for in query letters, and her advice to aspiring writers.

Lindsey Wojcik: How did you get your start in publishing? 

Sharon Pelletier: I moved to New York City at the ripe old age of 25 and applied ceaselessly to every publishing job I could reasonably fit my resume into until I got an internship at a small press. Then I went to every mixer, event, and happy hour I could to meet people, collect business cards, and hustle up interviews—all while working 40 hours a week at Barnes & Noble and freelancing like crazy, mind you! It was a very exciting, exhausting, and skinny time in my life. Eventually my internship led me to a full-time position as an editor at another small publishing company, and I was off to the races.

LW: You've worked in many facets of the industry, from bookstores to a small press to a self-publishing company and now at an agency. How have those experiences shaped your role as agent? 

SP: I’m glad I made a few stops on the way to being an agent because I have a full understanding of the whole publishing process! I’ve worked in editorial, production, and marketing, in addition to my time as a bookseller, which has made me better able to answer clients’ questions, evaluate publishers, or offer suggestions if a book needs to be jumpstarted. Of all of these jobs, being a bookseller might be the most useful, in a way, because I learned how different readers make buying decisions, from the hardcore readers who go through 50-plus books a year to genre devotees to folks who pick up one or two books a year from the nonfiction categories. Learning the reading tastes of customers who came in regularly for recommendations was good practice for profiling an editor’s taste.

LW: What steps do you recommend an author take when trying to land an agent?

SP: Step one: research! You’ve put a lot of time into finishing your manuscript and polishing it until it’s the best you can be, right? Writers are often eager at this point to start launching their work out there, but it’s best to put the extra time into learning how to query effectively. If you’re brand new to the process, seek out blog posts and other resources online to learn how to write a strong query letter and how to find the agents seeking your kind of manuscript.

Twitter is another great way to get to know agents’ individual preferences, both what they’re looking for their list, and their favorite television shows, pet peeves, etc. Twitter is also perfect to connect with other writers at the same step of the process for support and tips. 

LW: How can writers develop a quality query letter that catches an agent’s eye?

SP: Again, research! The things we ask for like word count, genre, comp titles, show that you’ve researched your market and understand your readership—and that you know we work in that category. Writing is about art, but being an author is also about business, and as much as we’re looking for manuscripts we love, we’re also looking for authors with career potential who will be a strong partner for us. So a well-researched, carefully crafted query that follows industry standards and our specific agency guidelines shows that you’re taking the business side of writing seriously and putting the time into careful research. 

There’s a lot of info online (including on the DGLM blog) about the components of a strong query letter, but here’s the short version: 

• Opening: 1-2 sentences with genre, word count, comp titles, and mention of why you’re querying this agent (I follow you on Twitter, we met at X conference, I read your client X’s book and loved it, etc., for example)
• Story pitch of around 200 words. Highlight characters, world, and stakes—think about what would be on the back of your book’s cover in the bookstore.   
• Bio: 2-3 sentences about who you are, including publication credits, experience you’ve had that informed this book, etc.

Rather than querying every agent whose email address you can find, put the time in to query a handful of agents who seem like the ideal fit—take the time to seek out details on their website, their #MSWL, interviews they’ve done, books they represent, etc. Then you can write a strong personal query mentioning why you’ve queried this agent in particular.

LW: What is the most common mistake you see from first-time authors?

SP: If you’re speaking of the query process, I gotta spout my favorite word again: research—or the lack thereof.

If you mean in the writing itself, one common rookie mistake is to open with your character waking up in the morning or some variation on “The day that changed her life started like any other day.” Don’t tell us that—show us! If your plot starts with a weird email when your character gets to her office, show us her sitting down at her desk with a mug of hot tea, or checking her email on the phone while sipping a smoothie on her way out of the gym. In either scenario, you’re showing us something about the character’s personality and lifestyle that is more important than us knowing what color her hair is or what she’s getting dressed in. You’re setting the character’s “normal” just before the unusual interrupts to start the story.

LW: What do you look for when you're reading a manuscript?

SP: I want to be absorbed in your story to the point that I forget I’m reading a submission and am just reading. And this usually comes down to voice, which is an easy term to throw around and harder to define or teach. It’s not about splashy, lavish descriptions or sassy dialog. Does your main character seem real and alive, like I could picture her walking around in the real world outside the page? Do her obstacles have stakes? Am I invested? Have you created a time and place for the story and drawn me into them? All of these questions matter whether you have a fast-paced crime thriller or a quiet family story set in familiar suburbs.

And the best way to develop your voice as a writer, paradoxically, is to read widely and deeply. Reading teaches your brain quietly how to pace a story, how to seed in details without drowning the reader in description or back story, so that your distinctive voice can emerge.

LW: Speaking of manuscripts, you've been active on Twitter using Manuscript Wish List's #MSWL hashtag. What's your involvement with Manuscript Wish List and what benefit does it offer agents, editors, and authors alike? 

SP: Manuscript Wish List existed for a long time on Twitter as a hashtag where agents could tweet genres they’re interested in or story ideas they’re dying to represent. Sort of the reverse of a Twitter pitch event, it is the brainchild of an agent named Jessica Sinsheimer. In the last year or so, it’s taken on even more momentum with a very snazzy website where agents and editors can post profiles about what categories they represent and the kinds of stories within each category they’re most eager to see—and perhaps most handy of all, update those profiles as often as they like as their lists change. It seems to be a great help to authors in finding agents hungry for manuscripts like theirs.

And on my end, my eyes perk up when I see someone reference my MSWL in a query! It’s a nice shiny sign of an author who’s putting in the research and is plugged in to the latest in the writer community. I don’t think I’ve signed a project that way yet, but I’m sure I will soon!

LW: What's on your Manuscript Wish List? 

SP: Right now I’d love to find some smart narrative nonfiction that brings that perfect combo of gripping storytelling and merciless research—something like Brain on Fire or Five Days At Memorial. I’d love to work with journalists who have a long-form book project. I’d also be interested in working with cultural voices with a growing platform—the next Lindy West or Ta-Nehisi Coates. And I think I’ll always be eager for smart, upmarket suspense (think Tana French or Gillian Flynn) and book club fiction that’s warm and earthy but not sappy—Ann Leary and Delia Ephron are two writers I’ve loved lately.

LW: What's your advice for aspiring writers? 

SP: Find a community of writers to connect with! Whether it’s in your local area or online, find other writers in your category who take their writing seriously. They’ll be valuable as critique partners when you’re in the early stages of perfecting your manuscript, and more importantly, you’ll have a built-in fan club when you’re moving toward an agent and a publishing deal. There’s a lot of waiting, a lot of struggle, and a lot of disappointment along the way to a successful career with adoring readers and having support from writers who know what’s it’s like is key for boosting you during the hard patches. Finding writer friends at different stages of the process can be especially helpful for advice and encouragement! Even if your loved ones are your biggest fans, they don’t really know how it feels when you have writer’s block or have to cut out a scene you absolutely love.

LW: What is a random fact about yourself?

SP: Wow, this is the hardest question of all, I think! Hmmm, I’ll give you a few to choose from: I’m the oldest of seven, never went to school, and would choose mashed potatoes over pie any day of the week.

To learn more about Sharon Pelletier, follow her on Twitter @sharongracepjs.

The Writer’s Bone Interviews Archive

Author Unplugged: 10 Questions With Liz Moore

Liz Moore (Photo credit: Olivia Valentine)

By Daniel Ford

Liz Moore’s recent novel The Unseen World defies easy categorization. It’s a story about family—specifically the bond between a daughter and her father—humanity’s relationship with technology, and how love, communication, and identity can span decades.

Booklist called The Unseen World “a stunner,” and author Alex Gilvarry praised it as “beautiful, redemptive, and utterly devastating.” The novel has also received positive reviews from the likes of The Washington Post, The New York Times Book Review, and The Boston Globe.

Moore recently discussed with me what inspired The Unseen World, how her writing process involves writing between the cracks of life, and why writers should completely unplug from technology while they’re writing.

Daniel Ford: Did you grow up knowing you wanted to be a storyteller or was it a passion that developed over time?

Liz Moore: I definitely always wrote. At first it was mainly poems, and it was mainly in a journal. I actually didn’t discover how much I wanted to write fiction until well into college.

DF: Who were some of your early influences?

LM: Flannery O’Connor, Katherine Mansfield, Russell Banks, Zora Neale Hurston, Stephen King, Virginia Woolf, James Joyce’s Dubliners.

DF: What’s your writing process like?

LM: I take four or five years to write a novel. I don’t have an outline of the story; rather, I begin with characters and really get to know them over the course of dozens of false starts. Once I’ve found the beginning of a problem or a plot for them, I move forward, slowly, with lots of backtracking and starting over.

I usually turn off all technology when I write, and try to set aside at least four consecutive hours for a writing session, but as my life gets busier and my family gets bigger I have to squeeze writing into the cracks of life more.

DF: In addition to being a novelist, you’re also a short story writer. We’re huge fans of the short story genre here at Writer’s Bone. What is it about the format that appeals to you?

LM: I love thinking of short stories as gems to polish; I go over and over and over them, trimming excess words from them, substituting language that is more precise or beautiful when I can think of it.

DF: What inspired your recently published novel The Unseen World?

LM: My father is a scientist, and I grew up surrounded by “lab culture” and by computers that evolved from the earliest personal Macs to fairly sophisticated machines over the course of my childhood. Unlike the novel’s protagonist, Ada, I was never strong in science, and I went to public school and had a more traditional upbringing than she has in the book; unlike her father, David, my father is a physicist, not a computer scientist. Also, as far as I know, he has no secret past, which David decidedly does. However, as a child, I had fantasies about being a prodigy like Ada—unfulfilled fantasies, of course—and today I have fond memories of spending time with many of my father’s colleagues and with their spouses and families. Finally, my father works in Boston; I grew up in the suburbs of Boston; and I have an aunt who lives in Dorchester. These are the parts of my upbringing that were most resonant as I was writing this book.

I’ve also always been interested philosophically in the fraught relationship between humans and machines. I first heard the so-called “Turing Test” described as a child, and that concept—combined with the many hours I spent in my youth talking to the Eliza program, a primitive chatbot that came pre-loaded on many early Macs—sparked my curiosity about what truly intelligent machines would act like.

DF: The novel not only spans several decades, but also has interweaving plotlines and a fresh take on artificial intelligence. Did you have all of these elements planned out beforehand or did they flow organically as you were writing?

LM: I didn’t have any of them planned out in advance, which is part of why the novel took so long to write!

DF: I know writers hate talking about themes, but I’ll ask this anyway. Did you want to touch on specific themes in The Unseen World?

LM: I never write “to theme,” and I tell my students not to either. In my opinion, having particular themes in mind when one begins writing results in flat characters that act in unnatural ways. At the end of a strong first draft, I might look back and ask myself what themes happen to be in it, and then try to pull them out in certain ways, but that’s about it.

DF: This being your third novel, I imagine you find yourself putting less and less of yourself, and those in your orbit, into your characters and plot. Is that true or do you still find pieces of your real life that fit perfectly into your narrative?

LM: I’m not sure that’s true; in many ways, this novel is very autobiographical, as it’s set for the first time in Boston (near where I grew up) and deals with a lab (around which I grew up).

DF: What’s your advice to aspiring authors?

LM: Disconnect from technology! Leave your phone behind while writing, and turn on a program like Freedom while you’re writing. If your writing requires research, do your research in separate sessions.

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

LM: I was born in the early hours of May 25, 1983, the day after the centennial celebration of the Brooklyn Bridge. My grandfather was president of the Brooklyn Botanic Garden at the time, and was in attendance at the celebration. He made a deal on the spot with the then-borough president that if I’m alive for the bicentennial (the day before my hundredth birthday), I’ll speak at the ceremony. Apparently there is a letter to this effect on record someplace in Brooklyn, but presumably it is a paper record and it’s buried very deep in an archive!

To learn more about Liz Moore, visit her official website, like her Facebook page, or follow her on Twitter @LizMooreBooks.

The Writer’s Bone Interviews Archive

Discovery and Determination: 11 Questions With Author Camron Wright

Taj Rowland and Camron Wright

By Daniel Ford

Author Camron Wright’s recently published novel The Orphan Keeper dramatizes the true story of Taj Rowland, who was kidnapped from his village in India when he was 7 years old and eventually adopted by a couple in the United States.

Booklist called The Orphan Keeper “a novel that is sure to be a book-club favorite,” and author Richard Paul Evans said it’s “an enlightening book that gently reminds us we are all searching for home.”

Wright talked to me recently about how writing found him at a later age, his research process for The Orphan Keeper, and his advice for social media-addicted authors.

Daniel Ford: When did you know that you wanted to become a storyteller?

Camron Wright: My background is in business, not English. I found writing (or did it find me?) as I was approaching 40, passing through a midlife crisis of sorts. (It was strictly career related—no girlfriend or sports car involved.) We had just sold our business, and I was struggling to find a new professional direction for my life. I thought it would be easy to jump into corporate America, but I’m the type of person who needs to wake up and feel like I’m making a difference and I was struggling to find that. My wife happened to be in a couple of book clubs at the time, and I remember picking up her books, reading through them, and then exclaiming, “I could write this stuff!”

Weeks later, as I naively attempted to pen my first novel, I learned it was an agonizing, insufferable, forlorn occupation—and yet equally magical. I couldn’t get enough.

DF: Who were some of your early influences?

CW: I love Nick Hornby’s early work. I remember being mesmerized by his dialogue in About a Boy. Yann Martel’s The Life of Pi is also terrific. One of my favorite early books on writing is Secret Formulas of the Wizard of Ads, by Roy Williams. I stumbled across it while working on an ad campaign for a client and found it to be one of the most profound books on fiction writing I’ve ever read.  

DF: What’s your writing process like?

CW: I don’t write chronologically, but rather in scenes as I see them in my head. It means each story turns into an array of puzzle pieces that eventually need to be assembled.

When I write, the door to my den has to be closed, even if I’m the only one home. I wish I could say that as I sit at my computer, brilliant prose spews out. Sadly that’s seldom the case. I write and revise, write and revise, write and revise. By the time I have a manuscript ready for another person to read, I’ve read and revised it easily more than a hundred times.

DF: What inspired your recent novel The Orphan Keeper?

CW: The Orphan Keeper is based on the journey of Taj Rowland. As a 7-year-old boy, he was kidnapped from his village in India, driven three hours away, sold to an orphanage, and then adopted by an unsuspecting couple in the United States. It took months before he could speak enough English to tell his parents that he already had a family back in India. Horrified, they tried their best to track down his Indian family, but all avenues led to dead ends. So they did what adoptive parents do best—they loved him.

His name was changed to Taj. He was enrolled in school, involved in sports—and his story might have ended there had it not been for the pestering questions in his head: Who am I? Why was I taken? How do I get home?

More than a decade later, the answers came in remarkable ways. In short, The Orphan Keeper is a story about Taj’s journey—both physical and emotional—to reconcile the circumstances of his life. It’s about discovery and determination as it explores how we find our place in the world.

DF: Since the book is based on a true story, how much research did you do before you actually started writing?

CW: With The Orphan Keeper, the process started with extensive interview sessions with Taj, each providing new insight and information. Once the story began to breathe, I moved to other players, mainly Priya and then Taj’s adoptive parents, Linda and Fred Rowland. It was important to understand all perspectives, since the writing needed to reflect varied character viewpoints.

As for the culture and backdrop, I read books about India, both novels and guidebooks. I watched movies, both documentaries and dramas. Taj also felt strongly that I needed to walk the actual roads where his story took place and so I traveled to India to view it all firsthand. The trip turned out to be crucial. In India several critical story elements fell into place. 

DF: Adapting real-life stories can be a challenge, and there’s a fine line between capturing the tale accurately while still providing readers a compulsive read. Was that something you thought about during the writing or editing process? Was there anything you had to exclude or tweak?

CW: Absolutely, though as a fiction writer, I weigh reader interest more heavily than I do exactness. That said, I felt oddly compelled with The Orphan Keeper to remain as true to the actual story as possible. Certainly there were cracks that needed to be puttied, but generally it’s a story that took very little sprucing. Taj’s journey is astounding and could easily have been written as non-fiction.

As for exclusions or tweaking, many of my changes related to timing. For example, Taj’s mother in India actually visited with an astrologer a few months before Taj returned. The astrologer told her, “Your son will return, and when he does, he will fly.” Eight months later Taj flew to India to find his family.

In my story the scene had already shifted from the family in India to Taj’s experience in the United States. Putting this event in its proper place on the timeline would have meant shifting focus back to the family in India, and that wouldn’t have worked.

Instead, I included it near the beginning, shortly after the child was taken. It’s still there. It’s still accurate. It’s just technically in the wrong spot. These are the types of decisions I made for the sake of story.  

DF:  I’ve come to find out that authors hate talking about themes, but I’ll ask this anyway. Were there specific themes you wanted to explore in The Orphan Keeper? And did those themes change at all once you starting writing or editing?

CW: With my previous book, The Rent Collector, even before writing the first word, I knew of specific themes I wanted to address. The Orphan Keeper, however, was different. Because I was writing another person’s story, existing themes were inherent. Early themes that began waving their arms, demanding they be noticed included chance, perseverance, coincidence, belonging, and the power of a mother’s love (two mothers, actually).

DF: All of your works, including The Rent Collector and Letters for Emily, receive rave reviews from readers and critics alike. Have those reactions made you more confident in your writing and publishing processes?

CW: I think it’s fair to say that positive feedback nurtures confidence. However, it was Hemingway who said, “We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.” At times I feel the weight of those words. As I slog through the never ending process of improving my writing, I suspect there will always be moments of doubt and worry. Mostly I find the praise humbling and I can’t help but be grateful.

DF: What’s next on your writing agenda?

CW: There are always a handful of stories swimming around in my head. That said, I’m one that gets very involved in the marketing side of a project. As such, it’s likely I won’t start the next book until The Orphan Keeper is well on its way (or until Oprah calls, whichever comes first).   

DF: What’s your advice to aspiring authors?

CW: Spend more time writing your story and less time on social media talking about writing your story.

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

CW: When I was 15, I accidently knocked out my older brother’s two front teeth with a hammer.

To learn more about Camron Wright, visit his official website or follow him on Twitter @AuthorCamronW.

The Writer’s Bone Interviews Archive

Author and Photographer Jenn LeBlanc Brings Historical Romance to Life Through Illustrated Series

Jenn LeBlanc

By Lindsey Wojcik

While some feared the rise of e-books would contribute to the downfall of publishing as the industry once knew it, Jenn LeBlanc recognized the popularity of e-books as an opportunity to combine two of her passions: photography and writing. Through e-books, the documentary photographer turned romance-cover photographer turned historical romance writer has created a genre of her own—the illustrated romance.

Designed specifically with the digital book reader in mind, the illustrated romance brings the book’s cast of characters to life on the page or screen. LeBlanc has incorporated illustrations in her latest series Lords of Time, which follows love affairs in Victorian-era England. The illustrated versions of The Trouble with Grace and The Spare and The Heir, books four and five in the series, will be released on Sept. 13 via iBooks. A limited print edition will be available exclusively at the romance-only The Ripped Bodice bookstore, based in Culver City, Calif., where LeBlanc will celebrate the release of the books with the cast on Sept. 17.

Ahead of the release of books four and five, LeBlanc set aside some time to answer questions about the research involved in writing historical romance, the differences between writing and illustrating a book, and the secret to capturing an alluring romance cover.

Lindsey Wojcik: What made you want to pursue writing, specifically historical romance?

Jenn LeBlanc: I was born to be a storyteller, both visually and in words. I absolutely adore people and what makes them who they are, and I'm fascinated by what may bring two people together. I grew up watching the BBC with my mother and always loved the period dramas with their sweeping landscapes and beautiful dresses. What I love about writing stories set in the Victorian era specifically is that there are distinct rules about etiquette and logistics that you have to take into consideration when putting the story together. Technology as we know it simply didn't exist. There were no cell phones, and in most cases, no phones at all, no cars, no rapid transit, and it could take months to travel or send messages. I need to factor in all these restrictions and complexities when I write my stories, which makes the process even more satisfying. The Victorian era is also not at all what it seems on the surface—many think the people were buttoned up and repressed, when in fact they were quite the opposite.

LW: What kind of research goes into outlining and writing historical romance novels?

JL: There's an inordinate amount of research required for a good historical novel. You not only need to research the time period in general but also specific incidents that will color the specific point in time in which the story is set. The research required for my latest novels included a great deal of information on India, timetables for trains and ocean steamers, the Paris Opera, a particular bill that was passed in England in August of 1885, and quite a few other things. I also researched Ashoka, who was an Emperor in India from 268-232 BCE. He changed the path of India in some amazing ways.

LW: What is your writing process like? How has it evolved over time?

JL: I am a panster, which means my stories are character driven. My process takes a lot of time in the planning stages simply getting to know the people who will be in the book. My ideas come from all sorts of sources. Sometimes I'm not even aware something will influence a character until much later. It's a very organic style of writing, but it makes it much more difficult to work on specific deadlines.  

LW: What inspired your latest series Lords of Time?

JL: There are quite a few things that inspired the series. The way women were treated in the Victorian era and that juxtaposition with our modern world. You may be surprised how little has changed. The other main factor was the clothing. 1885 was the era of bustles and boots and beautifully detailed garments. The series begins in 1880, and the latest novel takes place in 1885, when the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885 was passed. It included a list of provisions specifically written to protect women and children. Just before it was sent to vote, a man by the name of Henry Labouchere added another provision criminalizing homosexuality. This is the amendment that Oscar Wilde and Alan Turing were prosecuted under, and it was in effect for more than 80 years.

LW: What themes or character developments did you want to explore in your two latest installments of the series, The Trouble with Grace and The Spare and The Heir?

JL: Calder, one of the heroes, has been a part of the series since its inception. He's been running around in my head for more than seven years, and his story was of the utmost importance to me. As a gay man in Victorian England, he could face a great deal of issues by simply being alive. As a man of the peerage (he's the heir to a Duke), there was also no possible way for him to get around marriage. Calder is one of the most brave and true heroes I've ever had the honor of knowing. He puts everyone before himself, even to his own detriment at times. I wanted to give him his own happily ever after while showing the reality of being a gay man not just in Victorian England, but today as well. Again, as with the themes of women, we think we've come so far, but in so many ways, we really haven't come that far at all.

LW: How do you define illustrated romance and what inspired you to illustrate your novels?

JL: Illustrated romances are stories told not just with words but also with images. I was inspired to illustrate my novels when I saw the birth of e-books, and I recognized that with such a fantastic medium, it would be easy to create illustrated books without any significant production expenses. Since I'm a photographer, I can do all of the imagery myself, which not very many people are able to do. When the first iPad was introduced, I knew this was something I wanted to explore. It also fit very well with the Victorian era, as many novels were serialized and illustrated at the time. It just seemed like the perfect time to try something new.

LW: How is the process of illustrating your novels different from the writing process?

JL: It's quite extensive. After the novel is finished and headed for edits, I start going through scene-by-scene to pick out the most visual moments that I feel really lend to telling the story. I compile a shot list, which must be organized by costume, setting, hairstyle, the amount of dress/undress, props needed, and lighting setup. It's a completely different art form compared to writing, and there's quite a bit that goes into overall production.

LW: What's #StudioSmexy and what's the mission behind it?

JL: My primary mission with Studio Smexy is simply to provide beautiful imagery for romance novel covers. I started out with a stock site and focused on filling content gaps in the cover photography industry, including interracial romance, gay and lesbian romance, and historically accurate costuming, with images that are intimate, intense, and passionate. It grew much bigger than I expected, but it also took away from my writing. I've pared back, but am still dedicated to shooting covers with an eye for diversity in romance. I never expected to find myself in this field of photography, but I absolutely adore the work I do.

LW: You've shot more than 1,000 romance novel covers. What's the key to a creating an enticing cover image?

JL: Intimacy. There are a number of factors that I take into account when it comes to the creation of an image, but at the very core of each and every image I create is a level of intimacy that goes beyond what we're accustomed to seeing. It isn't about how clothed or unclothed the models are, or even whether or not the clothes are appropriate. If you're nitpicking the details of the image, I've already failed in my mission. My mission is to make you feel, not see.

LW: What's your advice to aspiring writers and photographers alike?

JL: Simply to create every single day. Challenge yourself. If you're a photographer, you need to be able to see, and you do so by making images constantly. If you're a writer, you need to be able to write convincingly, and you learn to do so by writing.

To learn more about Jenn LeBlanc, visit her official website, like her Facebook page, or follow her on Twitter @JennLeBlanc.

The Writer's Bone Interview Archive

Literary Machine: Detroit Community Center Spreads Literacy With Free Kids’ Books

Photo courtesy of Fox 2

By Daniel Ford

Earlier this month, I ran across a feel-good news story about Detroit’s Northwest Activities Center distributing free summer reading to local kids through a nifty book vending machine.

The vending machine is courtesy of JetBlue’s “Soar With Reading” program, which aims to “encourage kids’ imaginations to take flight through reading and get books into the hands of kids that need them most.” According to the airline’s website, $1,750,000 worth of books have been donated to kids in need by JetBlue and its partners.

The Center, which opened its doors in 1975, serves more than 250,000 Detroit residents annually, and offers “programs and activities for youth, families, and seniors that enhance the quality of life in the Detroit community.”

Norris J. Howard III, the Center’s social media manager, graciously talked to me about the community’s reaction to the initiative and how it has helped give local youths access to books and literature.

Daniel Ford: How did the Northwest Activities Center become involved with JetBlue’s summer reading program, “Soar With Reading?” What are some of the objectives of the program?

Norris J. Howard III: JetBlue actually reached out to us based on our proximity to schools and our central location. Our objective with this partnership is to increase literacy in our area. Many Detroit youth have limited access to bookstores and libraries, and this was a way for us to make books (especially Early Childhood material) available to our community.

DF: What has the reaction been like from kids and their parents to this year’s book vending machine?

NJH: Overwhelmingly positive! The community has responded in an amazing way to the program. We have to restock the machine two to three times a day during peak hours and sometimes overnight due to our evening events.

DF: According to your executive director, Ronald Lockett, you’ve distributed more than 7,000 books in six weeks through your book vending machine. That’s a lot of books! Did you ever imagine restocking the machine so much?!

NJH: No, we had no idea the program would be so successful. We are absolutely thrilled that the community enjoyed the books so much.

To learn more about the Northwest Activities Center, visit their official website or like their Facebook page.

The Writer’s Bone Interviews Archive

Never Stop Learning: A Conversation With Author Jason Pellegrini

Jason Pellegrini

By Daniel Ford

Author Jason Pellegrini got out attention in one of the more innovative ways that we’ve seen:

So @WritersBone does author interviews... Like, RT or comment on this tweet if you think they should do an interview with me! #Goodreads

— Jason Pellegrini (@JPellegrini1983) August 21, 2016

One of his readers even started a poll!

@JPellegrini1983 @WritersBone
To interview or not to interview @JPellegrini1983...that is the question ;)

— Beth, your neighbor (@fromaway2ME) August 21, 2016

The Internet had spoken, so we agreed immediately!

Like any good author, Pellegrini had a good hook, but an even better follow through. His debut novel The Replacement is beloved by readers on Amazon and Goodreads, and he’s hard at work on his next book. He took the time to chat with me about his path to writing, his inspiration for The Replacement, and why writers can never stop learning.

Daniel Ford: Did you grow up knowing you wanted to be a storyteller or was it a passion that developed over time?

Jason Pellegrini: I would say it was always there, but it took some time to surface…

I didn’t know that I wanted to be a storyteller, but I’ve always been creative. I guess the desire to tell stories started to surface in 2003 when “Buffy: The Vampire Slayer” ended. I didn’t think it got the ending it deserved, so I wrote an entire 22-episode season. It wasn’t anything impressive. Just episode highlights. But it was certainly a start. Then in college I took a creative writing course, and really enjoyed it. I wrote a short story about a modern day take on the Headless Horseman that really sticks out to this day. I think that was when I really noticed my ability to create. It was a few years after college that I decided I wanted to give writing a go.

DF: Who were some of your early influences in the crime genre, and which modern crime writers are you currently hooked on?

JP: If I’m being totally honest, I’m not the biggest reader of crime/mystery/thriller novels. I know that comes as a shock, given my first novel was a thriller. It was just the idea I had that I decided to go with.

As far as authors that I enjoy go, I’m a fan of Dennis Lehane. I’ve really enjoyed what I’ve read by him. I also just finished Stephen King’s Mr. Mercedes trilogy, which I’ve had mixed emotions about.

DF: What’s your writing process like?

JP: It has certainly changed drastically from when I wrote The Replacement to writing this upcoming novel. I guess that part of evolving as a writer. The thing that has remained the same, though, and will likely always stay the same, is that I always sit down with a pretty strong idea of what it is I’m setting out to write in the chapter. I don’t think I could be one of those authors who sits down in front of their computer screen, and creates as they write. I think things tend to go off track that way. I like to have my guiding light.

I also don’t try to force it if it’s not there. I try to write a frequently as possible, but if I’m mentally burnt out, I’m not going to try and force myself to write. I’ll just end up writing garbage. When I do sit down to write, I aim for at least a thousand words a sitting. Usually I hit it. Sometimes I do less. Sometimes I do more. Sometimes I write one sentence in a half hour, absolutely loathe it, and then delete it. When the latter example occurs, I usually close my laptop after deleting that horrible sentence, and call it a night. I consider it living to fight another day.

DF: What inspired your novel The Replacement?

JP: Well, in 2007, two friends and I decided to try out writing screenplays. We thought we had what it took—we didn’t—and thought we had a golden idea—we definitely didn’t. That ended quickly, and the end result was something that I hope never get unearthed…ever.

However, during that time I came up with an idea for a movie about a rookie detective coming in to replace a retiring detective, and the two work a case together, chasing a sadistic serial killer. I also had an ending worked out, which I won’t mention here. When it came time to decide what I wanted to write my first novel about, that specific idea stuck out above the rest. I expanded on it, and eventually it became The Replacement.

DF: The crime genre has certain built-in tropes that can deter some writers from taking the plunge. How did you ensure that your tale was original?

JP: So I’m a firm believer that every story that can be told has already been told. You just have to find a way to make it your own. I forget who said that, but it’s true when you think about it. Look back at my last answer to the question of what inspired The Replacement. My original barebones idea sounds exactly like the movie, “Se7en.” I just took that basic idea, and made it my own. For starters, I added my own twist at the end. But the thing I think makes any story original is the characters. They are what breathe life into a story. If you have strong and original characters, you can tell any tale you want. Even if it’s been told in some form a thousand times before.

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

JP: I’m a human being. I have experienced emotions all across the board. From happiness to anger to depression to hatred to love. All of it. You name it, I’ve felt it. So I’d say I pour a lot of myself into the characters. I’ve done good things in my life, and I’ve done some shitty things, too—yeah, I’ll admit it! I just take a specific attribute, and apply it to my character accordingly. If I need to, I’ll turn it up a bit, or even dial it down. Not every character is a reflection of myself or my beliefs, but the raw emotions, like love or hate, come from me.

As far as developing characters go, I try to figure out early on what defines a character, and what drives them to do whatever it is they do in the story. I view developing characters a lot like getting to know a person. When you meet them, you know only a few things about them. But as you spend time with them, you learn more about who they are. Even though I am creating these characters, I’ll sometimes find myself at a point in the story where my character has to do something that I never expected they’d ever do until I’ve reached that point. It’s a strange, yet very interesting, process.

DF: Do you have to work at avoiding clichés when depicting New York City and the surrounding area, or do you feel comfortable in your knowledge of it that you don’t really think about it?

JP: Well luckily most of my story takes place in suburban Long Island, and only select flashbacks are in the city. I never felt like I was writing clichés. I have been to Manhattan enough to feel comfortable with creating an accurate portrayal of it. Some of those things portrayed happen to be clichés, but sometimes that’s what a cliché in. An accurate portrayal of something.

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?

JP: As far as the content of the story went, I felt like I had something I could present to the public. I like to believe I have a pretty good ability to mold and then present a story on paper. I know my strengths. I also know my weaknesses, or my insecurities.

As far as the writing was concerned…that is where I had the most issues. With The Replacement, there were parts I really liked, and thought were well written. There were also parts I hated, and felt embarrassed having written them. Even if they would never be seen by the public eye. I visited and revisited chapter to try and get them to what I felt was something that could be seen by the public, and even now, after the book’s publication, I’m sure I would cringe at certain parts if I was to read the book again. I feel the writing part of creating a story is something I will constantly be self-conscious, and always work to better myself at.

I am working closely with an editor for my upcoming book, so hopefully she can catch things that I missed the first time around, and help strengthen weak links throughout the story.

DF: As we’ve discovered, you have passionate readers who have given your novel high praise on both Amazon and Goodreads. What has that experience been like and what’s next for you?

JP: It’s something that cannot be described. I know that sounds bad coming from someone who calls themselves an author, but it is the truth. I knew I had something good that people could enjoy, but never did I expect people enjoying what I created at such a consistent level. To go on Goodreads and Amazon, and see so many four- or five-star reviews is amazing. People daydream about what it’s going to be like when their book is published or their album is released. We all like to think it’s going to be well received. For it to become a reality is just such an amazing feeling. These people are the reason I find the motivation to keep going.

What’s next is simple…I have a book coming out later this year. After that’s done, I’m going to get started on a new one! Just got to keep on keeping on!

DF: What’s your advice to aspiring authors?

JP: Read On Writing by Stephen King. It was the first piece of advice I ever received, and I’m glad I did. Two things he discusses that I want to mention here are 1) constantly read, and 2) don’t let the fear of what others might think affect the story you tell or the characters you create.

As far as advice form me…Never stop learning. Constantly evolve. Find the mistakes, even in your successes (because they’re there, trust me!). Just be aware of your weaknesses without letting them destroy your strengths.

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

JP: I was born on Halloween!

To learn more about Jason Pellegrini, like his Facebook page or follow him on Twitter @JPellegrini1983.

The Writer’s Bone Interviews Archive

‘Never Deny Yourself the Joy of Writing:’ 10 Questions With Author Louie Cronin

Louie Cronin

By Daniel Ford

It’s Writer’s Bone policy to talk to authors who feature a vinyl record on their book covers or have been involved in “Car Talk” in any shape or form. Cambridge-based author Louie Cronin checks off both boxes with ease!

Cronin’s passion for storytelling and bubbly optimism is infectious, and translates to every page of her fun debut novel Everyone Loves You Back (which comes out Oct. 21, 2016). Her main character Bob Boland, a “sarcastic, jazz-loving radio engineer working the night shift,” is faced with every city dweller’s nightmare: “urban tree-huggers and uppity intellectuals with designer dogs.” The back cover really sets the tone of the novel: “Sex. Wine. Jazz. Existential dread.” We’ll have what she’s having.

Cronin recently chatted with me about growing up in a storytelling family, her fond memories of “Car Talk,” her publishing journey, and what inspired Everyone Loves You Back.

Daniel Ford: When did you decide you wanted to become a storyteller?

Louie Cronin: I grew up in a storytelling family. We would sit around the kitchen table at night, drink tea, and talk. My father, in particular, was a great storyteller and very funny. And he never let the truth get in the way of a good yarn. Even now I have to stop myself when I am quoting him and ask, could that have really happened?

I always loved to read and dreamed of becoming a writer from the time I was a kid. I took several stabs at it in high school and college. I even took an early retirement from an audio engineering job to write a novel. But I didn’t have the first idea of how to start.

I didn’t really get down to it until I had moved to New York in my 30s. I remember one moment in particular. I was working at NBC and doing the sound for an interview with the novelist Robert Stone. I didn’t know his work then, but I felt such an affinity for him, I wanted to crawl through the glass wall that separated the studio from the control room and sit in his lap! What was I doing on the wrong side of that wall?

DF: Who were some of your early influences?

LC: The librarians at the Belmont Public Library, in the town where we moved when I was 10. I worked my way through the entire young adult section there. I read pretty indiscriminately and finished every book! I thought that if a writer had put the time in, I had to finish it, out of respect. I wish I could keep that practice up now as an adult, but I’m afraid I start and stop lots of books.

I loved J.D. Salinger’s books, and read them all, several times. When I finally got to high school and found out the nuns had banned Catcher in the Rye, I laughed. I had read and almost memorized it years before!

I turned to books for answers when I had problems. When I started having doubts about my faith, I couldn’t turn to my family or the nuns. Instead I found Of Human Bondage by Somerset Maugham in the young adult section. I felt like I had this secret, liberating resource at the library.

When I first started writing seriously in my 30s I was reading a lot of Barbara Pym, Alice McDermott, Raymond Carver, and Martin Amis. Recently I’ve enjoyed all the Edward St. Aubyn books and Lily King’s Euphoria. I just finished Zadie Smith, White Teeth, which I loved. I don’t know why it took me so long to get to it.

DF: “Car Talk” remains one of my favorite shows. How did you end up working there, and was it as much fun as it sounded?

LC: I worked at WBUR for years and got to know Tom and Ray and some of the “Car Talk” staff there. When a job at “Car Talk” came open, I tried out for it. I had to pick callers for the show and write funny promo material. I spent a whole weekend working on the promos and still had nothing to show. Someone else I knew was applying for it too and I asked her how she found the writing test? “Easy!” She said. I found it excruciatingly hard, but I got the job! I think there’s a lot of truth in the Thomas Mann quote: “A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people.”

Working there was so much fun, but also lots of plain old work. Any time I spent with Tom and Ray was fun. You could hear them laughing as they rode the elevator up to the radio station. After the show we’d have lunch in the cafeteria and they’d entertain us and anyone else who happened to stop by. They are exactly like they sound on the radio—funny, smart, free-spirited, totally original—but maybe even kinder and deeper in person. I love them both and miss Tom a lot.

I picked the calls that got onto the show and wrote material for the breaks and the ending, like the funny names, the fake funding credits, and Bugsy’s gastronomical exploits. My first week on the job I found Picov Andropov, the show’s Russian chauffeur. I knew it would be all downhill from there.

DF: In addition to being a novelist, you’re also a short story writer. We’re huge fans of the short story genre here at Writer’s Bone. What is it about the format that appeals to you?

LC: I love short stories and for many years that is all that I wrote. I love the economy of the form, the precision of the language, the ability to focus in on one event. There is something so concentrated and potent in short stories. I also like that you can read one in one sitting! And that you can write one in a relatively short period of time, unlike the novel, where you have to commit to years. In grad school we had to produce a short story every two weeks. I’m not saying mine were great. But it was doable. I would have two going at once. When I got stuck on one, I would turn to the other one. I also have been a member of a wonderful writing group that was started by the late short story writer Andre Dubus. Getting to know Andre and his work deepened my appreciation of short stories and in a way, broadened my sense of what they can do, where they can go.

DF: What inspired your debut novel Everyone Loves You Back?

LC: The novel was inspired by a rant, that came to me in the voice of Bob Boland, the main character. I was living in Cambridge at the time, watching my neighborhood transform before my eyes. People like me were disappearing. Super wealth was flowing in. Every house on the street was renovated and dripping with copper! There was an intense pressure to keep up with the Joneses. Neighbors would offer to lend me their gardening tools to encourage me to keep my yard up. They had landscapers. I was doing it on my own.

DF: How much of yourself, and your experiences, ended up in your characters and your plot?

LC: A lot. The main character, Bob Boland works in radio as a sound engineer, which I have done off and on my entire career. He lives in Cambridge, my hometown, and has my kind of sarcastic voice. He also had bits of my brothers and father in him and bits of people I grew up with, went to school with, worked with, or even dated. But in the process of writing, he morphed into someone entirely apart from me or anyone I knew, so much so that in the end I really admired and loved him. I thought of him as a real hero, who could act in a way that suited him and the story, and not be constrained by my limited life. It was really a liberating experience, to start from what you know—Cambridge, radio—and through the fictional process watch this other being and story emerge. 

Similarly the plot is a mash up of things that happened and things that are totally made up! But I drew from previous jobs, people I knew, things I read in the news, stories I heard. What’s really strange is how many things I made up that later came true! Long after finishing the novel, for example, I got a job at a radio station that was getting rid of its jazz shows!

DF: I feel that Cambridge is an untapped literary landscape. Why did you decide to base the novel there?

LC: Simple. I was living there; I was born there. Cambridge is kind of a character in the novel. I have always wanted to express what a wild place it was to grow up in. My block had Nobel Prize winners, garbage collectors, cops, and psychiatrists living cheek by jowl. It was a very eccentric, quirky, and open-minded place, but there was always this tension between Harvard and the natives, town and gown, the haves and have nots.

DF: How long did it take you to write the novel, and what was your publishing journey like?

LC: It took me five years to write it. I was working full time at “Car Talk” for most of that time and since it was my first novel, I was learning how to do it as I went. And then of course, I had to go back and rewrite it. My publishing journey was hard, much harder than I expected. I had so much positive feedback along the way, I thought it would be easy. But when I sent it out into the publishing world, I got lots of positive rejections!

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

LC: I am writing my second novel. I’m 100 pages into the first draft. And I’ve been writing some short stories and essays.

DF: We always end here, and being a first-time writer yourself, I’m sure this is something you’ve thought about while promoting Everyone Loves You Back: What is your advice for aspiring authors?

LC: There’s the writing life and the joy it brings, the immense satisfaction. And you can give yourself that joy. No one else holds the key to it. No one can take it away from you. No matter your success or your failure, you can give yourself that gift. For years I worked as an engineer and knew something was missing. Starting to write was a revelation to me.

Then there’s the whole publishing world. You need a thick skin to brave it. Everyone told me that, but I thought somehow I would sneak by and have an easy time of it. I thought I would be the exception.

So I guess my advice is, believe everyone when they say how rough it is out there, but never deny yourself the joy of writing. It is such a relief to do what you love.

To learn more about Louie Cronin, follow her on Twitter @louiecronin.

The Writer’s Bone Interview Archives

Imagination On Fire: 10 Questions With Author Joe R. Lansdale

Joe R. Lansdale

By Sean Tuohy

Joe R. Lansdale is a writer’s kind of writer. I don’t think there’s a storytelling medium he hasn’t worked in. He’s penned 30 novels, most of them taking place in his home state of Texas. He’s also worked on comic books, television shows, films, and newspapers.

Lansdale’s stories are filled with strange, yet relatable characters. His stories are original and fast- paced. Lansdale grabs his readers quickly and pulls them into a world created by a master storyteller.

Recently his novel Cold In July (a personal favorite we featured in “Books That Should Be On Your Radar” in March) was produced into an award-winning film starring Don Johnson, Michael C. Hall, and Sam Shepard. His long-running Hap and Leonard series has also been turned into a TV series.

Lansdale took a few minutes to chat about the craft of storytelling, how he works in so many different mediums, and his new publishing house Pandi Press.

Sean Tuohy: When did you decide you wanted to become a storyteller?

Joe R. Lansdale: I was four when I discovered comics. I wanted to write and draw them. By the time I was nine, I realized I liked writing, but didn't really have the talent to draw. Stories, novels, and TV shows, movies influenced me as well. So pretty much all my life.

ST: Who were some of your early influences?

JRL: Jack London, Twain, Rudyard Kipling, and Edgar Rice Burroughs are a few. Burroughs really set my youthful imagination on fire. I wanted to be a writer early on, but when I read him at eleven years old, I had to be.

ST: What is your writing process like?

JRL: I get up in the morning, have coffee and a light breakfast and go to work for about three hours. That's it. I do that five to seven days a week. Now and again I'll work in the afternoon at night, but that's mostly how I do it day in and day out. I polish as I go and try to get three to five pages a day, but sometimes write a lot more.

ST: You have written for TV, film, and comics. Does your process or writing style change between the three formats?

JRL: Well, the format is the change, but you always write as well as you can, and you write to the strengths of the medium. Each as different, but you try and do them all as well as you can. I find I sometimes need a day to get comfortable doing something other than prose, but then the method comes back to me, and I'm into it.

ST: Your novel Cold in July was turned into a film and your long running Hap and Leonard series was turned into a TV show. How does it feel to see your work translated into another form?

JRL: It's fun, but always a little nerve-wracking. You always see stuff they left out, or changed, but my experiences so far have been really good. Enough things get made, I'm sure to have one I really hate. But again, so far, way good.

ST: Recently you opened Pandi Press with your daughter Kasey (a talented singer). What is the goal of this new publishing house?

JRL: To publish some of my work that's out of print, and to make the money that the publisher would end up with if they reprinted. It's an experiment as well. We'll see how it turns out. I plan to do some original books there as well.

ST: Being from Texas the Lone Star State plays a big part in your stories. What is it about Texas that makes it such an interesting backdrop filled with interesting characters?

JRL: You said it. It's full of interesting characters. But the main reason is it's what I know well, and I can write about it with confidence.

ST: What is next for Joe Lansdale?

JRL: More novels, short stories, films, and comic adaptations of my work by others.

ST: What advice do you give to first-time writers?

JRL: Read a lot, and put your ass in a chair and write. Only two things that really work.

ST: Can you tell us one random fact about yourself?

JRL: I have been studying martial arts for 54 years.

To learn more about Joe R. Lansdale, visit his official website, like his Facebook page, or follow him on Twitter @joelansdale.

The Writer’s Bone Interviews Archive

Taking Nothing For Granted: A Conversation With Best-Selling Author Marti Leimbach

Marti Leimbach

By Adam Vitcavage

Marti Leimbach has written an incredibly personal novel that dives deep into the psychology of a traumatic event that happened to her as a child. While Age of Consent is largely fictional, the writer used memories to extrapolate what it felt like to be in a certain situation and let her imagination control the rest of the plot. That idea of control is what excites her as a writer.

I chatted with the best-selling author via Skype from her home in England about creating fiction from personal truth.

Adam Vitcavage: I really enjoyed the book. Thank you so much for writing something so personal. Do you always finding yourself tapping into your personal life to find good fiction?

Marti Leimbach: I think the fact that I do it so often tells the story itself, I have to admit. So, I must like it. Occasionally I try very hard to get away from something that specifically I have experienced. Even in some abstract way. For example, when I wrote The Man from Saigon. I tried as hard as I could to move away from any experience I could have had directly. I wrote about a reporter in the 1960s in Vietnam. I loved writing that book. It really brought me away from myself. I got away from some of these other internal notions or demons or whatever you're wrestling with. I really enjoyed The Man from Saigon for that reason.

But often in a book, I’m looking to write about something I’m curious about inside of myself. Not a set of events, but a set of feelings, thoughts or responses. In writing a book I want to connect with something or find more about myself.

AV: When you were writing Age of Consent, was there something in particular you were trying to connect with or find?

ML: Everything in the book is invented in the sense that the characters and situations are invented. It’s all fiction. What isn’t fiction is the core of the book, which is really about what it’s like to be inside that subjectivity. There’s a teenage girl who should be learning about what it’s like as a potentially sexual being in a certain way, but she has to navigate this world of adult sex.

I didn’t want to talk about that particularly. I avoided talking about it even to people very close to me. I suppose I was still ashamed that ever happened to me; that I was ever in that situation; that I wasn’t able to prevent it from happening. I never wanted to write about it. Then, and it sounds so stupid, but I saw a photograph of a hotel sign. One of those big lighted, garish signs that says “MOTEL.” I saw this sign, and it was a particular evening and mood it portrayed and very clearly in my head I saw this motel, and then I saw the car park and the cars inside of it and the cream colored doors, and I saw a girl that might have been me—that wasn’t me—that might have been me inside of this room with a man she didn’t want to be with and the story erupted.

It wasn’t a novel. When I start writing I never know what it’s going to be. It could be flash fiction, short story, something for my blog. But this had a real power to it. That power came from a knowingness of what it was like. Not just that it happened because anybody could write that scene. Anybody could write about a girl in a motel with a man she didn’t want to be with having sex with her. That’s just plot and that’s easy. What isn’t easy and what intrigued me was the understanding of what it meant to be that girl. Not what happened, but the feelings and the responses internally about what happened.

When you’re looking at your own writing, you’re looking for value. You’re looking for that moment that tells you something more about yourself. It had value.

AV: You mention how this is largely an invented piece of fiction, but is it easier or harder for you to write fiction when it is based on something so personal?

ML: If I have to answer yes or no, I would have to say it’s easier. I remember writing Daniel Isn’t Talking, which is a book where if I had to research to write it, I might not have written it because the chances of getting it wrong would have been too great. If you want to portray a woman who is raising a child with something like autism, you better know everything about it because there are people out there who do and they’ll catch you on it.

It was easier writing Daniel, because by then my son was 6, 7, 8 years old. So I knew. And I wrote about the character as a baby; in fact, the baby in the book was a genius compared to my son even though my son ended up doing very, very well. The truth is that I wouldn’t have touched that topic if I didn’t have insider knowledge. I wouldn’t have dared.

I think the same is true with Age of Consent. Why would I assume I know enough to get deep inside the thoughts of a girl who is being sexually abused, then the women is grown and returns to confront the situation. Why would I pretend to be able to do any of that? Why would I want to? It’s a psychological book. It would have required so much research and I would be afraid that I would get it wrong.

There’s also so much in these books that is invented than real. You get to play with all of that invention at the same time without having to have that anxiety of worrying if you’re portraying a situation or a point of view right.

I don’t think I helped you with that answer, did I?

AV: No, you did. That makes sense. I talked to Kristopher Jansma, who wrote a book about a twentysomething getting cancer (and was recently interviewed by Writer’s Bone’s Gary Almeter), and he said the same thing. His sister unexpectedly got cancer and he said it was so important to get the truth about what it is really like out there for people to connect with it who have had similar situations.

But I think, as a 27-year-old man, I understood the point of view you were portraying and what she was feeling.

ML: That’s lovely for you to say. In these particular little cases that I write, all the big dramas take place inside of their minds and their hearts. There is a lot of plot, but this is where the real drama happens. That’s why I think writers are going to write about something that is a big issue to that people will connect with. I think it is easier with these types of stories that you have some experience with it.

Having said that, you don’t have to.

I remember deliberately with The Man from Saigon, that I needed to let the world know that I could write something that I had no way of knowing about personally. I felt it very liberating. It was a wonderful experience and I had a lot of fun writing it. I felt less anxious writing it. It was the same with Dying Young. I’ve never taken care of a man dying of cancer, but I have known loss early. I felt it was robbery that the character in Dying Young had to die so young, and I felt it was robbery that my father died young, and that my mother died young. I knew that sense of loss.

AV: Going back to this recent book being very psychological. Was there a point when you were writing it where it became too much and you felt like you’d never finish it?

ML: I always knew that I would carry on writing it. It was never a question that I wouldn’t finish it. But, and maybe this is a terrible reflection about me, but the worst scenes in the book that were excruciating to read were the ones I loved writing. I loved writing the hard parts. I like writing all of that. I think it’s because I get to take this really ugly moment that can happen to a person and I get to objectify it and shape it and control it. It’s not threatening because I’m in charge. It’s a feeling of control that doesn’t make me feel sad or anxious about these horrible situations.

AV: Was this part of a healing process? Or is a “healing process” as the media portrays it even a thing?

ML: I’m sure it’s a thing. I’m not sure if the media was saying anything about a healing process because I wasn’t paying attention either because I didn’t have access to the media or I was busy doing other things. Kids don’t look like they’re healing as they’re healing. Kids don’t look like they’re being abused while they’re being abused. Kids just do what kids do. They have their friends, they talk on the phone, they play with their toys. They just look like kids. So I don’t know when the process begins or when it ends.

I think shame is a very tenacious thing. What I remember through all of it was the tremendous shame I felt. While writing the book did absolutely nothing to increase my shame, publishing the book has been surprising. Even though this is fiction, there is a back story that I can’t deny and it would be disingenuous for me to deny.

So I tell people that I had something along the same lines happen to me with an older man, and I do feel shame about that. Even now. But I didn’t think I did. When I have to portray myself publicly as a victim or having to heal from something or whatever, I do feel shame. I’m not a victim; I’m what they call a survivor. But I don’t even like that. I just like being me.

I’d be dishonest if I said I didn’t feel shame. I don’t think books heal you. I don’t think writing books is cathartic. What’s been cathartic has been being successful in all of these small ways like having a great relationship with my husband, having friends, loving my children, being a good mother. These life processes that some would take for granted, I don’t take for granted.

To learn more about Marti Leimbach, visit her official website, like her Facebook page, or follow her on Twitter @MartiLeimbach.

Also be sure to listen to Adam Vitcavage’s new podcast Internal Review!

The Writer’s Bone Interviews Archive

'Treat Language As A Craft:' 11 Questions With Author Paul Vidich

Paul Vidich

By Daniel Ford

I’ll have much more to say about Paul Vidich’s debut novel An Honorable Man in August’s “Books That Should Be On Your Radar,” but you should go out and read it as soon as humanly possible. It’s an old school spy thriller in the best sense!

Vidich talked to me recently about how he became a storyteller, his love of short stories, and what inspired An Honorable Man.

Daniel Ford: When did you decide you wanted to become a storyteller?

Paul Vidich: I grew up in an academic family and my parent’s friends were writers, professors, and journalists who regularly gathered for cocktail parties. These literate people always had something to say, and often it was stories. I remember being impressed by the ones who could hold the attention of the room. I admired their storytelling, and I think it was then, as a 10-year-old, that I saw the power of storytelling, and its rewards.

DF: Who were some of your early influences?

PV: Before I knew who Charles Dickens was, I was taken by the elaborate tapestry of his novels, which came to life in my imagination. Later, I was drawn to Tolstoy, Graham Greene, and Joseph Conrad, and later still I was drawn to the remarkable Ian McEwan. Early on I was drawn to story, but as I grew into writing I was taken by the great stylists like Nabokov, Wolfe, Bronte, and Flaubert. I greatly admire John le Carré for his ability to disguise his literary works as spy novels.  

DF: What’s your writing process like?

PV: Deliberate. Steady. Unremarkable. I find setting and characters first, and from the characters emerge the conflicts that become the story. Plot follows. I write about 100 pages of research, which consists of snippets of dialogue, phrases, character biographies, smells and tastes of a place. With this in hand I write a first draft longhand. Months of research can become a first draft in 45 to 60 days. This first effort is sloppy, shapeless, and sometimes embarrassing, but from it comes the second draft, and a third, and a fourth. By the fifth draft, which may take six to eight months, the manuscript is settled enough to type out. 

DF: In addition to being a novelist, you’re also a short story writer. We’re huge fans of the short story genre here at Writer’s Bone. What is it about the format that appeals to you?

PV: Good short stories, as James Joyce said, rise to epiphany. They provide the reader a clear insight into one thing human—the dutiful young daughter in “Eveline” who chooses to stay in Ireland with her old widowed father rather than leave to Australia with her lover, sacrificing her future. Empathetic characters. Clear choices. Each great short story reveals a whole world that is not on the page.

DF: What inspired your debut novel An Honorable Man?

PV: I received a letter from a well-known New York agent, who read my short story that had won second prize in the Fugue short story contest judged by Junot Díaz. He liked the story, but didn’t represent story collections. Did I have a novel? I looked at my wife. “I think I should write a novel?” But what novel? There was a devastating family loss that sat unsettled in my mind for many years. 

My uncle Frank Olson was a highly skilled Army scientist who worked at Fort Detrick in Frederick, Maryland, a top secret U.S. Army facility that researched biological warfare agents. He died sometime around 2:30 a.m. on Nov. 28, 1953 when he “jumped or fell” from his room on the thirteenth floor of the Statler Hotel in New York City. He had gone to New York to see a psychiatrist in the company of a CIA escort, Robert Lashbrook. This was all the family knew about Frank’s death for 22 years. 

In 1975, a report by The Rockefeller Commission, which had been established by President Ford to investigate allegations of illegal CIA activity within the U.S., contained a two-paragraph account of an army scientist who had been unwittingly given LSD and died in a fall from a hotel window in New York. The CIA confirmed this was Frank Olson. To the conflicting theories that he “jumped or fell” another possibility was added:  He was pushed. Frank Olson’s death came to embody our collective fascination with the Cold War’s dark secrets, and it shined light on the dubious privileges men in the CIA gave themselves in the name of national security.

Frank Olson left behind his wife, Alice, my aunt, and three young children, Eric, Lisa, and Nils. I observed this tragedy over the years from within the tenuous intimacy of our family connection. I witnessed how my cousin Eric’s search for the answer to his father’s death was frustrated by an agency clinging to it secrets

The details of Frank’s death would never be known, so a conventional telling of the story in a memoir was not possible. I chose to tell the story of my cousin’s life-long search for the answer to the question: How did my father die and why? I wrote the story as fiction—inventing some characters to help complete the portions of the real story that would never be known. The book, in its several versions, never completely succeeded. Combining memoir with fiction weakened the imagined world. The baggage of real details didn’t give me the freedom to build a story that lived only within the text on the page. So I abandoned that effort after two years.

In the course of the research for that novel I came across a brief mention of the mysterious case of James Kronthal, the first Soviet mole in the CIA, a close associate of Allen Dulles, who committed suicide in 1953. This intrigued me. I created a storyline around the incident. I had already explored a man who lived a secret life—Frank Olson—so I took the essence of Frank’s life and used it to create a fictional character, George Mueller. I knew the life of a man cut off from family by covert work. When I set down to write the first draft these things were in my mind, so the draft, sloppy and uneven, came quickly.

DF: How much of yourself, and your experiences, ended up in your characters and your plot?

PV: Very little of my life is directly reflected in the book, however, we all see the world through the lens of our own experience. I was not a spy. I did not work at the CIA. But I was a senior executive at Time Warner and I knew how a bureaucracy worked—beneath the work are the personalities that compete—men and women with ambition, who game the politics of the organization, who betray colleagues when needed to advance themselves. These things I knew and I used them in the novel.

DF: Authors have been writing about spies and the Cold War for just as long, if not longer, than the Cold War itself.  What did you do in the research/writing process to ensure that your tale had something fresh to offer the genre?

PV: My novel is character based. It has a plot, and there is a story arc, but the book is propelled by the fears, goals, and ambitions of its two central characters, George Mueller and Roger Altman. I gave them a moral grounding. They had personal lives that came into conflict with, and were sacrificed for, their work. It is the personal nature of their stories, and their deceits, that is fresh to the genre, I believe. 

DF: How long did it take you to write the novel, and what was your publishing journey like?

PV: As I said, the first draft came quickly. I had a completed manuscript within nine months that benefitted from comments from six fine writers who graduated with me from the Rutgers Newark’s MFA program. We regularly meet and comment on each other’s work. I sent the manuscript to four agents who represented authors whose work was similar to my own—espionage novels with a literary register. Olen Steinhauer is one such author who is represented by The Gernert Company. David Gernert got back to me and asked if I’d be willing to work with one of their agents. They liked the book but wanted some changes. Will Roberts has been a remarkable agent and collaborator. His comments helped me make several critical changes. He then handled the auction of the novel. I was fortunate to land with Emily Bestler, Emily Bestler Books, an imprint at Simon and Schuster.   

DF: An Honorable Man has gotten rave reviews from critics and readers alike. What has that experience been like, and what’s next for you?

PV: It was exhilarating to get back the first blurbs from authors like Joseph Kanon, Olen Steinhauer, and Jayne Anne Phillips. These are writers whose works I admire, and I was humbled by their kind assessments. The book has also gotten high marks from readers on Amazon. That too is satisfying. These recognitions are important for a debut novelist, coming out of obscurity as I did, and to find that my story and storytelling earned some modest praise.  

My next book is set in Cuba in 1958 in the months before the fall of Batista. 

DF: What’s your advice to aspiring authors?

PV: Write every day. Write from the heart. Treat language as a craft.

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

PV: My favorite wine is a burgundy, Clos De Tart.  

To learn more about Paul Vidich, visit his official website or follow him on Twitter @paulvidich.

The Writer’s Bone Interview Archives

‘It’s Never Done Until It’s Done:’ 10 Questions With Author Larry Tye

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Larry Tye

By Daniel Ford

Meeting your personal heroes, whether on the page or in person, can be a risky proposition. Plenty of journalists find out that the men or women they look up to rarely match the personas in the headlines.

Author Larry Tye conducted exhaustive research for his new book Bobby Kennedy: The Making of a Liberal Icon—including interviewing Kennedy’s 88-year-old widow Ethel—and walked away with even more respect for the former U.S. Attorney General and New York Senator. That’s impressive.

Tye talked to me recently about why he decided to pursue journalism and nonfiction writing, his research process for Bobby Kennedy: The Making of a Liberal Icon, and what new discoveries he made about one of our most profiled public figures.

Daniel Ford: What made you pursue writing, specifically journalism and nonfiction writing?

Larry Tye: I love to explore issues and people in-depth. I love sharing my findings. And after 20 years of telling stories for newspapers at the length of a page or two, the luxury of doing it at 500 pages has proven irresistible.

DF: What inspired you to write your newest book, Bobby Kennedy: The Making of a Liberal Icon?

LT: I grew up in Massachusetts, with Kennedys everywhere, including going to high school with one of Bobby’s sons. I grew up with RFK as a hero. And I saw my mentors in journalism—the hardest-headed reporters of their generation—fall in love with Bobby, the first and only time they let themselves do that with a politician.

I wanted to know more about this enigmatic political figure, and Random House gave me the chance. I also wanted to know more about what America was like in my formative years in the 1950s and ‘60s, and nobody reflected that better—including the ways the country was changing from the era of Eisenhower to the tumultuous 1960s—than Bobby Kennedy.

DF: What was your research like? How many interviews did you conduct, and what kinds of documents did you comb through during the process?

LT: I interviewed more than 400 people and combed through endless documents, including newly-released ones. I read unpublished memoirs and sifted through more than 500 books. My research was both relentless and a blast.

DF: The Kennedy brothers have been the subjects of myriad biographies and historical narratives since their rise to power in the 1960s. Did you discover anything new that truly surprised you?

LT: Lots new: From probing in ways nobody had Bobby’s relationship with Senator Joe McCarthy, to understanding his real role in the Cuban Missile Crisis, to talking to people who hadn’t talked before about his times as attorney general, senator, and presidential candidate. I could cite endless specifics, but would prefer your readers read my book and decide for themselves.

DF: When you finally sat down to write the book, what was your process like? Would you say your process would differ than a fiction author?

LT: I have never written fiction, so wouldn’t know. What I can say is that nonfiction is an ongoing back-and-forth between writing, rechecking old facts, researching new questions, and trying to get back to sleep every time you wake in the middle of the night, remembering something you’d forgotten.

DF: Like his brother, Bobby Kennedy is a captivating figure because of his flaws as well as the better angels of his nature. In writing a biography about a well-known figure like Bobby Kennedy, how do you go about balancing the details of his life to give readers an accurate portrait of who he was?

LT: You try and tell it all, the bad and the good, and hope that the figure that emerges is the real one. That’s harder than it seems, but also what a journalist tries to do every day in every story she or he tells. Again, my readers will have to decide whether I was balanced.

DF: As a Superman fanatic, I can’t let you go without asking one question about your book Superman: The High-Flying History of America's Most Enduring Hero. How cool was it writing about the Man of Steel?

LT: As cool as it gets. What could be better than calling it work when you spend your days reading old comic books and watching old episodes of Superman movies and television shows.

DF: You’ve written about Satchel Paige, the aforementioned Superman, civil rights, Jewish identity, and, now, Bobby Kennedy. What’s next on the agenda for you?

LT: Stay tuned.

DF: What’s your advice to aspiring nonfiction authors?

LT: Know that writing books is the hardest work anyone could ever do, since it’s never done until it’s done. It’s also the most fun. Test whether it’s for you by writing your story first at newspaper- or magazine-length, then, if you and your publisher think there’s more to tell, try a book.

DF: Can you name one random fact about yourself?

LT: After seeing all the good and bad in him, I remain a bigger fan than ever of Bobby Kennedy. Nothing better than your hero being flesh-and-blood, with the balance of faults and goodness all of us have.

To learn more about Larry Tye, visit his official website, like his Facebook page, or follow him on Twitter @LarryTye.

The Writer’s Bone Interviews Archive

Never Quit: 10 Questions With Author Alexander Boldizar

By Daniel Ford

I love a great writer bio. Here’s Alexander Boldizar’s:

He was the first Slovak citizen to graduate with a J.D. from Harvard Law School. Since then, he has been an art gallery director in Indonesia, an attorney in California and Prague, a pseudo-geisha in Japan, a hermit in Tennessee, a paleontologist in the Sahara, a porter in the High Arctic, a police-abuse watchdog in New York City, and an editor of the first pan-Asian art magazine.

Turns out that his debut novel, The Ugly, is just as entertaining (it comes out September 7, 2016). Boldizar talked to me recently about how he became a storyteller, his publishing journey, and what inspired The Ugly.

Daniel Ford: What made you want to become a storyteller?

Alexander Boldizar: I started off wanting to be a good thinker, not a storyteller per se, but somewhere in my twenties I came to see storytelling as the most sophisticated form of thinking. I love ideas that are too complex to put in a box, whether the box is a bumper sticker or a tome like Being and Time. Heidegger never wrote the second half of Being and Time because, he said, he realized that Rilke had done it all better through poetry. Ideas are only meaningful when they interact with people—real conflicted people, not Ayn Rand-style cardboard people—and I see stories as the only way to touch truly complex, open-ended ideas. It’s probably why I dislike plays: they tend to be closed.

If you can grasp an idea in its totality, it’s not a very interesting idea. For me, an interesting, complex idea can only be poked, not held, because it’s full of aporias and conflicting levels. Novels of ideas can get a bad rap sometimes because writers start off with prepackaged answers they want to present to the world. That leads to allegory or therapy or propaganda, not literature. I wanted a novel of ideas that started only with questions or approaches to thinking. And the characters in the book, though a little extreme, are real people with motivations that vary across situations. If they were flat, then both the story and the ideas would be flat.

DF: Who were some of your early influences?

AB: As an adult, definitely Kafka and Musil stand out. Plus the film “Berlin Alexanderplatz” by Rainer Werner Fassbinder. That would be the troika for me. But also Joseph Roth, Borges, Hrabal, Bowles, Dostoevsky, Rilke, Conrad, DN Stuefloten, Jodorowsky, and then a lot of science fiction. PK Dick and Frank Herbert had the biggest influence there.

In Czechoslovakia, I remember reading Jules Verne, Jack London, and Karl May in Slovak translation. In refugee camp, I read whatever I could get, in whatever language I could get—Slovak, Czech, and Polish were all roughly understandable, and I was learning German, but they were all adult books. Nobody had kid books. Then we came to Canada, and I discovered science fiction. Between the ages of 8 and 14 years old, I think I read nearly every sci-fi book written, using books the way some people now use cell phones. I couldn’t walk, eat, or use the bathroom without holding a book in front of my face. Around 15 years old, I discovered Nietzsche, and through him other existentialists. Every teenage boy should go through a science-fiction-plus-Nietzsche stage, and every adult man should grow out of it. I came to more standard contemporary literary fiction much later in life.

I was only seven when we escaped, speak English better than Slovak, and don’t give much weight to nationality or ethnic origin—but somehow I nevertheless seem to connect far more directly to writers born in what used to be Austria-Hungary than I do to Anglo-Saxon literature.

DF: What’s your writing process like? Were any mountains harmed in the making of The Ugly?

AB: The process for The Ugly was ugly, and not one that I plan on repeating. I spent six months writing the book and 16 years editing it back under control. I had the main character, Muzhduk the Ugli the Fourth. I had the setting, Harvard Law School. I had a few characters I wanted Muzhduk to meet, and I had a few ideas I wanted to bounce into each other through their interaction. But I had no plans as to how those interactions would play out.

When I was a boy I used to make cars out of Lego blocks, and then smash them into each other to see which was the better design. The winner would get fixed, the loser would get disassembled and replaced with a new design. I took a bit of that approach with the people, settings and ideas in The Ugly. 

About half way through I realized I was creating a monster with too many things happening to keep track of. Faulkner has a quote where he says you can learn how to write on your own, but everything will take twice as long—I’d never taken a writing class, though I’d written for school and humor papers, so I tried to sign up for one. I ended up at MIT with Anita Desai, and, lucky for me, she was at the other end of the spectrum from me in terms of style, which means I learned a lot. And my girlfriend my last year of law school—Stacy McKee who went on to fame as a writer for “Grey’s Anatomy”—was doing an MFA at Emerson. She was always a fantastic writer and let me peek at her notes, taught me some basic craft, and gave me great feedback. To this day, I’m grateful. (I don’t own a television, but have been told there are elements of a brusque ex-wrestler named Alex Karev in the early seasons of “Grey’s Anatomy” that helped make it a fair exchange). But it took years to carve back the essence of the book from the chaos I created in the first six months.

As for harmed mountains, I don’t think Harvard blinked. My ego, perhaps, took some solid dents. Economics, law, those are all subjects where the rules of the game are explicit and more or less objective. Once you know the rules, it’s not hard to beat them. Writing is subjective, however, and it’s tough. Over and over I found that the limits to my writing ability were actually the flaws in my personality.

DF: “Muzhduk the Ugli the Fourth is a 300-pound boulder-throwing mountain man from Siberia whose tribal homeland is stolen by an American lawyer out to build a butterfly conservatory for wealthy tourists.” That is one hell of a setup for your novel The Ugly. What inspired the story?

AB: I worked as a summer associate at a French law firm in Prague in the mid ‘90s, shortly after the country split. At the time I often spoke English in cafés if I if I didn’t want to be asked whether I could really afford the coffee. A table full of Czechs next to me didn’t realize I was Slovak, and I overheard them making fun of Slovaks as dumb mountain men who grunted and threw boulders at each other.

I absolutely loved the image. When I was younger, I had a bad habit of playing dumb whenever I could see someone start off with that assumption—I was large, drank too much, fought a lot, and had an East European love of the absurd that North Americans sometimes mistook for stupidity—and when I heard that dumb mountain man stereotype I wanted to run with it and turn it on its head.

At the same time, Harvard Law really was a very alien place for me at first. At one point in the book, Muzhduk gets an anonymous letter stating that his admission devalued the Harvard name for everyone at the school. That was, nearly word for word, taken from a real letter I received in my first year. It was a very careful place, where nobody knew if the person next to him or her might end up being a supreme court justice, or the president of some little country. Or big country. People who had lawyers for parents knew that the most valuable thing at Harvard wasn’t the education or even the name, but the connections—all in a hypercompetitive context. I preferred a directness that made me look like a caveman in comparison.

I had no interest in writing a One-L type neurotic complaint about law school, but I thought it would be fascinating to bring a real mountain man to Harvard Law and see what happened.

As for the butterfly conservatory, that’s more conceptual. I don’t like good versus evil stories. If a lawyer is stealing some tribe’s land, he’d better do it for a damn good reason and the tribe had better have serious flaws, otherwise you’re going to flatten the story into a Disney movie.

DF: Like all writers, I imagine elements of your own personality ended up in at least some of the characters, if not all of them. How much of you is in the book?

AB: Though I’m not a fan of biographically decoding books—Kundera once wrote that the Kafkologists killed Kafka—I guess I spilled the beans in the previous question.

Muzhduk is the most obvious, but remember that he’s much younger than I am. The armature on which he was built was a caricature of my younger self, but the clay comes from the interactions he has at Harvard, in Africa and in his Siberian backstory. Oedda has elements of real people, but also of my own education, my intellectual life after leaving home and particularly the thinkers I was exposed to through personal relationships while at Harvard—I dated a philosophy professor my first three years, smartest person I ever knew, but we couldn’t have a proper argument about socks until I was able to use the jargon of Heidegger, Derrida, Gadamer, Buber, etc. In many ways, the worldview underlying these thinkers was drastically at odds with who I grew up as.

I think we all have a childhood personality that then gets layers of identity put on top like sedimentary rock, a layer per era of life, and these don’t always match up well. Oedda is my higher education.

Peggy has elements in an inverse way, admirable characteristics that I’m lacking.

Like the anonymous letter, there are a number of stories in the book that are drawn from real life, but twisted around in the service of the novel. There’s a scene where Clive tells Muzhduk “Place a small sign on the door warning that ‘you are now entering the State of Nature,’ a separate jurisdiction just for Mr. Ugli. In your room, with proper notice, you may engage in any auto-erotic activities you like.’” That actually happened, again almost word for word, but it was Alan Dershowitz who said it to me. After class, he apologized, but he didn’t need to. It was probably my proudest moment in my first year to push Dersh into ad hominem. It was such a pleasure to argue with him.

DF: Authors hate talking about themes, but I’ll ask this anyway. Were there specific themes you wanted to tackle while also writing a fun fantasy novel?

AB: I’m more comfortable talking about themes than biography. The thematic layers of the book were always important to me. In a very real way, The Ugly is driven by the question “What is thinking?” I wanted to examine different ways of thinking. Kaspar Hauser mountain man, Harvard lawyer, African voodoo priest, academic postmodernist, American painter, with many of these subdivided and then thrown at each other. 

The thematic inspiration for The Ugly was a frustration with analytic rationality. I was very good at logic, felt like I could fill out the entire volume of its Venn diagram, but I became frustrated that so many of my fellow students equated logic with thinking. I wanted more. In real life I did two years of law school, then took a year off to go to Africa, searching for a more tangible, immediate way of interacting with the world. So I talked my way onto a National Geographic expedition to go dig for dinosaur bones in the Sahara, trading abstract thought for sand and bones.

That wasn’t the answer either. I wanted to go to the jumping place, but I didn’t know where it was. Einstein did it, filled in the space of existing science, jumped into the realm of art, and pulled back the theory of relativity. The Ugly was my attempt to find the jumping place.

DF: What was your publishing journey like?

AB: Long. When I first started looking for an agent, I receive a lot of rejections. Too many to count. A frustrating number of these included some form of the expression “too ambitious.” I thought, “Shouldn’t books be ambitious?” I felt like I was trying to sell a Central European absurdist/existentialist sensibility in an American market that equates literary fiction with psychological realism.

I eventually got an agent who believed in the novel, but my timing was terrible. She tried to sell it just as Lehman Brothers collapsed, the financial crisis hit, and all the big publishers suddenly became very risk averse. Then life got in the way. I went through a difficult divorce, became a full-time single dad while sending support payments to another country, and The Ugly took a back seat while I focused on things that were even more important.

I read a study once with a graph of patent applications by engineers, scientists, etc. undergoing divorces—there’s a five-year hole in the graph around the time of the divorce. Once my five-year hole was finished, I approached Brooklyn Arts Press, the first small press I approached unagented, and had the very good fortune of meeting Joe Pan.

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

AB: I have a first draft of a second one. It’s very different, though, pure science fiction. Less multilayered and thematic, more fast paced, and written with a much more planned-out approach. The working title is “The Man Who Saw Seconds.”

DF: What’s your advice to up-and-coming authors?

AB: It’s a cliché at this point, but really, there’s no better advice than “Don’t attrit!” And don’t buy into the idea that there’s only one way to write a novel. Going against the grain may slow you down, but if that’s what your book needs, then that’s what it needs.

At the same time, however, I do think writers need to read their work with a truly critical eye and ask themselves whether some limitation in their own personality is holding back their writing. The advantage of editing a book for 16 years was that I really had a chance to learn from my mistakes, and trace them back to their source. I’m a big believer in protecting a small part of my brain that is convinced everything I think I know is wrong. If you can unify that self-doubt with enough confidence to never quit, your book will eventually make it.

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

AB: When I was 17 years old, I wrestled a 770-pound brown bear at the Canadian National Sportsmen Show. It was one of the last years that bear-wrestling was still allowed. When I started marketing The Ugly, I contacted the show asking if they had any pictures in their archives, and discovered that the bear’s name had been Sampson. By sheer coincidence, I had named my own son Samson (no “p”) 10 years earlier.

To learn more about Alexander Boldizar, visit his official website or follow him on Twitter @Boldizar.

The Writer’s Bone Interviews Archives

Instantaneous Conversion: How Author Judith Freeman Became A Storyteller

Judiith Freeman

By Sean Tuohy

In her newest work, The Latter Days: A Memoir, author Judith Freeman takes readers on an insightful and frank journey that explores her upbringing and her relationships. The Latter Days is what every memoir should be: honest to its core and so well crafted that the reader can’t put it down.

Freeman was kind enough to take a few minutes to chat with me about writing her story and what shaped her literary voice.

Sean Tuohy: When did you know you wanted to be a storyteller?

Judith Freeman: In high school I starred in the school play, “The Diary of Anne Frank.” I grew up in a household largely without books and memorizing lines for this play gave me my first deep feeling for the power of words. Not until the age of 19, when I discovered the work of great writers like Hardy, Woolf, James, and Lawrence, did I know I wanted to be a storyteller. It was an instantaneous conversion.

ST: Which authors did you worship growing up?

JF: I didn’t read much as a child. I never owned a library card or remember being taken to a library. Growing up in large Mormon household with eight kids, our lives were primarily focused on the church. The few books on our one small bookshelf in the living room were mostly of a religious nature, books like Answers to Gospel Questions. In school, I wasn’t a very good student. I preferred being outdoors. I have a difficult time remembering anything I read in high school, which is why discovering “The Diary of Anne Frank” was so important to me.    

But I do remember a book I read when I was quite young called The Boxcar Children that I liked very much because these kids were orphaned and got to live in a boxcar in the woods and furnish it by scavenging and they didn’t have parents anymore to tell them what to do. Later, I discovered a book called Alone by Admiral Richard E. Byrd, an account of the months he endured in the Antarctic, living alone in a shack buried in the ice and taking meteorological readings. In many ways it was an odd book for a girl like me to have embraced, but I’ve never forgotten it. Thinking about these two books now, I realize they each have a theme of solitude and the natural world.

ST: For The Latter Days, did your writing process change at all from how you write novels?

JF: Not really that much. You go into a room. You sit down. You write. I did, however, go through much deeper emotional swings writing a memoir, but essentially the “process” isn’t so different. You still have to decide what to say when. How much to tell, what to hold back. Whether to take this path or that one, and especially how the story begins and ends. Beginnings and endings can be so hard, but with this book they came to me quite easily.

ST: The Latter Days is a very frank and honest snapshot of a period in your life. How did you feel writing about such personal things?

JF: I was often nervous. But once I’d made the decision to write about my life there really wasn’t any turning back. On a daily basis, my mood might shift from amusement at the thought of something from the past, to the deepest grief when I remembered something else. I could not see any other way than to be very frank and honest. That is the sort of writer I am; the voice I employ is rather direct. It was the only way I could write this book. 

ST: Since you were writing about something that happened to you, what kind of research did you do?

JF: Less than with other books, like The Long Embrace, my biography of Raymond Chandler and his wife, or my novel Red Water, which was set in the 19th century, and required a lot of research. Basically I just had to sit in a room and remember and, remarkably, that’s really not that difficult for most of us to do.  I did look at a lot of family photographs, which helped stir memories, and I re-read the self-published memoirs my parents wrote at the end of their lives. Many of my ancestors wrote down their life stories, which Mormons have always been encouraged to do because they believe we do live in the latter days and a record of these times is important. In a sense, consciously or not, I suppose my own memoir comes out of this tradition.

ST: What’s next for you?

JF: A novel, perhaps, or some short stories. I’d like to return to fiction.

ST: What advice do you give to first-time writers?

JF: Write what you don’t know. Books are about more than our own experience, and researching a subject can be so exciting. The truth is there’s only one piece of real advice: Write, often, and, as Raymond Chandler said, study and emulate. In other words, read a lot and try to figure out how the books you admire were written.

ST: Can you tell us one random fact about yourself?

JF: I have a deep love for horses. I’ve owned six in my life, the last a buckskin thoroughbred-quarter horse named Zelda, given to me by Carole King. She was older when she came to me but we had ten good years together. She died three years ago and what I’m wondering is, will I get another horse in this lifetime?

To learn more about Judith Freeman, visit her official website or like her Facebook page.

The Writer’s Bone Interviews Archive

The Art of the Logline: 9 Questions With Lane Shefter Bishop

Lane Shefter Bishop

By Sean Tuohy

Writing a novel or screenplay is an extremely difficult task, but the next step in the process is even harder: selling your work.

Pulling from her years of experience as both a filmmaker and a producer, Lane Shefter Bishop delivered a best-selling book, Sell Your Story In A Single Sentence, that is a must-have for all writers. Bishop writes from the trenches of Hollywood, informing her readers how to write the best loglines that will actually get read. She mixes together much needed know-how with humor that will make you chuckle throughout the book.

Bishop took some time to sit and talk for me about her target audience, the biggest mistakes that writers make, and how writers can sell their work with one sentence.

Sean Tuohy: What was the biggest drive to write, Sell Your Story in a Single Sentence?

Lane Shefter Bishop: I’d been speaking about logline creation for years at numerous conferences and there was just so much need for this information. Whenever I asked writers, “What are you working on?” I got told such sagas. In my business, most people don’t have more than a few minutes to spare for a content creator, so I knew those long answers would never work if these writers wanted to actually be able to sell their material. Also, after every seminar, I’d always have a line of folks asking me if I had a book...

ST: When you sat down to write Sell Your Story in A Single Sentence, what did you want the reader to take away from it?

LSB: I wanted readers to know that you can have the best material in the world but if you can’t sell it, it doesn’t do you any good—and in this crazy busy world we live in, the quicker you can sell it, the better.

ST: Sell Your Story in A Single Sentence is written in a very clear and funny tone. When you approached this project what was your mindset: a writer trying to help other writers or as an entertainment executive helping writers?

LSB: I’m sort of an out-of-the-box producer because I was a working director prior and was also a senior executive at an entertainment company for a few years, so I’ve been on both sides, the selling side and the buying side. As such, I have a unique perspective to offer writers and wanted to use that to assist them in their marketing efforts. I love writers and am continuously impressed by their creativity, so I really wanted to help them expand their opportunities.

ST: What are the biggest mistakes writers make when trying to sell their work?

LSB: The biggest mistake I see is that they are being too general, using big broad concepts to talk about their work. This just serves to make it sound generic, like hundreds of other stories. I am forever hounding writers to be more specific because it is those specifics that make a story unique and different and thus infinitely more sellable.

ST: The logline can make or break a story. Why is the logline so important?

LSB: The logline is so important because it can literally be the difference between someone wanting to read your work or turning you away empty-handed. It is the magic potion that can lead to a “yes,” which is always the goal.

ST: What makes a great logline versus a bad logline?

LSB: A great logline is one where who the protagonist is, what they want and what is at stake (if they don’t achieve their goal) are all clearly defined while using the most unique elements possible to do so. A bad logline is one where the content creator is either much too general or has tried to cram their entire plot into one veeeeery long run-on sentence.

ST: What do you wish you saw more writers do when they try to sell their work?

LSB: Read my book first! Seriously, I know a great logline would help them sell because I’ve used them successfully myself for many years now.

ST: What is next for Lane Shefter Bishop?

LSB: I’m going back to my roots and directing a feature film. I’ve also been asked to write a proposal for a book on the book-to-screen adaptation process. And of course I have numerous projects that I am currently producing through my company, Vast Entertainment. So, kind of a lot, I guess!

ST: Can you tell us one random fact about yourself?

LSB: I truly believe that I am the biggest dog lover on the entire planet.

To learn more about Lane Shefter Bishop, visit her official website or follow her on Twitter @LaneShefterBish.

The Writer’s Bone Interviews Archive

A Conversation With Brash Books Co-Founder Lee Goldberg

By Sean Tuohy

Heart-pounding. Eye-popping. Jaw-dropping. These are all adjectives you could use to describe the titles published by Brash Books.

Lee Goldberg—a television writer, producer, and author of several best-selling novels—and former trial attorney-turned-successful author Joel Goldman, formed the company. The two "golden boys" bring thrilling novels to the public by managing a stable of exceptional writers that never disappoint. 

Goldberg was kind enough to take a few moments to chat about Brash Books, the world of publishing, and what he looks for in a manuscript.

Lee Goldberg (right) and Joel Goldman

Sean Tuohy: What books did you read growing up?

Lee Goldberg: Mostly mysteries and thrillers. I was weaned on The Hardy Boys, Encyclopedia Brown, The Three Investigators, etc. I then moved on to The Saint (Leslie Charteris), Matt Helm (Donald Hamilton), Travis McGee (John D. MacDonald), Fletch (Gregory MacDonald), James Bond (Ian Fleming), Lew Archer (Ross MacDonald), as well as devouring literary novels and westerns. I began reading at a very early age and would read three or four books a week for pleasure. It was also my education, but I didn’t realize that at the time. My favorite authors, besides those I previously mentioned, were Leon Uris, Robert Ludlum, Stephen King, Arthur C. Clark, Graham Masterton, Richard S. Prather, Clive Cussler, Sidney Sheldon, Ray Bradbury, William O. Steele, Arthur Hailey, John Irving, Lawrence Sanders, Larry McMurtry, Lawrence Block, and Elmore Leonard. I could go on and on and on.

ST: What lead to the creation of Brash Books?

LG: All mystery writers have them—the cherished, often under-appreciated, out-of-print books that we loved and that shaped us as writers. They are the books that made an impression on me in my teenage and college years and still feel new and vital to me today. They are the books that I talk about to friends, thrust into the hands of aspiring writers, and that I wish I’d written. They are the yellowed, forgotten paperbacks I keep buying out of pure devotion whenever I see them in used bookstore, even though I have more copies than I’ll ever need.

I’ve been at this long enough that many of my own books have fallen out-of-print, too. But I brought them back in new, self-published Kindle and paperback editions and, to my surprise and delight, they sold extremely well. It occurred to me that if I could do it for my books, why couldn’t I do the same thing for all those forgotten books that I love?

So, a little over two years ago, I started negotiating with the estate of an author whose books I greatly admire but that never achieved the wide readership and acclaim that they deserved. I was in the midst of those talks when, at a Bouchercon in Albany, I told my buddy Joel Goldman, a good friend, mystery writer, lawyer, and a successful self-publisher of his own backlist, what I had in mind.

Joel got this funny look on his face and said, “That’s a business model. I really think we’re really on to something.”

We?

It turned out that, like me, he’d been getting hit up constantly at the conference by author-friends who were desperate for his advice on how they could replicate his self-publishing success with their own out-of-print book, many of which had won wide acclaim and even the biggest awards in our genre. He’d been trying to think of a way he could help them out.

Now he thought he had the solution. What if we combined the two ideas? What if we republished the books that we’d loved for years as well as the truly exceptional books that only recently fell out of print?

It sounded great to me. And at that moment, without any prior intent, we became publishers of what we considered to be the best crime novels in existence. It was a brash act and that’s how, as naturally as we became publishers, we found our company name.

Brash Books.

One of the first calls I made was to Tom Kakonis, whose books were a big influence on me, to ask if we could republish his out-of-print titles. He was glad to let us take a crack at it. He also mentioned that he had a novel that he wrote some years ago, but had stuck in a drawer because he’d been so badly burned by the publishing business. I asked if I could read it and he sent it to me. I was blown away by it and so was Joel. We couldn’t believe that a book this good, that was every bit as great as his most-acclaimed work, had gone unpublished. It was a gift for us to be able to publish it. And that’s how, unintentionally, we decided to publish brand new books, too.

Tom’s unpublished novel, Treasure Coast, became our lead title when we launched in September 2014 with 30 book from authors as diverse as Barbara Neely, Dick Lochte, Gar Anthony Haywood, Dallas Murphy, Maxine O’Callaghan, Bill Crider, and Jack Lynch. In our first year, we published eight to 10 novels each quarter, one of which was a brand new, never-before-published book. In November 2015, we changed up and published only three books all brand new, never-before-published titles. That was a big success for us. So now we’re on track to publish two or three books a quarter, one or two of which are brand new, the others back-in-print titles from the back lists we've acquired.

It’s a business that’s very much a labor of love for us both. We get a bigger thrill now out of seeing new copies of our authors’ books than we do our own. The widow of one of our authors got teary-eyed over Brash’s editions of his out-of-print books because we were treating them the way he’d always wanted. We got tears in our eyes, too. We started Brash Books for moments like that and for Tom’s dedication in Treasure Coast:

“For Lee Goldberg, who may have rescued me.”

Our goal is to introduce readers, and perhaps future writers, to great books that shouldn’t be forgotten and to incredible new crime novels that we hope will be cherished in the future.

And yet, to our frustration, our list still doesn’t include any books by that obscure, deceased author who brought Joel & I together in this brash, publishing adventure. We’re still negotiating with that author’s estate. But we’re not giving up. I love those books too much to let go. I just bought two more of them at a flea market today.

ST: Was it difficult to switch from writer to publisher?

LG: Not really, because as I mentioned before, I self-published my out-of-print backlist and some new work. I also launched an original, self-published series called The Dead Man. William Rabkin and I wrote the first two books, and then we hired authors to write the others, putting out a new book each month. It was a big success. Amazon Publishing's 47North imprint picked up the series and it ran for two years. We did 24 novels with Amazon. It was great fun.

ST: What do you look for in a manuscript?

LG: What we look for is a strong voice, a fresh approach, a compelling plot, well-developed characters, and absolutely no clichés—in phrases or situations. If we aren't wowed in the first 25 pages, we know our readers won't be, either. We also look to our Brash motto—“we publish the best crime novels in existence"—as the bar each manuscript has to meet. If we can't say that we honestly believe the book lives up to that hype, we can't publish it.

ST: How do Brash Books readers influence what you publish?

LG: If readers clearly love the first book in a series, and buy a bazillion copies, that gives us an incentive to publish more. If they sales are terrible, we aren’t likely to release any sequels. That goes for both backlist and new titles, of course.

ST: As a publisher, what are the biggest issues you find with new authors?

LG: Terrible, cliché-ridden writing, and one-dimensional, stock characters.

If I read one more submission about a drug or alcohol addicted, divorced cop/FBI agent/journalist/PI haunted by the death/murder/suicide of a beloved friend/family member, misunderstood and unappreciated by his incompetent bosses, and tormented by a deranged serial killer, I might have to set myself on fire.

ST: What does the future hold for Brash Books?

LG: I hope tremendous success for our authors and their terrific books!

ST: What advice do you give to new writers? Both as a writer and publisher.

LG: If you want to write, you have to read. That’s the best education for a writer.

Proofread your manuscript.

Do not frontload your manuscript with exposition. It’s boring and it’s lazy.

Query letters are important. If your query letter is sloppy, unfocused, badly written, filled with clichés, and addressed to a literary agency or someone else besides us, the odds of us reading your manuscript have plummeted below zero.

ST: Can you tell us one random fact about yourself?

LG: I’ve just discovered, and fallen in love with, limoncello. I am going to try to make some myself.

To learn more about Brash Books, visit the company’s official website, like its Facebook page, or follow it on Twitter @BrashBooks.

The Writer’s Bone Interviews Archives

Ghosts of the Past: 11 Questions With The Duration Author Dave Fromm

David Fromm

By Daniel Ford

There’s a paragraph early in author Dave Fromm’s novel The Duration, that made me think he was Writer’s Bone’s kind of author:

The coffeehouse, an anti-Starbucks catering to the same South End crowd willing to spend $5 on a latte, was the sort of place I liked to mock while still frequenting. Their pumpkin muffins were obscene—each one a boulder of orange dough, big as your head, that left oil stains soaking through the to-go bag; sometimes they dropped a few green pumpkinseeds on the top to pretend it was a salad—and I’d sworn on several occasions, usually just after finishing one, to never eat another. Course, I was about to bust into one right then. 

Mmm…pumpkin muffin…

The author also endured himself to us saying we had a “very cool website.” Fromm talked to me recently, in an attempt to “lower the cool quotient a little bit,” about finding his voice, his publishing journey, and what inspired The Duration.

Daniel Ford: Did you grow up wanting to become a writer or did the desire to write grow organically over time?

Dave Fromm: Both, I guess, though maybe not in the way you meant. 

On the one hand, I was a reader when I was young and grew up wanting to be better at some of the things that “writers” seemed to do—to be imaginative, to create worlds, to express myself clearly, to be empathetic and clear-eyed and rational. I also had a childhood stutter, which, while mild, I was self-conscious about. It pushed me toward writerly observation, rather than engagement, in a lot of social situations. I don’t know if that actually made me want to write, but it seems like a nice vulnerable detail to mention.

On the other hand, I also wanted to be perceived as a writer by my adolescent peers, and especially by my female peers, because I thought it had some cachet value. Writers were obviously brooding and romantic. They had depth. I lacked a lot of things in adolescence, and depth was a big one.

Eventually, these dual tracks—the desire to develop some of the attributes that go into good writing and the desire to be perceived as a writer—came together and I figured I should start trying to write some things. 

DF: Who were some of your early influences?

Fromm: Loudon Swain, Lloyd Dobler, Robin Hood, D’Artagnon, Michael Jordan, my parents. Not in that order. 

Re: writing, my middle-school English teacher Elfrieda Pierce, my high school Humanities teacher Jim Hurley. I read a ton of fantasy as a kid: The Lord of the Rings, the Shannara knock-offs, Wrinkle in Time, Piers Anthony, Anne McCaffrey, etc. In high school, I liked Ragtime a lot, or at least I remember thinking I liking it. I won an award that came with a biography of William Faulkner but I still haven’t read it. A college friend gave me Fever Pitch, by Nick Hornby, and around the same time I was reading David Foster Wallace’s essays from A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again and Michael Chabon’s debut novel The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, and I guess those three, each in different ways, sort of opened up the world of contemporary literature for me, writing that could be funny and honest and smart and gorgeous and take these complicated ideas and present them clearly. Written by people who were still alive, and were indeed not far from my own age. Also Padgett Powell’s Edisto stories.

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

Fromm: My writing process is disgraceful. I’m not very disciplined. I have two kids in elementary school, and since they’re there right now I will take the opportunity to blame them.

I do listen to music. For what it’s worth I listened to a lot of Bob Schneider and The Avett Brothers while writing The Duration. I don’t outline very well. It almost works in reverse—I’ll write a chunk and then try to diagram what I already have, and it’s usually a totally screwy diagram, it’ll look like a M.C. Escher diagram, with stairs going nowhere and a flock of birds, and then I’ll try to use that to make sense of what I’m trying to say.

When I can get sort of inspired by something, sometimes momentum will take over and I’ll have a really good run of weeks or months of writing at set times, or in pockets of time late at night or what have you, and I’ll be able to generate a bunch of stuff. That’s what happened when I wrote The Duration. I started it and stuck with it through the first 10,000 or 15,000 words, and then it started to roll and it was all I could think about. I’d even have dreams about it. When it was “finished,” I wrote a collection of nonfiction and a YA novel and then a movie treatment and I was like I am the baddest badass on the planet. I am a machine! And then I got off track and I haven’t really written anything good since early 2015, other than a couple of dope tweets and status updates. Part of it was the publishing process, doing edits to The Duration, building social media stuff, time spent working on something from the past to make it better rather than generating new stuff, even if that new stuff would invariably be crummy. And part of it was laziness.

But recently I got a story idea, and I am going to nurture that idea like a baby bird.

DF: How did you develop your voice? Are you able to slip into it during the writing process or is it something you find while you’re editing?

Fromm: I developed my voice by listening to myself talk and then asking myself, “What would this guy sound like if he was smarter and/or funnier?” I’m only half-kidding. In The Duration, the narrator sounds like a version of me, but a younger, wilder and more heartfelt version. He’s sort of angry and sort of fearful and covers it up with blustery adolescent humor. In this case that voice came pretty easily while writing and part of the struggle in the editing process was not to lose that voice while patching various holes in plot and motivation and stuff. I don’t know what will happen in the next novel, if there is a next novel. There’s an older novel, still in a file, with a main character who also has a voice like mine. It’s starting to feel creepy.

DF: What inspired The Duration?

Fromm: The Duration was partially inspired by a true story from my Western Massachusetts hometown about a touring circus elephant that died in the woods in 1851. The elephant, whose name was Columbus, was so big that the circus folks left him where he fell, and the woods quickly swallowed up the body. He’s never been found, although some folks are pretty sure they know where he is. The idea of this exotic secret buried in a small New England village, and of local kids looking for it, is sort of the first-level plot device in the novel.

The second-level plot device (what does that even mean? I don’t know) is about how certain formative childhood relationships—with close friends, with events, and even with an environment—stay with us our whole lives. How we never really lose them.  I started writing The Duration shortly after my wife and I moved back to Western Massachusetts after seven years in California and I started reconnecting—painfully, joyfully, unsettlingly—with the touchstones of my youth. 

DF: How much of yourself—and the people you have daily interactions with—ends up in your main characters? How do you develop your characters in general?

Fromm: I don’t know. A lot, probably. I mean, you work with what you have, what you can feel, right? You steal little pieces here and there. A guy has a great nickname, a woman has a funny habit that suggests something about her inner life. I’m lucky enough to be surrounded by people who are smarter and funnier and more interesting than I am, so I borrow a lot. It’s tricky, though, because whenever you use a real-life detail in fiction, the person whose real-life detail it is is implicated, even if the character goes in an entirely different direction. 

But, I mean, isn’t every character a version of the author? Even the bit players?

As far as development goes, I guess I try to figure out who I need, what function each character plays, and then try and imagine them as real people. I read something that the writer Steve Almond said once about loving your characters, and I guess that’s not, like, mind-blowingly original advice, but it’s always helped me when I’m working out a scene, to try to empathize with each character and their inner motivations for doing something, so that they become more than just devices. On that front, a helpful exercise has been writing nonfiction pieces and then sending them to the people mentioned in them for editorial feedback. I had a few essays about high school girlfriends and the process of sending the essays to them for review was really helpful in terms of seeing multiple perspectives. Also, terrifying.

DF: How long did it take you to write The Duration and what was your publishing journey like?

Fromm: I feel like I’m still writing it, or I would if I could. I’m glad it’s out of my hands.

The initial drafting process was relatively quick, maybe six months? After that, I sought feedback from a few writing friends, which necessarily takes a while because you can’t just drop a first draft in someone’s lap and be like get back to me in a week? They have their own lives and their own work and all that. But they gave me some really helpful feedback, then my agent did, and then we submitted to publishers.  That process also takes a while, and the whole time you’re thinking “no news is good news, right?” But not always. Maybe a year went by? I didn’t have much success with the larger publishers and after a while I just started asking my more successful writer friends what their publishing experiences had been like. One of them, Jim Ruland, had recently published a wonderful debut novel called Forest of Fortune with a smaller publisher called Tyrus Books. He recommended them highly, but they were closed for submissions. So Jim actually emailed the publisher to see if they’d be interested in taking a look at my story. Obviously I’m naming all my future children after him.

Once I hooked up with Tyrus, the publishing journey was smooth sailing. They’ve been great—organized, encouraging, responsive, personal, and really sharp. I feel like I’ve lucked out at every turn.

DF: Most of the authors we talk to prefer to leave the discussion of themes to their readers, but were there any specific themes you wanted to explore while writing the novel?

Fromm: Well shit, now I feel like I should leave the discussion of themes to my readers too. But there’s probably only going to be, like, 10 of them, and I feel like I’ve already asked too much of them anyway.

I wanted to explore the sort of continuity that develops for people at a time and a place. In my case, the continuity is with the area I grew up in and the people I grew up with. It’s more than friendship, it’s a sort of kinship and sense of belonging, for better or worse. My characters, like the town they return to, carry and are nourished by the ghosts of the past and have to figure out how that translates into their ability to go forward, to go on.

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

Fromm: I’m shopping something right now that’s a real departure from The Duration, so it doesn’t exactly feel like a “next” thing, but fingers crossed. It’s YA-ish, I guess. A story about an orphan girl who discovers that her grandfather was the last in a long line of pirates and sets out to return his ill-gotten loot. I wrote it for my daughter, who’s only five now but will someday be forced to read it. I’m also starting to work on this new idea, which, at least today, has something to do with a middle-aged guy who starts to fear the approach of some metaphysical enemy, so he takes up CrossFit. It’s fiction.

But first I’m driving out to Monson to pick up some beer.

DF: What’s your advice to aspiring authors?

Fromm: Oh, man. So leery of offering advice because, like, what do I know? Focus on being a writer and don’t worry about being an author? That’ll come, or it won’t. You probably won’t make much money, so if you need that maybe go a different way professionally? But don’t give up? Is that too cliché? Keep working, keep being a decent and generous human being. Engage with the world? Do dumb shit. Read whatever you like to read? Question your motivations? Believe in karma? Make good friends?

DF: Can you please tell us one random fact about yourself?

Fromm: I hate eggs.

To learn more about David Fromm, visit his official website or follow him on Twitter @dfro.

The Writer's Bone Interviews Archive