Photo by Caitlin Bielefeldt
Ellen Won Steil is the author of the new novel Fortune. She lives in Minnesota.
Q: What inspired you to write Fortune, and how did you create your characters Cleo, Alex, and Jemma?
A: I was pregnant with my second child and very much in the midst of the pandemic when I got the idea for Fortune.
I was dealing with my oldest child no longer being a baby and that unexpected grief it comes with. The constant bittersweet state us parents are in was something I wanted to show through three very different women. Cleo, Alex, and Jemma are all mothers but in various stages and challenges in their lives.
I also knew suspense is very hard to stand out in and my story needed something else to grab a reader’s attention.
I came across a headline about the Golden State Killer and how DNA and genealogy helped catch him. I remember thinking: what would happen if this happened in a suspense story?
My curiosity sparked an idea for solving a crime in a small-town setting using some form of mass DNA. How would that work? What would the stakes be? This melded into the dark, twisted tale in the Midwest that is Fortune.
Q: How would you describe the dynamic among the three women?
A: Despite growing apart over the years, Cleo, Alex, and Jemma have a shared bond stemming from something that happened to them as children. This trauma is the catalyst for why and how they now all struggle with keeping their secrets in the past.
The newly ignited attention on the unsolved Baby Ava case coupled with the DNA lottery force them to into a reunion of sorts. While they try to stay distanced there is an intensity among them that keeps things interesting.
What I enjoyed writing most about these three women is the shared connection they have with being mothers. Regardless of the crazy twists and turn happening around them, these characters hold strong together in that role.
I love that dynamic in the real world. You can meet a complete stranger in the store, and yet have an immediate tie or understanding because of the tribulations of motherhood.
Q: Without giving anything away, did you know how the novel would end before you started writing it, or did you make many changes along the way?
A: It would probably be more dramatic to say the ending came to me in a startling light bulb moment. But I am definitely an outliner where I map out my story before diving into a first draft.
I did have a direction for the ending, but it evolved as the entire story did through the revision process. While the big picture of this ending stayed the same, elements around it were reworked that surprised me in a good way.
Q: The writer Elle Marr said of the book, “Steil’s confident prose immerses the reader in a small town's past...using the modern premise of blood for money in a way I did not see coming.” What do you think of that description, and how important is the novel's setting to you?
A: First of all, I’m a huge fan of Elle Marr. She is not only a lovely person and supportive of other authors but an amazing suspense writer! I was thrilled that she was entertained by my debut and with the way she described the “blood for money.”
I do think the setting of a small town, Rosemary Hills, was critical to the story because the idea of a DNA lottery wouldn’t have worked quite as well otherwise. The pool of possible suspects had to be somewhat contained.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: My second suspense novel, Becoming Marlow Fin, is coming out next summer. I’m also very excited about this one, as it centers around a girl who appears from the woods and forever changes the lives of a mixed-raced family as they enter the millennium.
There is a big, anticipated “interview format” in some of the chapters that really makes the story twisty!
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: I’m honored to have my first novel published and truly feel grateful to be getting Fortune into the hands of readers soon. This still doesn’t seem real and I’m not sure it ever will.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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