Q&A with C.V. Alba

 

 

 

 

C.V. Alba is the author of the new novel e-llegal treasures, the fourth in her Mat Brisco series. She lives in Virginia.

 

Q: What inspired the plot of your new novel, e-llegal treasures?

 

A: e-llegal treasures is the fourth installment in the Mat Brisco series. In this book, readers find Mat on the hunt for stolen diamonds with her long-lost brother. 

 

I've always been fascinated by gemstones, how they are discovered in the ground, how they are mined, cut, and marketed. I even studied gemology and had an idea to pursue that as a second career at one time.

 

When I started writing after retiring from a career in IT, I knew it would have to be the subject of one of my books. After getting the first three out, I decided to focus on a story about gemology from the 1990s and chose one of the most troublesome episodes in the history of the diamond trade.

 

As one of the characters says, at one time or another pretty much all countries have had episodes of bad behavior by some elements in their past. This story focuses on a gorgeous country with beautiful people that is undergoing a similar period of horrific behavior by some elements of their population.

 

Q: How do you think your character Mat has changed over the course of the series?

 

A: Mat has become less naive, less innocent, and more understanding of different lifestyles. This doesn't just include her relationship with her housemate Zorah, but with Zorah's artist friends, gruff Detective Greene and straight-laced Greg McCawley.

 

Greg becomes Mat’s love interest. Over time, she learns that an unusual background lies beneath his conventional exterior as a three-piece suited lawyer. He was raised by a single father who was a prison guard, giving him access to a host of interesting characters who live in or near criminal elements. He pulled himself up by the bootstraps and got a Harvard law degree. I haven’t written much about that yet, but it’s coming in a future book.

 

Q: Do you usually know how your novels will end before you start writing them?

 

A: No, not exactly. I set up situations and follow my characters' leads, constantly asking myself what they would do next that fits with who they are. In the end, I have to bring it all together in a resolution that makes sense for the personalities involved, but exactly how that plays out is a mystery even to me until I get there. 

 

Q: What about e-llegal treasures? Did you follow the same process?

 

A: Yes! One of the threads that had to be resolved was the relationship between Mat and her brother. When they were young, they lost both parents. Mat managed to get a college scholarship. Sam was abused and ran away. He never finished high school. Before he ran away, Mat accused him of giving up and told him he would never amount to much.

 

Now, 15 years later, she realizes how wrong she was. In e-llegal treasures, she finally understands that her brother's choices in life are as valid as her own. Toward the end I asked myself, given where Mat and her brother Sam have come from, what would Mat do to try to atone for her insensitive behavior in the past? That gave me the idea for the ending.

 

Q: What do you hope your readers take away from the novel?

 

A: A thrilling action-filled reading experience that kept them turning the pages and wanting more! I hope they learn to care about Mat, her brother, Zorah, and even gruff Detective Greene and acerbic Medical Examiner Hector.

 

I also hope they appreciate the growth in Mat and Sam's characters and the revelations about Sam and what happened when he was out of her life those 15 years.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: A story about Zorah and her fascination with the occult. She has been an interesting character as Mat’s housemate and adds a bit of quirkiness to the novels.

 

In the next book, Zorah will have more of a central role. Since she’s an artist, it will have an art focus with lots of interesting new characters — and dead bodies, of course. There'll be danger and a computer angle that requires Mat to help Detective Greene solve the mystery.

 

The series is set in the 1990s, which means readers will get to see the role computers played then: While becoming more and more common in the workplace, they were still a mystery to many people, especially older populations faced with incorporating these strange machines into their largely paper-based activities and lives.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb 

Nov. 30

 

 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
Nov. 30, 1667: Jonathan Swift born.

Q&A with Jane Healey

 

 

 

 

 

Jane Healey is the author of the new novel The Women of Arlington Hall. Her other books include The Secret Stealers. She lives north of Boston. 

 

Q: What inspired you to write The Women of Arlington Hall, and how did you create your character Cat?

 

A: I was inspired by a 2018 article I read in the Smithsonian Magazine by the brilliant author Liza Mundy.

 

In the piece she interviews 99-year-old Angeline Nanni, the last living member of the codebreaking team at Arlington Hall known as the Venona Project - their mission was to crack the Russian’s “unbreakable” code, in order for U.S. intelligence to read the telegrams going back and forth from Moscow and Russian contacts in the U.S. 

 

With the protagonist Cat Killeen, I wanted to create a character that took this giant risk in taking a vague job offer in Washington, D.C. She left behind a fiancé, her family, everything she had known, to try to find her place in the world.

 

As a member of the team working on the Venona Project, she finds the work that she was meant to do, as well as a found family of friends, a group of people that really understood her for the first time in her life. 

 

Q: The writer Lisa Barr said of the book, “Healey doesn’t miss a beat merging real-life events with fictional flair and plot twists.” What did you see as the right balance between fiction and history as you wrote the novel?

A: The balance between fiction and history is tricky and for me it varies from book to book. I always want to honor the truth of the time, place and events as much as possible of course - I would never change the date of a major event in history for example.

 

But at the end of the day, this is a novel and not a textbook, so the history serves as the backdrop of a story with, hopefully, a compelling narrative arc that keeps readers reading.

 

That’s where my historical author notes come in - I always include those at the back of the book to explain to readers the choices I made regarding fact v. fiction.

 

Q: How did you research the book, and what did you learn that especially surprised you?

 

A: I did all sorts of research for this novel - books, digital archives, oral histories - just so much.

 

I think one of the things that really surprised me is the U.S. government’s secrecy surrounding the Trinity nuclear test bomb in New Mexico in 1945. There were over 250,000 people downwind from that test bomb, and radiation levels in that area were 10,000 times higher than what was considered safe.

 

Citizens were told nothing before it happened, and after were assured there was nothing to worry about. Of course, that was a complete lie, as many people developed cancer and other health issues as a result of the radiation exposure. I found that pretty horrifying. 

 

Q: What do you hope readers take away from the novel?

 

A: I hope readers finish the book with an appreciation of what this small group of codebreakers, mostly women, accomplished - breaking the Russians’ unbreakable code is still considered one of the greatest accomplishments in the history of U.S. cryptology.

 

And one of the underlying themes of this story is if you change your mind, you can change your life, so I hope that’s another takeaway as well. 

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: Ah! I wish I could share but it’s early days, but I hope I can talk about it more in the next couple of months.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: I zoom with book clubs all over the country. And I have a podcast called Historical Happy Hour that you can listen to wherever you listen to podcasts - I’ll have more exciting news about the podcast in the new year.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Jane Healey. 

Q&A with Amy Blumenfeld

 

 

 

Amy Blumenfeld is the author of the new novel Such Good People. She also has written the novel The Cast. She lives in New York. 

 

Q: You’ve said you were inspired to create your character April in Such Good People by newsletters from a halfway house where a family friend worked as an administrator—can you say more about that?

 

A: In one issue [of the newsletter], they profiled some teachers working for the organization and I was fascinated by their stories. Some had their own personal experience being incarcerated and were inspired to make a difference after prison by becoming educators and helping those newly released transition back into society.

 

Those teacher profiles helped inspire April’s character. I knew she would be a teacher who was deeply motivated to make a difference for formerly incarcerated individuals…but why?

 

And that’s how I created the backstory. She had a best friend from childhood. He was an incredible person who did something questionable only because he was trying to help her. He paid the price. She paid a price too. What could that be? And that’s how I created Rudy. Jillian and the rest of the crew just snowballed from there.

 

Q: You’ve noted that your father’s work as a public defender and a criminal court judge had an impact on the creation of this novel and its title. Can you say more about how the novel’s title was chosen, and what it signified for you?

 

A: I’ve found that when bad things happen to good people a common response from others is some variation of a sigh followed by, “Oh, what a shame. He/She’s such a good person…”

 

For me, the title of my novel signifies the importance of nuance. No one is all bad or all good. Good people can misstep, but it doesn’t make them evil. And those who may appear malicious, might have true benevolence at the heart of their actions.

 

As someone who started her career as a fact checker/journalist and as the daughter of a former criminal defense attorney turned judge, I appreciate nuance and how important it is to get all the facts – to see a person as whole and reserve judgment.

 

Q: The writer Emily Liebert called the book a “poignant story of love, loss, loyalty, and being torn between right and wrong.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: I love it – it’s exactly what I hoped to accomplish with this story!

 

Q: How would you describe the dynamic between April and Rudy?

 

A: April and Rudy are an example of true love. They are devoted to one another and feel a soulmate connection. So often in literature and film we are told that soulmates must come in the form of romantic love. But deep love exists in all forms and sometimes it appears in those treasured male-female platonic friendships.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I’m in the early stages of my next book. I’ve done research and I’m now at what I call the marinating stage where I allow things to sort of marinate and twist in my mind for a bit before I sit down to write. Stay tuned...

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Amy Blumenfeld. 

Q&A with Janet Burroway

 

Photo by Maia Rosenfeld

 

 

Janet Burroway is the author of the new novel Simone in Pieces. Her other books include Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft. She is a distinguished professor emerita at Florida State University at Tallahassee. 

 

Q: What inspired you to write Simone in Pieces, and how did you create your character Simone Lerrante?

 

A: Longer ago than I like to admit, I decided to write an academic short story satire. It was funny and sour, the narrator a very old acerbic assistant professor who has seen it all.

 

And then the story took a hard turn into her memory of war and grief. I knew it was right; I had been satirizing her as well as the ones she observed, and there was real pain to explore. I realized I had to know her whole story, and when I did, my husband said, “That’s your next novel.”

 

But there were craft books to update, a family tragedy to undergo, a memoir and another novel to write--and Simone’s life, of which I knew the outline and the early days, came to me very gradually, in many voices over many years.

 

Q: How did you research the book, and what did you learn that especially surprised you?

 

A: Early on in this process, I was spending a summer in England, and one day I hopped a train to Liege, Belgium, a city I had only seen once. I knew the Flemish-speaking part of Belgium well, but I spoke French, not Flemish, so Simone was to speak French.

 

I walked the city in her shoes, chose her school and her birthplace and the apartment she and her parents had lived in. I experienced the market, the river walk, the pubs and the antique stores. Many of those images made their way into the book.

 

There was also different kind of “research” than any I have done before: I have been married to two men who were immigrants to America after WWII, one Belgian and one Hungarian. From them I absorbed much about the immigrant experience and the family lore.

 

But what I learned in such a way as to feel it personally came largely from my two mothers-in-law, both of whom were generous with their memories and struggles, the parts of exile from which it is difficult or impossible to recover, the parts that are passed on to children.

 

Q: The writer Rosellen Brown said of the book, “If there were such a thing as a cubist novel, Simone in Pieces would define the genre.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: I like it! I know what she means: the portrait of Simone is not given head-on as in a conventional novel. She feels that she “has no self,” so she only gradually gives her own point of view to the reader.

 

Most of what we know comes from the voices of people she encounters, and whom she may affect, or who may affect her, in ways that the other never knows. So her eyes may be set askew to her nose, so to speak; you construct her in your mind from the pieces/voices.

 

Q: How was the novel’s title chosen, and what does it signify for you?

 

A: This novel went through many names, all still, really, relevant: Montage, And Be One Traveller, Indian Dancer, for a long time Simone in Transit…

 

My excellent editor Dennis Lloyd at Wisconsin Press suggested Simone in Pieces because it both suggests the way the story is constructed and the task that Simone has in creating a self from too few pieces.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: A memoir from my grandparents in 1915 to my grandchildren in the 2020s. It’s called As Far As I Can Tell. I have had an eventful life, and it will be too long to publish!

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: It interests me very much that while the big publishing companies in New York and Boston—the Big Five as they are now known—have over the course of my life been taken over by for-profit corporations, a wealth of literary fiction is still being written and has now found its footing in university and indie presses and in independent bookstores.

 

A “canon” is probably now impossible. Too much is being written in every genre by people of every age, nationality, hue and gender. It may be that the art form of our lives is film, but film does not exist without writing, and writing is being kept alive and well by those of us scribbling away without spending or making millions, or even very much.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb 

Q&A with Shodo Spring

 

 

Shodo Spring is the author of the new book Open Reality: Meeting the Polycrisis Together with All Beings. She is an educator and a retired psychotherapist.

 

Q: What inspired you to write Open Reality?

 

A: I watched people going into despair about the environmental crisis, and noticed some things they were missing. Specifically, some people thought that only technology would save us, some thought it was necessary to maintain our current extravagant lifestyle - having grown up in the 1950s, I knew this wasn't correct. And even those who skipped those two errors tended to think that only human work could help.

 

But history and anthropology is full of documented stories that there is help beyond the human realm (consider how trees help each other, for instance, and stories of what ordinary people call magic). I wanted to offer encouragement, and to dispel the despair that is being promoted by corporate media. To oppose helplessness. 

 

At the beginning, I was just thinking about climate change. But that changed with Covid, and the George Floyd murder, and various extreme political events.  

 

Q: For those who are not familiar with the term, how would you define the “polycrisis” mentioned in the subtitle of your book?

 

A: Polycrisis refers to a confluence of difficult events, which work together to multiply the difficulty to create more serious crisis. 

 

Q: How did you research the book, and did you learn anything that especially surprised you?

 

A: Several ways.

 

I looked for good references for topics that I already had opinions on, to clarify and substantiate so people could check references and so I would be credible. For example, to find something I remembered from Jane Jacobs, I had to re-read all of her books. Same for Ivan Illich. 

 

I followed threads from one author to the next, to clarify and enhance. Sometimes I found a fascinating book on the shelf in a library, and included that in my topics (Davi Kopenawi).

 

As I heard and read comments or descriptions of interesting books, I would get them from the library and then buy them if necessary. (Two examples: Graeber and Wengrow's The Dawn of Everything and Patel and Moore's History of the World in Seven Cheap Things. ) 

 

I also looked up well-respected authors  (example Karen Armstrong) to see what they said about topics of interest. 

 

Surprises? Well, that so much creative and exciting work is being done. That human history and pre-history contain so much creativity in living well together - a very big deal, and I think people need to know this is who we are. 

 

I finally had to stop new intake and finish the book. Thus Nate Hagens isn't in my references - I just hadn't discovered him yet.

 

Q: What do you hope readers take away from the book?

 

A: Encouragement first. Excitement, and willingness to look at the world in a new and different way. And commitment. 

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: Right now, talking, organizing, trying to do the thing mentioned near the very end of the book: creating a wide web of people in relationship with the beyond-human beings, who are committed to changing the world and revitalizing it. 

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: I'm looking forward to a break, resting in my Zen practice within community.

 

I hope the book will help people unfold their deep connection with each other and the whole world. Methods might include college classes, adult study groups, community gatherings, and of course reaching out through publications of every kind.

 

I am reaching first for the people who are already committed to a more peaceful and joyful world, and/or people who share the spiritual sense but may not have thoughts about how to come into action.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb 

Nov. 24

 

 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Nov. 24, 1849: Frances Hodgson Burnett born. 

Q&A with Chloe Seager

 

 

 

Chloe Seager is the author of the new novel P.S. You're the Worst. Her other books include Open Minded. She is also a literary agent, and she lives in London. 

 

Q: What inspired you to write P.S. You're the Worst, and how did you create your character Becky?

 

A: Unsurprisingly, I was in the depths of a huge quarter-life crisis when I wrote P.S. You’re the Worst. I’d just moved out from living with my partner and back into a house share (with six other people!) and it felt like my personal life was on fire.

 

I’d recently started therapy, so I was doing a lot of self-reflection, and I think Becky was borne out of all the most immature, insecure parts of me that I was taking a hard look at.

 

Q: How would you describe the dynamic between Becky and Max?

 

A: Comforting but toxic. In many ways they do care about each other, but I think they both know they don’t belong together. They allow each other to linger in a state of nostalgic escapism and use each other to avoid tough adult realities. Ultimately, they hold each other back.

 

Q: Did you know how the novel would end before you started writing it, or did you make many changes along the way?

 

A: I knew! I’m a planner. To feel motivated to get to the end of a story I have to know where it’s going, because the end point of an emotional journey is what makes me want to sit down and write.

 

Q: The Booklist review of the novel says, “Readers who enjoy sympathetic depictions of messy women figuring out adulthood...will find a lot to enjoy.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: I would agree! I think now, more than ever, we live in a state of comparison with other people. Partly because everyone’s highlight reels are constantly put in front of us on a screen and partly because there’s less of a set route to follow.

 

Our parents’ generation had more rules and age milestones, which I’m glad we don’t, but equally figuring out adulthood feels like a bit of a free-for-all. There’s less pressure to get married and have children but the perceived amount of choice – of dates, of careers, of everything – feels overwhelming.

 

On top of that, everything is 10x more competitive than it used to be. So all these things are apparently on offer, but can feel out of reach. There’s also a lot of pressure to present like everything’s perfect. So, I’m very sympathetic to anyone who’s openly messy and doesn’t have it all figured out.

Q: What are you working on now?

A: I’m actually working on something romantic for the first time in my life. TBD whether I can successfully write characters falling in love, rather than cackling as their relationship goes down the toilet.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

A: Life would be very boring if we had everything worked out, all the time. And don’t take tarot cards literally.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb 

Q&A with Susan Knecht

 

 

 

Susan Knecht is the author of the new novel The Art Collector's Wife. She is also a psychotherapist, and she's based in Amsterdam.

 

Q: You’ve said that your mother’s experience during the Holocaust was an inspiration for The Art Collector’s Wife--how did you create your characters Isabel and Lila?

 

A: Lila was the first character to emerge on the page. Hers was the voice that landed most clearly, with a strong personality and point of view, a woman who needed to take charge of the story even as she was reticent to give any details about the trauma she survived.

 

Bit by bit, the external pressures of having a foil in her impulsive granddaughter Isabel, Lila’s secrets were forced to the surface in much the same way that experiencing new traumas can unlock old ones.

 

Isabel’s was the more challenging voice to find but the messier and more daring she became on the page, the more I could hear her; she was the one questioning her nonna, daring her to give answers, and taking what she felt was hers when it wasn’t given freely.

 

Q: How did you research the book, and what did you learn that especially surprised you?

 

A: I did some research on the time period after the rough draft was completely written. I read historic accounts of that time period and especially the wartime life that preceded it.

 

I wanted to understand the day-to-day in the ghetto before the German occupation and afterwards, and the lengths that families went to in order to survive only to end up in the camps.

 

For the period of 1962 where the action takes place, I wanted more historic context for Venice in the early 1960s for a more  realistic texture and tone.

 

I can’t say it really surprises me but it’s always startling to learn how few Jewish Europeans, those that survived the atrocities, returned to their home countries. Italy was no exception, of course.

Q: The author Peter Nichols said of the book, “Tender yet propulsive, as if Elena Ferrante had written a thriller.” What do you think of that comparison?

 

A: I took that as a compliment because I admire Peter Nichols’ writing very much, and I find Ferrante’s work masterful, especially how she conjures the authenticity of the women she writes about.

 

Each character’s voice is born out of the reality they live in, and, by the end of the story, the reader feels as if they know these women personally.

 

Q: Did you know how the story would end before you started writing it, or did you make many changes along the way?

 

A: My novel was written and rewritten seven times and by the end of the seventh iteration, the ending had changed seven times! In the rough draft, the characters’ voices, their needs and desires, dictated the story and what would happen.

 

As the years went on and I kept rewriting and paring down the exoskeleton of back story, I did attempt to adhere to an outline but that too was a moving target.

 

Once I was able to write effective set-ups for each action and each scene, the fate of my characters became clearer: it wasn’t about what served the characters, but what actually served the story structure as a whole and kept the tension taut and the stakes high.  

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I’m sketching out the rough draft of a novel about four reincarnated women and their interconnected lives across four continents: North America, Asia, Europe, and Africa. It will be a historical thriller with elements of magical realism.

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: I just had a successful book launch and signing event at the American Book Center in Amsterdam. I am now in the process of putting together more dates for book signing events in France and California.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb 

Q&A with Norman Woolworth

 

 

 

 

 

Norman Woolworth is the author of the new novel The Bolden Cylinder. He also has written the novel The Lafitte Affair. He is a retired corporate executive, and he lives in Charlottesville, Virginia.

 

Q: Why did you decide to focus on the jazz musician Buddy Bolden (1877-1931) in your new novel?

 

A: I find it fascinating that Buddy Bolden is frequently credited with being the first jazz player, yet no one alive has heard him play a note.

 

Around the turn of the 20th century, Buddy was said to have combined ragtime and the blues in a way that hadn’t been done before, and out of that marriage came the beginnings of what would eventually be called jazz.

 

In his day, Buddy was wildly popular. According to his contemporaries, interviewed 20 and 30 years after his rise to prominence as “King Bolden,” he played louder and dirtier than anyone else. But his reign was brief. He literally goes crazy, is institutionalized in 1906, and spends the last 25 years of his life in a sanitarium.

 

There are no known recordings of Buddy, though his bandmate Willie Cornish said the group recorded a wax cylinder in 1898. But what if a recording had survived, I wondered? It struck me as a promising premise for a historical mystery. 

 

Q: This is the second in your Bruneau Abellard series--did you know you'd be writing a series when you wrote the first novel?

 

A: Yes. My protagonist, Bruneau Abellard, is a curmudgeonly antiques store owner in present-day New Orleans, and his childhood buddy Bo Duplessis is a property crimes detective with NOPD.

 

In each novel, a present-day crime is linked to a historical mystery, and the former can’t be solved until or unless the latter is unraveled. It’s an extensible concept which I embellish with a cast of eccentric characters.

 

As the series progresses those characters develop in various ways and the relationships between and among them evolve accordingly. Readers have told me they enjoy spending time with Bruneau and his friends. 

 

Q: How did you research the book, and what did you learn that especially surprised you?

 

A: As with my first book, The Lafitte Affair, I read widely to build my foundational knowledge before I began writing.

 

Once I did start to write, and a specific question would come up, or I wanted to set a scene in a particular time and place, I would set about researching that particular topic. The novel is fiction, of course, but it was important to me to present historical context as accurately as possible.  

 

Q: As you noted, the novel is set in New Orleans--how important is setting to you in your writing?

 

A: Many readers have commented that New Orleans itself is a character in these books, and I think that is true. The city is such an atmospheric place, one that engages all one’s senses, and I try to convey that.

 

And then of course it’s also a place where the past and present are forever interwoven, which makes it a natural setting for a historical mystery series. 

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I am about three-quarters of the way through book three. It does not yet have a title, but it concerns the Ursuline nuns, who occupy a uniquely important role in New Orleans history.

 

They arrived almost at the beginning, in 1727, and are still there, operating the National Shrine of Our Lady of Prompt Succor, which adjoins Ursuline Academy, the oldest private girls’ school in the country.

 

In addition to fulfilling their core mission of educating girls, the Ursulines at various times ran an orphanage, operated a hospital, owned a plantation that depended on slave labor, and expertly navigated the complex political challenges of French and Spanish rule, the transition to the American Republic, the Confederacy, Union occupation, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and the Civil Right Movement. There is a lot to explore.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: Bruneau Abellard is, among other things, a discriminating gourmand, and readers of The Lafitte Affair told me that they greatly enjoyed the descriptions of his indulgences. They can look forward to more of the same in The Bolden Cylinder. 

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Norman Woolworth. 

Nov. 23

 

 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
Nov. 23, 1920: Paul Celan born.

Q&A with Joanna Cockerline

 

 

 

Joanna Cockerline is the author of the new novel Still. She is also the co-author of the story collection Seeing Our Sisters. She teaches at the University of British Columbia Okanagan. 

 

Q: What inspired you to write Still, and how did you create your character Kayla?

 

A: Still has been brewing in my mind for many years, and that intensified doing street outreach over the past eight years.

 

Kayla is fictional, and not based on any one person, but is inspired by own experiences, those of people I’ve known, and people with whom I’ve become friends on street outreach. As a character, she came to life for me and basically told me the story I needed to write.

 

Q: The writer Kevin Chong said of the book, “Suffused with tenderness, Still celebrates and uplifts the marginalized...” What do you think of that assessment?

 

A: I have great affection for my characters, and I’m glad that is coming through. People have really been able to connect with them, and some of my biggest fans are those living on the street or engaged in street-level sex work, who feel seen and heard.

 

Q: Did you know how the novel would end before you started writing it, or did you make many changes along the way?

 

A: I wrote and rewrote Still three times, with thousands upon thousands of revisions and reworkings along the way. Ultimately, I let the characters come to life and determine where the story wanted to go.

 

Q: How was the book's title chosen, and what does it signify for you?

 

A: Stillness suggests a sort of peace that I wanted to bring out, and also a sense of lasting endurance. It is a word featured in the book during a few key scenes, and also the end, so it really resonated for me. I wanted to explore the possibility of seeing beauty and hope still, despite challenges.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I’m excited to be working on a sequel to the novel Still, which includes some of the same characters, as they really wanted to live on. The new novel is set during a wildfire in Kelowna, and explores how the fire impacts the housed, unhoused, newly unhoused, and all the beings in the land. I’m hopeful that it, too, explores ideas of strength and hope despite.  

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: It’s been a wonderful journey working with the innovative independent press The Porcupine’s Quill. It’s exciting to see unique Canadian stories getting out there, and wonderful that as part of that continuum Still was recognized for the Giller Prize long list and CBC Fall Reading List.

 

I hope readers can continue to be engaged with the diverse spectrum of voices that comprise a vibrant Canadian literary scene.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb