March 27

 

 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
March 27, 1926: Frank O'Hara born.

Q&A with Sally Kilpatrick

  

 

 

Sally Kilpatrick is the author of the new novel Little Miss Petty. Her other books include Nobody's Perfect. 

 

Q: What inspired you to write Little Miss Petty, and how did you create your character Stella?

 

A: This novel began with a question, an idle musing: What if there were someone you could hire to get a petty sort of revenge on the people who’ve wronged you? Pretty sure it originated from something I’ve often said to my husband: Karma doesn’t work fast enough for me.

 

Fiction is a great place to get the sort of catharsis you can’t get from the real world, and that’s how Little Miss Petty was born. Stella then emerged as my Little Miss Petty. She had her own ideas about how the story should go, as characters so often do.

 

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

 

A: It doesn’t always happen like this, but the title came first.

 

For me, it’s a humorous play on the old Mr. Men and Little Miss books that my mom used to check out of the library. Sometimes those characters were nice; often they were naughty.

 

Naturally, there was a lesson to be learned, and every book character should learn something over the course of their arc, so it all made sense to me.

 

I like to keep things light, but there’s usually a somewhat serious message underneath the humor. As authors, we don’t always get to choose our title, but, in this case, the title was the main selling point.

 

Q: What do you think the novel says about karma?

 

A: The novel reminds us—me, especially—that I’m not in charge of karma nor any laws of the universe. It’s hubris to think otherwise.

 

Also, our Western interpretation of karma is not correct. In reality, karma isn’t immediate reward and punishment but more reliant on each individual’s intention. Of course, this is a rom com, so I don’t get into the subtleties or nuances of the actual concept of karma.

 

While drafting this novel, I did read a lot about Eastern interpretations of karma, including the Bhagavad Gita, but I am a dilletante at best. Anything beyond one woman’s wishful thinking for cosmic accountability is above my pay grade.

 

Q: The author Valerie Bowman said of the book, “Smart, hilarious, and surprisingly poignant, Little Miss Petty is the cozy revenge fantasy I didn’t know I needed.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: I adore that description. It’s definitely a cozy revenge fantasy because I’m using the social media definition of “petty” rather than the dictionary definition. All forms of retribution must be logical and not overly harmful; Stella’s job is to punch up rather than punch down.

 

I gotta love the other descriptors, too.

 

As a writer, my goal is to entertain and to leave my readers on a hopeful note. It’s gravy if there’s something meaningful they can also take away from the story.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: My next novel will be called See Box City about one woman’s attempt to survive moving cross-country. Just kidding. I have some ideas marinating, but I don’t have a current work in progress because I have moved cross-country and am living amongst the boxes.

 

I do have a finished mystery that I’m finetuning. I’ve also toyed with a sequel to Nobody’s Perfect, and I always have at least three ideas for a Christmas novella, but I’ll be working on those more in the next month or so. (If someone is interested in the novel See Box City, call me. I’ll make it work.)

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: Oooh, so much. Um. I have the rights back to my entire backlist, and they are all getting audio editions. If anyone’s into country-fried small-town romance, I’d be honored if folks to give them a shot.

 

Speaking of audio, the narrator for Little Miss Petty, Amanda Stribling, is an alumna of the University of Tennessee, as am I. I’m pretty pumped about that and the sample of her work that I heard.

 

Finally, if you preorder from The Ripped Bodice here in California or The Book Worm in Georgia, you can get your very own vinyl sticker that says Little Miss Petty. Both feature the calico kitten from the book, the one I named after Brené Brown. You can find that information at www.sallykilpatrick.com.

 

You can also find me on Instagram, Threads, and sometimes TikTok. My user name is @superwritermom, which is either a joke that has outlived its origin or wishful thinking on the “super” part. Oh, and thanks for having me!

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb 

Q&A with Paul Coggins

  

 

 

 

Paul Coggins is the author of the new novel Chasing the Chameleon, the third in his series featuring his character Cash McCahill. Coggins is a criminal defense attorney in Dallas and a former U.S Attorney for the Northern District of Texas.

 

Q: What inspired you to write Chasing the Chameleon, the latest in your series featuring your character Cash McCahill?

 

A: In the prior Cash books (Sting Like a Butterfly and Eye of the Tigress), Cash crossed a cartel, which slapped a seven-figure bounty on his head.

 

To survive, he faced a choice of running until his legs and luck ran out or hiding in plain sight. He went with the latter, by surgically altering his face and stealing the identity of a dead cop. A threat to someone close to Cash forces him to shed his fake identity and return to his old life.

 

A key inspiration for the book is a movie called Seconds from the 1960s that has haunted me since I saw it as a kid. It was a box office bomb upon release but has become a cult classic. In the film, an over-the-hill banker undergoes a procedure and becomes a young, handsome artist portrayed by Rock Hudson.

 

In Chameleon, the opposite occurs, with easy-on-the-eyes Cash in his prime resurfacing as a much older cop.

 

Face/Off starring John Travolta and Nicolas Cage is another inspiration.

 

Q: Do you think Cash has changed over the course of the series?

 

A: Cash is a risk-taker, who had better change if he plans to survive into his 50s. He grows within the confines of each book and over the course of the series. Orphaned at 8, Cash was raised by his now-deceased grandmother. He builds a surrogate family among the eccentrics, castoffs, and untouchables in his small firm.

 

Two years in a federal prison for jury tampering shook Cash to the core and lifted his law license for three years. The time served also deepened his commitment to fight for the underdog. He owes his life to his cellmate and protector behind bars and has vowed to give the lifer at least a shot at spending the last years of his life on the outside.

 

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

 

A: Before embarking on a story, I prepare a detailed outline that falls apart in the first 10 to 20 pages. The advance planning part is the lawyer in me talking.

 

However, the outline is more of a security blanket than a structural tool. At most, the outline helps me think about scenes, characters, and the relationships among them.

 

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

 

A: First, I hope the readers like Cash, warts and all, and decide they would want him in their corner if their freedom was on the line.   

 

Second, I share with the reader my insights into our judicial, police, and prison systems, again warts and all. There is a caveat, of course. Justice gets done only when all players in the criminal justice world do their jobs. The courtroom is Cash’s true home and the one place where he stands up to Goliaths.

 

Finally, Cash’s small law firm is his family, complete with a curmudgeonly senior partner/surrogate father; a Latina Jill-of-all-trades, who may or may not be in the country legally; and a trans woman, who works as a paralegal in the firm while attending law school.

 

Families come in all sizes and shapes. Cash’s tight-knit crew, though small in number and far outside the corridors of power, fights way above its weight.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I have completed a draft of the next Cash book: Canary in the Courthouse. Something is rotten in the courthouse, where a powerful law firm and its Fortune 100 client have two thumbs on the scales of justice. A federal judge fears for her life and calls on Cash to expose the corruption.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: Why do so many lawyers try their hand at writing legal fiction? Trying cases by day and writing novels at night offers balance. One pursuit is public and performative. The other, solitary and contemplative.

 

Trial work makes me a better writer and vice versa. A wise law professor told me that 99 percent of being a lawyer is selecting the right word at the right time. That turns out to be 100 percent of being a good writer.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb 

Q&A with Victoria Tatum

  

 

 

Victoria Tatum is the author of the new novel More Than Any River. She also has written the novel The Virgin's Children. She lives in Santa Cruz, California. 

 

Q: What inspired you to write More Than Any River?

 

A: The Sacramento Delta first captured my heart in high school, when each year in May my best friend sailed with her family on their 28-foot sloop north from San Francisco into the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, and up the San Joaquin to a little slough where they docked on an island for the summer. 

 

I was invited to spend weekends with them sleeping under the stars on the deck of the boat, and cooking outdoors over coals in the communal kitchen. We would jump into the water for relief from the summer heat, and when decades later I found out the delta was no longer the safest for swimming, I wanted to know why.

 

In reading in the San Francisco Chronicle about how delta water is apportioned I found my answer.

 

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

 

A: I read many online articles and articles in the San Francisco Chronicle. I read stacks of books, the most influential of which were Robert Kelley’s Battling the Inland Sea, Marc Reisner’s Cadillac Desert, and Mark Arax’s books about Central Valley agribusiness. Lundberg Family Farms served as a model for the rice farm in my novel.

 

I was surprised to discover that Democrats are not necessarily environmentalists, and that Fish and Wildlife and certain environmental organizations have ties that are not always aligned with conservation.

 

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

 

A: The first decision I had to make was whether to have flood or drought be the predominant concern in the novel. I chose drought, since it is most indicative of conditions in the West.

 

After I finished the bulk of my research and before I got too far into writing, I decided how the story would end. In reality the state could be studying and planning for the Tunnel(s) for decades to come, but I wanted an ending to my novel that showed what the impact of those tunnels would be.

 

Q: What impact did it have on you to write the book, and what do you hope readers take away from it?

 

A: Turning nonfiction into fiction was the most challenging aspect of writing the novel and the reason it took me 10 years.

 

I became engrossed in water stories happening all over the state, like the Round Valley Tribe’s fight to stop the Bureau of Reclamation from putting in a dam on the Eel River that would have drowned their valley.

 

I wrote long historical  accounts of California infrastructure that my agent slogged through, then rightly told me to take out. My husband, who reads plot-driven novels, read an early version and told me I needed to emphasize the rivalry of the warring water factions.

 

In my rewrite I drew out the conflict without sacrificing the complexity, and while it hurt to do so, I cut out the Eel River story. The result was a better novel. 

 

I want readers to see there’s a way we can use water in the West that can benefit both humans and the environment. 

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I am looking for an agent for my memoir, which is about how the outdoors helped my husband Blue and me raise two children, including one with autism, to survive and thrive in a rapidly changing world. 

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: I hope readers will order my novel from their local bookstores. The ones I have reached out to have been generous about hosting an event, so readers, if you can make one of those, let’s show our local bookstores how much we appreciate the community they create through reading. 

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb 

Q&A with Saïd Khatibi

   

 

Saïd Khatibi is the author of the novel The End of the Sahara, now available in an English translation by Alexander E. Elinson. Khatibi, who writes in Arabic and French, was born in Algeria and lives in Slovenia. His other books include Sarajevo Firewood. 

 

Q: What inspired you to write The End of the Sahara?

 

A: I am interested in the question of violence in human society. How ordinary people can become powerful, and at a certain moment, turn into criminals.

I was inspired by one family story. When I was a child, I had a disabled neighbor. He used a wheelchair, but I never knew why.

 

Twenty years later, I learned that he had been shot, and that the bullet made him disabled. This happened during the events of October 5, 1988, in Algeria. On that day, Algerians went out into the streets to protest against socialism and the one party system.

 

It was the first time that socialism had truly been shaken, one year before the fall of the Berlin Wall. It was a major event in contemporary history, yet one that is little known. I feel that this memory has been erased, and that the novel can save the memory of a people.

 

Q: The novel is set in an Algerian city--how important is setting to you in your work?

 

A: I was born and raised in the Algerian desert, under the sun. I know this geography well. The Sahara is not a postcard or a movie set, it is a place full of reality and hardship.

 

In the novel, I do not name the city, but readers will easily recognize it. I do not name it because all Algerian cities were similar in the 1980s under socialism. We watched the same television, listened to the same radio, ate the same food, and wore the same clothes.

Life was in black and white, boring, and boredom can also lead to radicalization and then to violence.

 

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

 

A: There was very little documentation about this period, but the novel is a work of fiction, and fiction can repair history.

 

Q: What role do you see the 1919 novel The Sheik playing in your own book?

 

A: The Sheik is a novel whose story takes place in my city in southern Algeria, and E. M. Hull mentions my city in her travel journal about Algeria. She wrote a beautiful novel, but unfortunately it is full of stereotypes about the local people.

I wanted to enter into dialogue with her, a dialogue made with love, to say that literature is not a postcard, that the Algerian Sahara is not only an orientalist image, and that there were people there who had the right to exist, instead of being erased in favor of landscapes.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I published a new novel in Arabic last year, and at the moment I am thinking about another project that goes back to the time of the Second World War.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb

Q&A with Emily Redondo

  

Emily Redondo is the author of the new memoir Wife Mother Drunk: An Intergenerational Memoir of Loss and Love. She lives in McKinney, Texas. 

 

Q: What inspired you to write this memoir?

 

A: I felt a dire need to piece my past together and try to understand how I ended up where I did. I was terrified of dying and what that would do to my family, so I think fear was the main inspiration – something I had to do to survive – and I wanted to write it all down before I ran out of time.

 

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

 

A: My publisher chose the title and admittedly I fought against it for a few months hoping for something prettier and less “quit lit” sounding. Now, it’s a small part of who I am and signifies the starting point for investigating a thousand questions beyond someone’s face value.

 

Q: The author Jen Pastiloff said of the book, “This gem of a book is a candid, vivid, and lyrical expression of what it means to be human – how complicated, messy, and beautiful it can be – during a time when displays of humanity feel especially rare.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: I think the same way about Jen Pastiloff’s description as I do anyone else’s description of the book. I respectfully appreciate reviews and opinions because it’s about their experience as a reader.

 

Q: What impact did it have on you to write this book, and what do you hope readers take away from it?

 

A: Writing this book impacted every aspect of my life today. Honestly, it tore me apart then put me back together. It’s a little strange how much I learned by sitting again in past experiences, facing those deepest truths head on, and killing off perfection for authenticity.

 

I hope readers take this memoir as an opportunity to leave judgment at the door and gain some insight, whether about themselves or others in their lives. It’s open invitation for someone out there to feel spoken for and a little less alone, because that’s what I wanted. 

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I’m working on living with Korsakoff Syndrome and being kind to myself while still having fun and adventures.

 

I’m in the phase of motherhood when my babies are leaving the nest one by one and more than anything I want to be present and savor these moments. I’m gardening, reading, time with my family, building dollhouses and other random projects and soon, I’ll pick up a pen write again.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: Life goes on.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb 

March 26

 

 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
March 26, 1942: Erica Jong born.