Q&A with Daphne Benedis-Grab

  

 

 

Daphne Benedis-Grab is the author of the new middle grade novel I Know You Started It. It's the fourth in her Secrets and Lies series. She is also a librarian, and she lives in Boulder, Colorado. 

 

Q: What inspired you to write I Know You Started It?

 

A: I Know You Started It is the fourth in my Secrets and Lies Novels, a companion set that have the same structure but a new mystery and group of characters with each book. I love writing them and when it came time to plan for this one, I brainstormed with my editor what might be a really exciting new mystery.

 

I settled on the idea of fire in a locker because lockers are such personal space, the only space that is yours and only yours in the school, so it being damaged is a very potent and personal kind of attack. Which seemed a great place to start a mystery!

 

Q: How would you describe the dynamic among your characters Kate, Dani, Liam, and Gabe?

 

A: Complicated 🙂

 

Liam is new to the school and having a lot of trouble making friends. He’s hopeful that this is an opportunity to connect to his classmates but Gabe is dismissive and intimidating while Kate is licking her wounds after being dumped by Dani as a best friend.

 

Dani has her own secrets and isn’t interested in connecting to anyone, but the four of them are stuck together trying to figure out who started the fire in Jonathan’s locker and why.

 

And then, as they get to know each other, open up and secrets are finally brought to light, the dynamic changes, bringing a whole new layer of complexity and ultimately, connection.

 

Q: The Publishers Weekly review of the book says, “This enjoyable middle grade thriller tackles bullying, environments in which it is allowed to propagate, and the importance of speaking truth to power.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: I love that description! As a school librarian I am very aware of how bullying can happen in liminal spaces that teachers and school leaders may not see, and how it can grow into something toxic when it’s hidden from trusted adults.

 

I’m also aware of how adults may only get part of a story. It takes a lot of courage for kids to speak up and make sure the whole story is exposed so that bullying situations are seen and stopped. I have such admiration for the students who do this.

 

Bringing that reality to life was one of my goals in I Know You Started It and I’m happy it’s something PW lifted up in their review. 

 

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

 

A: I think it’s really easy for all of us to assume we know a person based a few things we see them do or say - that is definitely true of the four main characters in I Know You Started It.

 

But it’s only when we truly get to know people that we can see who they are in all their messy complexity. People can be so different than how they present and the things people have been through shape so much of that exterior we see.

 

And it is so worth it to hold off on judging, to listen and engage and maybe find that you have way more in common with someone that you ever might have imagined. That’s what happens to Kate, Dani, Liam and Gabe - and it’s what I hope readers take away from the story. 

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I am just starting to brainstorm ideas for a potential book 6 in the series!

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: I have another book coming out this year! The Team is about a shocking incident of vandalism that leads three seventh graders on a hunt for the true culprit. Threats against them escalate as they come closer to the truth that may expose something rotten at the core of their school’s beloved football team. It will be published on September 1. 

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Daphne Benedis-Grab. 

Q&A with Willa Goodfellow

  

 

 

Willa Goodfellow is the author of the new memoir A Gritty Little Tourist Town: Bar Tales from Costa Rica. She also has written the memoir Prozac Monologues. She is an Episcopal priest, and she lives in Ireland. 

 

Q: What inspired you to write A Gritty Little Tourist Town?

 

A: The answer is in the first story. For many years, I spent several weeks in a little beach town in Costa Rica. One day an exceedingly hungover neighbor got into a shouting match with a mynah bird. I walked over to my sister’s bar, the Pato Loco, and told the story to a friend. She found it as hilarious as I did. So I walked home and made notes to remember it.

 

That began a practice. Whenever I went to the Pato Loco, I listened for other stories to record.

 

In 2020, these notes became my contribution of refreshment and joy to my writers’ group. I turned them into full stories. And the group encouraged me to turn them into a book.

 

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

 

A: My publisher and I went back and forth on this one. My original title was Bar Tales of Costa Rica, which she didn’t care for. She came up with a list, including the title of the first section of stories, “A Gritty Little Tourist Town.” That phrase was my wife’s originally. It was how she described Playas del Coco to family who were coming to visit. The original title became the subtitle.

 

While I struggled at first to move off from the working title that I had used for so long, it finally occurred to me that what had started as a collection of bar tales had grown. The book is about the town as well as the bar. I want to preserve my memories of that gritty, yet delightful, place.

 

Q: The author Kim Danielson said of the book, “Willa Goodfellow made me feel right at home in a faraway place; she reminds us that this big world of ours isn't so big after all.” What do you think of that assessment?

 

A: Yes, Kim captures what a welcoming place the Pato Loco is. It takes its visitors as they are, with all their quirks and foibles. Because I didn’t polish off any rough edges, the characters in GLTT feel real. Readers tell me that they feel they know these people, that they could sit down at the table and join the conversation.

 

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

 

A: Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie talks about the “tyranny of one story,” how one version of a person, place, or culture can limit our understanding. While writing A Gritty Little Tourist Town, I came to understand the “poverty” of one story.

 

I began with one version of my mother, my sister, and also the place, Playas del Coco. As I wrote subsequent drafts, as I turned the stories over and the book expanded, I realized how limited my understanding had been, especially of my mother. I have a deeper respect for her now than when I began.

 

I also gained an appreciation of storytelling itself, as I witnessed the community that formed around the Pato Loco. I hope that readers become storytellers in their own circumstances, and committed to deepening their own communities.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I have moved to Ireland, to another small town like Playas del Coco, on the Dingle Peninsula. It also has a rich culture of storytelling. People urge me to do the “Pub Tales of County Kerry.” But then they add, “Don’t put me in it!” I play with the idea of switching genres and writing a fictionalized version of a local historical mystery.

 

As well as an author, I am an Episcopal priest, working for the Church of Ireland. I write on Substack. In “On the Way” at wgoodfellow.substack.com, I publish daily meditations on trying to follow the Way of Love, based on the assigned Scripture readings for the day.

 

In “What’s Next?” at willagoodfellow.substack.com, I write about my fourth quarter, moving to Ireland, life as an immigrant, and aging with a sense of adventure, intending to “leave it all on the field.”

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: GLTT is my second book. The first, Prozac Monologues, is also a memoir, a comedic account of misdiagnosis and information about the bipolar spectrum. It begins in Costa Rica and ends with the pathophysiology of bipolar! – in language that entertains a general audience.

 

My website is willagoodfellow.com.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb 

Q&A with Laurie Collister

  

 

 

Laurie Collister is the author of the new memoir A Different Kind of Vow: Rewriting My Happily Ever After. She is also a counselor and a journalist, and she lives in Los Angeles. 

 

Q: Why did you decide to write this memoir?

 

A: As a counselor for 17 years, I shone the spotlight on my clients – from Ph.D. candidates at UCLA to unsheltered men at a one-hundred-year-old skid row mission. 

 

So, when I left that profession, I thought, what would happen if I shone that same light on myself?  Perhaps I could learn something vital – about where I’d been in my life and, in turn, where I might go in my next chapter.

 

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

 

A: My book was amazingly hard to title. No one, including me, liked my initial title of Vows Rewritten: A Memoir. Friends joined me for a brainstorming session, with all choices, no matter how ridiculous, dutifully recorded on a white board. 

 

We came up with titles like White Picket Fence: The Other Side; Righting My Life: A Memoir; and A Teenage Wizard, A Lonely Priest, and Me.  

 

The title I settled on – A Different Kind of Vow: Rewriting My Happily Ever After – connected the two main themes of the book: 1. We all start out with a plan, a goal, a vow, call it what you will, that we believe we must fulfill; and 2. Sometimes we have to rewrite that vow, to find our path to happiness.

 

Q: Was most of the book based on your memories, or did you need to do additional research?

 

A: By the time I started writing my memoir, I’d accumulated more than 300 volumes of diaries, penned over 50 years. So, my research involved culling quotes, scenes, conflicts, characters, etc., from thousands of journal entries. This source material lent an authenticity to my writing that I could never have achieved if I’d relied solely on my memory. 

 

I outlined each chapter and then penciled in the margins of my diaries which passage applied to which section of the outline, be it III.A.1. or VIII.C. My writing classmates remarked, “Oh that’s way too organized for us!” But I needed that kind of detailed map to plunge into the forest of my past.

 

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

 

A: Wow, how much time do you have? I will note three points for each question. Just know there are many more! 

 

First, writing my memoir taught me how to insert myself in my writing. I had to lose the objective voice I’d employed in a former career as a business journalist. Instead of “just the facts, ma’am,” I had to access and express feelings that I’d never actually accessed and expressed before. So, in many ways, writing became like therapy. 

 

Second, it taught me how to structure a full-length book, with beats, an arc of change, defining the protagonist’s main problem and obstacles to overcome, and a fully fleshed out transformation at the end of the book. 

 

Third, it changed my opinion of myself. I always viewed myself as sort of losing at the game of life – I had not achieved what society told me would bring me happiness – husband, children, and white picket fence.

 

But after describing all of my spiritual quests, career pivots and romantic interludes, I saw the life I’d lived in a far different light. I’d led a fascinating life, filled with brave experimentation, a strong desire to grow, and a willingness to learn, both in traditional settings (earning three college degrees), as well as outside the university classroom, in a Hindu convent, psychic college, and far flung travels.

 

What do I hope readers will take away? 

 

First, examine the vow you are pursuing. Is it based on parental, spousal, or societal dictates? Or is it actually your own unique calling? If the vow you’re pursuing isn’t bringing you happiness, maybe it should be rewritten. 

 

Second, learn how to identify your vow if you haven’t already done so. I hope my search for a vow illustrates how one person found her life purpose. 

 

Third, recognize that by examining your past, you’ll see that there are so many lessons, either learned or ready to learn. With this point of view, you can wring worth out of even the most painful experience. You can see yourself as a student presented with obstacles that helped you to grow and progress down your life path.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: Currently, I’m working with my publisher on the cover design and copyedit of my next memoir, tentatively titled The Last Home on the Left: My Fourteen Years Working on LA’s Skid Row. The book will be published by She Writes Press on July 13, 2027. 

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: Over 4 million books were published in 2025, according to statistics compiled by Bowker, the official ISBN agency in the U.S. That means I, and my fellow authors, each must stand out, in the choice of our subjects, the quality of our writing, and in the creativity of our promotional campaigns. As a debut memoirist, I have worked hard to meet the challenge of all three elements!

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb 

Q&A with Steven Moore

  

 

 

 

Steven Moore is the author of the new essay collection Last Time Around. His other books include The Novel: An Alternative History. He is a book critic and is the former managing editor of Dalkey Archive Press. 

 

Q: Most of the essays and reviews in your new collection were written in the past decade--do you see any changes in your writing from that period compared with previous decades?

 

A: Yes. My earliest critical writings were published in scholarly journals and by university presses, and thus were in standard academic mode. But beginning in the 1990s I started using a more conversational, journalistic style, so most of the recent essays and reviews are in that mode.

 

There are still some academic trappings here and there—scholarly footnotes, a bibliography or two—but the essays and reviews are closer to literary journalism than academic criticism.

 

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

 

A: Last Time Around is the third and final album by Buffalo Springfield (1968), which was a collection of odds and ends rather than a unified work, and their farewell as a group. My book is a similar round-up of odds and ends, and is my farewell to writing. I’ve been a critic for 50 years, and I’m pretty sure this will be my last book.   

 

Q: How did you decide on the order in which the pieces would appear in the book?

 

A: They are organized chronologically within each section, based on when they were first published. General essays come first, then a section of essays on my two favorite novelists (William Gaddis and Thomas Pynchon), followed by book reviews, also arranged chronologically, as are the interviews that occupy the last third of the book.

 

Q: Of the various interviews included in the book, do you have a particular favorite?

 

A: I like the first one because it covers the most ground, from my family background and younger years, up to the time of the interview (2015). Taken together, that and the other interviews almost function as an autobiography, and may be more enjoyable for some readers than the essays and reviews.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: Nothing. As I said, this may be my farewell to the writing profession.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: For the last two years I’ve been working with Tough Poets Press to publish new editions of the novels of J. P. McEvoy, written back in the late 1920s/early 1930s. We’ve done four of his six novels, and I hope we can do the final two over the next few years.

 

I have a website where I post new activities (https://www.stevenmoore.info/current.shtml), but it may be skimpy for the foreseeable future.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb 

April 9

 

 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
April 9, 1821: Charles Baudelaire born.

Q&A with Hanna Johansson

  

 

 

 

Hanna Johansson is the author of the novel Body Double, which has been translated from Swedish to English by Kira Josefsson. Johansson has also written the novel Antiquity. She is based in Sweden.

 

Q: What inspired you to write Body Double, and how did you create your characters Naomi and Laura?

 

A: I was inspired by thriller films from the late ‘90s, and wanted to write something that would leave the reader with a similar feeling afterwards.

 

The novel is made up of two parallel narratives where one follows a nameless narrator and one follows Naomi and Laura, who meet by accident and then become entwined in each other’s lives.

 

I approached the creation of Naomi and Laura very much as something aesthetic and superficial – like, “these people would fit in such a thriller, and this is what should happen to them” – rather than trying to think of them as real people, which I would normally do.

 

Q: The reviews of the book have compared it to the work of Alfred Hitchcock--what do you think of that comparison?

 

A: I completely understand it! It is a suspense story with elegant women and doppelgängers, like Vertigo, and it plays a lot with movie clichés and references.

 

Body Double is the name of a Brian De Palma movie – that I hadn’t seen when I wrote the novel, though – and some readers have mentioned David Lynch, whereas I was more influenced by European movies.

 

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 went into writing Body Double knowing absolutely nothing, and made lots of changes and rewrote the manuscript several times. 

 

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

 

A: Obsession has so much to do with fantasy and fictionalization. When you become obsessed – and regardless if it’s something kind of benign, like having a crush on someone, or more serious, like believing in a conspiracy theory – you begin to spend a lot of time creating scenarios and imagining things. Which really is what makes an obsession so pleasurable, despite everything.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I’m working on two different things, both also stories of obsession, you could say: a love story, and a novel about a hypochondriac.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb 

Q&A with Erica Wright

  

 

 

Erica Wright is the author of the new novel The Museum of Unusual Occurrence. Her other books include the forthcoming poetry  collection A Buyer's Guide to the Afterlife. She teaches at Bellevue University, and she lives in Knoxville, Tennessee.

 

Q: What inspired you to write The Museum of Unusual Occurrence, and how did you create your character Aly?

 

A: In October 2020, eight months pregnant, I watched a Halloween-adjacent movie and ate a bowl of popcorn every night.

 

I’m not big on gore, but I love Halloween. Tim Burton was in heavy rotation, but I also remember Practical Magic, Hocus Pocus, and Winchester. I decided that I wanted my next novel to have a similar tone, eerie but a little playful.

 

My favorite leisure activity is wandering around a museum, no matter how big or small. Bonus points for the unusual. So I leapt at the chance to create my own imaginary one. While writing, it seemed like a real place, and I wish that I could visit.

Aly sprang to life fully formed like Athena from the head of Zeus. There she was in the lobby of her Museum of Unusual Occurrence, trying to fix the temperamental chandelier, annoyed but determined.

 

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 met E. L. Doctorow once. He taught at my college, and I made an appointment for office hours, deciding that I probably wouldn’t get the chance to meet him any other way. I asked for writing advice, which he graciously provided. I’m a little embarrassed by my boldness now, but what a cool memory.

 

Anyway, I sort of live by his memorable depiction of writing as “like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”

 

Q: The novel is set in a town in Florida--how important is setting to you in your writing?

 

A: My books mostly begin with the setting. Perhaps because I don’t know where a story might lead, I need the place and time to ground me. My fictional Wyndale is loosely inspired by a real place in Florida, the so-called “psychic capital of the world.”

 

I grew up in a small town where ghost stories and folklore flourished. That experience helped me think about how the characters might be connected, whether they like it or not.

 

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

 

A: I hope that readers enjoy the mystery, first and foremost. I didn’t intentionally set out to write about second chances, but that theme emerged at some point, and I wrote toward it.

 

My characters aren’t always kind to themselves, but I want them to be. Perhaps we can all have a little more grace for ourselves and others.

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I’m feeling lucky to be working on the second book in the series, as yet unnamed. Somebody new comes to Wyndale, a doctor obsessed with the notion of near-death experiences, that is, people who claim to have died and seen glimpses of the afterlife.

 

When he dies (for real), the general consensus is that he was trying to create one of these experiences for himself and things went awry. Aly, and eventually the local police department, suspect otherwise.

Q: Anything else we should know?

A: It’s a busy year for me! I also have a collection of poems coming out in July, A Buyer’s Guide to the Afterlife. The poems began as responses to archival images from the American Museum of Natural History and then became more personal meditations on what it means to start a family in a tumultuous world. There’s plenty of fear, but also hope.  

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb