Q&A with Lynne Hugo

  

 

 

Lynne Hugo is the author of the new novel Under an Indiana Sky. Her many other books include Mothers of Fate. Also a psychotherapist, she lives in Oxford, Ohio.

 

Q: What inspired you to write Under an Indiana Sky, and how did you create your cast of characters?

 

A: As I thought about writing this novel and what issue might speak to many readers, I realized that I really don’t think I know anyone whose life experience hasn’t brought them into contact with someone whose life has been affected by addiction. It may be themselves, or within their nuclear or extended family or if not, within their friendship or acquaintance circle.

 

But, in my experience, everyone knows someone. Everyone is aware of some true story—maybe of alienation and tragedy or one of the good stories of recovery and hope.

 

Addiction can divide families. Some family members see the problem and try to intervene. Often this goes badly. That’s why I created the sisters, Denise and Angela, with Denise—who senses her sister’s problem and reacts with upset and anger as well as worry because she also has a selfish motive.

 

Some family members are simply blind to the issue out of ignorance and being too much on the periphery, more like Brock’s mother, Nora, and probably, his brother, Tom. Even friends like Mercedes. Addicts are often extremely good at hiding the addiction, too, and that’s a complicating factor with Brock.

 

We can’t discount denial—friends and family often see only what they are capable of seeing as well as what others disclose to them. I worked to create characters that depict the various psychological realities of this complex dynamic while also creating a gripping story with sympathetic, relatable characters.

 

Q: In our previous Q&A, you said, “[A]ll my novels have at their heart some social issue that I think is important and multi-sided.” As you mentioned, this novel deals with addiction--how did you research the book, and did you learn anything that especially surprised you?

 

A: I did an enormous amount of research into how drugs are distributed in this country—especially in our suburbs and rural areas where they are far more accessible than I think many realize: distribution chains from the big dealers to medium-size ones to smaller ones and elaborate delivery systems, which all vary.

 

Another area I researched were specific drugs like oxycontin and it is being cut—often now in a deadly way—with fentanyl, and its effect on the body and what a fentanyl death looks like. I also researched cocaine, how it is consumed and how it acts on the body.

 

Research methods included but weren’t limited to interviewing people who have used substances that characters in the novel use. I also used medical sites and sources.

 

What surprised me, honestly, was my overall ignorance on the subject although I’d thought I was reasonably knowledgeable and—again, as I’ve found with previous novels—the generosity of interview subjects and the critical importance of trustworthy research sources.

 

Q: The writer Donna Everhart called the book “an important novel, one of darkness and loss, but also one of courage, unexpected kindness, and hope.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: I really love that description and am so grateful to Ms. Everhart for reviewing it that way. I am opposed to “tie it up with a red bow endings” for my novels, and my stories don’t avoid or deny the pain or sorrow that is so much a part of the human experience.

 

Still, while I want readers to see a future for my characters that is more realistic than “happily ever after,” my endings always leave them with hope and doors that readers will see that the characters can open.

 

Q: How does your work as a therapist intersect with your work as a novelist?

 

A: I think my work as a therapist has made me particularly aware of the complexities of emotion and of what people go through—how very difficult life can be.

 

I would never use anything that a patient has shared with me as the basis for a story, which would be a serious ethical violation, but I certainly use the understanding of and empathy I have gained for the human experience. My training in listening skills and years of practice have, I believe, given me a really good ear for writing natural dialogue.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I am working on the last chapter (which happens before the first round of revisions—which precedes the second round, and on and on…) of a novel I’ve tentatively titled One Good Thing, which is loosely about patient and potential donor experiences as well as ethics issues for staff in the context of a kidney dialysis and transplant center. (No, I have absolutely zero personal experience with this!—it’s all research-based.)

 

I have only recently learned this about myself for sure: I can’t finish a novel without knowing what the next one will be about.

 

I was having trouble finishing the final chapter of One Good Thing. I thought it was because my mental space is now divided between this new manuscript and Under an Indiana Sky, as launch approaches.

 

But—I’ve suddenly hit upon the topic for the novel after One Good Thing and…suddenly it’s easier. And I realized that this is the way it’s always been. I have to know what is next.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: Nothing anyone else should know, but one thing readers might be interested in knowing: my personal answer to the perennial question that I think every novelist is most frequently asked. “Where do you get your ideas?”

 

I often get ideas from something I see as an ongoing problem that’s affecting many lives, to which many readers might relate. I have to be able to see it, though, as a riveting story I can put in the context of flawed but fully human and ultimately sympathetic characters.

 

Sometimes the specific idea comes from something that keeps popping up in the news or newspaper; this was the case with Under An Indiana Sky—a story that happens to be set in rural Indiana, but is not at all specific to Indiana.

 

I kept seeing stories about the opiate crisis—especially as it existed out on the rural, suburban and city streets of our nation and increasingly cut with fentanyl, unknown to buyers. That’s when I thought: there could be a powerful novel here.

 

The story has to come first. The research needs to be the underpinning. Readers don’t pick up a novel looking for information; they pick it up for a story they can’t put down. My fervent hope is that they find just that in Under An Indiana Sky.

 

Thank you so much, Deborah Kalb, for inviting me to answer your good questions!

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Lynne Hugo. 

Q&A with Susan L. Katz

  

Photo by Jennifer Meihofer

 

 

 

Susan L. Katz is the author of the new novel-in-stories Pole Dancers at the Red Barn. Also a psychotherapist and a photographer, she lives in Rhinebeck, New York. 

 

Q: What inspired you to write Pole Dancers at the Red Barn?

 

A: Two things inspired me: my own struggles with body image and my experience of feeling marginalized. I wanted to write about a misunderstood group of people brought together by a shared skill and a desire to use their bodies to earn a living. Although I never pole danced, I understood what it felt like not to belong.

 

I was interested in the life experiences that might lead people to use their bodies in different ways. Having undergone spinal operations at a young age, I had complicated feelings about my own body, so I admired women who could embrace their bodies with sensuality, sexuality, and glamour.

 

I envisioned something like Cirque du Soleil dancers with a working-class background—and that led me to pole dancers.

 

As a psychotherapist, I was also interested in how a person’s upbringing shapes their worldview and sense of self, particularly how a mother’s experiences can influence her child.

 

That became central to the structure of the book: each section pairs a mother’s story with the story of her adult child, allowing readers to see how experiences and emotional legacies move across generations.

 

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

 

A: The title emerged organically as I tried to capture the symbols and themes underlying the stories while keeping the title succinct and memorable.

 

Pole Dancers at the Red Barn reflects both character and setting, which are equally important to the book. The pole dancers represent people seeking identity, freedom, and self-expression, while the Red Barn becomes more than a physical place—it is a community where people who have felt marginalized can find connection, acceptance, and a sense of belonging.

 

Q: The Foreword Review of the book, by Xenia Dunford, says, “Through its episodic structure and generational lens, the involving novel in stories Pole Dancers at the Red Barn is about how sexuality, shame, labor, and belonging intersect within disparate lives shaped by social expectations and personal compromises.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: I think the description is very accurate. At the heart of these stories are characters who must work through trauma, shame, and difficult compromises in order to create lives that feel meaningful and authentic.

 

For example, GB (Gloria/Bill) discovers their true self at the pole after living with others’ expectations that identity should be defined by anatomy and behavior. Celeste, a full-figured woman, must overcome her shame about her body in order to experience sensuality and pleasure dancing at the pole.

 

The stories also explore how the expectations of family and society can shape our choices—and how, despite those influences, we can find the courage to choose a different path.

 

For example, Doris, Eddie’s mother, struggles with how social mores—and the guilt that comes from not adhering to them—can impact both mother and child.

 

Bella, Marie’s immigrant mother, pursues her father’s dream for her: to become a secretary and marry a “true American,” a soldier. When her husband struggles to find work after leaving the service, he becomes abusive. Bella eventually escapes his torment and raises her daughter as a single mother.

 

Her story illustrates the difficult choices women sometimes had to make when their lives were constrained by cultural expectations, economic circumstances, and gender roles.

 

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

 

A: I hope readers come away with a sense of hope and the understanding that difficult circumstances don’t have to define or bury us. Change requires us to face what is difficult, work through it, and find a way forward.

 

I believe that hope comes from creating a life that has meaning and authenticity for you. And, as these stories show, we don’t have to do that alone. Connection, community, and the courage to be ourselves can help us move through even the most difficult circumstances.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I’m writing a memoir-in-stories that combines short stories with collaged images to explore my experiences of medical trauma and what it took for me to move beyond despair.

 

I’m also considering a sequel to Pole Dancers at the Red Barn, following the dancers as they undergo further transformations. In the next book, I’m interested in exploring a deeper kind of transformation—one that comes from connecting with something within ourselves, perhaps even the soul.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: I invite readers to visit my website, where they can learn more about me and my work. I also have a section called “Other Writing,” which includes a standalone short story and offers another glimpse into my writing beyond Pole Dancers at the Red Barn.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb 

Q&A with Cynthia Johnstone

  

 

 

Cynthia Johnstone is the author of the new novel Nomad. A former pediatric therapist, she lives in Flagstaff, Arizona. 

 

Q: What inspired you to write Nomad, and how did you create your character Corey?

 

A: Corey Collins was inspired by many of the women I’m surrounded by here in the small mountain town of Flagstaff, Arizona. They’re smart, strong, adventurous, incredibly capable women who, quite literally, seem able to do anything. There’s something in the water here, because these women are tough! And I admire that greatly.

 

But what intrigues me even more is the strength we don’t always see. So many women are walking around carrying invisible wounds while still accomplishing monumental things. They’re raising families, building lives, climbing mountains, starting over, taking risks. And often doing it without anyone fully understanding what they’ve survived. When you dig a little deeper, you start uncovering amazing truths that often go undiscovered.

 

I wanted Corey to be a tribute to that kind of woman: the quiet, independent survivor. Someone who doesn’t necessarily follow the mainstream route or heal in the way other people expect her to but instead listens to herself and finds her own path forward.

 

Corey’s strength isn’t about being fearless or unaffected by what happened to her. It’s about continuing to build a life despite it, and in a way that might not be conventional, but works for her.

 

I think we sometimes have a preconceived idea of what healing is supposed to look like, when in reality, it looks different for everyone. Corey finds what works for her, and I wanted to honor that.

 

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

 

A: Setting is incredibly important to me. I grew up in the Midwest, so I know towering maple trees, humidity, harsh winters, and the deafening hum of cicadas in summer. When we moved to Arizona 10 years ago, it felt like an entirely new playground for me to discover: cacti, dry air, mountains, unfamiliar plants and wildlife, enormous skies.

 

It reminded me a little of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. As though I’d pushed through the coats at the back of the closet and somehow stepped into another world.

 

And then there was Sedona…

 

I’ve never experienced another place quite like it. There’s the obvious physical beauty of the red rocks, but there’s also something harder to define about the landscape. It can feel peaceful and wild, welcoming and unforgiving, all at once. It attracts people who are searching for something, escaping something, or trying to reinvent themselves. As a novelist, that gives me a lot to work with.

 

Sedona became more than the backdrop for Nomad. The land is a character itself. It gives Corey somewhere to disappear, but it also challenges her, protects her, and ultimately becomes part of the way she finds herself again. Even after finishing Nomad, I haven’t been able to walk away from it. There’s simply too much there left to explore.

 

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

 

A: Nomad. I love the word itself and the feeling it evokes: a wanderer, a traveler, someone—or something—you can’t quite pin down or control. A nomad is meant to move, to explore, to keep going.

 

I like the idea that maybe we should all have a little bit of the nomad in us…a part of ourselves that remains curious, that keeps exploring and learning, and that is willing to leave behind what no longer serves us.

 

There’s a bit of mystery in the word, too, which felt right for this story. And, as readers will discover, there’s far more meaning behind the name Nomad than what first meets the eye. I love that the title can mean one thing when you begin the novel and something entirely different by the time you finish it and that’s certainly the case here.

 

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 had no idea how the ending would unfold and that’s actually part of the joy of writing for me.

 

I’m very much a discovery writer, or a prancer, as it’s sometimes referred to the literary world. I learn about the story as I’m writing it and try to give the characters, setting, and circumstances enough room to lead me somewhere I might not have anticipated.

 

Sometimes a character does something I didn’t expect, or a seemingly small detail suddenly becomes important, and those discoveries are some of my favorite moments in the process.

 

I tend to write toward what feels emotionally true rather than forcing the story into a predetermined mold. Of course, that can make the process messier, and it certainly means plenty of revising, but I think it also leaves room for surprise. And if I’m surprised by where the story takes me, there’s a good chance the reader might be, too.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I’m working on a novel tentatively titled Rae, which, once again, takes place in Sedona. I can’t seem to disengage from the magic of that landscape or from the interesting people it attracts!

 

But Rae has a very different energy from Nomad. Nomad is, in many ways, a story of self-discovery and a slow meditation on solitude, grief, healing, and the land. Rae has a much stronger action beat carrying it along. Where Nomad settles into the landscape, Rae comes bulldozing through it.

 

At the center is Rae, a tough as nails, longtime massage therapist at a luxury Sedona resort who becomes entangled in the life of a young client she suspects is being abused by her husband. Rae makes a decision to intervene and from there, things begin moving very quickly.

 

There’s almost a Thelma & Louise energy to parts of it: women, danger, loyalty, the desert, and the question of how far you’re willing to go to save someone else. It’s been incredibly fun to write because it lets me return to a landscape I love while telling a completely different kind of story.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: Maybe just that Nomad is ultimately a story about what happens after the worst thing has already happened.

 

I was interested in the life that comes after tragedy…the part we don’t always see. How does someone rebuild when there’s no way to undo what has been lost? What does healing actually look like when it isn’t neat, linear or mainstream?

 

For Corey, it looks like solitude. It looks like 27 acres in the Arizona desert, a life stripped down to its essentials, and eventually, an unexpected dog who asks nothing from her except that she let him stay.

 

At its center, I think Nomad is about the quiet ways we find our way back to ourselves and about the possibility that sometimes the thing that saves us isn’t what we went looking for at all.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb 

Q&A with Teresa Robeson

  

 

 

 

Teresa Robeson is the author of the new children's book Animals of the Chinese Zodiac: An Illustrated Guide to the 12 Signs. Her other books include Clear and Bright. She lives in Indiana.

 

Q: What inspired you to write Animals of the Chinese Zodiac?

 

A: As someone with a Chinese background, I’ve known about, and been interested in, the Chinese zodiac since I was a kid in Hong Kong. It was a source of fun and games for me and my sister growing up, even after moving to Vancouver.

 

But I’d never thought to write a book about it until Phaidon Press approached me to. Phaidon has a renowned reputation as the maker of visually stunning books, so I felt honored that they asked me to author this idea. How could I say no, right? I squeezed in the schedule between a few other book projects under contract to make it work.

 

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

 

A: I drew on what I had learned growing up of stories about, and the traits of, the animals that are in the Chinese zodiac. Aside from that, I used books and select sites written for adults or kids to compile what I thought would be a much more fun and interactive version than could be found out there.

 

Huge kudos to editors Rachel Craig-McFeely and Maya Gartner for their brilliant guidance and suggestions to bring that vision to life.

 

Much like with Western zodiac, I knew there would be conflicting information because this is not a science but, rather, started out as a way to explain life for people back in ancient times to help them make sense of an otherwise chaotic universe.

 

So, I wasn’t surprised when, indeed, I ran into discrepancies that my editors and I sorted out to the best of our abilities.

 

Q: What do you think Ping Zhu’s illustrations add to the book?

 

A: Ping’s art absolutely makes the book! As I said before, Phaidon is well-known for creating books that are visual treats. I knew they would pair this book with someone who could convey both the fantastic sense of the zodiac and the grandeur of Chinese view of it, while still making it fun and accessible to kids.

 

Ping was the perfect person to pull it off with aplomb and immense talent.

 

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

 

A: I would love for readers, young and old, to have tons of fun with this book…as much as my sister and I had (I wish we had a book like this when we were young)!

 

It really should be as interactive as a board game and also serve as a clever and unusual conversation starter. I hope that kids will enjoy it with their family, friends, and soon-to-be-friends.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: For things under contract, I’m on edits for the final book in the Discover Now! series about severe weather phenomena with MIT Kids Press/Candlewick and doing a work-for-hire project for Weldon Owen.

 

As for things not yet under contract, I’m revising several picture books, working on a dummy for one of them, creating a graphic novel pitch for an early middle grade, revising a middle grade novel, finishing a draft on another middle grade novel, and rewriting (for the eighth time…sigh) a young adult novel.

 

As well, I’m trying to get a surface pattern design career going for creating fabric, mugs, notebooks, and more!

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: Regarding the book, this is not something one should use to guide their daily actions or make decisions with, but rather to learn about the Chinese culture and history as well as consider how different groups try to make sense of human nature.

 

But mostly, it’s for good-natured fun and entertainment. I hope there will be much mirth and laughter when readers go through this book and share it with others. 

 

As for me, look for an upcoming picture book about bamboo set in Hong Kong from Penguin Workshop to be released in 2028!

 

I’d also love for people to sign up for my newsletter where they will get a free short story and a piece of artwork. I send short missives (“Teresa’s High Fives”) every month with a new piece of free art plus interesting tidbits that I hope people find useful.

 

People can sign up for it at my website - https://teresarobeson.com/home - or at https://teresarobeson.myflodesk.com/fullpage . Alternatively, they can use this QR code:

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Teresa Robeson.

Oct. 14

 

 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
Oct. 14, 1888: Katherine Mansfield born.

Q&A with Bonnie Jo Campbell

  

Photo by Fran Dwight

 

 

 

Bonnie Jo Campbell is the author of the new novel The Spirits. Her other books include The Waters. She lives outside Kalamazoo, Michigan. 

 

Q: What inspired you to write The Spirits, and how do you see the novel relating to Dickens’ classic A Christmas Carol?

 

A: Thank you so much for interviewing me, Deborah! I appreciate all the good work you do for readers and writers!

 

Well, after all that rough-hewn grit lit I’ve written, I had a hankering to write a Christmas story. I hoped it would be simple and cheerful and possibly even lighthearted. It had to have a happy ending—Christmas stories absolutely must have happy endings!

 

But as usual, my story got dark and brutal and difficult for my characters in the Michigan countryside. For a while I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to wrangle a happy ending out of it.

 

But I was inspired by A Christmas Carol. Now that is a rough story in which people are hungry—starving even—and freezing cold; children are in danger of dying. What could be more dire than that? Not to mention the dire danger that Scrooge’s soul faces.

 

But with the grace of imagination and a faith in human nature, Charles Dickens redeems a very challenged soul in a situation that is dire and wrenches a happy ending out of the swirling ghost-filled chaos. So, I had something to shoot for.

 

I find that once my own story is in conversation with other stories I love, then I can begin to see light at the end of the tunnel. And isn’t that what the Christmas season is all about, as the nights become long, isn’t it about coming through the darkness into the light!?

 

Q: The author Pam Houston said of the book, “I relate to [the character] Sister so fully and deeply, the hair stood up on the back of my neck. A haunting and a healing, all at once.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: Gosh, I’m so flattered and thrilled that Pam liked the book. And the fact that she related so profoundly to it means that, even though I’m writing about extreme events, about something that is out of the realm of normal experience, the work connects emotionally to real-life situations and relationships that folks like Pam have had.

 

That is why we read, of course—we need to experience extreme things on the page instead of real life, where there would be terrible consequences! Stories can show us more outrageous versions of our real-life experiences, allowing us to cope alongside the folks in the story.

 

Sometimes in real life we would like to respond with violence or violent words, but we don’t want to suffer the fallout, and so it can be cathartic to read about someone responding harshly on the page.

 

I’m especially glad that Pam found the book healing because that became my purpose in writing the book, to show how a person—even a whole family—can heal from even the most difficult or most soul-crushing experiences.

 

As for the “haunting” part, I’m so glad I have succeeded in being spooky—the supernatural is something I’ve been hesitant to employ in my work, but let’s face it, we are living in surreal times, and sometimes we need to explore something a little outside our ordinary reality.

 

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

 

A: People are complicated, filled to the brim with their passions and their hurts and their blind spots, all of that tangled into what we might call a personality!

 

As they grow up, they learn to sublimate some of that to behave in a way that helps them get along in the world, but when they come home, a lot of that falls away and the hurts and passions and blind spots come out of hiding. When any family gets along it is a miracle! In a beautiful world, family members can actually relax and be themselves and still get along.

 

The rewards of a family coming together are profound — families are the places where people know us best and can still accept us, or so we hope. That is why so many of our favorite stories are family stories. (Little House books, all of Jane Austen’s work, for starters).

 

Also, a family story allows for a lot of variety for the reader. We know so-and-so is clever and can lighten the conversation, while we know what’s-her-name is the peacemaker, something that is often needed. Maybe another family member seems a little dull, but that dullness may be an important stabilizing force.

 

I don’t know what more my work can add to the study of the family, but I know I love these characters and find it fascinating how they do fit together into a perfect whole unit; ideally this means that the family allows for a place for everyone to feel welcomed and safe.

 

In the difficult times we live in, with so much fighting and anger in the world and often at home, too, creating this family and seeing them work together to survive a difficult night is a Christmas gift to myself.

 

Q: As someone who has written novels, short stories, and poems, do you have a preference?

 

A: When I was working on The Spirits, the novel seemed so important that I feared I would die while trying to finish it, both from the effort and because I feared I would take 40 years to figure out what happened to this family, the Whitbys.

 

And I strongly preferred writing a novel because so much is possible in a novel, and so much that matters desperately can be worked out.

 

But the truth is, whatever I am currently working on feels the most important. I recently finished a poetry collection, and I wondered if I could ever write prose again, as I was enjoying paying such exquisite attention to each line as a line, and language became medicine for me, and I found I could disconnect from ordinary logic.

 

As for short stories, I wish I had more situations that would make short stories because nothing is more satisfying than a good short story, but those ideas aren’t coming to me.

 

I used to work on a lot of different things at once—I used to keep poems, stories, novels, and essays all going, but now, once I have a novel going, I feel compelled to focus there, and put in the hard work on that. Novels seem to hold up over time—people keep reading novels for decades, even centuries if you’re lucky!

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: Lately I’ve been working on essays about my mom—essays, there’s another form I love to write. I’d like to write a full-length book about being my mother’s daughter, but that doesn’t feel like a sharp enough focus for a book. I am writing about various aspects of our relationship, and I’m going to see where all that goes. I am reading her journals, and that is pure joy.

 

I also have just finished that book of poetry I mentioned, but we live in a world where there are many books of poetry, so I’m not sure what I should do with it.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: I’m working hard trying to get my donkeys healthy in time for my book tour, when I will have to neglect them a bit. Jack and Don Quixote are 28 and 26 years old now, so they are getting up there.

 

Donkeys are survivors, and they are desert animals, and that means that the two things that can do them in are moisture (too much rain, snow, and humid weather) and overeating. Too much protein or sugar affect their hooves badly. I love my two boys, and I hope they have another decade of stomping around my pasture.

 

Oh, and today, as I’m writing this, I’m about the celebrate my 39th wedding anniversary with my Darling Christopher—he’s pretty great, too!

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Bonnie Jo Campbell. 

Q&A with Tara Goedjen

  

 

 

Tara Goedjen is the author of the new novel Please Enjoy Your Stay. Her other books include the young adult novel No Beauties or Monsters. She lives in the Pacific Northwest. 

 

Q: What inspired you to write Please Enjoy Your Stay, and how did you create your character Mia?

 

A: My intention was for Please Enjoy Your Stay to feel like a cross between a thriller and a ghost story, so I’m so thrilled every time a review mentions comparison titles like Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca and gothic thrillers like Ruth Ware’s The Turn of the Key.

 

I put all of my favorite tropes into Please Enjoy Your Stay: it has a true crime podcast, a book within a book, and hidden identities. And after I decided on a castle-turned-hotel with a fraught history as the setting (or perhaps it decided on me!), I knew I wanted a character who likewise felt haunted by her past.

 

Mia’s a very itinerant character too, and in some ways her constant restlessness has mirrored my own life, but for different reasons. She’s strong despite hardship, and trying to fix everything by herself, and I loved the blend of stubbornness and determination in her. 

 

Q: This is your debut novel for adults--why did you decide to write an adult novel rather than another young adult novel, and do you have a preference?

 

A: When I started developing the backstory of Please Enjoy Your Stay, I loved the idea of a true crime author at the height of her career, staying at an infamous hotel to research a cold case for her next book, only to end up being confronted by a devastatingly personal crime: the murder of her teenaged son, witnessed solely by her niece, Mia.

 

That scaffolding seemed like a better fit for an adult audience, so I leaned into that.

 

And actually, I enjoyed having fewer parameters while writing for adults—it’s also the stage of life I’m in, so it came very naturally to me—but the dual timeline in Please Enjoy Your Stay let me play to my strengths as a YA writer too.

 

Using a dual timeline structure allowed me to move between 13-year-old Mia when she first visited the hotel, and Mia’s inevitable return, years later, as an adult who is desperately searching for answers.

 

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

 

A: I had a hazy idea of how I wanted the story to end, but the biggest change from start to finish was adding a second timeline. The novel was initially written solely in Mia’s POV, but a couple of beta readers (who are also authors that I trust!) suggested that I might want to add a POV from Mia’s Aunt Iris—the controversial true crime author in the novel. 

 

So now there are sections from Iris’s journals throughout the novel, which give us those glimpses of Mia as a teenager, and show us Iris’s own experiences at the hotel as well.

 

And even though I initially resisted adding sections from Iris’s POV, they became my favorite passages in the book. Since Iris is a controversial true crime author known for her rather strange writing methods, I enjoyed getting to talk about books and the creative process through the lens of the “Queen of Murder,” as Iris is called by a (fictional) article in Vanity Fair.

 

Q: How would you describe Mia’s relationship with her aunt?

 

A: Mia and Iris only have each other—they don’t have any other family when the novel opens in the present day—but at the same time, they’re each dealing with their own demons, so to speak, and they’re not always entirely honest with one another.

 

I wanted their relationship to feel nuanced, and I liked being able to show how Mia acted around her aunt as a teenager, versus how she acts around Iris as an adult, as usually the dynamics of those parent-child relationships that we have in our lives can shift (or stay stuck) as we age.

 

Overall, there’s quite a push and pull between Mia and Iris, which becomes a source of tension and keeps the reader guessing along the way.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I’m working on another gothic-tinged thriller, currently set near Vancouver Island in British Columbia. There’s a wedding gone wrong, and a haunted lighthouse, and so far it has been a lot of fun to write!

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: I absolutely love hearing from readers, and I’ll be making some appearances when Please Enjoy Your Stay comes out in October, so please stay in touch over on Instagram @taragoedjen, or subscribe to my newsletter (there will be giveaways!) over on Substack, or via my website: taragoedjenauthor.com. 

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb