Q&A with Kasey Lansdale

  

Kasey Lansdale is the author of the new novel First Chance. She is also an audiobook narrator, musician, and small business owner, and she lives in Los Angeles.

 

Q: What inspired you to write First Chance, and how did you create your character Chance Kirby?

 

A: The idea of Chance has been there for a while in vague terms, but when the world slowed down with the pandemic and I found myself at home more after a lifetime as a touring musician, I really started putting pen to paper. I’ve been writing since I was about 6, published at 8, and I think everything I’d been working on up until then was just leading me to her. 

 

That and my mother became ill, and I really needed a place to put all those complicated feelings. In many ways, that’s what the book is about– growing up and navigating all those rights of passage, the good and the bad. Each character is at a different stage in their life, and the way they deal with grief, happiness, and all those human emotions vary widely. 

 

Chance Kirby developed more as I went, but she’s really just me when it comes down to it. Writing the book was also an opportunity to provide a hat tip to my parents and the work that they did in the creative field. In the back of the book in the acknowledgements I say this, and I meant it, it’s a love letter to them. 

 

There just happens to be a lot of murder involved. 

 

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

 

A: I tend to stick pretty close to the old adage of write what you know. 

 

I grew up in the back woods of East Texas, and I don’t think it’s something you can fully explain to someone not from there, but this was my attempt.

 

The town of Hopeful is basically my hometown of Nacogdoches, but really, it’s all the small towns in the deep South with a main street and an old theater, and unfortunately, a lot of poverty and difficult conditions. That’s the side I could relate to most, even if I grew up with better circumstances.

 

Of course that’s just one side of it, but that’s the side I felt was important to show. The oppressiveness of it all, right down to the weather. But in some ways, that’s the beauty of it. 

 

Q: The writer Jeffery Deaver said of the book, “It’s rare that a thriller offers up a tale with such a page-turning, edge-of-the-seat plot that also grips your heart so tightly, but First Chance does just that, and then some!” What do you think of that description? And what draws you to the thriller genre?

 

A: Honestly, when Jeff sent over that blurb, I thought well, I’ve made it. If I never do another thing, I’ve made it.

 

I do find it interesting how different people interpret the work. You’ll have one review calling it a page-turning thriller, and the next a slow building mystery, or a Southern gothic, or… you get it.

 

I think what matters to me is less about what it’s called and more about can people connect with it. Getting that blurb was just the cherry on top so I don’t like to question it, lest I unravel something I shouldn’t. 

 

As for what draws me to the thriller genre, I am constantly fascinated/horrified/intrigued by what humans will do to one another. It’s the scariest thing that exists, the darkness of man, and I think this is a safe place to explore some of those tragic stories from the real world, and in some cases, give it a rewrite. 

 

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 did not. 

 

I actually had an entirely different ending that finished on a cliffhanger of sorts. I guess it was unresolved more than a cliffhanger. While I hope to bring that element into the next book, ultimately, I decided for practical purposes that as a debut author I needed to close the storyline fully. 

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: Second Chance. That may or may not be the name of it, (there’s actually a tag line but I’ll keep it to myself for now) but I’m really excited about it. The gang is back, and they’ve been talking to me pretty loud. I also have a collection of dark fiction forthcoming in 2027 called Grim at Heart. 

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: In general, you can find me at kaseylansdale.com, and there are all my links to stay connected. In terms of First Chance, I just want people to find a little comfort when they visit Hopeful, Texas. Just to know they’re not alone in whatever it is they’re going through.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb 

Q&A with Carly Hillman

  

Carly Hillman is the author of the new novel The Refuge. She spent 10 years as a producer for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and she lives in New York City and Philadelphia.

 

Q: What inspired you to write The Refuge, and how did you create your characters Ava, Maeve, and Johnny?

 

A: My inspiration for The Refuge is one of the great mysteries of my life. I was on a hike, observing the beauty around me, and the opening scene just… arrived. I really don’t know how to explain it. I pictured a little girl hiding in the grass, ready to start a new life in this paradise, and my mind started spinning. I had an outline of the whole book later that same afternoon.

 

But Ava, Maeve, and Johnny were all forged in the time that I spent not writing. It took me years to gain the confidence to commit to working on something as ambitious as a novel. In those years, I spent so much time picturing my characters and thinking about how they moved through the world. By the time I started writing in earnest, they had lived so long in my mind that I felt like I knew them.

 

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 always knew exactly how the novel ended, but I did not know how exactly the characters got there. The two first scenes I could picture were the opening scene and the final climax. The fun was figuring out how we got from one point to the other. I made tons of other changes throughout the way, but those bookends stayed the same.

 

Q: The author Ashley Woo called the book “an ode to majestic beauty of the American Northwest, the profound and sometimes questionable depths a mother will go to in order to protect her child, and the healing power of found family.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: I was so touched by that description, especially coming from an author as wildly talented as Ashley Woo. I felt very “seen,” as they say.

 

Of course I hope this book is thrilling and engaging and propulsive, but, at its core, it is a story about familial love, healing from generational trauma, and the wonder of getting to live in our beautiful world. To hear Ashley pick up on all those themes meant the world to me.

 

Q: How did your experiences as a TV producer influence your fiction writing?

 

A: My experience as a producer at The Late Show with Stephen Colbert influenced my writing in every way. Most importantly, it was the only reason I started writing in the first place.

 

I suffered from major imposter syndrome when it came to writing fiction, always doubting myself when I faced the blank page. But after a decade of producing interviews at The Late Show and working with the incredible creatives who came on our show, I realized that there was no “success story” that didn’t start with someone taking a risk and believing in themselves before anyone else did. 

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I am working on book number two! While I can’t say too much about it now, I am really excited about how it is shaping up. Plus, I’m enjoying the process of writing a book with a deeper understanding of the publishing process—it’s made me far less of an obsessive perfectionist, now that I know how much editing is still ahead of me.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: I am so grateful to people like you reading this who care about books and authors and keep this vital industry alive. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb 

Q&A with Tracy Wise

  

 

Tracy Wise is the author of the new novel Manufacturing a Duchess. She also has written the novel Madame Sorel's Lodger. She lives in California. 

 

Q: What inspired you to write Manufacturing a Duchess, and how did you create your character Aurora?

 

A: Many years ago, I thought I might try my hand at writing genre fiction and perhaps sell it and be able to quit my day job! I selected a genre I knew and loved, because of my mother, which was Regency fiction.

 

But I found, as I began to write the novel, that I got stuck because I was trying to fit my characters into a format that they just didn’t want to go into, and I got bored. My mother made me promise, though, that one day I would finish it.

 

Fast forward, and I shared the opening chapter with my writing critique group to see if it would work as a short story and they said, We like the little girl in this story. At which point I thought, what if I went back and wrote it the way the story wants to tell itself? And that is what I did.

 

So, Aurora’s “birth” initially came from the trope of the young, innocent woman arriving on the Marriage Mart to secure a title, etc. But as I re-wrote, her background as the daughter of an early industrialist began to shape her more strongly, along with her educational background. I also wanted her to grow and develop over the course of the story, as well as taking the other characters through their own journeys.

 

Q: Did you need to do much research to write the book, and if so, did you learn anything that especially surprised you?

 

A: I drew upon a lifetime of my reading in the Regency genre, along with Jane Austen and also the more Victorian Elizabeth Gaskell.

 

My research was more a case of doublechecking details, to try and ensure I did not insert any howlers (in terms of errors). I hope I caught them all, but any remaining errors are my own. (If my mother were still alive, she would have given the book a read with an eagle eye for any errors as to customs, etc.)

 

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

 

A: The working title was A Mother for Marjorie, but, upon further discussion with my publisher (Type Eighteen Books), we looked for an alternative.

 

I like Manufacturing a Duchess because the book is literally about turning a non-member of Society into a member of the upper reaches of Society, while also referring to the fact that she comes from the industry of manufacturing.

 

Q: How would you describe the dynamic between Aurora and Alec?

 

A: At first, she is awestruck by him and develops a crush, and he considers her a nondescript teenager (though using that term is an anachronism).

 

But, as they interact, they begin to see each other as people and respond to one another that way. Each stretches and grows and finds new aspects to themselves that they did not have at the beginning of the novel. For me, the caring and the love that grow between them is an organic thing.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I would love to spend some more time in the world of Aurora, Alec, Marjorie, Finn, and Missie, so I am working on a sequel to Manufacturing a Duchess. I have lots of ideas buzzing in my brain about each of them.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: For me, writing is a combination of a learned and long-practiced skillset along with everything I have read and experienced.

 

I grew up living internationally because of my father’s work with a nonprofit aid organization, pursued theatre (acting) and then opera, worked in higher education administration at several universities, and now am finally getting the time to do my own creative writing. I also love bringing my acting and vocal skills into creating audiobooks of my writing.

 

My first novella, Madame Sorel's Lodger, came out in February 2025, also published by Type Eighteen Books. It is inspired by the life and work of Vincent Van Gogh and is also literary/historical fiction.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb 

Q&A with Jess Wright

   

 

 

Jess Wright is the author of the new novel Dance in a Madhouse. He also has written the novel A Stream to Follow. He is a psychiatrist, and he lives in Louisville, Kentucky. 

 

Q: You write that the inspiration for your new novel came from a story you were told--can you say more about that?

 

A: When a poet, Margo Taft Stever, asked me to write an introduction to one of her books, The Cracked Piano, I became fascinated with the true story behind several of her poems.

 

Margo’s great-grandfather, Peter Taft, brother of President William Howard Taft, was held against his wishes in a mental asylum in the early 1900s after he contracted typhoid fever and had a brief mental disturbance.

 

Margo suspected that Peter never had an actual mental illness—his symptoms were a result of treatment for typhoid fever. Peter’s letters from the asylum, which Margo shared with me, were lucid and heart-rending. 

 

I based the fictional story in Dance in a Madhouse on Peter Taft’s unfortunate saga. The protagonist is Owen Townsend, a young doctor who, like Peter, has a brief psychosis when treated for typhoid fever. Owen finds himself locked in an asylum where his life is threatened and he must use his wits to find a way out.

 

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

 

A: My most important discovery, and a welcome surprise, was finding the lithograph Dance in a Madhouse, by George Bellows, a well-known artist who depicted a “lunatic ball” – an egregious example of stigma. His work gave me the title for my novel and inspired my depiction of patients dancing while townspeople gawk at them.

 

As a psychiatrist, I knew a good deal about the history of psychiatry in the early 20th century and could target my research on specific treatments or psychiatrists from the period.

 

Hypnosis came into use at that time, and Pierre Janet, a leading French psychiatrist and proponent of hypnosis, conducted a lecture tour in the United States when my story takes place.  I have Dr. Janet make a fictional visit to Fairmont Lodge, the asylum in Dance in a Madhouse.  

 

Other research helped me with the setting—Philadelphia in 1905. Online searches were used to learn about rowing on the Schuylkill River, iconic boathouse row, and the storied library at the Philadelphia College of Physicians where parts of the story unfold.

 

Q: What did you see as the right balance between fiction and history as you wrote the book?

 

A: Other than Peter Taft’s desperate and well-reasoned desire to be released, there is little known about his stay in a mental asylum. So I took Peter’s dilemma as a starting point for a novel loaded with mystery and suspense.

 

I wanted to keep readers turning pages to find out what happens to Owen Townsend and the other characters. And I wanted to use the premise of an unjust incarceration to dive into themes of mistreatment, resilience, and courage. As a result, the balance between fiction and Peter’s true story is heavily weighted toward fiction.

 

Q: How does your experience as a psychiatrist affect your fiction writing?

 

A: I’ve listened to the personal stories of thousands of patients, been inspired by many I’ve treated, and seen far reaches of human behavior. I think these experiences help me develop characters who are deeply felt and richly detailed.

 

As a professor of psychiatry, I wrote many medical books, self-help books, and scientific articles before I began to write fiction. The structure and discipline of my medical writing help me stick to fiction writing when the going is difficult. But I needed to get coaching and find a new voice to make the transition.

 

My novels have characters with psychiatric problems such as PTSD, delirium, post-partum psychosis, and pathological narcissism that my work as a psychiatrist help me understand and depict with accuracy and nuance.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I have a follow-up novel to Dance in a Madhouse that will be published in fall of 2027.

 

In Dance on the Edge, the second book in the Owen Townsend Mystery Series, Philadelphia is being terrorized by someone who maims his victims. As Owen and Inspector Ed Brumbaugh search for the man they call the cutter, their quarry’s megalomaniacal quest is revealed in chilling scenes that take readers into his lair.

 

I’m also nearing completion of a memoir that explores my adventures as a psychiatrist. I take readers with me as am challenged by puzzles of the mind. The settings range from a missile launch facility in North Dakota to the throbbing milieu of psychiatry ward where most anything can happen.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: Thanks for including me in Book Q&As with Deborah Kalb.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb 

Q&A with Chelsea Kim Long

  

 

Photo by Elizabeth Cavagnaro Photography

 

Chelsea Kim Long is the author of the new book Faithfully Dissident Daughters: Reclaiming Christian Womanhood Beyond Patriarchy. She is a lay theologian and lay pastor.

 

Q: What inspired you to write Faithfully Dissident Daughters?

 

A: I got married at 24 with a very clear picture of how it “should” go. I was supposed to move from obedient daughter to cheerful wife, and then into perfect mother and happily ever after. I got pregnant at age 26 and everything started to crack.

 

My first birth was traumatic. I had postpartum depression that I didn't understand for a long time. In the midst of it I couldn’t feel God anymore, which was what scared me the most, because I didn’t know myself outside of my relationship with God and the church.

 

I started to realize all the ways I didn’t align with the worldview I had been given, so I went looking for a way to renegotiate my relationship with my religion. What I found is that Christian tradition and practice is much more vast than the version I was handed.

 

Most importantly for me, I discovered that feminist and womanist theologians had been mapping women’s lives onto God for decades. A thread of the divine feminine runs straight through the Scripture I memorized as a child, I just never saw it.

 

I was equal parts furious and liberated, honestly. I needed a book about a woman who chose herself and got to keep her faith too, and I couldn't find it, so I wrote it.

 

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

 

A: A primary argument I make in the book is that it is a faithful interpretation of Christian scripture and tradition to see God in the feminine. I’m a lay theologian, which means I haven’t been to seminary and don’t have a theology degree. I read for about a decade before I thought of any of it as research, because I needed to find answers for myself.

 

Some of the most influential modern voices for me have been Wil Gafney, Cynthia Bourgeault, Christena Cleveland, Christy Bauman, Beth Allison Barr, and Kristin Kobes Du Mez. These secondary sources pointed me to primary ones, and I was surprised to find out how old the history of the divine feminine is in Christianity.

 

Origen, a church father in third century Egypt, wrote that there’s nothing absurd about the Holy Spirit being Jesus’s mother. Julian of Norwich called Jesus our true mother in the 14th century in England. Saint Jerome, writing from Bethlehem in 412, refers to Mary Magdalene as the one called the tower because of the intensity of her faith. None of this is a modern importation.

 

My most surprising find was here in the United States. In 1748 the Moravians in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, carved a prayer to the Trinity into the stone above the Single Brothers’ House, and in it they refer to the Holy Spirit as “Mother.” Later generations got uncomfortable and tried to obscure it, but the stone is still there.

 

I use the word “reclaim” in my subtitle because I’m not sneaking something foreign or modern into Christianity. These threads of seeing God in the feminine were buried, which means we can dig them back up.

 

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

 

A: Sue Monk Kidd’s memoir The Dance of the Dissident Daughter was hugely inspiring to me. She was one of the first women I heard asking questions about the divine feminine and the exclusion of women within Christianity. I titled my book as an homage to her work and influence.

 

I walk a path of tension; in my work I often get criticism from conservative Christians who accuse me of not being a “true” believer anymore. I also get criticism from post-Christians or people who don’t have any relationship with religion at all. They argue that it’s irrelevant, or that you can’t be a feminist and a Christian.

 

For me, to be faithfully dissident is to stay rooted in the love of God and the way of Christ while dissenting from expressions of faith that harm, exclude, or diminish people. My dissent comes out of commitment, not cynicism. I love the tradition enough to wrestle with it.

 

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

 

A: Permission, mostly. You shouldn’t have to cut yourself into pieces in order to belong.

 

Some say the word religion traces its roots to the Latin religare, meaning to bind or to link. Religion is meant to be a re-joining, a way of tying the human back to the Divine and to each other. This means a system that requires you to sever parts of yourself in order to participate is failing at the one job the word describes.

 

Psalm 86 asks God for an undivided heart. That’s the prayer I’d want somebody to close this book with. Not try harder, not be better. Pursue wholeness. And if you only take one sentence, take the one from the manifesto at the end: my body is not an obstacle to God but the very place God dwells.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: This fall I’m doing a limited book tour with an event I call Crowded Table. It started in my actual life as a monthly ritual of a shared meal and prayer around the table with friends and neighbors here in San Diego.

 

For the tour I’ve created a 90-minute liturgical dinner. Imagine something church-like, but much warmer and more intimate. It’ll have candles, call and response prayer, blessing, communion, good food, and everyone at one long table. I’ll be in Raleigh, Portland, Orange County, and Austin this fall.

 

I’m also working on a podcast called How to Be a Christian, exploring the landscape of progressive Christianity in the United States, especially for folks like me who felt pushed out of church spaces but still miss the community and rituals we grew up with. The podcast will come out in 2027.

 

Lastly, I love creating spiritual resources for people. I published a liturgy called A New Churching of Women, to be used communally after abortion and pregnancy loss, because the church has a rite for nearly everything and nothing for those painful experiences.

 

I co-lead a small faith community, and once a week I write a morning prayer liturgy for us to pray together. In the future I’d love to publish a daily prayer book that is modern, feminist, and uses inclusive language for God.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: I studied the Black Madonna with Dr. Christena Cleveland for a year and then was honored to have her write the foreword of my book. God Is a Black Woman was one of the books that cracked my imagination for God open.

 

Find tour dates along with my free liturgies and guided meditations at chelseakimlong.com, and come say hello @chelseakimlong on Instagram.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb 

Sept. 10

 

 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Sept. 10, 1880: Georgia Douglas Johnson born. 

Q&A with Danielle McKechnie

  

 

 

 

Danielle McKechnie is the author of the new novel This Changes Everything. She also has worked in film and television, and she lives in Vancouver.

 

Q: What inspired you to write This Changes Everything, and how did you create your character Ellie?

 

A: I had been writing circles around a character named Ellie for a long time. I called her an “LA-lien” because she was a Canadian transplant chasing a dream, struggling through the realities of life in Los Angeles.

 

I’ve always been drawn to the idea of crossroads in a person’s life. The Sliding Doors moments where you could have gone one way, but you chose another.

 

Now it’s years later, and the dust has settled, have you accepted the decisions of your past? Do you regret losing the ones you let go? And are you okay with the person you became because of that one choice that “changed everything?”

 

Q: The author Jessica Siskin said of the book, “A funny, gripping, and honest love story that is just as much a self-love story. This Changes Everything is about what happens when the people who have shaped us never really leave us.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: I was blown away by what Jessica said. I write to try to understand the world around me, how others may live their lives, the choices they make, and the intentions behind them. I write to try to understand myself, and to feel like someone else may have understood my intentions with this book is a rare gift, one I don’t take for granted.

 

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 how it would end, but there were many changes along the way. I try to write with characters’ motivations and objectives, letting those push the book forward. There’s the larger objective that runs through the heart of each character, the smaller objective that carries us from scene to scene, and the obstacles along the way.

 

While I’m writing, one character's motivation might conflict with another’s, creating an unexpected roadblock and, therefore, drama. So, for me, the most important part of my process is understanding each character's history and who they are at their core. I may have an ending, but I don’t necessarily know how each character will get me there.

 

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

 

A: Ellie McCain, Rory Campbell, and Ben Winters are more than just their love story, but it’s love that defines them.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I’m working on my next love story! Shh… It’s a secret ;) 

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb