Q&A with Tracy C. Gold

   

 

 

Tracy C. Gold is the author of the new children's picture book Call Your Father. Her other books include Call Your Mother. She lives in Baltimore. 

 

Q: Why did you decide to write Call Your Father, a companion to your book Call Your Mother?

 

A: You know, it’s funny, because when Call Your Mother came out, some reviewers were like “Hey, what about the dad? Moms shouldn’t have to do all this alone.” I don’t reply to reviews, but in my head, I was like, hey! Just wait for Call Your Father! Plus, not all families have a mom and a dad.

 

We started working on Call Your Father long before Call Your Mother came out. That was a big swing and big risk for the publisher, Familius, because no one knew how well Call Your Mother was going to perform.

 

Honestly, I can’t remember the moment I decided to write Call Your Father, but it felt like a natural follow up. I think pretty much everyone I told about Call Your Mother asked me if I was doing Call Your Father (Well, pretty much every dad I told!). As soon as Familius agreed to publish Call Your Father, it was nice to say that it was coming!

 

Q: How would you describe the relationship between the two books?

 

A: The overarching structure is the same, but the examples of when you’d need to call your dad are almost all different. I do hit some of the same general beats, though.

 

I didn’t want Mom dealing with a potty emergency and Dad not getting the same experience, but the specifics vary. Mom has a kid (and cat!) making a mess in the bathroom. Dad gets to deal with the very relatable situation of getting a kid finally all dressed for the snow…and then hearing…“I gotta go!”

 

It was a little tricky to figure out how to make Call Your Father different enough from Call Your Mother while gently pushing back on parenting stereotypes.

 

There was recently a viral thread about how the classic book Spot Loves Mommy focuses on chores and errands while in Spot Loves Daddy, they get to go to the park and eat ice cream. I didn’t want to do that, though I had to push back against some critiques and suggestions.

 

I did have one person say to add something fun “only dads would do” like take the kid for ice cream after Mom said no. I didn’t add that. First, in my family, we work hard to try not to undermine each other. Second, if someone were to sneak treats, it would totally be me, the mom, doing the sneaking. I’m the one with the huge sweet tooth and the inability to say no!

 

Another person said they didn’t think the grandpa would come to help with a newborn the same way a grandma would. I pushed back on that as well. Both of my kid’s grandfathers helped a lot when my kid was a newborn.

 

I know many grandfathers who play huge roles in their grandchildren’s lives, yes, right from the start. For some of these men, I think that when they were raising kids, they weren’t really expected or encouraged to take a huge role. Many had very intense jobs and didn’t get to spend as much time as they wanted with their own kids. The grandchildren present a second chance, and they’re seizing it.

The last lines of each book were also chosen very intentionally, but Call Your Father, even more so. In Call Your Mother, the character who has just become a new mom asks the new grandma, “Mom, how did you do it?”

 

In Call Your Father, the new dad gets more dialogue. He says “Dad, I never knew it was possible to love someone this much. I’m afraid I won’t be good enough. How did you manage it?”

 

Grandpa says “I would do the same as you, I would call my father too.” And, as in Call Your Mother, the great-grandparent is looking on from a portrait on the wall, which is where these books always make me tear up.

 

I went back and forth a lot with Familius’ editorial team on the perfect way to end this book so it was different enough, without falling into stereotypes. I like where we landed.

 

I don’t think that men are socialized as much as women to know, going in, how parenthood changes everything, including expanding the capacity of your heart to love. I was happy to give the new dad a moment to express that.

 

Q: What do you think the book says about fatherhood?

 

A: This book celebrates dads who do it all! The midnight wakeups, the potty emergencies, the emotions of losing a baseball game, the challenge of deciding what to do about bullying. The dad keeps persevering when life is hard for him, and when life is hard for his kid.

 

This book shows an aspirational dad. He’s doing everything right, but we can see in the illustrations that he’s stressed. And it’s ok to be stressed! Parenting is hard!

 

At the end of the book, the stress is clear in the text. We see a man being vulnerable and reaching out to another man for help. That’s something I’d love to see men do more.

 

My own husband is great at that! He has so many wonderful, deep relationships with other men. But I think he’s the exception—so many men I know were raised never to be vulnerable because it could be seen as “weak.”

 

I’d love for this book to feed into conversations our culture is having about masculinity. It’s okay for men to talk about their emotions—it’s actually wonderful when that happens!

 

If we can get this generation of dads to be more involved with their kids and talk about their feelings, it will be easier for their kids to do it, and maybe we can break some difficult cycles.

 

Q: What do you hope kids (and adults) take away from the book?

 

A: Well, I hope that when a parent reads this book to their kids, they shut the book, then pick up the phone and call their dad. My dream is for the book to strengthen the relationships between kids and their parents right there, in the room, while they’re reading, but also to strengthen those intergenerational bonds.

 

I will say that when I read this book, or Call Your Mother, to a group of kids, I’m very aware that not all kids have a mom or dad in their lives. Certainly, when I do story times at bookstores, there are a lot of adults who have lost their own parents.

 

I always start by saying “imagine someone who is like a dad, or like a mom to you.” That kind of opens it up so if someone doesn’t have a mom or dad they can call, they can think of another wonderful figure in that role. I want the book to feel like a big, comforting hug—a reminder that our moms, dads, and other loved ones will always be there for us.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I’m in a bit of a holding pattern right now. For those of you who follow publishing, kidlit imprints have been closing or getting condensed left and right. Dial Books, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers, closed in March. Macmillan closed Roaring Brook recently as well. They’re making a new imprint, but they laid off six people.

 

All that to say that my agent has been sending books out on sub, but editors have to jump through a lot of hoops to get a yes, and the number of editors you can submit to is shrinking. So a lot of us in children’s publishing are kind of biting our nails right now!

 

That all said, I’m really excited to have a new book coming with Familius in 2027. It’s called Everywhere You Go, and it’s about a kid and a dog who go everywhere together.

 

I’ve also been playing around with ideas to get kids more engaged with text, which means maybe activity books or some fun formatting for nonfiction.

 

It’s hard to balance coming up with ideas and sending them out into the world while also marketing Call Your Father this spring! I’ve told my friends that if they want to see me, they can come to one of my book events, ha.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: You can always follow me on Instagram, Threads, or Facebook! I post book news on all three, but on Insta and Threads, you’ll catch more cute horses and dogs.  I hope that after you’re done reading this, you call—or at least text—someone you love.

Also, if you are local to Baltimore, I have so many fun book events this spring. Including one at a farm! More details here!

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Tracy C. Gold. 

Q&A with Jay Neugeboren

  

Photo by Michael B. Friedman

 

 

Jay Neugeboren is the author of the new book Dickens in Brooklyn: Essays on Family, Writing, & Madness. His many other books include the novel After Camus. He lives in New York City. 

 

Q: Over how long a period did you write the essays collected in Dickens in Brooklyn?

 

A: Although most of the essays were written in the last half-dozen years, several of them—e.g., “Meanwhile Back on the Ward,” (which became the first chapter of my 1997 book, Imagining Robert), go back to earlier decades.

 

Q: How was the book’s title--also the title of the first essay--chosen, and what does it signify for you?

 

A: I chose “Dickens in Brooklyn” because it’s about the three major themes that join the essays: family (how my family’s dramas paralleled those in Dickens’s novels; writing (Dickens’s novels—we owned a complete set—were my childhood inspiration for becoming a writer); and madness (the madness in my family that echoed characters and events in Dickens’s work). 

 

I also loved the mystery suggested by joining a great 19th century English writer’s name to the place in which I was born and grew up: in what way, a reader might ask, were they related?  (Dickens did, in his two American tours—1842 and1867—visit Brooklyn.)

 

Q: The writer Madison Smartt Bell said of the book, “Taken together, these remarkable essays, wide-ranging in both period and subject, amount to a sort of autobiography of one of the most ingenious, protean writers of our time.” What do you think of that assessment?

 

A: I like it! How not? And yes, I do think these essays, combined, do add up to an autobiographical book—a kind of sequel to Parentheses: An Autobiographical Journey (1970) and Imagining Robert: My Brother, Madness, and Survival (1997).

 

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

 

A: The 18 separate essays in the book were written in between the writing of novels, stories, screenplays, and books of nonfiction. 

 

Although publishers and reviewers call some of my books “memoirs,” like the tales in this book, I consider them to be essays-in-autobiography—narratives where I tell stories about moments in my life, yes, but moments that are about things other than me: about the effect of mental illness on a family; about surviving Auschwitz; about working on-the-line at a Chevrolet plant; about being yeoman on a merchant marine ship; about the fraying bonds of a large extended family; about being the single parent of three children, etc etc. etc.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I’m completing several projects: a new novel (The Nassofer Family Circle), a fifth collection of stories, a new collection of essays, and a screenplay (The Year Apart) that’s based on an early short story of mine.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: I’ll be 90 years old in May 2028, and am somehow in the most productive period of my writing life.  Lucky me—I wake up every day, eager and able to do what I love.   

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Jay Neugeboren. 

Q&A with R.M. Caldwell

  

 

 

R.M. Caldwell is the author of the new novel Fast and Fastidious. Caldwell is based in Hamilton, New Zealand. 

 

Q: What inspired you to write Fast and Fastidious, and how did you create your character Lucy Elliot?

A: I think the original idea spun out of a half-finished play of mine about highwaymen. Once the title popped into mind, a lot of it flowed but I ran out of steam six chapters in left it for a few years.

When I picked up the chapters again during the COVID lockdowns, I was really struck but how obvious it was that Lucy was on the neurodivergent spectrum. She had always been a fastidious and technically minded character but I hadn’t given thought to why.

 

Social awareness around that spectrum had improved over the years, to the point that I now realized I’d been writing her that way without even knowing it.

With that in mind it gave her a lot more direction. Jane Austen novels are a world of social rules and it was interesting to have a character who depended on those rules because it didn’t come naturally.

I already knew my plot but with a character behind it, I was able to push through to a finished first draft. 

 

Q: Your characters’ names have some Jane Austen connections--can you say more about that, and about the novel’s title?

A: I always wanted to write something that had the feel of an Austen novel, even when the plot veered into the adventure story lane. That meant names and family dynamics that kept that feel. When I came across the name Dashwood it was a perfect fit for the character, the dashing hero, racing through the forest lanes.

The title was an obvious play of Pride and Prejudice and Fast and Furious, one of those phrases that clicked into my head one day and I knew it had appeal.

 

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

 

A: I do basic research but try not to get bogged down in it on my first draft. The time period was important, but other parts were vague. I’m incredibly grateful to Dianne Blacklock who gave me structural edit notes. They were so clear and thorough and one area of focus was about anchoring the piece geographically.

 

I then went into a lot more research, which meant a lot of places got renamed to match real-world locations. For example, the Walton church really did fall into the sea from erosion in 1798. It gave the world a more solid feel, though some elements, like Longburn Mire, are a fiction.

I did try to do a little research on coaches and models at the time but it wasn’t readily available so most of the engineering is just technobabble, though one of the models is an Austen reference.

Q: How would you describe the dynamic between Lucy and Captain Dashwood?

A: I think the relationship theme of Fast and Fastidious is “Find company among those who get you.” You don’t need to be the same, but you need to understand and accept who someone is for a relationship to work.

 

I think this was the case for the main character, like Lucy and Captain Dashwood, all the way down to minor characters like the seamstress and the tailor.

 

This even resonates with non-romantic connections, the Torres’ makeshift family, or the friendship between Lucy and Charlotte Wyndham. Once they’re able to understand each other, there’s a comfort and security in feeling seen. Find your people I suppose.

Lucy is a cautious overthinker and I needed her to be very tentative in exploring the relationship, which meant Dashwood had to let her. Because the story around them is dangerous, James had to be safe.

 

It’s about building that mutual respect and admiration for character, which is the road that Austen novels often also take, characters not realizing how bonded they are until the dam breaks. There’s a definite physical attraction, which flusters Lucy, but it’s not at the forefront.

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I’m always floating different ideas, fleshing them out before putting pen to paper. One is a spiritual sequel with the same mystery and romance bond. Another is a more action adventure-based concept with a fairy tale spin. I think they’re both in the same place Fast and Fastidious was, with a plot fleshed out but waiting for the main character to click.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: Everyone has a different writing style but a couple of tips that work for me.

1- Know your ending first. Once you know the destination, the journey is more fun.
2 – Get the first draft done. Even if it’s two handwritten pages a day (during lock down), once you get that complete, you can really start honing it.
3 – Accept criticism. The sweeps of editing and suggestion were amazing in making the work better and better.
4 – Find the people (or person) who get you. 

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb 

Q&A with E. Davis Enloe

  

 

 

E. Davis Enloe is the author of the new novel Into the Night Woods.  

 

Q: What inspired you to write Into the Night Woods?

 

A: I wanted to write a story about two 12-year-old boys that are thrust into an unmanageable adult world that taxes their relationship to the breaking point.

 

Q: How would you describe the dynamic between your characters Boyd and Roger?

 

A: I see a powerful Catch-22 dynamic between Boyd and Roger. The boys’ lifelong friendship pulls them close to each other, but their bond is threatened anytime Roger’s abusive alcoholic father enters the picture because of Roger’s trauma-bond to his father, Earl Daggett.

 

When Boyd tries to get Roger to see that his father is going to continue to harm him, possibly even kill him, Roger becomes defensive and accuses Boyd of not allowing for the prospect that his father could change. Boyd’s dilemma is how to save Roger from his abusive father without losing his friendship with Roger.

 

Q: The author Ron Rash said of the book, “In this impressive debut, E. Davis Enloe has the talent to create an utterly convincing twelve-year-old protagonist, and we cheer on young Boyd and his best friend Roger as they enter the bewildering world of adults...” What do you think of that description?

 

A: Because I greatly respect Ron as a writer, I feel both humbled and greatly appreciative of his comments. Ron succinctly identified the emotional stake around which the action of the story swirls, one where a determined but largely naïve 12-year-old is forced to navigate a perilous and confusing adult world in his effort to save his best friend.

 

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 know how the novel would end, though I think the final chapters of the novel were the easiest to write because they seemed fated to unfold out of all that came before. There was a lot of editing, and I was fortunate to have input from some very smart and experienced writers.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: My second novel, currently titled Still So Beautiful, is an adult-themed story about a man named Joe Raines that is at odds with the local sheriff, also his father-in-law.

 

There is this fascinating character named Truth that catches her ex-husband Doyle, a suspected child molester, with her granddaughter. Doyle is also a deputy sheriff, and Joe Raines is furious with the sheriff because he doesn’t understand why he is protecting Doyle. Moreover, Joe’s wife is diagnosed with terminal cancer.

 

I’ve written the story from beginning to end and it’s now time to kill my darlings and get down to a serious rewrite.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: Pulitzer Prize winning poet Carl Phillips once told me that when he walks his dog, he’ll pick words that he wants to use in his next poem. I think there was something similar going on with Into the Night Woods, but with me it was about gathering many powerful images and memories from childhood and weaving them into the story.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb 

April 15

 

 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

April 15, 1843: Henry James born. 

Q&A with Jennifer Chiaverini

  

 

Jennifer Chiaverini is the author of the new novel The Patchwork Players, the latest in her Elm Creek Quilts series. She lives in Madison, Wisconsin.

 

Q: What inspired you to write The Patchwork Players, and how did you create your character Julia?

 

A: Julia Merchaud debuted in 2001 in my third Elm Creek Quilts novel, The Cross-Country Quilters, as a Hollywood actress who reluctantly attends quilt camp to prepare for a movie role.

 

When readers first meet her, it’s fair to say that she is somewhat self-centered and defensive, but over the course of the series, she becomes wiser, more generous, and more at peace with herself, thanks in no small part to the enduring friendships kindled at Elm Creek Manor.

 

In The Patchwork Players, I revisit Julia when she is at the height of her artistic achievement but is facing the end of the long-running series that rejuvenated her career. It’s a story of creativity, community, resilience, and the courage to embrace change.

 

Q: Was Julia's series A Patchwork Life based on a particular TV show?

 

A: Julia’s popular, award-winning television series is entirely fictional, which is unfortunate, because I think it would be a big hit! I enjoyed writing about Julia, her colleagues, and their show in Hollywood in the early aughts, especially the scenes in which my fictional characters celebrate their fictional show at the very real 2004 Emmys.

 

Q: What do you think the novel says about balancing ambition and friendship?

 

A: Julia’s drive, discipline, and hunger to excel are what enabled her to build a remarkable career. Yet there have been moments when that same ambition narrowed her vision, making it difficult for her to see how her choices affected the people who cared about her.

 

In The Patchwork Players, I wanted to explore the idea that success isn’t inherently at odds with friendship or love—but if we define success too narrowly, we may begin to measure our worth only in professional terms.

 

Julia gradually comes to understand that accolades and achievements, while gratifying, cannot replace the sustaining power of genuine connection.

 

The novel suggests that the question isn’t how to “balance” ambition and friendship as if they sit on opposite sides of a scale, but how to ensure that our ambitions remain aligned with our values.

 

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

 

A: I hope readers will be reminded that it’s never too late to reinvent yourself, to open your heart to change, and to recognize the true sources of meaning in your life. Julia’s story is stitched together from joy and sorrow, ambition and humility, endings and new beginnings. I hope readers see reflections of their own journeys in hers.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I’m currently writing The Rational Dress Society, a historical novel William Morrow will publish in 2027.

 

Set in England in 1881-1882, the story follows 19-year-old Josephine “Jo” Mayberry, the ambitious daughter of a Windsor solicitor, whose growing friendship with Florence, Viscountess Harberton, draws her into the spirited and controversial movement for rational dress reform.

 

What begins as a question of clothing—whether a woman may dress sensibly for her health and comfort and still expect to be treated with civility—soon unfolds into a much larger examination of women’s legal rights, public reputation, family loyalty, and the courage to claim one’s place in the world without apology.

 

Jo experiences political activism, social intrigue, courtroom drama, romance, and female friendship as she comes of age in Victorian England. I can’t wait to share her journey with readers.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: I’m fascinated and inspired by women’s creativity, resilience, and community. In my own career, I’ve been privileged to see how stories about quilters resonate with readers from all walks of life.

 

In The Patchwork Players, Hollywood may seem worlds away from Elm Creek Quilt Camp—and in many ways it definitely is—but in both places, collaboration, creativity, and trust are essential.

 

Julia realizes that the lessons she learned with the Cross-Country Quilters apply just as strongly in her professional life, even in a glamorous industry that often values competition over connection.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Jennifer Chiaverini. 

Q&A with Yevgenia Nayberg

  

 

 

 

Yevgenia Nayberg is the author and illustrator of Chernobyl, Life, and Other Disasters, a new graphic memoir for older kids. Her other books include I Hate Borsch!. She lives in New York City. 

 

Q: Why did you decide to create Chernobyl, Life, and Other Disasters?

 

A: A friend gave me the idea to write about what happened to my braid in 1986. At first, it was meant as a picture book, since that’s what I usually write.

 

But when I began to think about it, I felt that it had to be a longer story. I had always seen the braid episode as important and transformative, yet still a single event. Then it became clear it could serve as a larger metaphor, connecting many historical and personal moments.

 

Q: The Kirkus Review of the book says, “Nayberg’s depictions of her mother...and of friend dynamics feel wholly authentic, while the portrayal of Soviet-era antisemitism, environmental catastrophe, and casual cruelties never overwhelms the intimate story of a girl finding her voice through art amid chaos.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: I think Kirkus nailed it. There’s so much going on in our lives that is worthy of attention, but as a writer I feel I have to choose my focus.

 

I wrote the book in the present tense as an 11-year-old, so I had to forget that I knew the future. In the 1986 Soviet Union, no one knew the full truth about what was happening in Chernobyl. Perhaps we still don’t have the whole picture. I had to replicate an atmosphere of uncertainty, not unlike how we felt in 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic hit us.

 

I also had to keep the child’s point of view in mind. For her, everything is drama and adventure, and her intimate life moments could weigh as much as a global catastrophe.

 

As to antisemitism, it is such a huge, bottomless theme that affected me in a major way growing up. As I was writing my book, I gave it a lot of thought. How much do I show? I deliberately chose to show just a glimpse of how mundane, matter-of-fact antisemitism was part of the lives of Soviet Jews.

 

The best way for me to approach a tough subject is with humor. As I was writing, I kept the first sentence of Sholem Aleichem's Motl, the Cantor’s Son, in mind. It goes like this: Lucky me — I'm an orphan! I think it’s the best opening line in the world, and in many ways, my guiding writing principle.

 

Q: What do you think the book says about the role art has played in your life?

 

A: Growing up, this obsessive, perpetual drawing was the only thing I knew. I never thought of it as something unusual. In fact, I thought everyone who went to Art School with me was just as consumed by art.

 

When I reflect on it now, I realize that wasn’t the case. Not everyone was so dramatic. Many of my classmates did not become artists after graduation and did just fine. But for me, it never changed.

 

I usually don’t talk about “the role of art in my life” because it sounds too profound, but there’s no safer, happier, more intimate space for me than paper and pencil.

 

Q: Especially given the current situation in Ukraine, what do you hope readers take away from the book?

 

A: I hope that by learning about the Soviet Ukraine of my childhood, readers will realize how far today’s Ukraine has come as an independent democratic country, and also how dangerously similar Russia has lately become to what used to be the USSR.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I have two picture books on the way. The first one, Another Tongue, is out this summer. It’s my take on what it feels like to learn a second language when moving to a new country. Even after years in the US, I still have a love-hate relationship with English; Another Tongue is my attempt to come to terms with it.

 

The second one, Not So Super Hero, was inspired by my public art project — a New York Superhero poster for the MTA. It’s the story of a reluctant superhero who goes on an adventure to please his immigrant parents.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: I want to give a shout-out to Taylor Norman, the incredible editor of Chernobyl, Life and Other Disasters. Without her trust, her sensitivity, her bravery, this book would have never happened. And to the leading star of my book, my mother, Maria Cherkasskaya, who never let me be banal, no matter how much I begged!

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Yevgenia Nayberg.