Q&A with Poppy Alexander

  

 

 

Poppy Alexander is the author of the new novel How to Find a Romance in a Bookshop. Her other novels include The Battle of the Bookshops. She also writes under the name Rosie Howard, and she lives in West Sussex, UK. 

 

Q: Why did you return to the village of Portneath, and specifically Capelthorne’s Bookshop, in your new novel?

 

A: How could I not? When I created Capelthorne’s for my previous novel, The Battle of the Bookshops, I poured my heart into creating the best bookshop in the entire world (in a world where I am in charge, that is!). The result was just too good not to use again.

 

Also, I adore returning in my head to the world of Portneath, the small-town seaside Devonshire location with its cast of characters, beautiful countryside, stunning beaches, good food, and covetable homes so – when Petra and Ross’s story starting being created in my mind, Capelthorne’s was the only place I could visualise them being.

 

Q: How did you create your characters Petra and Ross?

 

A: In my professional life, I have met a lot of Petras. There are so many really clever, hard-working young women in publishing, and it can be a hard taskmaster as an industry. I wanted to honour all of those women by creating Petra’s character.

 

I also hope her journey will encourage some of those young women to believe in their ability to bounce back when things don’t go as planned.

 

I didn’t work in publishing, but when I was younger, I was trying so hard to succeed at work, and worrying constantly about the prospect of doing something wrong and “ruining my life,” which is definitely how I would have seen it at the time.

 

I want to show all those women how important it is to have resilience and self-belief. To have those things you have got to have good people in your life, which also means not spending every waking hour working!

 

As for Ross – well – creative people can be fragile, and I should know because I am married to one.

 

Most authors’ experience of publishing is not the experience people outside that world would recognise. It can be a rollercoaster of high and low points, which – if you are defining your worth by your book sales – can be tough.

 

Like Petra, Ross has to learn to get out of his own head occasionally and take a good look around him.

 

Q: What do you think the novel says about stress in the publishing world?

 

A: I adore the publishing industry and feel incredibly lucky to be doing the job I love best in the world. I do feel I am also really privileged that I am mostly allowed to be in my own mind palace for long stretches.

 

Just occasionally, I resurface and engage with the team of people who are turning my work into a form that gets into the hands of readers, which is a phenomenally complex process.

 

I am in awe of the people who work together to make that happen! The passion and love for stories really shines out of everyone I meet in the industry, and absolutely everybody works very hard.

 

It’s a weird industry to be in at the moment though, with readers looking for different experiences. E-book sales are becoming really important and that leaves physical bookstores needing to recalibrate their place in the market, and then there is the role of AI in storytelling (my position: AI has no place in storytelling, and I strongly believe readers will always prefer books written by humans).

 

Change is inevitable, and the doomsters have always been vocal, but I believe publishing will continue to innovate and remain relevant, because humans need stories. That is not going to change.

 

Q: The author Jo Leevers called the book an “enchanting romance that explores the healing power of books and community, which is also sprinkled with insider insights into the publishing world.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: Jo is so lovely to say that, and I was glowing because she is such an amazing writer herself. It has always been my experience that authors do a great job of supporting each other, and Jo taking time to read and comment is proof positive of that.

 

As for what she said: I absolutely believe people need books and also that people need people. When I write my stories from inside the Portneath community, I am writing in the belief we all need a perfect world to escape to. Hopefully most of us can count on our romantic partners, our family and our friends to help us celebrate the good times and survive the bad.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I actually have several Poppy Alexander titles coming out over the course of the next year, a whole new series, moving on from Portneath, but still with plenty of heart and escapism.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: I am so grateful to all my lovely readers for reading and being kind enough to let me know when they have enjoyed my stories.

 

To be in the know, readers are welcome to visit poppyalexander.com and make sure to sign up to my e-newsletter for news, insights, bonus content and giveaways. I confess, I don’t write often, so don’t worry about being bombarded! I am too busy writing new stories for that. 

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Poppy Alexander. 

Q&A with Rae Cline

  

 

 

Rae Cline is the author of the new novel Precious Ugly. She also has written the story collection The Indefinite State of Imaginary Morals. She lives in New York City and the Gulf of Mexico.

 

Q: What inspired you to write Precious Ugly, and how did you create your character Clementine?

 

A: Like Clementine and so many girls, my childhood was an exercise in survival. For many, I think, and certainly for me, surviving dysfunction as a child doesn’t feel like surviving dysfunction. It feels normal. It’s all you know. It takes a lifetime to unpack and process the surviving.

 

I knew things were off, not right, but I hadn’t the language for it and it would take me years to learn the language for it.

 

In those years, I trained as a teacher of literature and writing. I worked with children in public schools and also at-risk youth at Hoffman Homes and other programs where I saw children surviving similar circumstances.

 

Clementine may have begun as an exploration of my survival and finding my voice, but as Clementine continued to form, she took on something bigger. She speaks for the experiences of many girls.  

 

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

 

A: Precious Ugly was in final editing with a completely different title and cover when a close friend and mentor, Richard Peabody, suggested Precious Ugly. This was a title I had considered earlier and had workshopped with others and then gone with something else.

 

But when Richard suggested Precious Ugly, something clicked for me and that was it. Precious Ugly. Much gratitude to my publisher and editor, Leland Cheuk, cover artist, Lex Covato, and cover designer, Gigi Little, for the last-minute title and cover changes.

 

The title, Precious Ugly, speaks to a few scenes through the novel in which Clementine views herself in this way, precious ugly, not only within her terrible family circumstances but also peer bullying.

 

And if I’m to be honest, this was how I saw myself growing up, too, an awkward girl surviving bullying at home and school and really having nowhere to turn for help.

 

Q: The writer Jordan Ritter Conn said of the book, “Gorgeous, brutal, and moving, Precious Ugly is a powerful testament to human resilience.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: As terrible as life can be, especially for vulnerable girls, I am astounded at the resilience of survivors.

 

Jordan’s words made me tear up when I first read them. He is a terrific writer. American Men is a must read for everyone. For Jordan to see the beauty in Clementine’s story, in spite of the brutality, and her resiliency in response to it is what I had hoped readers would feel.

 

Life can be a scary, unrelenting place, especially for girls and women, especially now, in this country, a socio-economic and socio-political horror show that the novel explores in a sort of proto-MAGA, Reagan-‘80s-era kind of way.

 

I’m reminded of Mary Shelley and the “sublime” about which she wrote in Frankenstein, a sort of chiaroscuro response to the beautiful and terrifying, like watching an avalanche at Mont Blanc.

 

This moment in our country’s history feels “sublime” to me through a paradoxical lens. I see the work of so many strong female voices and change makers in our country, now—Michelle Obama, Melinda French Gates, Oprah Winfrey, A.O.C—and I see these voices and leaders as forging a new path for women’s and civil  rights, taking back the conversations on domestic violence, reproductive rights, women’s healthcare and research, women’s policies and leadership.

 

We are on the proverbial cliff, it feels at times, a precipice, and the avalanche of change that I am hopeful for, the gender and diversity the current administration so desperately rails against, is poised to fall down upon them. It is both a beautiful and terrifying rush to imagine. And I’m here for it.

 

Jordan’s words, “testament to human resilience,” is how I read Clementine’s story, too. It is the story of those of us who have survived domestic violence and sexual violence. Those who have survived sex trafficking and yearning for that avalanche to finally drop from its precipice and blanket the cliff, once and for all.

 

If Clementine were on Capitol Hill, right now, she would be lobbying for safe reproductive healthcare for all, the full, transparent release of the Epstein files and restoration of DEI funding. And a change in educational leadership. Whoever thought Linda McMahon was a suitable secretary of education was on something.

 

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 Precious Ugly would end when I started. I didn’t want to know how Precious Ugly would end. For me, the act of writing is a process of discovery. Discovery is an essential  point of the craft. I want to discover the characters and what the story communicates to them and me.

 

In my first writing workshop at Johns Hopkins, I was fortunate to study with Alice McDermott, arguably the master prosaist of our time. Her language is immaculate. She shared so many wisdoms with us on craft in that workshop, one of them being on the process of writing and letting discovery be the lead. “Follow the fun,” she said.

 

I wrote Precious Ugly over 14 years and I tried to follow that advice, follow the fun, which isn’t so easy when the story is so brutal, so I found the fun in the craft of it, the moments when, despite the horror, Clementine found humor and absurdity. This was my fun.

 

And when I could find that fun in the crafting of the story, it helped me not only process Clementine’s story but also my story and also the stories of so many girls I worked with over the years, the stories that still sometimes keep me up at night.

 

While writing Precious Ugly, I learned not only the craft of long form narrative but also what my voice wanted to be in long form narrative.

 

Writing Precious Ugly nearly killed me, more than once. It is the kind of narrative that forces you to reconcile the things you would rather pretend never happened and that for so many years you did pretend did not happen. The silence was easier than the reality.

 

Clementine deserved my absolute best that I could muster and when I first started the novel 14 years ago, I was not worthy of her story. So I worked diligently and studied diligently and read diligently, masterworks like I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and Beloved, and tried as hard as I could to deliver my best craft for Clementine.

 

Anything less than my best would be a failure for this 13-year-old girl who survived so much. It would be a failure for all the girls out there right now who are still surviving and all the women who are still surviving and the boys and the men and the non-binary still surviving. She speaks for so many and my voice needed to be worthy of them all.

 

Did I know how the novel would end before starting it? No. Have I made it worthy of her? I don’t know. But I know that I gave it my best in trying. In all this, I may not have known how the story would end when I started, but something tells me that Clementine did.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I’m writing my second novel about a small town with local lore come to life. It opens with the Heritage Day Parade and a scarecrow contest that turns terribly wrong.

 

I’m a big fan of Toni Morrison and Shirley Jackson. Beloved and “The Lottery” are two favorite works. I love exploring small-town communities that so quickly turn themselves inside out, the townsfolk pitted against each other in extraordinary and magical ways that present as so mundane and normal.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: I am collaborating with the National Domestic Violence Hotline to spread awareness about domestic and sexual violence in the U.S. We’ve added the hotline to the final pages of the book and on the back cover.

 

I found myself in a women’s shelter at one point in my life and know first-hand the essential work that NDVH and women’s and children’s shelters do. If any readers are experiencing domestic violence or know someone who is experiencing domestic violence, call 1-800-799-SAFE or text “START” to 88788.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb 

Aug. 19

 

 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
Aug. 19, 1930: Frank McCourt born.

Q&A with Brad Newbury and Kiera Newbury

  

 

 

Brad Newbury and Kiera Newbury are the authors of the new book The Saved Effect: True Stories of Lives Reclaimed by People Who Were Afraid to Act. Brad Newbury is the president and CEO of the National Medical Education & Training Center. Kiera Newbury is an emergency medical professional.  

 

Q: What inspired you to write The Saved Effect?

 

A: The Saved Effect began with a simple realization: when someone saves a life, the story does not end when the heartbeat returns.

 

As a paramedic and firefighter, Brad has spent more than four decades responding to people on the worst days of their lives. Kiera grew up inside that world, watching how those moments shaped not only the people who were saved, but also the rescuers, families, clinicians, and communities connected to them.

 

The most personal inspiration came from Brad’s father, Joe, who survived a cardiac arrest because someone nearby was willing to begin CPR. His survival gave our family more moments together, including moments that would not have otherwise happened.

 

That experience helped us understand that one person’s willingness to act can create a ripple effect that reaches far beyond the initial rescue.

 

We wrote this book to honor those who stepped forward, to show what happened afterward, and to remind readers that ordinary people can be prepared for extraordinary moments.

 

Q: How did you choose the stories to include in the book?

 

A: We chose stories that demonstrated the many different ways one act of courage can continue to affect lives.

 

Some involve trained first responders or healthcare professionals. Others involve bystanders, family members, coworkers, or complete strangers who simply recognized that someone needed help and decided to act.

 

We were not only looking for dramatic rescues. We wanted stories that revealed what followed: the relationships that were strengthened, the families that remained connected, the purposes that were discovered, and the rescuers who were changed by what they experienced.

 

Each story is different, but they all share the same invisible thread. Someone was in crisis. Someone else was willing to step forward. From that moment, lives changed on both sides of the rescue.

 

Q: You write, “The Saved Effect shows that saving a life isn’t just about restoring a heartbeat, it’s about preserving the years, memories, and generations that follow.” Can you say more about that?

 

A: A successful resuscitation is often described clinically. We talk about return of spontaneous circulation, survival to discharge, or neurological outcomes. Those measurements matter, but they do not tell the whole story.

 

Behind every heartbeat is a person who is someone’s parent, child, spouse, friend, teacher, coworker, or neighbor. When that person survives, birthdays can still be celebrated, conversations can still happen, relationships can continue, and new memories can be created.

 

However, we have also learned that life is not measured only in years. It is measured in moments. Sometimes a person is given decades. Sometimes the time is much shorter. What matters is what becomes possible because someone acted.

 

A rescue can preserve a wedding, a graduation, a final conversation, a chance to say “I love you,” or simply another ordinary day together. Those moments continue to influence families and future generations. That is the saved effect.

 

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

 

A: Writing this book changed both of us.

 

For Brad, it required revisiting four decades of service and looking beyond the medical outcomes to consider the emotional impact of the work.

 

First responders are often trained to move quickly from one call to the next. Writing these stories created an opportunity to pause and understand how deeply these moments can shape the rescuer as well as the person being rescued.

 

For Kiera, the process brought a new understanding of the world she grew up around and helped her see how her family’s experiences had shaped her own sense of purpose.

 

We hope readers finish the book inspired, but we also want them to take action. We want people to learn CPR, become comfortable using an AED, and believe they are capable of helping when a crisis occurs.

 

You do not need to be a physician, nurse, firefighter, or paramedic to save a life. Often, the most important person is simply the one who is already there and is willing to begin.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: Our immediate focus is expanding the mission behind The Saved Effect.

 

We are working with educators, first responders, healthcare professionals, CPR organizations, businesses, and community leaders to encourage more people to become trained and prepared to act. We are also developing educational programs, speaking opportunities, and media projects that will continue sharing the stories of survivors and rescuers.

 

Brad continues to serve as a Fire Captain and paramedic while leading the National Medical Education & Training Center, which educates EMTs and paramedics across the country. Kiera is continuing her work in emergency medicine and helping build the next chapter of The Saved Effect.

 

We believe the book is not the conclusion of this work. It is the beginning of a much larger movement centered on readiness, courage, and human connection.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: At its heart, The Saved Effect is not only a book about cardiac arrest or emergency medicine. It is a book about what human beings are capable of doing for one another.

 

Most people will never expect to be present when someone’s life depends on immediate action. But every day, ordinary people suddenly find themselves in that exact position.

 

Our message is simple: Be Inspired, Get Trained in CPR, and Be Willing to act.

 

You may never need to use those skills. But if the moment comes, your actions could preserve a family, a future, and countless moments you may never personally see.

 

That is the power of The Saved Effect.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb 

Q&A with A.J. Symon

  

 

 

A.J. Symon is the author of the new young adult novel Golden Boy. He is also a screenwriter, and he lives in Barnesville, Georgia.

 

Q: You’ve said you were inspired to write Golden Boy after playing fetch with your golden retriever--can you tell us more about that?

 

A: Yes, well, I was playing fetch. He was playing keep away. If you’ve ever tried to get something away from a dog who didn’t want you to have it, you know what I mean.

 

He’d come about a foot from me with the ball in his mouth, grinning. Basically, taunting me. I’d reach for the ball, and he’d shift his head out of the way just enough so I’d miss. When I lunged for him, he’d tear across the yard like a rocket.

 

One time, he even dropped the ball between my feet, and just when my fingers were millimeters away, he snatched it back, dodged between my legs and took off. You could almost hear him yelling, “Psych!”

 

After about an hour of that, I stopped and thought to myself, If that dog were human, he’d be an incredible running back.

 

That’s when the idea struck me. A dog becomes a human football hero.

 

Q: How did you create your characters Emma and Hudson, and how would you describe the dynamic between them?

 

A: Hudson gets his name from my own golden retriever Hudson, who I lost many years ago. The character’s sweetness and love for life is based on him and on his son Chip, who I named Emma’s big brother after.

 

Chip was my first service dog after I was diagnosed with a seizure disorder, and I’ve been blessed that both he and Hudson were my “heart dogs” or “soul dogs.” The best friends anyone could ever have.

 

I lost Chip very suddenly, and that gave me the impetus to write Golden Boy. I had all these feelings and didn’t know what to do with them. It just poured out of me. I dedicated the book to both of them.

 

The character of Emma came about because, if you’ll excuse me for nerding out about writing, the main character needs an arc—to learn a lesson and grow emotionally by the end of the story.

 

She starts at one place where she’s lacking something, and through the series of events in the story, she grows and comes out having incorporated the lesson and is no longer lacking. (If the story has a happy ending, of course.)

 

So, when I was thinking about who the main character would be, my first question was, how do dogs make us better people? The obvious answer was that dogs teach us how to embrace the moment, how to feel, and how to love unconditionally.

 

You want the biggest character arc possible, so the next question was what type of person would grow the most from that experience?

 

My main character had to be someone who is uncomfortable with and ashamed of their feelings and who is always worrying about the future or mourning the past, but not living in the present.

 

Emma would have to live in her head, be focused on numbers and science, an overachiever, sort of nerdy, awkward with people, and likely get bullied a lot.

 

My dog was my best friend when I was her age, and I was a big nerd, so I definitely drew upon my own experience to flesh out both Emma and her dynamic with Hudson. Hudson is the only person that Emma is really close to. He’s the only one that she lets her guard down around and cries in front of. He sees her at her worst, and he still loves her.

 

The closeness she has with him remains when he’s human, and that helps her see that it’s safe to come out of her shell and embrace life, embrace her feelings. Even though Emma is the one with the clicker and the treats, Hudson really trains her to be a better human being.

 

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 a pretty good idea of how things would wrap up, yes. I am not one of those writers who can just sit down and start typing away with no idea of where I’m going. I have to plan it out. I have to know how each scene is going to end before I start. I create an outline of all the major beats and then expand upon each one until I see the whole thing in my head.

 

Of course, once I start writing, things change. I always keep an open mind if something better pops up, but when it does, then I have to go back to the outline and adjust for the changes. Because of the butterfly effect. You make one small change, and it ripples throughout the book.

 

Or sometimes what I wrote in the outline just doesn’t work when you get into the weeds of the manuscript.

 

For example, the ending came out how I envisioned it, but the way I got there changed after I wrote the first draft because my original idea just felt too dark for the tone of the story. I don’t think I can get into much more detail without revealing some spoilers, so I’ll leave it at that.

 

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

 

A: I have this naïve, Norman Rockwell fantasy of the whole family sitting around the fireplace, each person taking a turn reading aloud. We’re all so much in our own bubbles now, on our phones, consuming whatever the algorithm tells us to consume. I’d love to help people reconnect.

 

But most of all, I hope Golden Boy touches people’s hearts. This book was my way out of grief when I lost my dog, my best friend in the world. And I wrote it to honor the joy and unconditional love that he gave me.

 

My greatest hope is that through this book, I can share his golden spirit with the world so that he can continue to lift people up and make them happy.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I have an idea for a Golden Boy sequel that’s simmering very slowly, where we’ll meet all the characters one year later.

 

But right now, I’m working on a prequel to Golden Boy about Emma’s grandfather back when he was a teen in the 1970s. He is also a big nerd whose science project gets him into trouble, so that kind of thing runs in the family. I’m about halfway through that.

 

Eventually, I see five books in the series. Two prequels and two sequels with Golden Boy slap in the middle.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: I would like people who’ve lost pets to know that they’re not alone. That their feelings are real and I see them and hear them. I love when people to share their stories or pictures or videos of their pets with me on my social accounts or email me. All that info is on my website ajsymon.com. So please keep them coming.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb 

Aug. 18

 

 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
Aug. 18, 1944: Paula Danziger born.

Q&A with Lynn Adler

  

 

 

Lynn Adler's new book is And So We Moved to Petaca: Portrait of a New Mexico Community. She is a documentary photographer and filmmaker, and is a founder of the San Francisco-based film and photography collective Optic Nerve. She lives in Berkeley, California. 

 

Q: How did And So We Moved to Petaca come about, and how was the book’s title chosen?

 

A: I first went to Petaca, a remote Hispano community in northern New Mexico, in 1970, to visit my friends who had moved there from New York and San Francisco.

 

Over the next four years, I returned periodically to document life in the village: the people who lived there, their homes and animals, their fences and fields, and my friends Marty, Gloria, Claudia, Sherie, and their kids. 

 

Until I began scanning the negatives 10 years ago, these images of Petaca had been tucked away in my darkroom, unseen for 50 years. 

 

Although I have used a still camera for years, my professional focus has been documentary filmmaking. In 2021, my son suggested that I start an Instagram account for my still images, @lynnadlerphotography, and I began posting regularly. 

 

At the end of 2022, I noticed responses from Bill Shapiro, who seemed very focused on my New Mexico pictures. Curious, I Googled him and discovered that he had been editor-in-chief of Life magazine. Life was a big draw for me when I was a youngster; I was always trying to get to the mailbox before my parents so I could have first dibs on the weekly magazine. 

 

Putting nervousness aside, I wrote him and thus began a discussion about my work, about how he could help me and the remote possibility of publishing a book. Bill had moved to Taos, New Mexico, from the East Coast several years before our correspondence, and he was very interested in New Mexico-focused stories, how lucky for me!

 

Over the next four years, we worked on the book, and through Bill's tenacity and wisdom, the University of New Mexico Press agreed to publish this collection of work.

 

The book launched softly in late May this year with an exhibition in Santa Fe, followed by its full release in late June, complete with national outreach and distribution. 

 

The title -- it came to us in a flash, after we tossed around many other possibilities. It felt like the second sentence in a story, as if something happened – “And so we moved to Petaca” -- but what? And it also seemed to beg the question of what happened after moving there.

 

There's a hint of mystery to the title, it's a little provocative and mysterious, and we liked that. It's a book for the curious. 

 

Q: As you noted, the photos were taken in the 1970s--what is happening in this community today?

 

A: When my friends moved to Petaca in 1970, it was home to about 50 Hispanic families, whose ancestors had settled there in the 1830s, as one of the first land grant communities.

 

The only real employment for locals had been a mineral mine, shut down in the 1950s, and the nearby sawmill had laid off most of its workers. In Petaca, most families got by with small gardens and a few animals. Life was hard, but a sense of community remained. Families socialized, worked,, and played together. The place felt alive. 

 

Fast forward to 2026, and things have not improved. Most of the people I photographed have now passed away due to old age, car accidents, or poor health.

 

Because there is no nearby employment, young people have left the area, and it feels very empty. The economics of subsistence farming withered away with land loss, as the Forest Service encroached on their community.

 

Recently, I visited Petaca after many years, and it felt like a ghost town. All the adobe houses I had remembered from the '70s have either crumbled to the ground or were lost to fires. The few familiar landmarks still standing were the buildings that were a bar/dance hall (now all boarded up), the church, and the graveyard. 

 

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

 

A: An appreciation of the relationship between the Hispano families and my Anglo urban activist friends.

 

My friends were not interested in creating a separate community -- they wanted to learn life skills from the local people, and in turn the locals welcomed them and taught them the basics -- how to use a wood-burning stove, how to mend a fence, even how to build an adobe home.

 

Given the history of suspicion towards outsiders coming into these communities, these relationships in Petaca were rare.

 

I hope readers will gain a deeper understanding of the life that was lived in Petaca, which is now mostly gone, largely due to land loss and lack of any source of employment. 

 

I also hope this book introduces people to an issue these remote land grant communities are dealing with: the continued struggle to hold onto their land.

 

Tension continues between villagers and the federal Forest Service over forest management practices. Villagers expect to use lands near their homes for pursuits such as grazing and wood-gathering. The USFS and Bureau of Land Management continue to hire staff who do not understand the concept of communal village land, favoring the concerns of influential national industries such as recreation, hunting, and mining. 

 

Q: What are you working on now? 

 

A: I have begun working with an author friend to develop stories based on my vast photo archive and her writing. 

 

And continuing to make photographs despite limited mobility due to ongoing health issues. 

 

Q: Anything else we should know? 

 

A: If you don't already follow me on Instagram, please do. Please share And So We Moved to Petaca with friends around the country. It's hard to say that this is my best work, since I haven't stopped working, but it's very good, and I'd love to share this story far and wide. It's a wonderful piece of history in an amazing part of the country. 

 

My mother did have something to do with this, as well. When she died,  I found a secret dark room and a camera, which I brought home with me.

 

I was determined to document the social and political upheaval swirling around me: protests against the Vietnam War, the psychedelic music scene, the Summer of Love, the rise of the Black Panthers, the People's Park demonstrations in Berkeley, and the Chevron oil spill in the San Francisco Bay Area. 

 

And finally, in 1970, I co-founded Optic Nerve, a San Francisco-based photography and video collective. We built a darkroom in the basement of Project One, a pioneering "technological commune" and intentional warehouse community. It served as an interdisciplinary hub for artisans, media makers, and early computer geeks. 

 

Since then I have made documentary films and videos around the world and acted as producer and photo archivist for many PBS films on NOVA, American Experience, POV, and American Masters. My work has also appeared on HBO. 

 

Much of my working life has centered around film, but my still camera has always traveled with me and remains a constant, no matter where I've been or where I am headed next! 

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb