Q&A with Kate Christensen

  

Photo by Cheryl Nichols

 

 

Kate Christensen is the author of the new novel Good Company. Her other books include the memoir Blue Plate Special. She lives in New Mexico. 

 

Q: You’ve said of Good Company that it “isn’t a screed or manifesto, it’s a fictional expression of my own recent deep dive into the sources of my own internalized misogyny and my complicity in the way certain men have treated me all my life.” Can you say more about that, and about how you created your character Julia?

 

A: Looking back at my 2013 memoir, Blue Plate Special, a decade after its publication, I found myself regretting all the things I couldn’t say due to the constraints of memoir, while enduring the repercussions of all the things I did due to the risks of memoir. I felt an unresolved itch to delve into it all again, this time without holding anything back.

 

One of the things I wanted to get at was the anger I was finally letting myself feel at all the ways in which I’d been treated by men I’d been entangled with, not only romantically but also professionally. I wanted to get into it all: their behavior, and my own complicity in it. But I had no interest in exposing myself or anyone else in memoir ever again; that felt too raw, too potentially fraught. It had to be fiction.

 

In Good Company, I merged the “I” of a memoir with the “I” of a novel. But I also let my imagination transform this “I” into a purely fictional one.

 

Q: The writer Jessica Anthony said of the book, “This is a memoir disguised as a novel, starring a protagonist who has written a memoir—a super-sharp postmodern experiment in memory and narrative subjectivity.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: To write Good Company the way it demanded to be written, I had to invent a new form. In order to show Julia’s memoir informing the present-day action of the novel, I embedded excerpts within the present-day action.

 

Crucially, all of the events and characters in the novel had to be fictional and fictionalized, no matter how closely they hewed to the particulars of my own life. This book was the sturdy container for the hardest and truest things I needed to explore.

 

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

 

A: In my mid-40s, after a lifetime of trying to be “good company” for men, a compliment I took as a badge of honor, everything started to change.

 

I finally left my first marriage. I fell in love with a man 20 years younger than I was, and our surprisingly equal footing allowed me to move beyond the old male-female dynamic. I went through menopause and got sober after 25 years of hard drinking.

 

During these years, I went through a long reckoning, a full accounting of all the ways in which I’d failed myself, failed other women, by dedicating myself to the impossible and unfulfilling quest for male approval.

 

I realized that being called “good company” by men was not a compliment, but a means of control. The title came from this shifting perception as I woke up to the truth.

 

Q: What do you hope readers take away from the book, especially given current news headlines?

 

A: I hope anyone else who’s ever enabled destructive male behavior out of fear or insecurity will take heart from Julia’s experiences and maybe even feel compelled to take action.

 

As women’s hard-won rights are steadily eroded in this country, as oppression and abuse of women becomes a global epidemic, I hope we come together to fight for ourselves and one another regardless of race, politics, nationality, or religion.  We’re all in this together along with all the planet’s living things.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I’m about to start a new novel set in Berkeley, California, in 1968. It’s about female friendship, the connection between art and activism, domestic and political violence, and romantic love.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: I think I’ve said it all! Thank you so much for your thoughtful questions.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Kate Christensen. 

Q&A with Liz Lazarus

  

 

Liz Lazarus is the author of the new novel Dawn Before Darkness. Her other novels include Shades of Silence. She is also a consultant and a business owner, and she's based in Atlanta and in Bozeman, Montana. 

 

Q: What inspired you to write Dawn Before Darkness, and how did you create your character Dawn?

A: Two things inspired this novel.

 

First, I had a friend who had a terrible experience with a stalker, so I wanted to fictionalize part of her story. In addition to hearing her ordeal, I posted on social media asking for anyone who was willing to share her experience with a stalker. I ended up talking to 10 women and a compilation of their stories created my supervillain.

 

Also, as I was writing the novel, I was undergoing a lengthy and costly battle for guardianship of my mom, first against a family member and then a total stranger. I wanted to expose how broken the probate court system is regarding guardianships and conservatorships of the elderly.

Q: Can you say more about how you researched the novel?

 

A: I researched the novel by interviewing people—women who had stalkers, my friend who was a vet tech for those stories, another friend who is a police detective. And, as noted above, I was living through a lengthy court battle for guardianship of my mom. The legal part of the book is maddening and almost unbelievable—except that I lived it.

Q: How would you describe the relationship between Dawn and her mother, Marie?

A: Dawn is very protective of her mom, Marie, partially because Marie’s health is failing, especially her eyesight, but also because she was widowed in the last year. I wanted to portray what happens to many children. Over time, we go from being the cared for to the caretaker of our parents.

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

A: Before I begin writing, I have to know the beginning that draws the reader in, the main characters and the twist ending, so yes, I knew how the story would end. I keep a massive spreadsheet to plot my chapters, events, any loose ends I need to resolve and how I want the reader to feel at the end of the chapter.

Q: What are you working on now?

A: I have an idea for a fifth book and a vague outline. That’s how these things get started. Each book has a color theme, and this next one will be green—for money and greed. I’m already thinking about titles that fall in line with the alliteration I’ve used for my previous novels and am very open to your ideas!

Q: Anything else we should know?

A: Information about my books can be found on www.lizlazarus.com. There, you can download free sample chapters and listen to the first few minutes of the audiobook. And, if you like the book, please do post a review on Amazon and/or Goodreads. My novels are known to entertain while they educate, and this one is a real cautionary tale. Thanks!

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb 

Q&A with Sarah Oelschig

  

 

 

Sarah Oelschig is the author of the new book Unburned: A Slightly Messy, Mostly Honest Guide to Life After Burnout. She is also a coach and a HR director, and she lives in Tennessee.

 

Q: What inspired you to write Unburned?

 

A: Honestly, survival instinct. Midway through 2022, I found myself sitting in a Zoom meeting after everyone else had left, hands hovering over the keyboard, completely unable to remember what I was supposed to do next. My lunch that day was Diet Coke, popcorn, and Junior Mints, and I'd been snapping at my daughters and communicating with my husband exclusively in logistics.

 

I didn't recognize myself anymore. I'd spent my career helping other people navigate burnout (I'm a People Operations leader, it's literally my job), and I still managed to miss it in myself until I was well past the point of no return.

 

I wrote Unburned because I couldn't find the book I actually needed when I was in it. Most burnout content told me to do yoga and drink more water. I needed someone to tell me the truth about what was happening and what might actually help.

 

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

 

A: The title came from thinking about what recovery actually is and what it isn't. Most people assume that healing from burnout means becoming a new, optimized, better-rested version of yourself.

 

What I found, and what the research supports, is that recovery is less about transformation and more about reclamation. You're not building something new from the ashes. You're finding out what didn't burn and what's still there underneath everything that got scorched.

 

Unburned is about that. The parts of you that survived. The things that were always yours, waiting quietly while you were too depleted to reach for them.

 

Q: What are some of the major causes of burnout today?

 

A: The World Health Organization defines burnout as an occupational phenomenon – chronic workplace stress that hasn't been successfully managed. I think that's true and incomplete.

 

As of 2024, 44 percent of U.S. employees report feeling burned out, but so do 50 percent of K-12 teachers, 65 percent of working parents, and 42 percent of healthcare workers.

 

These aren't people who failed at self-care. They're people living under compounding demands: professional, caregiving, relational, financial, without adequate recovery time, support, or the permission to say no before things get critical.

 

The bigger cultural culprit is the conflation of availability with value. We've built workplaces and lives that treat exhaustion as a credential, and then we're surprised when people run out of road.

 

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

 

A: Writing it was its own form of recovery, which I did not anticipate. There's something clarifying about having to put language to something you lived through. It forces you to see the shape of it.

 

I also had to reckon with the fact that I wasn't entirely on the other side of burnout while I was writing it. I took the self-assessment I developed for Chapter 1 and scored a 35 out of 50. That was humbling in a useful way.

 

As for what I hope readers take away: I want them to finish it and feel less alone, and more importantly, less broken. Burnout makes you forget yourself. The book is an invitation to look again. Not to become someone new, but to reclaim the person who was always in there, buried under a few too many years of putting everything else first.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I'm running workshops based on the book: a one-hour virtual session for the general public, and a separate workshop for coaches on recognizing and working with burnout in their clients.

 

I'm also developing articles for publications like Wellbeing Magazine, pulling content from the book's chapters and making it accessible to people who might not know yet that they need it.

 

The writing continues on Substack, where the newsletter has become a real conversation with readers about what burnout recovery looks like in practice, not just in theory.

 

The short version: I'm finding out what a book becomes after it exists in the world, which is different and stranger and more interesting than writing it.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: Just that burnout is not a productivity problem. It's not fixed by a better morning routine or a journaling practice or, with the greatest respect, yoga. It's what happens when a person has been running at full capacity for too long without enough recovery, recognition, or permission to be human.

 

The research on what actually helps is quieter and smaller than the wellness industry would like: one honest conversation, one thing reclaimed, one week where you take something off your plate instead of adding to it.

 

I wrote Unburned because I think people deserve the honest version, not the optimized one, and because "you're not broken, you're just buried" is something I needed someone to say to me, and nobody did.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb 

June 17

 

 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

June 17, 1871: James Weldon Johnson born. 

Q&A with Claudia Gray

  

 

 

Claudia Gray is the author of the new novel The Fatal Unpleasantness at Netherfield, the latest in her Mr. Darcy & Miss Tilney mystery series based on Jane Austen's classic novels. She lives in Turin, Italy.

 

Q: Why did you decide to set your latest Mr. Darcy & Miss Tilney novel at Netherfield, featuring the Bennet and Bingley families?

 

A: One thing I've learned while writing this series is that there's more than one reason Pride and Prejudice is Jane Austen's best loved novel. 

 

Yes, it has the unforgettable romance between Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy--but it also has the most memorable and most entertaining supporting characters. There are just so many that we want to spend more time with; we want to learn more about what might have happened to them since the events of the novel. 

 

So even though I had written one book featuring some characters from Pride and Prejudice, namely The Perils of Lady Catherine de Bourgh, I still felt like we had more people to catch up with! Mr. and Mrs. Bennet, Charles and Jane Bingley--they're too delightful to leave in the margins forever.

 

Q: The Kirkus Review of the book said, “Gray peoples her tale with so many lively, complex, and vividly drawn characters, and involves them in such a variety of intrigues, that the reader’s attention will never flag. A new generation of heroes and heroines is bound to delight a new generation of Austen fans.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: I love it! Let's put it on billboards. T-shirts. Bumper stickers. Though I guess it's kind of a long bumper sticker, isn't it?  

 

Q: This is the fifth book in your series--how would you describe the relationship between Jonathan and Juliet at this point?

 

A: They've really been on an extraordinary journey, haven't they? 

 

Part of the fun of writing Jonathan and Juliet is that they're trying to obey so many of the conventions of the Regency era, yet at the same time, their murder investigations have necessitated all kinds of conversations and confidences that go far beyond what we think of as the ordinary Regency courtship. There's greater trust and mutual understanding, and a very deep affection.

 

And yet, the events of the fourth book of the series have put some very real obstacles between the two of them. This next book is the one where they truly have to decide how far they're willing to go for the sake of love.

 

Q: Do you have a particular favorite Austen character you enjoy reimagining?

 

A: There are so many of them! For this particular book I really enjoyed revisiting Mr. and Mrs. Bennet--his dry wit versus her irrationality--and especially Jane.

 

She's such a sweet and loving person but in the course of this novel I had to ask myself: what would it take for Jane to actually get mad? And what would it sound like when she did? I hadn't dreamed how much fun I could have with that.  

 

Q: What are you working on now? What's next in the series?

 

A: I've just finished the initial draft of book six in the series, namely Here Lies Sir Walter Elliot. As you've probably guessed, that's the Persuasion novel. 

 

In January I was able to visit Bath for a week and actually scout real locations, which is a rare luxury when you're writing primarily about fictional places. 

 

Until I was walking around Bath, specifically looking for places noted in Persuasion, I hadn't realized just how precise Jane Austen is in describing the place; you can literally trace the characters' paths through various neighborhoods. That should be coming out in summer 2027.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: This November I'm releasing an Austen-esque book that is not a part of the mystery series; it's a completion of Jane Austen's abandoned novel fragment, The Watsons.  

 

The beginning of that book is so tantalizing that I just couldn't stand the fact that we didn't know what would become of the characters--so I decided to do something about it! 

 

My goal from the beginning was to try to finish the book at least a little like the way Jane Austen herself might have finished it, to really try to guess where she might be going. So I re-read that fragment. I don't know how many dozens of times, but after a little while, a few themes started to make themselves known. 

 

Of course inevitably, some of my 21st-century mindset has crept in; nor was I suddenly visited with the pure genius of Jane Austen. But my hope is that it will feel a little like getting to read a new Jane Austen novel--even if I get remotely in the ballpark, I mean, what fun, right?

 

The Watsons will be coming out in mid-November, and fans of the mystery should definitely keep an eye out for it.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Claudia Gray. 

Q&A with Lina Patton

  

 

 

Lina Patton is the author of the new novel The Lake Club. She is also an illustrator and a teacher, and she lives in Washington, D.C.

 

Q: You worked on The Lake Club for many years--can you tell us about that?

 

A: Writing The Lake Club has definitely been a labor of love.

 

I first started a draft in the summer of 2018 while I was working on a darker, more literary novel. I also had a different agent at the time who would take months to get back to me, so during that waiting period, I started a new, lighter project (which would become The Lake Club) to keep moving forward.

 

I had so much fun with the characters and disappearing into my memories of Minnesota, but I didn’t work on the manuscript seriously until four years later, after my darker literary novel didn’t sell, and I decided I needed to try something new.

 

But even then, it was a journey! I first wrote the book entirely from Augie’s POV, with Chat's romance playing a more central role. However, it felt too young, so after brainstorming with my now-agent, I decided to add Mrs. Crawley’s POV.

 

This was daunting at first, but it turned out to be really interesting because, at that point, I was in my 30s, years older than when I wrote Augie’s POV, and it felt poetic to add an older perspective at a later stage of life.

 

Still, that wasn’t the end. After adding that POV, I drafted several more versions to ramp up the tension and secrets. Let’s just say I learned to love revision!

 

Q: The novel is set at a lakeside country club in Minnesota--how important is setting to you in your writing?

 

A: This is a great question. To be honest, while I have always been a visual person and love painting pictures in my mind as I write, I didn’t realize how important setting is to me until well into The Lake Club.

 

This might be because Augie’s voice came to me first, along with the pull to write about working at the country club (we love to see people at work in fiction!), but more and more, the setting became a huge part of the story.

 

I, of course, knew I wanted to showcase the beautiful lakes, but as I wrote the surrounding characters and lines of tension, I realized how much the specifics and nuances of the locale added to the story–not just the beautiful shimmering water and neon-green golf courses, but the passive-aggressive Midwest behavior, the wholesome facades, and the generational wealth (and secrets!).

 

As such, I am now more aware of how much setting plays into not only the atmosphere of a story but also the tools you have in your toolbox.

 

I’ve also been delighted to see how much readers enjoy the setting in The Lake Club, and I’ll definitely be thinking more intentionally about the power of setting moving forward.

 

Q: How would you describe the dynamic among your characters Danika, Augie, and Chat?

 

A: I have been using the phrase “off-kilter love triangle” to describe the three quite a bit lately.

 

I know that when some people read the back copy and see the description of “two women clashing over a cute male nanny,” they often assume it’s a Fatal Attraction-type fight over a guy’s attention. And while that is so fun–and true in ways–the triangle’s real tension comes down to power dynamics rather than your typical romantic competition.

 

They all hit a nerve with one another, whether touching on old wounds or unmet wants, which makes their relationships messy and nuanced–and a fun place to explore.

 

Q: The writer Kristy Woodson Harvey said of the book, “A juicy mix of rich people behaving badly and love in all its forms, Lina Patton reminds us that, no matter how convoluted things have become, the truth really can be a clean slate.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: I am wildly grateful to Kristy Woodson Harvey for this blurb—I so adore her work and appreciate her generosity of spirit—and I think this description is a beautiful nod to each character’s true motivations.

 

At the end of the day, while everyone is hiding something and their actions may be questionable (to say the least!), I do think every character is trying to course-correct something from their past, and doing so out of love—whether for themselves, their family, or in pursuit of a greater moral reckoning.

 

I also appreciate how this description speaks to the many relationships in the novel, as we see all kinds of connections at play.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: Speaking of setting, I’m diving back into my memories of living in Europe for book two! My husband is a Foreign Area Officer in the Army, and we spent four years in Germany and three years at the embassy in Kosovo.

 

While the novel is still in its early stages, I’m drawing inspiration from the embassy setting—which, in many ways, mirrors a country club, with its overlapping roles, complicated power dynamics, and everyone trying a little too hard to keep up appearances.

 

 I hope to share more details soon, but for now, I’ll just say I’m having a blast writing it—and readers can expect more soapy suspense and glittering bodies of water!

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: I wrote The Lake Club with the hope that, above all, people would have fun reading it. I wanted to create something relatable yet escapist, tender but not intense—something that checks all the boxes of a beach read while still offering stylish, breezy writing. I hope it brings you extra lakeside, poolside, or beachside joy!

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb 

Q&A with Brad Barkley

  

 

 

Brad Barkley is the author of the new young adult novel The Reel Life of Zara Kegg. His other books include Money, Love. He lives in Western Maryland. 

 

Q: What inspired you to write The Reel Life of Zara Kegg, and how did you create your character Zara?

 

A: Part of the book goes back to being a kid in North Carolina, checking out Super 8 films from the library, titles like The Mummy, The Invisible Man, The Screaming Skull, and running them through a projector in a darkened basement room.

 

My family would be upstairs watching regular TV, and I’d be downstairs watching Dracula all alone. There was something about that—the light, the flicker, the sense that what you were seeing was both present yet part of the past—that stuck with me.

 

Zara grew out of that space, but also out of an interest in what happens when someone has to grow up a little faster than they should. She’s smart, and she’s paying attention, but she doesn’t always know what to do with what she’s seeing.

 

That lag between noticing something and understanding it felt true to me, especially when it comes to relationships experienced at age 16.

 

Q: How would you describe the dynamic between Zara and Zachary?

 

A: They’re drawn to each other pretty quickly, but not in a simple or entirely stable way. Zara is trying to make sense of things, to get her footing again, while Zachary is harder to read. His stories don’t always add up, and part of what pulls her in is that mystery.

 

What they share is a kind of recognition in each other. They’re both dealing with more than they’re saying out loud. But they handle it differently, and that creates tension. At times they steady each other, and at other times they make things more complicated. That push and pull is really the relationship.

 

Q: The novel is set in Carolina Beach, N.C.—how important is setting to you in your writing?

 

A: Setting does a lot of work for me. I’m less interested in it as backdrop and more in how it shapes what can and can’t happen in a story. Carolina Beach in the winter is very different from the version people usually imagine. It’s quieter, emptied out, exposed.

 

I was also interested in working against the usual idea of a summer romance at the beach—everything warm, open, and idealized—instead setting the story in a place that feels closed off, a bit chilly, not especially ripe for romance.

 

But just as important is the theater itself. The Palace is a contained space, slightly out of time, where Zara can step back from her life and watch things play out at a distance. Up in the projection booth, she’s removed from everything, but also in control of what people see.

 

That combination of distance and control fits where she is emotionally. It gives her a place to hide, but also a way of looking at things she might not otherwise be able to face.

 

Q: The writer Ann Hood said of the novel, “If John Green wrote a novelization of the film Cinema Paradiso, it might very well be this one.” What do you think of that comparison?

 

A: It’s a generous comparison, and I’m grateful for it. I can see where it comes from—there’s a love of movies in the book, and the theater itself is a kind of emotional center for everything.

 

At the same time, I don’t think of the book as nostalgic in a soft-focus way. The movies matter to Zara not because they take her out of her life, but because they give her a way of approaching and confronting life the way we do in dreams or poems. They let her look at things that might be harder to face head-on.

 

If the comparison points readers in that direction, I’m happy with it.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I’ve just finished revisions on a novel called AmericaLand, which my agent, Jenna Satterthwaite, is currently shopping around. It’s set in a failing theme park that recreates an idealized 1950s small town, populated entirely by lifelike AI “residents.”

 

Behind the scenes, the people running the park are trying to keep it—and themselves—from coming apart, even as the whole thing starts to feel more artificial than the machines they’ve built.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: Only that The Reel Life of Zara Kegg is interested in ordinary life as much as anything dramatic. There are no dystopian stakes, no world-ending scenarios.

 

The conflicts are smaller, but I think in some ways they’re harder—the kinds of things people actually carry around in their lives. If readers find something recognizable there, something that feels true to their own experience, that’s about all I would hope for.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb