Q&A with Lauren Willig

  

Photo by Amanda Suanne Photography

 

 

Lauren Willig is the author of the new novel What Happens at Nightfall. Her many other books include The Girl from Greenwich Street. She lives in New York City. 

 

Q: What inspired you to write What Happens at Nightfall, and how did you create your characters Jess and Adam?

 

A: Some books happen as the result of long planning and considered thought. Other books ambush you out of nowhere. What Happens at Nightfall was one of the latter! 

 

I was working on an entirely different book, a very serious historical about the 1793 Nancy Randolph trial, when my editor emailed with an offer I couldn’t refuse: she’d got hold of the keys to her husband’s family’s mausolea at Green-Wood Cemetery. Did I want to come open them up with her? She’d bring coffee. 

 

How could I say no to coffee and a crypt? Let’s just say that exploring those mausolea was just as amazing as you would imagine—but the cemetery itself was more amazing still, with its quirky tombs, its gorgeous landscaping, and a Gothic dream house.  

 

When I asked my editor who lived in the Gothic mansion at the Fort Hamilton entrance, she replied, “The hot arborist!” And that was that. Suddenly, in my head, I could see that (imaginary) hot arborist, a widower with two kids. I knew that one of those kids was going to open up one of those tombs and accidentally unleash an ancient evil. 

 

And my heroine, recently unemployed, dragged on an evening tour of the cemetery by her best friend, was going to have to use powers she didn’t know she had to contain that evil—and fall in love. It was all right there in the space of a moment.  

 

As you can imagine, I never did finish writing that Nancy Randolph book! But I am so glad Jess and Adam popped into my head that day and dragged me into their adventure in Green-Wood Cemetery….

 

Q: As you noted, the novel is set in Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery--how did you research its history, and what did you learn that surprised you most?

 

A: I wore out so many pairs of shoes exploring the cemetery! I’m not joking about the shoes. Green-Wood is 478 acres and best explored on foot. You can spend days there, and I did, finding something new every time, taking notes on monuments, tracing the paths of my characters, and experiencing Green-Wood’s macabre and marvelous Nightfall festival. 

 

I read up on both Green-Wood in particular and American cemeteries generally (I recommend Jeffrey Richman’s Brooklyn’s Green-Wood Cemetery, Andrew Garn’s Brooklyn Arcadia, and Jessica Ferri’s Silent Cities, among others), but the real research gold mine was the blog of Green-Wood’s resident historian, Jeffrey Richman, which provided so many ideas, plot points, and details for this book. 

 

As for the most surprising thing….  Did you know that in the 1860s, Green-Wood was considered America’s second biggest tourist attraction, right after Niagara Falls? 

 

Q: The Publishers Weekly review of the book calls it a “beautifully crafted paranormal romance that doubles as love letter to the history and people of New York City.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: Every author thrills to the words “beautifully crafted,” but I have to confess, it was the “love letter to the history and people of New York City” that really made my day.  

 

I grew up in the city; some of my strongest childhood memories involve days spent at the Museum of the City of New York and taking part in Lower School plays where we sang about “uptown, downtown, all around the town,” and I got to be half of a yellow cab (the urban equivalent of being the hindquarters of a donkey?). 

 

When I sat down to write What Happens at Nightfall, I knew Green-Wood Cemetery was going to be the star of the show. What I hadn’t anticipated was how many other New York places and legends would work their way into the book, from installations of Gilded Age rooms at the Metropolitan Museum of Art to the stacks of the New York Society Library… 

 

I’ve been so thrilled to receive emails from readers this week telling me they’ve now visited the Society Library for the first time or made plans for a trip to Green-Wood because of What Happens at Nightfall!

 

Q: How would you describe the dynamic between Jess and Adam?

 

A: As you know, I am a longtime romance reader (I even taught a class on the romance novel as literature at Yale back when). One thing I’ve noticed in some of the books I’ve been reading is a return to the breathless heroines and overbearing alpha heroes of my youth. I did not want to write that kind of dynamic. 

 

With Jess and Adam, I deliberately flipped the trope. Jess is the type A MBA finance person with a wardrobe full of black pants. Adam is a go with the flow guy who performed in musical theatre in college, talks to plants, and has an extensive collection of very faded t-shirts. 

 

Jess bottles up her emotions. Adam? He tries his best to keep tabs on the feelings of everyone around him. Mostly. Adam’s warmth lets Jess relax and open up, and Jess’s focus keeps Adam on track, helping them both be the people they need to be. And isn’t the point of any relationship?

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I wish I could tell you, but I am currently sworn to secrecy! All I’ll say is that there is a finished manuscript and hopefully I’ll be able to share more about it soon. Right now I’m working on the sequel to the Book I’m Not Allowed to Tell You About Yet.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: This book is a love letter to New York—but it’s also my love letter to autumn, to falling leaves and waning light, to ghost stories and the glow of a lamp against the early dusk, and to the peculiar camaraderie that comes of facing the darkness together and surviving.

 

It’s a story of second chances, which I think is a profoundly autumn sort of theme, found family, and finding light in darkness. So grab your apple cider or your pumpkin spice, curl up with a soft blanket, and come on this autumn adventure with me!

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Lauren Willig. 

Q&A with RaeAnne Thayne

  

 

 

RaeAnne Thayne is the author of the new novel Cozy Little Christmas. Her many other books include Snow Kissed. She lives in Utah.

 

Q: Why did you decide to highlight your character Hannah in your new novel?

 

A: I loved Hannah from the moment I first introduced her in the first book of Shelter Springs, Christmas at the Shelter Inn. She was funny, kind, sassy. I didn't know her whole story, but I knew she was someone I would love.

 

Throughout the other books in the series, The December Market and Snow Kissed (which can all be read as standalones), Hannah continued to intrigue me. I was so happy to be able to give her the happy ending she deserves!

Q: How would you describe the dynamic between Hannah and Wes?

 

A: They are two people who truly belong together, it simply took them several years to find their way back to each other.

 

I loved the idea that they both knew they were perfect for each other but had been split by circumstances beyond their control years ago. Neither of them ever really got over that heartbreak. Giving them a second chance was so rewarding.

 

Q: Your character Morgan’s illness plays a large role in the novel--why did you decide to make that a focus?

 

A: I wanted children to play a big part in this book, as they seem to make the holiday season so much more joy-filled.

 

I originally wrote several chapters where [Morgan’s] children ended up in foster care, but then decided that wasn't working for the storyline. I wanted their mother to still be in their lives, just needing temporary help with them.

 

I have known people who had to go down and stay at the Huntsman Cancer Institute, where Morgan goes for treatment, and that seemed the perfect fit for what I wanted to do.

 

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 did a great deal of research on different rare cancers when I was trying to find what Morgan might be dealing with. I wanted her to be struggling with something potentially life-threatening but with treatment options that had a high success rate.

 

It was fascinating to learn more about individualized oncology treatment plans and all the amazing researchers and medical professionals fighting so hard to help people survive this terrible disease.

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I’m currently working on my 2027 Christmas book, which is my version of Planes, Trains and Automobiles. It’s been so fun throwing all kinds of travel difficulties at my characters when all they want is to find their way back home for the holidays.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: Only that I am deeply grateful to my amazing readers. This year marks the 30th anniversary of my first book hitting shelves and I still sometimes have to pinch myself when I realize this is actually my life—that I get to write stories that make people happy and bring them a little respite from the stress of the world.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with RaeAnne Thayne. 

Q&A with Sheila Roberts

  

Photo by Robert Rabe

 

 

Sheila Roberts is the author of the new novel Have Yourself a Merry Little Meltdown. Her many other books include A Little Christmas Spirit. She lives in the Pacific Northwest. 

 

Q: What inspired you to write Have Yourself a Merry Little Meltdown, and how did you create your characters Jordan and Charles?

 

A: Good question! Every book I write starts with an idea, a concept. Then I create the characters to fit it.

 

For example, when I wrote A Little Christmas Spirit, I wanted to pay homage to Dickens and his amazing story A Christmas Carol. But I thought, what if, instead of my Scrooge getting haunted by three ghosts, only one comes to him. And what if he’s a widower and that ghost is his wife, who’s determined he’s going to find his Christmas spirit?

 

For this to happen my modern-day Scrooge had to be grumpy, and he had to have given up on life. And his wife had to be sweet, the one who always made the holidays happen. (Like so many of us women do!) Once I had the basic version of who those people should be then I was able to flesh out the characters.

 

For Jordan and Charles, their story started with “What if?” What if a woman wrote a Christmas book based on her over the top family and too late realized it was a mistake? Enter Jordan, who has always been a reader and filled countless journals, a woman who always had a bit of a dream to be a writer.

 

As for Charles, I knew Jordan needed a love interest who understood her, so I gave them a history. As friends. And who better to understand a writer’s dilemma than a bookstore owner, right? So I gave Charles a bookstore.

 

Slowly, as the story went along these two got fleshed out, and so did her family. And that family had to be over the top and easily recognizable in a book. And I had great fun coming up with crazy family memories to bring those characters to life.

 

Q: How would you describe Jordan’s relationship with her family?

 

A: Loving and close. Which of course, makes her feel like such a traitor for putting all their embarrassing moments out there for the world (and worst of all, the whole town) to read.

 

Q: What are some of your own traditions for the holiday season?

 

A: Like Jordan, I have a very close family. And Christmas Eve is a big deal for us. There is always tons of food, laughter, games. Someone reads the Christmas story from the Bible. And there is carol singing. We go through all the classics. Sometimes, just like in the book, there’s even a game of dark tag.

 

Another favorite tradition involves getting together to bake Christmas cookies. Which, of course, we must sample. Calories don’t count when you’re with family.

 

Q: How would you compare the bookstore in this novel to the one in Love on the Shelf?

 

A: Charles’s bookstore is certainly just as friendly, but it doesn’t carry exclusively romance novels. It certainly has enough to keep a guy inspired though. And the store carries all the popular holiday novels. (Except maybe not Jordan’s. She hopes!)

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: Right now I’m preparing to launch a historical novel I wrote with my husband come spring. Castles, a crazy king and a mysterious death – how does that sound? ☺

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: I will be serving up a lot of fun on my Facebook, Instagram and TikTok channels and I hope readers who can’t join me in my appearances in Washington State will join me on one of those platforms. It’s going to be a fun holiday season!

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Sheila Roberts. 

Q&A with Nikki Nash

  

 

Nikki Nash is the author of the new memoir Collateral Stardust: Chasing Warren Beatty and Other Foolish Things. She also has written the book 72 Raisins. She worked as an associate director on a variety of TV shows, including 12 years with Conan O'Brien.  

 

Q: Why did you decide to write this memoir?

 

A: The surface answer would be that, over the years, I’ve told people some of these stories, for example: when I was 16, I wore a nun’s habit to buy alcohol so I wouldn’t get carded. This always got a laugh.

 

After I recounted many other nutty stories, people eventually said, “You should write a book,” and I thought I would one day. However, I knew I didn’t want to write a “look at me” book, or a book about all the fun people I dated, or all the adventures I’ve had, or how fabulous I am. That is selfish writing and ultimately boring. And not true.

 

I did, however, know that the stories were funny, but for something to be funny, I knew I’d need to investigate and understand the pain underneath the humor. It took me 10 years to ponder tone and POV, and when hearing loss and COVID ended my job in television, I knew I needed something fun I could do at home, in silence, that required solving problems.

 

On a deeper level—though I didn't realize it then—I must’ve felt it was time to strip away the laminated persona I’d unconsciously presented to myself and others over the years. Investigate the secrets. Not secrets like who I slept with, but secret shame over imperfections, foibles, foolishness, my desire for fame, my self-doubt about being at all lovable.

 

At first, it may seem like a book about chasing a childhood idol, but beneath that are questions: Why was it necessary to search for a larger-than-life love, how could I understand and embrace—rather than reject—pain, and ultimately, how did I learn to be human?

 

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

 

A: The title didn’t come first in a flash of inspiration. Instead, I like to put themes and ideas and concepts into the percolator and leave it alone.

 

The book explored the ideas of fame, longing, and deferred satisfaction, and I found myself in situations where I was adjunct to a famous person (celebrity adjacent in the current parlance) but still got a buzz. I thought about the lure of stardust—the kind of stardust Warren [Beatty] had (in my mind) and how and when I needed a dose of that stardust.

 

After writing most of the book, the title came to me in what felt like a flash, forgetting that I'd been throwing things into the percolator and the title wouldn’t materialize until the book had.

 

Stardust is ephemeral, so I needed constant dosing to get the chemical boost, in conjunction for a time with drugs and alcohol, until I’d matured enough to see the truth: that collateral stardust is really just a puff of distracting sparkle, and it’s gone.

 

Q: How would you describe your relationship with Warren Beatty?

 

A: The young Nikki would see it as a slow-building relationship that included engagement, consistency, and contact. That it was something that mattered, or would matter.

 

But as I both got older, I saw more clearly (as the stardust lost its potency) that I’d created most of the relationship. I’d initiated most of the calls. Granted, Warren answered, and I’m grateful for that, as I needed that contact to pull me through life, but the relationship was more of an overlay that I’d created and maintained by calling him.

 

Warren was incredibly kind, and bluntly honest when I needed it, but I have a feeling that if I hadn’t kept making contact, he would’ve forgotten about me, but I was determined to have more, and he just sort of went along with it. He was a barometer of sorts—as I looked back at our times together—of my growth.

 

When I finished the first draft of the book, I realized that by owning all my own demons and pain and fabrications, I no longer needed him to distract me from the truth of myself.

 

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

 

A: I think the takeaway for me was the amazing paradox that showing all my foibles and flaws and fears (that’s a lot of alliteration) led to greater openness and connection with others. The things I feared being seen were the things that made me human and eventually more open to others.

 

Once it’s all out there, there is nothing to “protect” (constant self-protecting takes a lot of energy) and I am now simply myself. I can talk to strangers more easily. I have nothing to prove. And I am curious about others.

 

Being free would have been enough of a takeaway. However, having people tell me how the book opened them up, or comforted them, is amazing.

 

People have reached out to tell me about their feelings of longing, or their fears, or the lure of fame, and I love connecting with people on this deeper level. It makes me so happy.

 

Anyone can do whatever they want, but there is such freedom in being oneself. I have compassion for myself, for what I did to survive, and now I have a greater capacity to love others. It’s hard to love others while defending oneself.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: My first book, 72 Raisins, was fiction, but it was based on a head writer on a version of Conan O’Brien’s show. I knew that world, and kept to a singular point of view (for the most part).

 

Collateral Stardust, on the other hand, is nonfiction (duh) with a singular and subjective point of view.

 

I wanted a different challenge. My new book is a mystery/thriller with multiple points of view, and an intricate story. It’s been fun and freeing to have tertiary characters claim more space and become primary characters. It is strange to collaborate with fictional characters.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: I will close with my favorite Colette quote, which is the book's epigraph. “You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm.”

 

Another thing just came to mind from a book I read 40 years ago. (I think it was called The Seat of the Soul, back when I was reading more spiritual stuff.) The soul doesn’t want consistency; it wants to be heard.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb 

Oct. 18

 

 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
Oct. 18, 1948: Ntozake Shange born.

Q&A with Daniel Peña

  

 

 

Daniel Peña is the author of the new essay collection How to Look Away: On American Cruelty and the Refusal to Disappear. Also an educator, he lives in Dallas, Mexico City, and Germany.

 

Q: Over how long a period did you write the essays collected in How to Look Away?

 

A: I’d say two-thirds of the book was written between 2022 and 2026. Only a few essays appeared before then (“The Joys of Biking at Night” and “Letter from Houston instantly” come to mind).

 

I had the narrative arc and essay ideas down early, but of course the world changes as you write. And I found myself updating the collection up to the very last draft. As late as June of 2026. 

 

Q: The author Ed Morales called the book “a powerful, thoughtful rant against the monstrous innocence of twenty-first century America.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: I’m such a huge fan of Ed as a thinker and writer. That blurb was especially meaningful for me because I’d been reading his work for years. And I’m lucky enough (in this writer’s life) to now call him a friend. We’re both now with One World.

 

I think Ed is so smart to hone in on my interrogation of “innocence” in this collection of essays. There’s a line from this book that interrogates what he’s speaking toward regarding the connection between violence and innocence. In How to Look Away the gist of it is: white impotence begets white innocence, which is often the pretext for white violence. Now and historically.

 

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

 

A: That’s a great question! How to Look Away as a title came to me pretty early. It’s a double entendre. I was interested in not only the process through which we look away from the suffering of others, but also the line itself as a question: How to look away? 

 

Which speaks toward a phenomenon I unpack in the book called “morbid fascination.” It’s the reason everyone stares into a car wreck when they pass it on the highway. 

 

The subtitle was a lot more complicated. It went through many, many drafts. Eventually my editor and I landed on “On American Cruelty and the Refusal to Disappear” because it spoke toward the thematic structure of the collection which moves from disembodiment to embodiment.

 

The subtitle tried best to capture the ways we’re disappeared in the American fabric and the revolutionary nature of refusing to disappear (and remain embodied) in places that try to make us feel smaller. Or eliminate us from the landscape altogether.

 

Q: What do you see looking ahead when it comes to cruelty in the United States?

 

A: I think a lot about the jazz musician Wynton Marsalis when I think of this question and the future of the United States. Marsalis smartly pointed out once that can go to any number of places in the world where fascism took root—Berlin, Tokyo, Madrid, Santiago, etc.—and eventually you’ll find that fascism collapsed under its own weight.

 

That is because the human impulse is to create; fascism’s impulse is to destroy. In those places today, life is still happening. Fascism couldn’t stop people from falling in love. Or people from creating art. Or people writing poetry. It is outside the fascist imagination to create anything beautiful.

 

As humans, we don’t have a very high tolerance for operating on that wavelength indefinitely. And I think the strain is beginning to show. 

 

To these ends, I’m reminded of a line from James Baldwin: “I can't afford despair…you can't tell the children there's no hope.”

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I’m breaking ground right now on a new collection of essays and revising an old novel I have that needs a ton of work.  

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: My favorite collection in the essay is “The Joys of Biking at Night.” It originally appeared in The New York Times. It inspired the cover of the book, which is the side of the Haus des Lehrers in Berlin.

 

It was the artist’s idea of what the Americas looked like. It shows Latin American cyclists just finishing a race. The winner receives his flowers from a little girl. It’s such a sweet image and one very different from the usual images we get in the press from Latin America. It shows us fully embodied, fully ensconced in our humanity.

 

I think it’s a good simulacrum of the book as a whole. Which ultimately is about what it means to be responsible not for each other but to one another. Our humanity exists in the communal.  

 

When I saw the cover, I knew on a cellular level that it was the correct one. 

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb 

Q&A with Frances Boyle

  

 

 

Frances Boyle is the author of the new novel Skin Hunger. Her other books include the story collection Seeking Shade. She lives in Ottawa.  

 

Q: What inspired you to write Skin Hunger, and how did you create your characters Rowan and Evie?

 

A: Several different strands pulled together as inspiration for Skin Hunger, and led to the emergence of Evie and Rowan.

 

The first was a strong sense of wanting to explore in fiction some of the mental health challenges that my mother experienced, including hospitalization. This was never discussed at home so imagination (and research) gave me an entry point.

 

I knew I wouldn't try to tell my mother's story, so I worked out a very different life trajectory for Evie and wrote my way into it.

 

The daughter, now Rowan, took a bit longer to become clear to me. I eventually started thinking about the vital nature of human touch, and exploring the impact that being deprived of maternal touch in childhood might have. That led to Rowan as someone who becomes a people pleaser in search of acceptance, connection and love.

 

The final strand, the animal rights activism, came when I remembered images of experiments on baby monkeys clinging to wire-frame, terry cloth covered artificial "mothers" for the small comfort they provided. I am not a "plotter," so the experiences that both Evie and Rowan go through in the story developed as I wrote and shaped their personalities.

 

Q: How would you describe the dynamic between them?

 

A: Rowan is separated from her mother, Evie, for much of the book, so the dynamic is largely one of longing and regret.

 

Evie feels her child was stolen from her, and reassembles a life around this aching absence. Rowan struggles with the belief that her mother abandoned her, and allows herself to feel both anger and hurt while yearning for the comfort of mother love.

 

Despite the separation, there remains a thin vibrating wire of connection between them, which I show in Evie's occasional premonitions about events in her daughter's life, and Rowan's musings about what she might have inherited from Evie.

 

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

 

A: Skin Hunger is a translation of the Danish term "Hudsult," meaning starved for touch. I think I first encountered it in Robin Beth Schaer's moving poem "Holdfast" that I quote as one of the book's epigraphs (the poem also refers to the monkey experiments). 

 

I'd already been building my draft around the idea of touch deprivation for some time, and hearing the term clicked it firmly into place. I knew I had my title.

 

Q: The author Jack Wang said of the novel, “Alternating between the wayward lives of Evie and Rowan, the novel explores how absence, captivity, and privation affect humans and animals alike.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: I think that Jack really captured a good part of what I was getting at in Skin Hunger. I'm incredibly grateful for his empathetic reading, and kind comments. As I've already mentioned, absence and privation are integral to who Rowan and Evie are.

 

I also see the impact of captivity as key. Evie is literally captive in mental institutions, while Rowan's passions are a reaction to the injustices of animals held captive, whether for entertainment, as in zoos and aquariums, for science or to provide food for humans.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: My current project is a collection of short stories (which will be my second, after 2020's Seeking Shade). The new manuscript has the working title "Turbulence" and most of the stories deal with characters navigating turbulent currents of family, relationships and life.

 

The collection veers more overtly to the speculative than my previous work. A couple of the stories are published, others are out on submission while still others are at far earlier stages of draft.

 

I'm also slowly writing and piecing together a new poetry collection that returns to the themes of mental health challenges through a recurring metaphor of water.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: I'm delighted to be asked to contribute, and very thankful to anyone who picks up a copy of Skin Hunger!

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb