Abigail Stewart is the author of the new novel Foundations. Her other books include the novel The Drowned Woman. She is based in Berkeley, California.
Q: What inspired you to write Foundations, and how did you decide on the book's three-part structure?
A: Pulling on some of the same threads as my previous novel, The Drowned Woman, I wanted to explore the continuity of the lived female experience reflected through different eras.
Within a house there are many stories, and I chose to tell the story of three different women who were at varying times contained by the same four walls. The novel began as the story of a house and broke off into a triptych of three women.
Q: How was the book's title chosen, and what does it signify for you?
A: Foundations is something of a play on words. It is both the underlying structure of a home as well as the basis of a tenet or principle, it’s the beginning of belief and building. All of the women in the book are building or rebuilding some aspect of their life and the house acts as a transitional space for them. Appropriately, it’s also a term for a woman’s undergarment.
Q: What do you hope readers take away from Foundations?
A: More than anything, I hope Foundations allows readers to feel a connection. Perhaps they take away a sense of empathy for the characters and their particular struggles or find something relatable to their own lives. As a writer, publishing my work is always a way of seeking connection with others and I hope readers find that too.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I just finished the first draft of a new manuscript and am working on edits for that. I do hope it will see the light of day sometime in the not-too-distant future.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: Only that I deeply appreciate anyone who takes the time to read my writing.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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