Q&A with Yvonne Battle-Felton

 

 

 

Yvonne Battle-Felton is the author of the new novel Curdle Creek. She also has written the novel Remembered. She is an Associate Teaching Professor and the Academic Director of Creative Writing at Cambridge University Institute of Continuing Education.

 

Q: What inspired you to write Curdle Creek, and how did you create your character Osira?

 

A: I’ve been haunted by Shirley Jackson’s The Lottery for years. There’s an adaptation on YouTube where they imagine what it might be like. In their version, there were no people of color. So, I wondered what it might change if there was an all-Black, rural town with sinister traditions. 

 

Years ago, a friend invited me to write a flash fiction piece for a crime anthology, and later a longer short story for a second and more deadly edition.

 

In both pieces, I imagined a version of Curdle Creek with the main characters (Osira was named Riley in that version) just shy of their first Moving On. They were nearly 16 and optimistic about change. Years later, when I found myself needing to revisit the town and the characters, it started with Osirus and who he loved most.

 

Passing down names can be really significant so I wanted him to give her his name, if nothing else. And Riley became Osira which feels good when I roll her name around in my mouth. It’s a name that makes me slow down, consider.

 

But, initially she was much younger. In between writing, when I was working on other projects, or thinking about other things, Osira sort of popped up from time to time and she was always older, a bit less idealistic.

 

Although writing her still felt like a returning, writing her at 16 felt like writing myself out of my own stories. So, I asked myself other questions. What might it be like long after she was 16, long after the reality had settled in? She really began to take shape then. Osira had a new story to tell. This time, she knew a lot more about pain.

Q: The writer Tananarive Due called the book a “thoughtful, sinister tour-de-force.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: I love that description! I love her writing and to have her describe Curdle Creek in that way is an absolute highlight!

 

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

 

A: No, I had no idea. So many times I wasn’t sure who was going to survive the night, let alone the book. I was always surprised by what characters were willing to do to other characters. It was a delicious feeling.

 

Writing the novel was full of unexpected twists. In a place like Curdle Creek everyone has a secret. It felt like writing the book was my way of figuring out what their secrets were.

 

Q: How did you come up with the idea for the town of Curdle Creek?

 

A: That’s a great question. We moved a lot when I was a kid. One of the places we lived in was a town called Sweetwater. It was a rural town, tucked away in what felt like the middle of nowhere.

 

There was a main road and other paved roads, but there were also dirt roads. There wasn’t a stop light. There was maybe a blinking light, hopefully somewhere before the dangerous bend in the road.

 

There was a creek on the way to Sweetwater. When the weather was just right, there was a mist dancing off the creek, rising up off it like a hot cup of tea. I always thought it would be a perfect place for a murder.

 

In life, there’s nothing sinister about the place. But in my memory of it, well, anything can happen. It felt timeless.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: Thank you for asking! I’m imagining what life might have been like for my grandfather if he had followed his dreams of becoming a musician and what life might have been like for his sister if she had lived long enough to dream. Right now, it seems to want to be a mystery. I’m also writing a picture book for my grandson.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: I host monthly storytelling events in person and online. Depending on where people are in the world, they might want to drop in and listen. I’m on most sites as whyiwritebattlefelton if they’d like to information about an upcoming storytelling event.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb

Q&A with Keith G. McWalter

 

 

 

Keith G. McWalter is the author of the new novel Lifers. He also has written the novel When We Were All Still Alive. He lives in Granville, Ohio, and Sanibel, Florida.

 

Q: What inspired you to write Lifers, and how did you create your cast of characters?

 

A: As I’ve grown older, I’ve naturally become more preoccupied with the idea of living a long and healthy life, and I’ve read widely in nonfiction accounts of longevity science and its practical applications.

 

One nonfiction text that was a huge inspiration was Immortality, Inc., by Chip Walter. Chip is an experienced journalist and former CNN bureau chief, and his group portrait of the billionaires and bio-entrepreneurs who populate Silicon Valley’s super-longevity ecosystem begged for a fictional portrayal.

 

Two things struck me about most discussions of longevity enhancement: increased longevity tends to be viewed as a luxury product for the rich and the few; and no one discusses the economic and social stresses that a radically longer lifespan would impose on individuals, on families, and on society at large.

 

I wrote Lifers to dramatize those unspoken implications, and to examine ageism from a different perspective in which extreme longevity becomes commonplace and there are so many super-aged individuals that they become a problem – and a force – that must be reckoned with.

 

There’s usually one character in each of my books who’s a loose alter ego of me, similar educational background, usually a lawyer, similar personality traits. Other characters I imagine as a function of the plot and their relationship to the “me” character, though I’m always surprised at how they develop traits and backgrounds that I never anticipated.

 

Q: Chip Walter said of the book, “Keith McWalter has turned in a stunner of a sci-fi novel that draws on solid science while weaving a story loaded with twists and compelling characters.” What do you think of that description, and what do you see as the role of science in the novel?

 

A: I’m flattered almost to the point of embarrassment by Chip’s description.

 

It’s true that the science in Lifers is only barely fictional. The background of the longevity breakthrough described in the book is based on actual science, and refers to real people, such as the maverick gerontologist Aubrey de Grey, who was an early trailblazer in conceptualizing aging as a disease that could be cured.

 

So it’s only science fiction in the sense that the science hasn’t quite gotten there yet, but it’s coming remarkably fast. 

 

I do think the characters, and the reader’s empathy with them, are as important as the plot, since I’ve read too many “speculative” novels recently that have fascinating premises but such unsympathetic protagonists that I couldn’t finish reading them. So I’ll gratefully accept “compelling” as a description of the cast of characters in Lifers.

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 can’t overstate the fact that, for me, the act of stringing sentences together in a logical sequence generates ideas as I go, often taking directions I never anticipated until the words are on the page.

 

 I don’t plot or even outline in detail, though for Lifers I had to create a very detailed timeline with main events and each character’s age at various points, and consulted it constantly.

 

But its plot developed very organically as a mash-up of the very diverse, cross-generational cast of characters, each with their own motivations. And once it was done, I went back and changed sequences of scenes and added backstories where more were needed.

 

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

 

A: The one sentiment that I hope would come out of a reading of this book is empathy. It’s really about the consequences of the failure of empathy, both across age groups, and across socioeconomic lines.

 

The young can’t imagine what it’s like to be old, and the old too often forget what it’s like to be young. The very fact that we use categorical terms like “old” and “young” is evidence of that failure.

 

The main dramatic function of the character Taubin in the book is that he loves and learns so much from his grandparents, who raised him, and since he’s a victim of progeria, or fast-aging, he’s forced to experience what it’s like to be old when he’s still chronologically young. 

 

He’s a precursor of the utopian state where everyone is the same age, and age itself becomes a meaningless concept.

 

That’s what I hope readers come away with intellectually: that yes, we can conquer age and maybe even death, but until we also conquer our pernicious ageism, our tendency to pigeonhole people according to their ages and waste their talents and wisdom as they grow older, we will have accomplished very little, and perhaps threatened our very existence.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: Apart from a lot of blog posting on the current political situation (in Mortal Coil), I’m working on a sequel to my first novel and hope to have a draft done by year-end.

 

I’m also beginning to think about a sequel for Lifers that would take off from the book’s conclusion, where a very specific form of time travel – actually, collective memory travel – becomes  possible.

 

I want to depart from the current fabulist trend in which time travel just “is” – it’s an unexamined premise, not a plausible process (I’m thinking of The Ministry of Time and Sea of Tranquility).  

 

The whole trope of time travel has become a rather tedious cliché and needs some new life injected into it. So that’s my next mission: make time travel believable again.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: My goal with Lifers is to attract a broad range of readers, including older readers with interest in advances in longevity enhancement, fans of high-concept sci-fi and more literary, socially critical dys/utopian fiction, and certainly female readers attracted to stories of transformational female empowerment.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb

Q&A with Brian Anderson

 

Photo by Tammy Anderson

 

 

Brian Anderson is the creator of the new middle grade graphic novels Sophie: Jurassic Bark and Sophie: Frankenstein's Hound. His other work includes the comic strip Dog Eat Doug. He lives in North Carolina.

 

Q: What originally inspired you to create your character Sophie, and why did you decide to create these new middle grade novels?

 

A: Sophie was inspired by my real-life dog, and the comic became a documentary with a touch of imagination when my son was born. I always planned to expand beyond the shrinking newspaper strips, and graphic novels were the perfect way to unleash Sophie's adventures and character growth.

 

Plus, I got lots of emails from young readers who'd never even seen a newspaper, but loved Sophie. That was the final push to take the leap into graphic novels.

 

Q: Do you usually work on the text first or the art first--or both simultaneously?

 

A: It's a chaotic dance of both! I'm always scribbling and writing in my notebook, whether I'm waiting for the doctor or to pick up my son from school. You never know when an idea will strike, and I don't want to forget it. Plus, doodling and writing keeps the rust off the creative gears.

Q: As someone who has created comic strips, graphic novels, and picture books, do you have a preference?

 

A: That's a tough one! I love them all, but graphic novels offer the most freedom. I can explore the characters and their world in so much more detail.

 

That said, I let the story dictate the best medium, whether that be a picture book, novel, or comic.

 

Q: What do you hope kids take away from the books?

 

A: I hope they love Sophie as much as I do! These comics keep her spirit alive and are a way for me to share her with others. I also hope they see themselves in her struggles and how she grows from them. And by including my real-life foster dogs, I hope to change the stigma around shelter animals.

 

It’s super gratifying to hear from parents that love reading about Sophie as much as their kids. I have a lot of adult readers from the newspapers so I’ve always tried to make the comics work on many levels. Hearing stories of families reading these comics together fuels my fire to create more.

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: Sophie book 4 is taking shape in my notebook. I also had the opportunity to create and illustrate a steampunk world for the first “Choose Your Own Adventure” Tarot Deck. The deck comes out in September and is perfect for kids.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: Well, there's something I'm not supposed to mention, but let's just say you might hear Sophie's voice in a different medium soon, one that doesn’t require word balloons. Oops, did I say too much?

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb

Oct. 17

 

 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
Oct. 17, 1903: Nathanael West born.

Q&A with Julie Fingersh

 

 

 

Julie Fingersh is the author of the new memoir Stay: A Story of Family, Love, & Other Traumas. Also a journalist, she lives in Marin County, California.

 

Q: What inspired you to write this memoir?

 

A: I’ll be honest with you – it was less about inspiration than it was me trying to write myself out of a private state of mental anguish. I’m pretty sure that’s the origin story of a lot of memoirs!

 

The trick was to then make it into a book that would inspire and enrich and maybe light the way for other who’ve walked similar roads or are in this particular middle place in their lives.

 

But in a larger sense, what inspired me––and what always inspires me––is the meaning of life. As a 14-year-old kid from Kansas City, I walked around with a legal pad interviewing people, pretending I was writing an article for our school newspaper.

 

I wanted to know -- how were we supposed to live life? What was the point? What mattered in the end?  Where was the manual? It just seemed like everyone was following all these rules and I wanted to know where they came from, if they were the right ones, and if I was doing it right.

 

Those questions have guided and inspired and tortured and lifted me all my life. So when I started having kind of a psychic meltdown on the eve of turning 50, the clichéd mid-life crisis moment, I realized there was something larger at work inside of me that was going to suffocate me if I didn’t turn towards it.

 

And once I started writing, life started taking these crazy turns. It was as if life was delivering a series of events that were so intense, so challenging and unexpected, that I had to face them – and I just knew that the only way to figure out my way through it was to write, even though I hadn’t written in so many years, which was another part of the problem. So that’s what I did.

 

It took six years to slog through the writing/publishing odyssey, and to make it into a book that wasn’t just for me, but that was valuable and maybe even a mirror for other people and their own life experiences.

 

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

 

A: Not to sound like a “scary adult Swiftie” as my niece likes to call people like me, but you know how Taylor Swift drops these “Easter eggs” in her music and then you discover what the signs meant later?

 

The title of my book, Stay, is like that. It means something very specific and profound to me, but every reader is going to come to understand it differently based on the lives they lead and the choices they make. The title is a conscious part of my offering to readers. They’ll figure it out as they go.

 

Q: The writer Kelly Corrigan said of the book, “Julie Fingersh’s invaluable and highly readable memoir is asking us who we thought we were, how that squares with who we’ve become and what we might want to do about it. Questions every woman I know is asking right about now.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: I’m honored by it. It’s a sign, I hope, that I’ve managed to address the questions that women have been asking for many years, but especially now.

 

This book is the culmination of my very long and torturous way back to a part of myself I’d left behind three decades ago – that of a writer.  We all have many identities, and like many women who had the privilege of choice when my children were born of whether to keep working, I pretty much relinquished my professional identity to stay home with my children.

 

As the empty nest loomed, that relinquishing of those other parts of myself came home to roost. How was anything going to be as meaningful as raising my kids – as crazy and ambivalent as I often was about being a stay-at-home mom?

 

There’s a whole generation of women now facing the long-term consequences of leaving our creative and/or professional selves behind. Many of us left our jobs and careers because work seemed no more than an indulgence since our salaries would barely cover child care costs.

 

And although we were immensely grateful for the opportunity to be the primary caretaker of our kids,  leaving the workforce came at a personal cost that most of us didn’t appreciate at the time.

 

No matter how educated or how high-powered our careers used to be, since we’d been out of the game for so long, we found that all we were qualified to do was be a nanny or a caretaker of another sort.  

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

 

A: Most of all, I hope they come away with greater clarity of some kind – about themselves, about their choices, about the early patterns or traumas that they may be unconsciously carrying, or even about how they evaluate the next part of their lives.

 

This story seems to bring people into a headspace where they start asking themselves the same questions I grapple with. It seems like some are questions they’ve not asked themselves before.

 

The book is also about how our past often lives inside our present. It’s also about the inner life of families, particularly the complex and profound and enduring impact of the illness of one member on the family system.

 

People seem to connect with the book in personal ways depending on where they are in their lives and who they’ve shaped up to be through their choices and personal history, whether as parents or siblings or creatives or dog owners.

 

What I most hope is that the book will stir up a part of themselves that has been unconscious, because that’s the key to moving differently in your life.  

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I’m mulling over some freelance pitches and ideas potentially for a book of essays or journalistic nonfiction, but mostly, I’m trying to stay present to all the experiences that writing this book is offering me, both for myself and in service to others. 

 

I’ve recently started writing a Substack newsletter called “Take my advice. I’m Not Using It.” It’s a midlife sequel to a column that I wrote when I was in my 20s in New York City. That’s fun and might be the start of a book.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: For one thing, I’m in the middle of creating some way that readers can connect with one another after reading the so they have a place to process it all.

 

Lots is being stirred up for people – parents, siblings, empty nesters, family members of struggling loved ones. So people should check my website for details on that, but I’m thinking of making a private Facebook page for Stay for a kind of ongoing reader discussion.

 

Second thing is, people always ask, so what’s your book about? Even after all this time, I still find it hard to sum up in a two-liner.

 

So let me just say this: Stay is about a younger sister trying to help her brother, as a midlife woman trying to reconcile the primal desire to emotionally nurture others – especially when they struggle––with the tiny voice inside all of us self-actualization.

 

The story is told from a number of perspectives: a parent of a young adult on the cusp of independence, a person in a society that worships at the altar of productivity, a wife, a daughter of aging parents, someone trying to work their way through what I called the Project Grief of losing someone––see how that’s more than two sentences? The book is about all of it. Everything all at once.

 

And then there’s the meta of it, which I am gratified to see is finding a lot of resonance for others. It’s about our willingness to live consciously in a world of distraction. It’s about being willing to ask ourselves the biggest questions, the choices life asks us to make. And how those choices are often guided the blueprint of our past.

 

And how those early experiences with our siblings and parents often cast our futures and relationships and patterns, often without our ever realizing it.

 

The most gratifying part of this tortuous journey has been hearing from people that they fall into the grips of this very personal story about someone else, and unexpectedly find themselves face-to-face with their own lives and identities and choices and the possibilities that await them.

 

As my great aunt Etty used to say, we only come this way once. But if you do it right, once is enough! I hope this book will help people get closer to what that means for them.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb

Q&A with Susen Edwards

 

 

Susen Edwards is the author of the new novel Lookin' for Love. Her other books include the novel What a Trip. She lives in Middlesex, New Jersey.

 

Q: Lookin’ for Love was inspired by a true story--why did you decide to write this novel?

 

A: When I met “Ava” in 2018 she told me bits and pieces of her life: her marriages, her children, her addiction and recovery, and her prison time in Kenya. She expressed interest in me writing her story but dredging up her past became too painful for her, and we put a halt to the project.

 

Fast forward to 2021 when our conversations began once again. Over the next year Ava’s life unfolded. She spoke of her challenges, heartbreaks, and her search for love and acceptance.

 

Ava’s courage, determination, and salvation will serve as an inspiration not only to women struggling with addiction and loss, but to all women.

 

Q: The writer Ashley E. Sweeney said of the book, “Recovering addicts and members of faith-based recovery programs will find a familiar--yet wholly original--protagonist to cry with and ultimately cheer for.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: Ava’s story is unique; yet her struggle with abuse, rejection, and substances will be familiar to many. Lookin’ for Love travels back to the go-go bars of the 1970s; to the heart of South Florida’s drug trade; to a Kenyan prison; and finally, the American Southwest.

 

Through it all she experiences tragedies and joys; and, ultimately, learns the power of forgiveness, faith, and love through recovery.

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

 

A: In addition to weekly interviews with Ava, I did extensive research into Kenya’s countryside, women’s prisons in Kenya, the South Florida drug trade of the 1970s and early 1980s, the “go-go” bar scene of the 1970s, and today’s faith-based communities.

 

In addition to my internet research, I read more than 50 newspaper and magazine articles, and The Underground Empire by James Mills (1986).

 

What surprised me the most in my research was learning that not all high-profile drug dealers of the time were violent and mercenary. Fortunately for Ava, she connected with a group of fun-loving hippies with good business acumen. Our interviews and my research corroborated their non-violent approach to international drug smuggling.

 

Ava’s tale of physical and sexual abuse reminded me that women were considered second-class citizens during the 1960s. As Ava says in the novel: “The 1960s were a time of change, social unrest, and women’s liberation. All of that was slow to reach me. Tom [her first husband] had friends on the police force. Even if he hadn’t, I couldn’t file a complaint. Women were always at fault. Our bruises were self-inflicted or justified.”

 

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

 

A: Lookin’ for Love is a story of one woman’s search for love but it’s so much more. At a time when a staggering number of women in the United States are struggling with addiction, loss, and maintaining their basic human rights, this book provides a realistic and uplifting beacon of hope.

 

Ava’s message is to never give up.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I recently finished the first draft of a sequel to my first novel, What a Trip, and am immersed in the never-ending world of editing (with which I have a love/hate relationship!).

 

I’m also in the process of interviewing a veteran financial advisor, researching his amazing stories, and beginning to write his memoir.

 

Q: Anything else we should know? 

 

A: I’ve been writing memoir and fiction for decades but turning a memoir into a novel has been uniquely challenging. It’s much more than changing names and places. It’s respecting the integrity of my characters and the story, adding and deleting details, while keeping the story intact.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Susen Edwards.

Q&A with Steve Putnam

 

 

 

Steve Putnam is the author of the new novel The Academy of Reality.

 

Q: What inspired you to write The Academy of Reality?

 

A: Living in the ancestral shadows of farmers, builders, and icemen, I worked as a mechanic and carpenter. I have a couple of college degrees; I sometimes thought of myself as a writer.

 

As a copier tech, I ended up guest-starring in the corporate florescence of a large life insurance company. The small independently owned company I worked for landed a million-dollar-plus deal with the insurance people. I took the assignment as an onsite tech.

 

My employer warned me to control my strange sense of humor; I thought it best not to tell him that his strange ways of doing business were inspiring my offbeat sense of humor.

 

The insurance company’s office services director, manager, and supervisor met with my people from our small regional outfit to explain their rules.

 

Having fired one of their employees for sexual harassment made embarrassing news headlines; they were careful to explain that the behavior was unacceptable, not that that was much of a surprise. They didn’t include any other behaviors that I should avoid.

 

They did mention that the Office Services and IT workers might be out to get me. My job description as a tech was too obvious to mention. I walked out with the same belief I had walked in with. I was the fixer of machines.

 

Working in a large corporate setting, a factory farm of four thousand humans, you might not expect to feel lonely. In time, the office services people welcomed me at the tech table in the dining commons. The tech that I displaced, and I became friends. I did my job.

 

When the printer fleet was up and running, I hid out in my basement shop and drafted The Academy of Reality. Corporate people never suspected they were funding a novel about the curious ways of big business.

 

I only attended routine tech meetings at our home office. At my first meeting, the service department withheld coffee from the techs, as punishment for spending too much on service parts.

 

Our company president liked to showboat himself on Presidents Day, the national holiday that supposedly celebrates, Lincoln, Washington, and others. He once drove into a hotel dining room on an amusement park sit-on train. Somehow the act was supposed to promote the idea that there would be lots of training in the coming year.  

 

At another meeting, he destroyed vintage vinyl records to emphasize company sales records recently broken. A few salespeople loved the excitement. The techs, not so much. Afterward, I remember one of the techs releasing the latest and greatest sales propaganda on Route 91, one loose-leaf page at a time.

 

How could I not write Academy of Reality?

Q: How did you create your characters Sid and Mia?

 

A: In ways, Sid is somewhat autobiographical. I’m somewhat cynical; I share his distrust of the corporate system. To his credit, he hides his attitude better than I do. He’s a good employee; he does his job. He distrusts his superiors who use empty promises as motivators.

 

I was working in a brick-and-mortar wonderland full of strangers, getting politically inspired directives that had nothing to do with my job description.

 

I was single when writing the first Academy of Reality draft. Maybe the fictitious Mia was somehow filling a void in my life. She’s a funky lady; I like her carefree, spontaneous performance art. Maybe she was my imaginary friend, the kind of friend a lonely kid might have.

 

Q: How would you describe the dynamic between Sid and Mia?

 

A: Sid and Mia play off each other. Sid is fascinated with Mia’s performance art. As narrator and machine tech, Sid does his work, most of it routine. They live together in a capsule that Sid suspended from his condo’s ceiling.

 

Mia needs a solar-powered jump rope for the pigeon, Penguin Four; Sid builds it. Mia needs a turntable for the Academy’s Thanksgiving pigeon sacrifice, Sid makes one using army surplus parts

 

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

 

A: Academy of Reality: The lofty word Academy makes the setting sound respectable. The word Reality is more honest but doesn’t divulge what it is that makes the Academy real. The truth, it provides electronic therapy for clients afraid of living and life insurance for those afraid of dying.

 

Q: The writer Roger King said of the book, “Immediately distinctive writing with a deadpan, linguistically inventive voice that has a dark view of the world.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: I take Roger’s words as a compliment. Sid Sidney is blunt: Obviously, he’s the one with a dark point of view when he asks, “What kind of financial asylum did the founders think they were founding? Casino or insurance business?” In a deadpan voice, he describes absurd events as if they are commonplace.

 

I think that my “linguistically inventive” voice may come from an education mixed with a blue-collar background. My dark view also allows Academy characters to speak with inventive, deceptive voices, speaking with self-serving positivity.

 

My dark view of the world? I tried to make the dark bright. In their respective blurbs, Roger King described my humor as “deadpan”; Jay Neugeboren called it a “pointed, poignant screwball comedy”; Jacob Appel wrote, “A madcap novel that skewers the Orwellian technocracy…”

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I’m between things. I have a few short stories submitted that might deserve another look before I resubmit them. I have a small collection of published shorts to put together for an anthology. I might also look at Loose Horse Lost, a novel that’s been out looking for a home.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb