Q&A with Keely Parrack

 

 

 

 

Keely Parrack is the author of the young adult novel 10 Hours to Go. Her other books include the YA novel Don't Let In the Cold. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

 

Q: What inspired you to write 10 Hours to Go, and how did you create your characters Lily, Natasha, and Elke?

 

A: I knew I wanted to write a friendship story as they’ve always intrigued me. And friendships change so much from grade school to middle school and beyond. The friends you were so close to 

can seem like a strangers a few years later. And it can hurt so much when a friend suddenly drops you!

 

I also wanted to explore power dynamics, especially when three people are involved. So that was my start!

 

Lily revealed herself and her home struggles pretty quickly as I was drafting. Elke came next and finally Natasha, who I know is harder to love, but I wanted them all to be well rounded and understandable, and have connections that show how they’d all let each other down at various points. All morals to me are shades of grey!

 

Once I find the voices, they all start taking to each other in my head, which is also when the characters become real!

 

Q: Why did you decide to set the novel amidst West Coast wildfires?

 

A: The summer before I started writing this there had been a dry lightning storm in the San Francisco Bay Area, where I live. It started off being really dramatic and amazing but then went on so long, and started hundreds of fires. The sky turned blood orange - it was eerie and surreal and very scary!

 

The effect of climate change can be seen everywhere. A wild fire had completely destroyed the city of Paradise a few years before, and it’s such a terrifyingly new reality in our lives.

 

I wanted that to be the elemental danger Lily, Natasha, and Elke faced, on top of their own petty but dangerous revenge plans. 

 

I was also traveling up and down the 10 hours between Portland and the Bay Area a lot while I was writing and revising this book and often saw the wildfire smoke, delays, and damage, so it was a perfect place to get Lily, Elke, and Natasha lost!

 

I always want to make situations as bad as possible for my characters and I knew how bad this could get! And giving any kind of potentially lifesaving advice was a bonus! 

 

And now a year after the book came out - to see L.A. burning! It’s so awful seeing the horrific damage wildfires can bring not only in forest and rural towns but right into the heart of our cities. 

 

Q: The writer Stacey Lee called the book a “thrilling ride of a novel with friendship at its burnt core.” What do you think of that description, and how would you describe the dynamics among the three friends (or ex-friends)?

 

A: I loved Stacey’s description so much. She totally nailed it! That feeling of besties forever and then betrayal and Lily not realizing or accepting that maybe she was at least partially to blame, and how everyone remembers the same situation slightly differently!

 

Intense is how I would describe their relationship with each other, even after all this time. I mean Lily did get Elke expelled, without ever accepting any blame herself! (Trying not to give spoilers here!) So “burnt” core seems really apt.

 

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

 

A: I knew how the story would end from the start. When I play with a new idea, I normally have some kind of vision of the beginning, the main character and the setting, and their initial problem. It’s literally like a movie playing out in my mind. 

 

So for Lily it was how to get back home from the college she was visiting, after wildfires had stopped the Amtrak she was supposed to take.

 

I normally have a vision for the end as well, so I knew (vague here because spoilers!) how I wanted their relationships to be at the end.

 

But I didn’t know how the middle was going to pan out. So the middle was where I had to work hardest to develop and revise the story to make it all come together.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I am working on a new YA - I am so excited about it I don’t want to give too much away. But it’s a speculative horror, set in San Francisco, with a Mulder and Scully type, strangers to lovers B plot!

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: For some reason both my YA thrillers have dogs in them! Ottis was planned in Don’t Let In the Cold from the start and literally saves them as he’s a St. Bernard and that’s his job!

 

I didn’t plan to add a dog to 10 Hours to Go, but saw Snowdrop limping along the road to them (again like a movie in my mind) and just had to include her! I don't have a dog, but I love my friend’s dogs. Maybe that’s why they appear in my books! 

 

Both books are in paperback, ebook and audio. 10 Hours to Go is a JLG selection. My website is keelyparrack.com and I’m @keelyinkster on Insta and Threads.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb