Q&A with Lori Wilde

  

 

 

Lori Wilde is the author of the new novel Our Extraordinary Summer. Her many other books include The Summer That Shaped Us. She is also a registered nurse and a yoga instructor, and she lives in Texas.

 

Q: What inspired you to write Our Extraordinary Summer?

 

A: The idea started with a question I couldn’t shake: What if healing had a place? Not a perfect place, but one that held space for grief, for second chances, for all the things we carry but don’t always know how to set down. Hobby Island was my answer to that question, and Our Extraordinary Summer grew from there.

 

Q: How did you create your characters Calista and Athena, and how would you describe the dynamic between them?

 

A: Calista and Athena come from the same past, but they’ve made very different choices about what to do with it. One runs. One stays. One questions. One believes. That push and pull is at the heart of their relationship.

 

Q: What is the relationship between this novel and your novel The Summer That Shaped Us?

 

A: Both novels are rooted in Hobby Island. It’s the same place, but it becomes something different depending on who arrives there and what they’re carrying. If The Summer That Shaped Us is about the moments that define us, Our Extraordinary Summer is about what comes after—and whether healing is possible when you finally stop running.

 

Q: The novel is set on an island in the Gulf of Mexico--how important is setting to you in your writing?

 

A: Setting is incredibly important to me, because I don’t see it as just a backdrop, I see it as part of the story itself. Hobby Island isn’t just where the novel takes place, it shapes what the characters are willing to face, and what they’re finally ready to let go of. The isolation, the beauty, the quiet… it all creates space for transformation.

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I’m working on new stories that expand on the kind of emotionally layered, place-centered storytelling I love—stories about healing, second chances, and the moments that change us. I’m excited about where these projects are heading and the new directions they’re opening up.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: If there’s one thing I hope readers take with them, it’s the sense that healing doesn’t have to be perfect to be real. Sometimes it looks quiet, sometimes it looks unexpected, and sometimes it begins in the last place you thought to look.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Lori Wilde.