Q&A with Kathy Curto

  

Photo by Elena Mudd

 

Kathy Curto is the editor of the new anthology What Are You Waiting For?. She also has written the book Not for Nothing. She teaches at Sarah Lawrence College/The Writing Institute and Montclair State University, and she lives in the Hudson Valley.

 

Q: You wrote that this anthology about waiting was inspired by your own grief--can you say more about this?

 

A: There is no doubt that grief has a hand in this. It has a hand in a lot of what I write, even if that is not spelled out clearly or obvious in whatever I’ve tossed out onto a page in any particular moment.

 

My mother’s death was sudden. She was in my home when she suffered a massive aneurysm. I found her on the floor, close to the unconscious state she eventually slipped into and never came out of. Her heart stopped nine days later. Mine shattered. It was 1998. I was 31.

 

Working on this book, contemplating my longing for her, my waiting for her to come back, my guilt and my sometimes-fixation on living with uncertainty, has been a way to explore what to do with that shattering, with those broken pieces.

 

As well, reflecting on the writing of my first book and what surfaced after it was out in the world for a few years also inspired curiosity around waiting.

 

Several of the chapters in that book have “waiting” in the title and after sitting with that full body of work once it was published and I was speaking to groups, readers, and students about it, I had a bit of an epiphany. For all sorts of reasons, waiting was a big part of my girlhood. And it permeated my stories.

 

Two other realities reinforced my interest in this topic, too. Covid—we all waited and waited and waited, right? And, finally, motherhood. I very briefly reference Ocean Vuong’s Time Is a Mother in this anthology, mostly because the title is striking to me and distills some of the complexities that accompany mothering: longing, wanting, waiting. And then letting go.

 

Q: How did you choose the essays to include in the anthology?

 

A: This question should yield a straightforward, cut-and-dried reply but…no. I knew what I wanted and had to figure out how to get there.

 

The shortest answer is this: I chose by inviting people whose work had moved me somewhere along the way. But this was an evolving process because of what I was striving for: a multi-genre collection that offered a wide range of voices, forms, shapes and tones.

 

My hope is to see the evolving continue so that I can invite more people to the table around this topic. (I am researching how to create a digital presence so the book is the kickoff to a continued conversation about waiting.)  

 

Q: The writer Sari Botton said of the book, “What Are You Waiting For? is my platonic ideal of a literary anthology--a diverse chorus of voices, in a variety of genres, on a most relatable theme. Who among us hasn’t confronted the difficulty of waiting for what we know--or hope--is coming?” What do you think of that assessment?

 

A: When Sari sent me the blurb I recall thinking, She got it! She noticed the “variety” in the selections and, at the same time, recognized how human and routine this practice of waiting is, no matter who you are.

 

I admire Sari’s writing and the way she harnesses her talents as an editor as well as a connector of people and ideas. Plus, she has a great sense of humor! Having her in this book’s circle means a lot to me.

 

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

 

A: I am still feeling the impact and will for a long time to come. Working on this, with this particular group of writers and artists, reminds me of what art, expression, and collective wondering can do, the way it can coalesce and lead to something new, something that’s never been before and will never be exactly that again.

 

I am learning more every day about the precious intimacy between writers and editors. I now think in fresh ways now about how various mediums of art can speak to each other and to the people who are kind enough to take it all in.

 

Somewhat unexpectedly, this project made me think about my work as a community organizer. (I have an MSW and have worked as a community-based social worker.) On some days, I was doing a lot of that, helping to organize a group with a common goal in mind.

 

Finally, my pull to letter-writing intensified. Much of the way I communicated with the contributors was through letters (ones attached to emails.) As of this interview, I’ve written 17 to them!

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I am working on figuring out, day by day, the best way to offer this book to others. As we know, these days, there are many ways to publish, many ways to get stories into the world.

 

I want to share this experience not only with readers but also with the contributors, as well. We have some events lined up for summer and fall (virtual and in-person) that I look forward to. I would love to see this book in classrooms and libraries, so I hope we can find some time to visit those spaces as well.

 

I also want this “waiting conversation” to continue and I’m educating myself on ways to create a digital space so more writers and artists can be read and heard.

 

My work as a writing teacher affords me the chance to meet people who have fascinating stories to share, are drawn to writing and deserve to be read and heard. I’d love for this book to be a step in a new direction, a new collective.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: I was on the phone the other day with one of our contributors who is planning a book event in her community. (A very gracious move on her part, by the way.) We talked a bit about the start of this project.

 

I told her that at the seed planting stage, I knew I wanted to explore and learn more about waiting—and all the things we wait for as human beings—and I also knew I did not want to do it alone. I was hungry for connection and a wider understanding of this.

 

I was curious about how this very common, very everyday, and very routine act was understood and experienced by others. And what would happen if they were asked to make something artistic with that answer. It’s been three years and four months since the first letter I sent to them. And now we have a book.

 

It was so worth the wait.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb

Q&A with Catherine Marshall-Smith

  

 

 

Catherine Marshall-Smith is the author of the new novel The Resilience of Red Thread. She also has written the novel American Family. She is a former English teacher, and she lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. 

 

Q: What inspired you to write The Resilience of Red Thread, and how did you create your character Emily?

 

A: It was a circuitous journey to Emily. Jake, the abuser, was based on an exterminator I called to our house to kill a rat. I originally named him Roy the Rat Catcher. He had a traumatic childhood, pockmarked by abuse and neglect.

 

I wanted him to have someone to love and so I created Emily and it turned out she had childhood trauma too. So, I wanted to know if two people with childhood trauma could love healthfully and wholesomely. I began my research and every psychotherapist and social worker said, “Nope, not gonna happen.” 

 

I grieved for my novel and the bitter world that made it impossible and then I deleted it. I like to think I wrote a stronger book, one that’s grounded in reality.

 

Every story I’ve encountered on domestic violence has a woman at the center who is pure as snow. I listened to stories of women who were not. They had substance abuse and sex addiction. One woman broke my heart when she said, “I felt I deserved the abuse because I was a sloppy drunk.”

 

I intentionally made Emily an alcoholic so people would have to see her flawed and making mistakes. I wanted them to NOT look away but still feel empathy for her.

 

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

 

A: I was at a fundraiser for Next Door Solutions, a support organization for survivors of DV in San Jose, California. We were given a quilt tote bag that had a spool of red thread with a note tied to it that said, “It is said that we are connected by a red thread to someone who needs our help or someone who can help us.”

 

I had written several drafts of what became Resilience and I said to myself, This is my title. Resilience emerged from my own life and I wear it on my wrist now. Emily never gave up hope that she could get herself and [her daughter] Jenna free, but fear is crippling.

 

Q: How would you describe the dynamic between Emily and Jake?

 

A: Desperate and sick. Jake needed to be needed and had to keep Emily close because she allowed him to define himself as “head of household.” Emily thought he was rescuing her.

 

In the end, she doesn’t need rescuing. How she gets there is the story. The reader gets to go on the journey with her.

 

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 knew she would escape but beyond that I had several different outcomes.

 

I wanted the reader to see her resolve her friction with her mother. I thought Hannah was well motivated, but Emily couldn’t see that and thought her mother was cruel and selfish. I wanted the reader to see Emily stop fighting with her mother, come to understand her, and forgive her.

 

My editor felt it muddied the ending so I cut it. I may publish it as a short story.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: Thanks for asking. I am writing a novel entitled Just Bloom Blume, which is a delightful romp through embezzlement in a significant venture capital company in Silicon Valley.

 

The main character is Eden Blume, a freshly graduated philosophy major from UC Berkeley. She owes $26,000 in student debt and agrees to an interview at a prestigious venture capital company that has started successful companies like Uber and more recently, Anthropic and other AI companies.

 

She is stunned to find herself interviewing with the principal founding member of the company. She suppresses laughter during the interview because she is completely unqualified for the job and is stunned when he offers her a job with a six-figure income.

 

It would be foolish to turn it down so she takes it, only to find out she’s been hired not to see the widespread embezzlement that is rife in the company. They hired her because they felt she would be too naïve to figure it out.

 

Instead, because she’s practiced in analytical thinking, she sees the pattern quickly and since she’s steeped in ethics, she can’t look the other way. So, with no credibility, she blows the whistle to the FBI and finds powerful people are willing to commit murder to protect their ROI.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: If I live long enough, I have a fourth book mapped out and written as Elizabeth Strout did in Olive Kitteridge, a series of short stories of people who meet in a vegan restaurant at L.A.’s gay pride parade and find their lives entangled when a protester strikes one of them with a sign.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb 

July 21

 

 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
July 21, 1899: Ernest Hemingway born.

Q&A with Emma Otheguy

  

 

 

Emma Otheguy is the author of the new middle grade novel Adventure in the City of Stories. It's a companion to her novel Cousins in the Time of Magic.  

 

Q: Do you think your characters Jorge, Camila, and Siggy have changed at all from the first book to this new one?

 

A: I think Camila has changed the most–she’s had some real experience with leadership and risk-taking that makes her more confident (and calm) in this adventure.

 

Q: What inspired the plot of Adventure in the City of Stories?

 

A: I knew from the beginning that the book would culminate with Gabriela Mistral visiting Pura Belpré’s library (something that really happened, although I heavily fictionalized the details), but the action plot was driven by what I thought would be fun and exciting for kids: missing artifacts, a race through the city, and a little bit of magic.

 

Q: As you noted, the novel includes historical figures—how did you research their lives, and did you learn anything especially surprising?

 

A: I read a few biographies about each of the historical figures in the book. What interested me the most was how they all interacted with one another.

 

Gabriela Mistral is a Chilean poet rarely associated with Puerto Rican librarian Pura Belpré, but they worked not far from one another (Mistral at Barnard, Belpré at New York Public Library branches in Harlem), and Mistral visited Belpré’s library at least once.

 

Arturo Schomburg, who founded the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, not only knew Pura Belpré, he also knew José Martí, the Cuban independence leader who was the subject of my first book.

 

Anne Carroll Moore, the librarian who established the Children’s Division at the New York Public Library, hired and mentored Pura Belpré, whose work in turn informed children’s librarianship around the country. They were all connected!

 

Q: In the first novel, your characters traveled to 1862 and in this novel they’re in 1930—how would you compare the two time periods?

 

A: I had a lot of fun writing about 1930 because it is much more familiar. The New York City skyline looked different than it does now, of course, but major landmarks like the Empire State Building were already being built. Simply put, the world in 1862 was much more different and required much more intensive research to write about.

 

It also helped that I was writing about New York City, where I live, for this book–it was very easy to hop over to the New York Public Library for research, and many of the places I was writing about still exist. In the previous book I also visited the landmarks in person, but it took a lot more time to travel to Virginia and Puebla, Mexico.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I’m working on a contemporary novel, which is an interesting change from time travel, but still for middle-grade readers. It will be a while before that book is finished and ready to share with readers!

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: I’ll be sharing more upcoming events and New York City history to celebrate Adventure in the City of Stories. The best way to stay tuned is through my newsletter! 

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Emma Otheguy. 

July 20

 

 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
July 20, 1933: Cormac McCarthy born.

Q&A with J. Chad Mitchell

  

J. Chad Mitchell is the author of the new book Change Your Game: Empowering Young Leaders to Ditch Doubt, Find Their Voice, and Impact the World. He is also a lawyer, and he lives in Richland, Washington.

 

Q: What inspired you to write Change Your Game?

 

A: Kids!  

 

For 30+ years, I’ve worked with young people as a coach, teacher, mentor, brother, father, and community leader. I saw the impact teens had on their friends. I saw youngsters welcome the new kid. I watched youth transform team culture. I saw simple conversations change the trajectory of someone’s life; young people influencing each other in ways adults can’t.

 

I realized the leadership book I wanted young people to have, and wished I had had, didn’t exist. So, I wrote it.

 

A key message of Change Your Game: Hope is power. When young people know someone believes in them, they’re capable of extraordinary things. 

 

I wrote this book because young people don’t have to wait to lead. They already have great influence with their peers. My hope is that they use it, and wield it with integrity, courage, and kindness.

 

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

 

A: Lots of reps. I originally titled it Youth. Truth. And leadership. Eventually, based on lots of feedback, I shifted to something more descriptive and outcome-oriented. The full title reflects what I hope happens after someone explores the book: Change Your Game: Empowering Young Leaders to Ditch Doubt, Find Their Voice, and Impact the World.

 

When people hear “change your game,” they often think about sports, which certainly influenced me. But I’m talking about something much bigger than athletics. We all have patterns of thinking, habits, and ways of treating other people – our game, our vibe, our leadership. When we change, we change the direction of our lives.

 

One of the book’s central ideas is that leadership begins by leading yourself. Before we can positively influence others, we have to examine our own choices, habits, integrity, and attitudes. That’s changing your game. As we improve ourselves, we improve how we influence our friends and, ultimately, our “enemies.”  

 

The title is also intentionally hopeful. I don’t believe young people are stuck. I don’t believe mistakes define them. Every day gives us another opportunity to make a different choice, become a better listener, show more empathy, or encourage someone who needs a lift.

 

Q: How would you define leadership as it relates to young people?

 

A: Leadership is using your influence to help others.

 

Research and experience tell us that young people have enormous influence over one another. Teenagers often listen to their friends long before they’ll listen to adults. This is an underutilized resource, which creates opportunity.  

 

Young people influence others every day. The question is not whether they’re leading. It’s what direction they’re leading others and how do we make them aware of their power to influence others for good.

 

A smile. Including someone who feels left out. Encouraging someone who is dragging. 

 

The world doesn’t just need future leaders. It needs young people who recognize they’re already leading, and who choose to use that influence for good.

 

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

 

A: More than anything, I hope readers close the book believing what they do matters.

 

Young people hear enough voices telling them what they can’t do. I wanted this book to be one voice reminding them what they can do.

 

I also hope they understand that leadership isn’t something you simply read about. That’s why I encourage readers to write in the book, highlight it, argue with it, answer questions, complete challenges, and do leadership.

 

Reading about leadership doesn’t make someone a leader any more than reading about Bulgarian split squats makes your legs stronger. Do the work.

 

One of my favorite stories from the book captures this perfectly. When my daughter Chloe arrived at college, she was overwhelmed and wondering if she’d made a mistake moving across the country. A young woman named Lauren recognized her, smiled, welcomed her, and invited her to sit with them for lunch.

 

Years later, I thanked Lauren for what she’d done. She didn’t even remember it. For Chloe, though, that simple act changed everything.

 

That’s what I hope readers remember. Your small act of kindness may be someone’s spark of hope.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: High school lacrosse season just finished up, so I am turning back to getting Change Your Game into the hands of as many young people and their mentors as possible.

 

I’m speaking with schools, youth organizations, coaches, educators, and parents, because I believe leadership development shouldn’t begin after graduation. It should begin while young people are discovering who they are and have great influence with their peers.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: This is a book about people and relationships.

 

It’s about helping young people discover who they are, that they matter, that their choices matter, and that they have power to make someone else’s life better. Leadership is these beliefs in action. 

 

Despite the criticism today’s young people sometimes receive, I have enormous confidence in them. I see compassion. I see courage. I see creativity. I see young people who genuinely want to make the world better.

 

I believe one encouraging teenager can influence a few. Those few can influence many more. That’s how our schools, neighborhoods, and communities become stronger. That’s how the world changes.

 

That’s why I remain incredibly hopeful.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb 

Q&A with Steve Reiner

  

 

 

Steve Reiner is the author of the new book Business Changes Fast, People Change Slow: A Leadership Guide to Accelerating Organizational Change and Building Competitive Advantage. He also has written the book Leaders Created. He has worked in the corporate world for more than 20 years. 

 

Q: What inspired you to write Business Changes Fast, People Change Slow?

 

A: After I wrote my first book, Leaders Created, I always had this thought about how critical leading change is. Over the years in business, reading, listening, and talking to people, I found that leaders talk about how important change is, but few have a process for leading it.

 

The suffering is twofold. The people being asked to change and the business. In most cases they are left to figure it out on their own which slows down adoption. That’s where the business suffers. The longer it takes for the change to be realized, the risk increases for failure.

 

Business is about survival. You don’t win in business. We all know many companies that were #1 at one time that don’t exist today. You lose in business when you shut down.

 

Implementing change has some benefits to the company. If there is no benefit someone should ask why this change is happening. It’s a competitive advantage to lead change faster.

 

You will never eliminate the gap between the rate business is changing and people change. Business has no feelings or opinions, and a new threat is always around the corner. This is all while people stand still and wonder what’s happening.

 

The goal with leading change is to shrink the gap. That’s where the Stamina Change Framework comes in. The four-part framework in the book gives leaders who don’t have a process to follow.

Q: What are some of the most common perceptions and misconceptions about change in the business world?

 

A: One of the biggest misconceptions is that people don’t like change. I call this the Leaders Excuse. Leaders blame failed change initiative on people instead of looking at their own process for leading the change.

 

People change all the time. We just do it on our own terms. Change in business is asking people to change on a different timeline and that’s the rub. Leading change is a verb requiring action. That’s where leaders need to better understand what action is needed.

 

I heard for years how important change is. At some point I said okay, I get how important it is, now what? That’s where I was looking for more from leadership, then realized it just wasn’t there. That’s why I created the Stamina Change Framework.  

Q: How did your own business experience influence your writing of this book?

 

A: From my own experience, talking with others, reading and listening to a lot on leadership, it was clear the world needed a framework. I realized leaders didn’t understand the change as well as the people they were asking to change. It’s hard to lead something you don’t understand; that’s why step 1 is Leaders Learn First.

 

People need a lot more communication than they usually receive. Many companies send an email on Friday that something is changing Monday.

 

It’s not that people don’t like change, they don’t like surprises that disrupt the way they get their job done. We need advance notice to prepare ourselves and understand why the change is happening. That’s why step 2 is Leaders Communicate.

 

Leaders should understand the change so well they can teach the class. Not just kickoff the training and leave the room but staying up front leading the training. That’s why step 3 is Leaders Host the Training.

 

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

A: One of the biggest things I want readers to take away is that people need a lot more support, care, and attention to change. People do change; it just takes a lot longer than we hope.

 

That’s why step 4 is Leaders Reinforce for a Very Long Time. Leaders need to stay engaged in the change long after the initial training. Most move on way too soon and that’s why it’s called the Stamina Change Framework.

 

Leaders need to have the stamina to stick with it well after they think. People need the time and leaders need to support them along the way. This can be in terms of months or years. There is change from seven years ago we are still reinforcing.  

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: Right now, I’m sharing the message and love connecting with others who are on a similar path learning about leading people and change.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: Connect on LinkedIn Steve Reiner | LinkedIn to follow for more. I love getting offline and talking to people.  

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb 

Q&A with Tara Lynn Masih

  

 

 

Tara Lynn Masih is the author of the new novel The Silent Women. Her other books include How We Disappear. She lives in Plymouth, Massachusetts. 

 

Q: What inspired you to write The Silent Women?

 

A: I was in Andover, Massachusetts, doing research in the historical society’s archives when I got into a discussion with Marilyn Hemmers, the director at the time. She told me about June Carmichael, a parachute rigger in WWII who’d lived in Andover. I dropped the research I was doing and turned to researching June’s volunteer work as a “silkworm.”

 

Eventually, I came across a book by Denise Kiernan, The Atomic City Girls, and in it found the story of Colleen Black, who worked in K-25. The vision of a young woman climbing over pipes—which held dangerous gases and were so gigantic she needed a ladder to get to the top—stuck in my mind.

 

She became the lead character in The Silent Women, and the rigger became one of her friends. All the stories I read were inspiring, but Colleen’s seemed unique to me.

 

Q: How did you research the book, and what did you learn that especially surprised you?

 

A: Mostly, I read. I read many nonfiction books on the subject, ranging from women’s roles in the armed forces and in the Manhattan Project, especially at Oak Ridge. I had to steep myself in the events of WWII, events that occurred in the States rather than abroad, as I had to do with my previous novel.

 

Besides memoirs and history books, the local newspapers were a huge resource. For instance, in St. Augustine, the paper came out daily during the war years. I actually scanned two years’ worth of dailies! It was exhaustive research, but doing so helped me find details I could bring to the story that I think make it unique.

 

Hmmm, what surprised me? I was unaware that the Italian population was also targeted and even interred as possible enemies of the state while we were at war with Italy; I was surprised at the enormity of the Manhattan Project and how many different locations it had and how monumental the task must have been to plan it, build it, and execute it so quickly in the race toward the atom bomb; I was also surprised at how many minority populations contributed to the Project.

 

Q: The writer Janet Rich Edwards said of the book, “It does for WWII what The Women did for Vietnam.” What do you think of this comparison to Kristin Hannah’s Vietnam novel?

 

A: Oh gosh, I was over the moon when Janet sent her comments. What more could I ask for? Does my book truly compare to Hannah’s? If not in accomplishment, then certainly, I hope, in the research and scope of the book in terms of contributions women made and the fall out of their stressful and sometimes even tragic roles. I hope my book mirrors some of the same themes.

 

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

 

A: The original title was Only the Bittersweet. No, actually, it was Song Holloway. After writing the book, I settled on the bittersweet title as there is something about that in the book that readers will have to discover for themselves.

 

The publisher changed it to The Silent Women to better showcase the content. We all loved the original one, but it didn’t give any indication of what was happening in the book, during those times. I think they made the right call. I love being able to bring those women to life for new generations and to showcase their amazing contributions and sacrifices.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I haven’t started a new project yet. Historical fiction takes a lot of time to promote as there is way more preparation for talks and slideshows and such. Right now, I’m solely in promo mode. Something is percolating but on the farthest burner away from me.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: The book spans different locations and is also set during pre- and post-WWII. So you’ll get a sense of what it was like to live in the US during the early years and post years as well. The citizens of that time are called the “Great Generation,” and I hope this book shines a light on where that accolade came from.

 

Know that almost everything that happens in this book is based on historical facts. Truth can be more remarkable than fiction, for sure!

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Tara Lynn Masih. 

Q&A with Laura Kalpakian

  

 

 

 

Laura Kalpakian is the author of the new book Undesirable: The Vietnam War and a Father's Battle for Justice. Her many other books include Memory into Memoir. She lives in the Pacific Northwest. 

 

Q: What inspired you to write this new book about your brother’s Vietnam service and your father’s efforts to change his “undesirable” military discharge to “honorable”?

 

A: I was not inspired to write this book; I was compelled to after I discovered in a safe in my basement the huge cache of letters and documents on which I have based Undesirable. I had no idea they existed.

 

I came upon them in the fall of 2023 when my mom, age 101, was in the last throes of her life in a nursing home. Not until February 2024 could I unearth them and bring them up and begin to read and reread, to ponder and organize what all this meant. The pain, the pathos, the sheer monumental effort that my father invested meant it had to be a book.

 

Q: How much of this history did you know before writing the book, and how did you research it? What did you learn that especially surprised you? 

 

A: I knew very little of this history. I was not living in Southern California at the time; I was a grad student on the East Coast. I did not know my brother had been given an Undesirable discharge until I brought these documents up from the basement. I thought he had been given a General and that my father had got it changed to Honorable. This was not so.

 

Undesirable is based upon the letters and documents exhumed from the basement. It is not a history of the Vietnam War or my brother’s role in that war. Over the course of two years, I asked questions of the past as revealed in these documents. As I returned again and again to the material, what came to light was a cover-up on the part of the Army and a grave injustice done to a vulnerable serviceman

 

Q: The author Paula Becker said of the book, “Undesirable is a poignant examination of duty: the author’s father’s to his son, her brother’s to his country, society’s to those who serve, and her own obligation to her father’s memory.” What do you think of that assessment?

 

A: I think Ms. Becker’s reading is correct. My brother was a physical, psychological, emotional, and spiritual wreck when the Army spit him out.

 

Doug Johnson served his country in Vietnam for 14 months and in return—had my father not worked so hard to overturn the Undesirable—Doug would have had nada, no veteran’s benefits whatever. My father felt it his duty to fight this injustice, but that sense of duty was grounded in his love for his son.

 

Q: What do you think your family’s experience says about the legacy of the Vietnam War?

 

A: The legacy of that war is unremitting tragedy. The war, as we now know from history and memoirs, never had a chance of conventional victory and Americans at the time (myself included) were passionately against it.

 

When these soldiers came home, they were met with scorn. They carried their burdens, burdens of all sorts, into the rest of their lives and into the lives of their families. Certainly, that was true of my brother, who both endured pain personally and inflicted pain on others for decades.

 

Those young men who fought that war are old now. Many are still suffering, afflicted with ills from Agent Orange they all breathed in 50 years ago. The bitter legacy of that war is felt to this day, not just for Americans but for the Vietnamese as well. Sadly, the Vietnam War defined a whole generation.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: In the next few months, I will be getting my novel American Cookery ready for re-release by Paint Creek Press. And I will be finalizing a collection of stories and novellas and beginning early drafts of a new novel.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: When I first looked at the actual document of the Undesirable Discharge (reproduced in the book) no great leaps of imagination were required to fathom what such a statement would do to one’s sense of self. Doug Johnson was a 20-year-old kid who had enlisted at 19 and returned home 14 months later as a drug addict with a prison record.

 

Many small stories arose in the writing of Undesirable that simply did not fit into the arc of the book itself. These can be found in the blogposts on my website, laurakalpakian.com.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb 

Q&A with India Hill Brown

  

 

 

India Hill Brown is the author of the new middle grade novel Girl from the Ashes. Her other books include The Forgotten Girl. She lives in South Carolina. 

 

Q: What inspired you to write Girl from the Ashes, and how did you create your characters Gianna and Carter John?

 

A: I was inspired after doing a school visit at Johnsonville Middle School in my home state of South Carolina. The students there so graciously made me a travel guide of their favorite places to visit in Johnsonville and surrounding areas, and one of the places most highly mentioned was The Ron McNair Life History Center in Lake City, South Carolina.

 

Growing up, I heard a good bit about Dr. Ron McNair, his accomplishments, and the tragic Challenger Space Shuttle explosion.

 

What I didn’t know was that, at the age of 9 years old, he had the police called on him at a segregated library. He wanted to check out a book that he wasn’t allowed to and didn’t want to leave without it. This library was eventually renamed The Ron McNair Life History Center in his honor!

 

When I read this, it had me interested to research more about segregated libraries, and write a story centered around a young, Black boy who loved space. That Black boy eventually became Carter John!

 

Gianna was a lot like me as a kid: a teacher’s pet, a bit of a smart aleck, sometimes picked on for liking “kid stuff.” However, Carter John was a lot like me in my teenage years: misunderstood and constantly getting in trouble for things I didn’t do or didn’t mean to do.

 

Since I experienced both of these point of views, I empathize with both, and wanted to share so others could do the same.

 

Q: How would you describe the dynamic between them?

 

A: They are fiercely protective of each other and see the good in each other. Their strengths and weaknesses play off of each other’s, so they make a great team.

 

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

 

A: It signifies rebuilding. The ghost in the story is red hot with the need for revenge, and while it’s understandable, it’s not always the right answer. The kids understand that the real way to change was to expose the bad, and rebuild with something beautiful.

 

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

 

A: I hope people readers learn to appreciate their strengths, and lean on one another for help in their weaknesses. I hope they learn how important it is to have compassion for one another, and that through history and the bad choices of others is a huge way that we can improve and do better.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I don’t know how much I can say right now, but I am working on something that I am hugely excited about! Visit my website at indiahillbrown.com and subscribe to my newsletter/blog (indiahillbrown.com/blog) to learn more.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: That I truly hope you love Girl from the Ashes. I can’t wait for you to meet Carter John and Gianna! 

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb