Photo by Kelly Giarrocco
Carly Hillman is the author of the new novel The Refuge. She spent 10 years as a producer for The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, and she lives in New York City and Philadelphia.
Q: What inspired you to write The Refuge, and how did you create your characters Ava, Maeve, and Johnny?
A: My inspiration for The Refuge is one of the great mysteries of my life. I was on a hike, observing the beauty around me, and the opening scene just… arrived. I really don’t know how to explain it. I pictured a little girl hiding in the grass, ready to start a new life in this paradise, and my mind started spinning. I had an outline of the whole book later that same afternoon.
But Ava, Maeve, and Johnny were all forged in the time that I spent not writing. It took me years to gain the confidence to commit to working on something as ambitious as a novel. In those years, I spent so much time picturing my characters and thinking about how they moved through the world. By the time I started writing in earnest, they had lived so long in my mind that I felt like I knew them.
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 always knew exactly how the novel ended, but I did not know how exactly the characters got there. The two first scenes I could picture were the opening scene and the final climax. The fun was figuring out how we got from one point to the other. I made tons of other changes throughout the way, but those bookends stayed the same.
Q: The author Ashley Woo called the book “an ode to majestic beauty of the American Northwest, the profound and sometimes questionable depths a mother will go to in order to protect her child, and the healing power of found family.” What do you think of that description?
A: I was so touched by that description, especially coming from an author as wildly talented as Ashley Woo. I felt very “seen,” as they say.
Of course I hope this book is thrilling and engaging and propulsive, but, at its core, it is a story about familial love, healing from generational trauma, and the wonder of getting to live in our beautiful world. To hear Ashley pick up on all those themes meant the world to me.
Q: How did your experiences as a TV producer influence your fiction writing?
A: My experience as a producer at The Late Show with Stephen Colbert influenced my writing in every way. Most importantly, it was the only reason I started writing in the first place.
I suffered from major imposter syndrome when it came to writing fiction, always doubting myself when I faced the blank page. But after a decade of producing interviews at The Late Show and working with the incredible creatives who came on our show, I realized that there was no “success story” that didn’t start with someone taking a risk and believing in themselves before anyone else did.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: I am working on book number two! While I can’t say too much about it now, I am really excited about how it is shaping up. Plus, I’m enjoying the process of writing a book with a deeper understanding of the publishing process—it’s made me far less of an obsessive perfectionist, now that I know how much editing is still ahead of me.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: I am so grateful to people like you reading this who care about books and authors and keep this vital industry alive. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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