Q&A with Kerri Schlottman

 

 

Kerri Schlottman is the author of the new novel Tell Me One Thing. Her work has appeared in a variety of publications, including The Dillydoun Review and Belle Ombre. She lives in the New York City area.  

 

Q: Tell Me One Thing was inspired by a 1990 photograph by Mary Ellen Mark. Can you say more about that, and about how you created your characters Quinn and Lulu?

 

A: I studied Mary Ellen Mark’s photography when I was in graduate school and was always drawn to her photo "Amanda and Her Cousin Amy." The image depicts 9-year-old Amanda standing in a kiddie pool in a bikini with full makeup and fake nails smoking a cigarette, while her cousin Amy sits in the back of the pool.

 

The photo was taken in rural North Carolina in 1990 when Mark was sent by Life Magazine to photograph children in a school for troubled youth, which is where she initially met Amanda. She caught the photo as she was leaving town.

 

When Mark passed away in 2015, NPR found Amanda, then in her late 30s, and asked her why she allowed Mark to take her photograph. She said she thought someone would see it and come and help her. She had a very challenging life - in and out of foster care, lots of neglect - and she’d had a hard adulthood as well.

 

I was on a road trip through rural Pennsylvania when I heard that NPR segment and we had stopped to get gas in a tiny town that’s very much the fictional Riverdale in my book.

 

Things clicked in my mind. Mark was already well known when she photographed Amanda, but I decided to make my character Quinn be in her early 20s, just out of art school, and I started the story in 1980 to also discuss the challenges of that time period in New York City (and everywhere).

 

Quinn takes a very different type of photograph of Lulu, who she meets while on a road trip with her friend Billy when they’re forced to spend the night in the small town where Lulu lives. Quinn’s photograph is of Lulu sitting on the lap of a trucker outside a motel, smoking a cigarette.

 

Soon after, the photo changes the course of Quinn’s career, not only the type of photography she’s doing but also the attention she begins getting for it. I wanted to explore what it would mean for an artist to gain notoriety from such a questionable photograph, while also telling the story of the little girl’s tough life.

 

The book follows both characters from that moment of interaction through their lives up to present tense.

 

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 how I wanted the book to end because it was very important to me to remain authentic to the story and to what would have been most likely to happen given the circumstances. In that way, I think there’s only one way the book could have ended.

 

Still, I left it a little open because I like readers to be able to wonder what might happen next after this time we have with the characters.

 

It’s an interesting thing about telling a story - that you get to a certain point and then you have to stop telling it, but still there is life to be lived in the characters. So maybe my answer is actually that I don’t think the story really ever ends.

 

Q: The writer Chelsea Bieker called the book “A devastating and rich exploration of trauma, art-making, love, and the unmistakable hauntedness of what we cannot control, yet long to.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: Chelsea is one of my favorite writers and her opinion means so much to me. I think she articulated things about the book that I wasn’t even fully aware I was doing, which happens when you’re deeply engaged in the process of creating something.

 

I hadn’t really been thinking about the concept of control, but Chelsea was so right in seeing that.

 

In the next sentence of her quote, she says, “I want everyone to read this book,” which I also love. I am very grateful to her and the other authors who were early readers of the book and gave it initial praise.

 

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

 

A: The book’s title is taken from the song lyrics for Roxy Music’s “More Than This,” which I think is such a classic ‘80s song. The song is playing in the book in a particularly tough scene between Quinn and Billy.

 

I chose it as a reference back to the moment, but also because it has a strong correlation to the way the book is positioned for Lulu to question Quinn later in life when she realizes that the photograph of her has become iconic.

 

For a long time, before the book had a publisher, I was calling it Lulu and the Trucker, which I still like as a title, but I’m happy we went with Tell Me One Thing instead.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I have two completed manuscripts and am hoping to find a home for them soon.

 

One is titled American Dreams and was inspired by a true story of some Michigan folks, not far from where I grew up, who plotted to hijack the Michigan vote certification after Biden was declared the winner in 2020.

 

The group tried to hide overnight in the Michigan Capitol building and were going to present themselves the next morning as the electors and vote for Trump instead.

 

That plotting is an undercurrent in the book, but mostly it’s about the culture of desperation in the areas where these pockets of unrest arise. I grew up among it and think these are stories that need telling so that we don’t repeat history.

 

The other book is called A Daytime Moon and is based on a concept called solastalgia, which is feeling homesickness even when in your home.

 

The story follows a young woman trying to put her life back together after a tragedy in her teens pulls it apart. Amid her searching are real-life climate situations that are altering our environment. The book looks deeply at the idea of home and family, and what it means to feel a sense of belonging.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?  

 

A: Tell Me One Thing has a few scenes that are like small love letters to my favorite photographer Nan Goldin, who chronicled the late ‘70s and the ‘80s in her work. Some of the photos that Quinn takes are photos that Nan took in real life.

 

There are also some scenes in the book that are inspired by Nan’s photographs, for instance when Quinn and Alex are lying on the grass together, when Quinn is photographing Tisha and the man in the motel, and also some of the intimate scenes between Quinn and Billy. 

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb

March 3

 

 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

March 3, 1926: James Merrill born.

Q&A with Deborah Crombie

 

Photo by Steve Ullathorne

 

 

Deborah Crombie is the author of the new novel A Killing of Innocents, the 19th in her mystery series featuring British detectives Duncan Kincaid and Gemma James. She lives in McKinney, Texas.

 

Q: The Library Journal review of A Killing of Innocents says, in part, “Crombie is as skilled as Louise Penny or J.D. Robb in developing characters while entwining personal lives with riveting police investigations.” What do you think of that description, and how would you describe the relationship between your series characters Duncan Kincaid and Gemma James?

 

A: I am extremely flattered to be compared to two of my favorite writers! Obviously I write the sort of books I like to read, and I admire both of these series for the evolution of the characters and their relationships.

 

Gemma and Duncan began as fairly new professional partners who liked each other and worked well together. When it became clear after a few books that their relationship was moving into romantic territory, I knew it would be a challenge to let things develop. But sometimes your characters have their own ideas and you have to go with them.

 

In Duncan and Gemma’s case, it meant big changes in their personal lives and the end to their official professional partnership. In this 19th novel they are married with a blended family, but they still manage to get involved in the same cases.

 

Q: What inspired the plot of A Killing of Innocents?

A: Oh, so many things. I was interested in the epidemic of knife crime in London and in the ways it was dealt with by the police. This gave me the opportunity to move Gemma temporarily into more of a desk job, working with a knife crime task force, and allowed her to consult on Duncan’s murder investigation.

 

And I wanted to write about Bloomsbury and these young professional women, both Sasha, the victim, and Tully, her flatmate. Fitting the pieces together is like working a jigsaw.

 

Q: Without giving anything away, do you know how your novels will end before you start writing them, or do you make many changes along the way?

 

A: I usually know how I want things to end. How we get there can change a lot through the process. Some things hardly change at all, however. I wrote the last scene in A Killing of Innocents very early on and didn’t change more than a few words when I got to the end of the book.

 

Q: As you mentioned, the novel is set in London's Bloomsbury neighborhood--how important is setting to you in your writing?

 

A: Extremely. The setting functions as a character for me. It forms so much of the story—tone, atmosphere, history—I can’t untangle them. Bloomsbury is such a rich field to mine, with all its literary and historical associations, and I didn’t begin to do it justice. Soho became a big part of this book as well and it’s another fascinating part of London.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: Kincaid/James #20. I don’t have a title yet, but it is set in London, and there are some interesting changes in store for the characters.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: Readers don’t need to have read the previous books in the series to enjoy A Killing of Innocents. Each novel stands alone, although I try to include some explanation of the series characters’ relationships and history. I hope that new readers’ interest will be piqued and they will explore the earlier books to learn all the details!

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb

March 2

 

 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
March 2, 1904: Dr. Seuss born.

Q&A with Ciera Horton McElroy

 

 

 

Ciera Horton McElroy is the author of the new novel Atomic Family. Her work has appeared in a variety of publications, including AGNI and Bridge Eight, and she lives in St. Louis.

 

Q: What inspired you to write Atomic Family, and how did you create the Porter family?

 

A: Atomic Family is inspired by my own family history. 

 

My grandfather—who died in 1976, nearly 20 years before I was born—was a chief agronomist, responsible for disposing nuclear waste at the Savannah River Plant (SRP). At the time, this meant burying irradiated materials in the ground. This also meant his work was top secret: his wife and son knew nothing about his other life. 

 

When I was growing up, my father would tell me stories about what life was like in the Cold War: from duck & cover drills to his dad’s top secret work, I always found this era fascinating and under-represented in literary works. The Porter family is definitely fictional, but heavily inspired by my family history.

 

Q: The writer Brenda Peynado called the book “a Mrs. Dalloway updated for the nuclear age, an intense excavation of memory, trauma, and hope.” What do you think of that description, and can you say more about the connections between the two books?

 

A: Atomic Family is a circadian novel—which means that like Mrs. Dalloway or Ulysses, it takes place within the time span of 24 hours. Structurally speaking, this connects the two books in that the plot is compressed to examine the lives of the characters within the confines of an ordinary day.

 

In my novel, Nellie is a disgruntled housewife who struggles with the effects of her husband’s secretive work.

 

Like Clarissa Dalloway, I think Nellie is struggling with the social expectations for women in her time. On one hand, she resents them: but at the same time, she buys into what the media tells her she should want. (Like a luxury lifestyle.) This leads to financial conflict with her husband, among their many other marital conflicts.

 

Q: The novel is set in the early 1960s--how did you research the time period, and did you learn anything that especially surprised you?

 

A: I had to do so much research for this book! Not only about the 1960s but about atomic weapons manufacturing... since I’m not a physicist! 

 

I had several different strategies. It was important to me to read research books about the 1960s, but also books from the 1960s. (Example: Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank, which is the pivotal Cold War novel from 1959.) I found that this strategy was especially helpful for finding voice, tone, and even the cultural perspective toward the USSR at the time.

 

In addition, I would watch documentaries and listen to music from the era, as that was another level of immersion. For the scientific work, I actually found and read my grandfather’s old declassified reports!

 

One interesting thing I learned: the Kennedy administration urged American civilians to build their own fallout shelters, even though they knew these shelters wouldn't work. It was a big publicity campaign to make people feel safe.

 

But in reality, if there was nuclear war, those little shelters would have done pretty much nothing. And we knew that! (Kennedy even pushed for $207 million dollars from Congress for this fallout shelter program.)

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

 

A: I hope people reflect on the way war—and even war games, war rhetoric, the threat of terror—can affect children.

 

My earliest memory was 9/11, and I can't really separate this book from my childhood anxieties over terrorist attacks and school shootings. We have just replaced duck & cover drills with active shooter drills. I wanted to explore what this does to our psyche. The Cold War anxiety of constantly waiting for something bad to happen.

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: Right now I am working on a new novel, title to be announced. It's a contemporary reimagining of Jack Kerouac and the “road novel.”

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: You can visit the atomic facility that the book is based on! It's now the Savannah River Site in Aiken, South Carolina, and they have tours with public access.

 

You'll be able to see (as I did!) where the nuclear “graveyards” are—literally where they buried nuclear waste. You can see the now-defunct reactors, the lab, the archives, and the remains of the town of Ellenton, which the government moved by eminent domain. All of this is documented in the novel!

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb

Q&A with Anthony DeStefano

 

 

 

Anthony DeStefano is the author of the new children's picture book Greenlee Is Growing. His many other books include OK, I Admit It, I'm Afraid. He lives in New Jersey.

 

Q: What inspired you to write Greenlee Is Growing?

 

A: I have a precious 4-year-old goddaughter named Greenlee and she is growing up so fast—like every other child in the world. Last year I bought her a pair of sneakers in April and to accompany the gift I wrote a little poem called, “Springtime is Here!” all about how she was growing as quickly as the spring flowers.

 

Soon after that I got the idea to continue the poem through all four seasons of the year and have the character of Greenlee get older as the story progressed. I thought it would be a good way to show children the whole perspective of life— from childhood to old age.

 

Also, this idea came to me at the tail-end of the pandemic. I know so many families who lost older loved ones to the disease, and I wanted to write something that might console and comfort children.

 

I felt strongly that there should be a book showing children that old age is nothing to be afraid of; that you can have tremendous joy at every stage of life. The result was Greenlee is Growing.

 

Q: What do you think Louise A. Ellis’s illustrations add to the story?

 

A: Her illustrations added joy and life to the story!! My goodness, what a wonderful blessing it was to have Louise as the illustrator!

 

The story itself is slightly bittersweet, because in it we see Greenlee age from a little girl of 3 to an elderly lady. Because some people might find that a tiny bit sad, I wanted to make sure the illustration were full of happiness and fun.

 

I wanted children to be excited by the book—excited about ALL of Greenlee’s life. That’s really the point of the story: that life is an incredible gift that we should be grateful for. So, Louise’s illustrations—so colorful and full of animals and flowers and rainbows and life— achieve that goal in a marvelously effective way.

 

I think children will be absolutely captivated all the little details Louise has included in every illustration—especially by all the different kinds of animals—and I hope they will come away from the book more cheerful and inspired than they were before they read it.

 

Q: You’ve written for different age groups—do you have a preference?

 

A: Any success I’ve had as a writer is due to a paradox: I try to write all my adult nonfiction books in a style easy enough for non-scholars and young people to understand them, and I try to write all my children’s books with enough layers of meaning that even adults can appreciate them and get something out of them. In other words, I’m always trying to write simply but deeply at the same time.

 

Now, to answer your question, I would say that it’s definitely harder to write nonfiction books for adults, because of the need to make complex subjects as comprehensible as possible.

 

But if a reader sends me a letter or email and tells me that a book of mine changed their life or helped them to deal with the death of a loved one, I don’t think there’s any better feeling in the world. It sort of gives validation to my entire life.

 

On the other hand, writing children’s books is an absolute joy. It’s so much fun to come up with a story and cute rhymes and then collaborate with a brilliant illustrator. And of course, there’s no happier feeling than seeing a child’s face light up when he or she reads one of my books.

 

So it’s very hard to choose between the two. Writing for adults is more difficult but can be more gratifying. Writing for children is much more pleasant to do and can also give great satisfaction. That’s why my preference is to keep writing for both!  

 

Q: Can you say more about what you hope kids take away from the story?

 

A: I’d like them to be able to gain some perspective on life and realize that they are meant to grow and change in the same way that grass, trees and flowers do.

 

I’d also like them to see that the greatest joys in life are simple things that never change, no matter how much the world around us changes; like running outside in the sunshine, enjoying the beauty of animals and nature, watching fireworks at night, smelling the ocean breeze or a blazing bonfire, drinking hot cocoa on a chilly but cozy night, and spending time with loved ones during the holidays.

 

Most especially, I’d like children to see that in every season of life— even old age— there is potential for great joy. We are living in very pessimistic, almost desperate times. I’d like to be able to plant a seed in children’s minds that not everything is bad; that there is hope for the future.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I’m doing final revisions on an adult nonfiction book called: 30 Days to YourNew Life: A Guide to Transforming Yourself from Head to Soul. It will be coming out in June of this year.

 

As I said before, we are living in confusing times. I think people from every walk of life are looking for certainty and for some common-sense guidance on how to navigate through the murky waters of the early 21st century. I hope this book helps to do that.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: Just one other thought, though it might seem a bit cliché. The older I get, the more I appreciate the power of hope.

 

When I was younger, I used to think that people got through life by going from pleasure to pleasure. But now I realize I was wrong. In order for people to deal with the “whips and scorns of time” (as Shakespeare said), they live from hope to hope. Being able to look forward to something — even something small — is often enough to stave off serious depression in most people.

 

I think we need to remember that when we go about the job of educating children. We need to show them that no matter what happens to them or what pain they have to go through, there is always hope. As long as there’s life, there’s hope. That’s the message of Greenlee is Growing.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb

March 1

 

 

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

March 1, 1914: Ralph Ellison born.