Interviewed by Samantha Hui

From the interviewer:

I had the recent pleasure of reading and reviewing Artress Bethany White’s newest book Survivor’s Guilt: Essays on Race and American Identity. (You can read that review here.) After finishing it, I wanted to keep the conversation going. So, here we are. I hope you enjoy our conversation.

Who is Artress Bethany White?

Artress Bethany White is a poet, essayist, and literary critic. She is the recipient of the Trio Award for her poetry collection, My Afmerica (Trio House Press, 2019). Her debut essay collection, Survivor’s Guilt: Essays on Race and American Identity (New Rivers Press, 2020), is currently listed as a Community of Literary Magazines and Presses ( CLMP ) social justice read. Her prose and poetry have appeared in such journals as Harvard Review, Solstice, Poet Lore, Ecotone, Birmingham Poetry Review, Tupelo Quarterly, and The Hopkins Review. White has received fellowships and residencies at the Hambidge Center for Creative Arts, the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, The Writer’s Hotel, and the Tupelo Press/MASS MoCA studios. She is associate professor of English at East Stroudsburg University and teaches poetry and nonfiction workshops for Rosemont College Summer Writer’s Retreat in Pennsylvania.

Interview with Artress Bethany White

Samantha Hui: Thank you for sitting down with me, Dr. White! As you know from my book review, I loved Survivor’s Guilt and want to do what I can to help more readers find it. So, I thought, how about an interview? I appreciate you taking the time out to chat!

Artress Bethany White: Thank you, Samantha. I am so gratified by your enthusiasm.

Samantha Hui: I have my own ideas, but who do you imagine is the ideal audience for this book? Why?

Artress Bethany White: When I was writing, I was really trying to imagine the broadest audience possible. That said, I know that it would certainly be a handy read for those interested in becoming social justice allies, as well as those who are still wondering what is really going on in America today around racial equity issues. Finally, educators at all levels can benefit from reading this book and avid readers like yourself, whom I imagine are interested in stories about life outside of their own subject position.

Samantha Hui: You write in your introduction, “Survivor’s Guilt answers a resounding yes to the question: Could true understanding be only a shared story away?” What is it about stories that are so effective in convincing people to believe and empathize with each other? How do they stand up in relation to statistics and facts in achieving “true understanding?”

Artress Bethany White: I believe that the heart of storytelling efficacy is that it reminds listeners that we are all on a life journey and that human wisdom depends heavily on who and what crosses your path within a lifetime. Every human on earth sprung from an oral tradition, a tradition of storytelling that included tales of heroic survival against all odds and tales of divine intervention when there seemed to be no way out. So, really, this book is operating in a tradition of cautionary tales for the survival of the human race. To take a narrower view, we automatically identify with common circumstances when our lives intersect with the lives of others.

When people read my work and they experience what I experienced when my child lost a friend to suicide, they then inspect their own lives and realize they may have reacted similarly when their own child faced the same challenge. To go a step further, maybe this reader is not a reader of color and never imagined a Black woman having this particular experience. Suddenly, not only are they identifying with my experience, they are identifying with a person of a different racial makeup. The conversation that may never have happened out in the physical world is now taking place across the pages of a book.

Samantha Hui: “Kissing Dixie Goodbye” was one of my favorite essays in your book. It can feel rather disheartening to read on one page that Dollywood was an antidote for a country’s neglect of impoverished children’s entertainment while on the next page, the nostalgia of Dollywood reminds us that American nostalgia is rooted in white idealism. Do you have any ideas for how we can navigate these two perspectives? How we can feel nostalgic of the past while also being aware of its problems?

Artress Bethany White: That is not an easy question to answer. I could just say let’s add some new exhibits at Dollywood. How about a faux juke joint called Jasper’s Skinny where kids could rock out to Ray Charles, Sam Cooke, and the Drifters. After all, that’s what a lot of white fans were doing during the ‘50s anyway. Or maybe add a Miss Carol’s Soul Food Shack where you could satisfy your craving for mac and cheese, sweet potatoes, and collard greens. This would certainly help that “sanitized of all Black culture” feeling I get when I walk through the doors. However, the fact that thousands of people have walked through those doors for years and never noticed one thing off speaks to the necessity of a much larger educational program.

Samantha Hui: What was your writing process for each essay? Were any of the essays more difficult than another?

Artress Bethany White: The essay “Sonny Boy” was written first. It came easily, as in all of the information I needed came quickly through conversations and a little bit of regional research. “American Noir” and “A Lynching in North Carolina” came with their own challenges because they dealt with my family’s personal slave and lynching history.

Still, I think “Be Ready: Tales of Racial Ambushing in the Academy” was really emotionally difficult. I adore teaching, but there is nothing worse than being around a lot of well-read, highly educated individuals and experiencing racism. That dynamic is bone-crushing because you realize it rests on your shoulders to carry the social justice banner for an entire institution, and it is impossible to carry all that weight on your own. Too many BIPOC academics have been entrusted with bearing that unrealistic burden.

Samantha Hui: We see in “A Lynching in North Carolina” that, in addition to showcasing your expert prose in essay form, you’re also a wonderful poet! How did this poem come to be—and why tell this specific story in this different form?

Artress Bethany White: I mention Countee Cullen’s The Black Christ in the essay, and the piece really served as an inspiration for me. Something about the story of lynching in verse struck me as being distinctly different from my encounter with the topic in novels like James Weldon Johnson’s The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man and William Faulkner’s Light in August. I have always been deeply troubled by the Christological symbolism used in historical lynching ritual. The cross and the wearing of white by Klan members. 

Perhaps people have lost sight of the fact that the most virulent of turn-of-the century racial pseudoscience embraced a belief that Blacks were not descended from Adam (because he was white), but were of a separate line of descent. This belief allowed for racism and Christianity to sit comfortably beside each other on a church pew.

For me, Cullen’s poem captures so much of that sentiment, and I wanted to allude to that connection in my poem. Once I found out about the lynching of Estes, I felt I could not ignore that my poem mirrored the narrative of his abduction and murder. I included it to make peace with history in my own mind.

Samantha Hui: Throughout the book, you often tell us about your experiences as a teacher prior to national traumatic events. I would love to hear more about your experience in times like this. How has being a teacher influenced your writing of this book?

Artress Bethany White: So much of this book springs from my teaching experience, and it was really difficult to choose which experiences and books I’ve used in the classroom I would write about. I wanted to write in the memoir essay/personal essay form, so I needed to avoid straight literary criticism. I address poets like Natasha Trethewey, Layli Long Soldier and Ocean Vuong, but I could easily have added Rita Dove, Marilyn Nelson, and Willie Perdomo to these pages and many, many more.

I can’t even tell you how many students have said to me I have never had a course like yours or read books like this. I went through years where I would change the books I used every single semester. I felt compelled because my students knew so little about Black people, Asian people, Latino people, Indigenous people. I felt I had to get them caught up before they entered the world and made their social bubbles so small that they would never truly know about the artistic production coming from these communities.

I was trying to be a good academic and good cultural worker at the same time and I often struggled to keep up while pursuing degrees and raising a family. This story is old now because there is a large community of writer academics who operate like this, but it is the reality of what I have been doing for years. Before I moved around the country so frequently, and before social media, I would meet up with my students from two, three, five years previous who would casually say, “Hey, you know your class changed my life.” So, the experiences I write about in this book, yes, I want them to change lives; otherwise, what would be the point?

Samantha Hui: What are five books, movies, or tv shows you would recommend to people who want to work on their “consciousness-raising?”

Artress Bethany White: Ida B. Wells’s A Red Record, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs, The Age of Phillis by Honorée Fannone Jeffers, Cyrus Cassells forthcoming collection The World that the Shooter Left Us, and, because I still meet people who have not read it, Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Between the World and Me.

Samantha Hui: What projects are you working on now?

Artress Bethany White: I am working on a poetry collection about my family’s history of enslavement in the United States. Some of the poems have been published in Birmingham Poetry Review and Solstice: A Magazine of Diverse Voices and others are forthcoming in Green Mountains Review, Tahoma Review, and Salamander.

Samantha Hui: Looking forward to it! Thanks for chatting with me & IBR, Dr. White!

About the Book

Publisher: New Rivers Press

Category & Genre: Nonfiction, Discrimination & Racism

Paperback: 196 pages

ISBN: 978-0898233926

Thank you for reading “Interview with Artress Bethany White” by Samantha Hui! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

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by Steph Huddleston

I had the recent pleasure of reading and reviewing Duckett and Dyer: Dicks for Hire on behalf of Independent Book Review. While I expected to enjoy this detective novel—mystery is one of my favorite genres—I was taken aback by how thoughtful and hilarious it turned out to be! Witty and entertaining, I thought it would be great to learn more about the process author G.M. Nair had while making this extraordinary book.

If you’re not familiar with this book, check out what I had to say about it here at “Book Review: Duckett & Dyer: Dicks for Hire.”

Without further ado, here’s my interview with author G.M. Nair!

Steph Huddleston: Thanks for taking the time to answer some of my questions, G.M Nair! 

Nair: No problemo! Thanks for having me!

Steph Huddleston: How would you describe the characters of Duckett and Dyer to someone who was thinking of picking up the book? 

Nair: Two words: “Hot Mess.” But honestly, I’d consider them two halves of an incomplete person. Michael Duckett is a detail-oriented, straight-laced, worrywart, while Stephanie Dyer is a devil-may-care, pop-culture-addicted jokester who tries not to take things too seriously. Despite all odds, they’re best friends, because, deep down, each one knows that if the other wasn’t around, they wouldn’t be able to function properly.

Steph Huddleston: Duckett & Dyer: Dicks for Hire has a gritty and coarse feel to it, much like classic detective novels and films—and yet this is also a sci-fi novel, so I’m curious: Were you inspired in particular by any books, comics, or films when developing the world?

Nair: Oh, a whole lot. Duckett & Dyer: Dicks for Hire is pretty much a love-letter to a lot of the adventure stories that I enjoyed growing up. Indiana Jones, Back to The Future, Doctor Who, Agatha Christie’s novels, and Sherlock Holmes all had various hands in influencing the story. But, most obviously, I pull from Douglas Adams’ Dirk Gently series of novels, but infuse it with the incomprehensible universe-spanning plots of modern comic book crossovers, which I consume by the truckload.

Steph Huddleston: What is the takeaway feeling you hope readers have when finishing Duckett & Dyer: Dicks for Hire?

Nair: Well, I hope they’ve enjoyed themselves for one. I tried to create a rousing adventure tale that’d let readers take a load off and have a ball with the characters. But at the same time, I hope that lulled them into a false sense of security so they’re filled with a looming sense of dread about what’s going to happen to Duckett & Dyer when the other shoe drops in the epilogue.

Steph Huddleston: In writing, readers have discussed for a long time where the boundary between author and created work are. Do you see yourself, or others in your life experience, in either of your main characters?

Nair: Michael and Stephanie’s characters come easily to me because they’re very much two sides of my own personality. I have been known to be a nervous overthinker who is his own worst critic, while simultaneously being an outwardly worry-free comedic jokester who doesn’t take things seriously enough.

It’s tough being a walking contradiction, but it makes writing Michael and Stephanie very simple, as I only need to consider what kind of dumb joke I would make, while juxtaposing it against how a Nervous Nellie would feel when completely out of their depth.

I’m lucky to have both of them in my head, because, splitting this into two characters makes for an interesting friendship dynamic that hammers home that neither sort of personality can fully function without the other.

Steph Huddleston: At the end of Duckett and Dyer, we are given the teaser that they will return in your next book The One Hundred Percent Solution. What can you tell us about the sequel?

Nair: Well, I just finished the first pass of The One Hundred Percent Solution and hope to have it out next year. It essentially deals with what happens in the next few weeks after Dicks For Hire. The detective agency isn’t profitable and Stephanie’s having doubts about it after realizing what it might mean for Michael. Meanwhile, Michael gets fired from his position at The Future Group, throwing their entire income in jeopardy. But then they get offered a case that would put the agency on the map. One that involves investigating the terrifying and deadly history of the Future Group itself.

Steph Huddleston: Less specifically about Duckett and Dyer: Dicks for Hire I’d love to know a bit more about your publication story. How long did it take you to craft, write, and publish this story? Were there any aspects that were more challenging than others?

Nair: The idea for Duckett & Dyer came to me back in 2007. I had a boss named Michael Dyer who was pretty quirky and his name struck me – for whatever reason – as interesting. So I affixed it to a bumbling detective and came up with the idea for a webcomic called ‘You’re A Mystery, Michael Dyer.” I lacked any sort of follow-through on that, but the idea eventually evolved into a duo, and the subtitle ‘Dicks for Hire’ just screamed at me. It was such a great idea that I knew I had to get something out as soon as possible before someone else stole it.

Needless to say, it was 2015 when I actually decided to sit down and put pen to paper. Then came another 4 years of development. It’s a long time to write a novel, but between my job and other life commitments, it was hard to prioritize. Ultimately, it was for the better, as the book went through several massive revisions. The first few iterations were a time travel novella, with far less depth and heart to the story, but it wasn’t until the final drafts in 2018 when I got it to a point where I wasn’t embarrassed to share it with people. And for someone who’s overly critical of his own work, that’s a high bar to clear.

From there, I attempted to go the trad pub route but tapped out after about 90 agent rejections. I was told the concept wasn’t super marketable, which is understandable. A sci-fi mystery comedy? That’s an incredibly niche market to take a gamble on. But in any case, I was proud of what I’d done, and decided to self-publish, which gave me a great deal of control over the book that I wouldn’t have otherwise enjoyed.

Steph Huddleston: Do you have a favorite part of the novel writing process? What is it, and why is it your favorite?

Nair: I’m an engineer by trade, so building the initial architecture for the story, the frame it hangs on, is probably my most favorite bit. It allows you to see how everything can work together to produce a satisfying narrative. But then you have to populate it with words. Eugh.

Steph Huddleston: Have you got any advice for aspiring authors?

Nair: Write what you’d want to read, but pay attention to how others are writing similar things.

Also, don’t listen to some rando’s writing advice on the internet.

Steph Huddleston: Lastly, what have you been reading or watching lately? Any recommendations?

Nair: I’m a huge Star Wars fanboy, so The Mandalorian’s dominated most of my TV watching. And Episode XI is out soon, so it’s a big time for my kind. I’m also about half-way through HBO’s Watchmen sequel series. Other than that, I’ve been reading Agatha Christie’s ABC Murders and Tavern by Deston J. Munden.

But if you’re a fan of my work, I’d heavily recommend The Audacity by Laura Loup.

Thank you for reading “Interview with G.M. Nair” by Steph Huddleston! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

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by Joe Walters

I first discovered the brilliant duo of Deborah Adams and Kimberley Perkins from their co-authoring debut Waypoint. With an impressive combination of lovable characters and non-stop plot movement, this first novel had me gushing in a book review about how it was able to keep me engaged, surprised, and waiting impatiently for book 2.

Lucky for me, Constellation made its way in front of my eyes less than a year later, and just as I expected, it lived up to the hype. Big time. I left this finale feeling excited, rejuvenated, and even bummed out that Simon, West, Riya, and Alex wouldn’t be telling me their story anymore.

But instead of pouting about it, I reached out to Adams and Perkins to learn more about their co-authoring process and some inspiration behind a few of the decisions they made for their series. And lucky for you, their answers are mine to share.

Enjoy my interview with co-authors Deborah Adams and Kimberley Perkins!

Joe Walters: Deborah Adams and Kimberley Perkins, co-authors of the Waypoint series, thank you for chatting with me! I just finished up the final book in your series (Constellation), and I’ve got to say—I loved it! I really can’t wait for the world to get a hold of this thing.

D. Adams & K. Perkins: We’re so glad you liked the series! Independent Book Review has been one of the highlights of our publishing journey. We’re excited for readers to see how the story plays out.

J. Walters: Waypoint, the first novel in this series, was first published in December 2018, followed shortly after by Intel and now ending with Constellation. What made you first begin this project?

K. Perkins: We were both avid readers. We started a book club at work (which ended up with only 3 members). We read this one book that was supposed to be really popular. It wasn’t put together well but had audiences still coming back for more. There were plot holes, underdeveloped characters, and questionable motives. It was hard to read but had a captivated fanbase. We could pinpoint all the things we didn’t like in a book, and we could strategize about how the novel could have been better. That started the discussions of “Could we write something that people would like?” Writing Waypoint was an exercise to prove that we could map out a story, and once we got the ball rolling, the story flowed out easily.

J. Walters: This series takes place in a future where there is no power, because someone in charge turned it off. In these books, the main characters travel on foot to restore the power and save the lives of those who are dependent on it. Other than the medical issues that come with it, what else did you find so terrifying about the loss of power?

D. Adams: I think for me the most frightening was about food scarcity and the inability to store and keep food fresh. Several years ago, our local area was hit hard by a tornado, and that had us without power for several days. That was one of my biggest concerns. Everything in refrigerators and freezers went bad fast. That’s probably why we tried to show how people were adapting to food issues.

K. Perkins: When we first discussed a world without power, it seemed like a first world issue. But then we started thinking about the distribution lines being down, and about how environmental initiatives in the coming decades would probably make transportation impossible without a power grid. I think the medical issues were the scariest, but just the fall of distant communication is hard to imagine for me. In a world without phones or internet, you might catch word from travelers of violent rioting across the country, but you can’t call your family in a different part of the country to check in on them. You’d be in a constant state of worry.

J. Walters: Each character is unique and vibrant in your series. It’s a huge reason why I liked it so much. For all those who haven’t met your characters yet, could you compare your MCs to a few real-life or fictional characters? Who would they be and why?

D. Adams: We both grew so close to these characters over the series, so we’re glad you enjoyed them! We began crafting them with traits that reflect some of our own interests. We wanted each character to be balanced with flaws and strengths that would allow them to manage the needs of the plot while still seeming believable. It’s almost hard to imagine them as anyone other than who they are at this point…

K. Perkins: There are a lot of things about Simon—things that he thought or ways that he felt that I have felt during my life. I based his gamer friends off gamers that I have encountered through the years. Collins in particular is the type of gamer that you run into a lot at LAN parties and in online matches: tons of talent and zero manners.

J. Walters: Writing fiction is such a deeply personal experience. I couldn’t imagine what co-authoring would be like. Could you speak further about how you were able to make co-authoring work?

D. Adams & K. Perkins: There are challenges, for sure. Most of the time, we are on the same page, but when you feel very strongly about the direction of the story, it can be frustrating. We worked through it every time it came up, but you must be willing to compromise. If you can overcome the challenges, there are so many benefits to co-authoring. We were able to write full novels in two and a half months, which seemed speedy, and writer’s block becomes nonexistent since you always have another brain to help you push through the hard parts.

J. Walters: In addition to the thrill-ride of your plot, we also get the development of two dynamic romantic relationships. What do you have to say about the use of relationship tension in a YA thriller?

D. Adams: I think the romantic relationships are what takes an unbelievable or unrelatable story and gives it that element of relatability. So, as a reader, I don’t know what it’s like to be on a mission to save the world from government conspiracies, but I do remember what it was like to experience first love and all the stress, happiness, and uncertainty that come with it. Romance is a common thread through a fantastical plot that most readers can relate to.

J. Walters: In Constellation, readers get the pleasant opportunity to get to know a few side characters who were gamer friends with Simon in the first book. Now, they are stepping away from their screens and helping save the world. What part do you believe first-person games play alongside the themes in the series?

K. Perkins: In most of the games that I play, you play the hero. I think that we hear a lot of bad things about the effects that violent video games can have on players, but it’s rare to hear about the other side of that coin. I feel like living these stories can be inspiring. If the violence is rubbing off on us, then what about the bravery and the willingness to take a stand against evil? I think these stories can be inspiring.

J. Walters: Now that you’ve finished the series, can you look back and pinpoint your favorite scenes or instances in any of the books?

D. Adams: The prison break was definitely a highlight for me in Constellation. In Waypoint, when Simon sets out to save Riya’s family…I love it. I also still enjoy West and Alex’s breakout from the cultist’s barn. It’s still laugh-out-loud funny to me. Also, if you can’t get excited at the end of Constellation when the gamers level-up, then I don’t know what to say about that.

K. Perkins: In book one, I loved the scene where Riya and Simon stop keeping secrets after their first gunfight. Riya was really badass in that scene, and emotions were high. I loved when they were at Collins’s house, watching Agent Anderson together. And although it was a dark scene, the Ranger’s Station remains one of my favorite scenes that I’ve written. In book two, the prison break, the battle simulator scenes, and the final battle in Jackson are some of my favorites. I really love when the gamers showcase their skills.

J. Walters: Now, let’s get down to the big question: Which movie or TV show do we just have to see and why?

D. Adams: I never seem to have time to invest in tv shows, but I tend to love anything Marvel puts out. Spiderman Far from Home was a blast!

K. Perkins: I love almost everything Joss Whedon has ever been a part of, so I’d recommend bingeing Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Dollhouse, and Firefly as soon as possible.

J. Walters: Are you working on anything else?

D. Adams & K. Perkins: We have some ideas but nothing firm. We’ve talked about a Waypoint spin-off with our favorite bickering duo, Quinn and Collins…but we’ll just have to see.

About the Interviewer

Joe Walters is the editor-in-chief of Independent Book Review. When he’s not doing editorial or reviewing work at IBR, he’s working on his novel and trusting the process.

Thank you for reading “Interview with Deborah Adams and Kimberley Perkins” by Joe Walters! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

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by Jack Messenger

Sarah Kornfeld was born and raised in the experimental theatre of New York City. She is a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College and has taught cultural curation at the University of San Francisco. She is a founding member of the Blue Mind Collective studying the impact of the ocean on our lives and well-being. She lives by the sea in the Bay Area of California. What Stella Sees (reviewed here) is her debut novel. www.sarahkornfeld.net.

JM: Sarah Kornfeld, author of What Stella Sees, thank you very much for taking the time to speak to us.

SK: The pleasure is mine, Jack!

JM: To begin with, please tell us a little about how this most unusual novel came about.

SK: I have a very personal relationship to the formation of this book. I was having seizure-like episodes, and I found them both scary and fascinating. I experienced my episodes like being under the water. When I came out of these moments, I found myself obsessed with trying to explain them. When I could not, I started writing this novel! Stella has been my way of exploring the sea and health, on a very personal level.

JM: The oceans, of course, have always been fundamental to life on Earth and to humanity. What exactly made you choose the sea as Stella’s world to explore?

SK: I am deeply impacted by the work of my friend Wallace J. Nichols. He wrote the New York Times bestseller, Blue Mind.  This is a book and area of research that explores our brains on water. Clearly, we are made up of water, but why do we love water (ocean, rivers, baths, streams) so much? The research is astounding: we must have water to reboot our brains, get a ‘blue mind’ which is meditative and healing. For Stella, I wanted her to have a child’s awareness of this reality without knowing the research. I wanted to explore a young person’s ocean genius, for most children have this insight about the power of water, but are told not to pay attention to that wisdom.

JM: The world of modern art, at least as represented by its professional gatekeepers, its buyers and their wealthy clients, is shown to be cynical, jaundiced, and all about the money. The novel gives the impression you have met some of these people – Julian, for example. How far is this a reflection of your own experience in that world?

SK: Ha! Well, I was born and raised in the theatre, and have deep ties to the international art world. Though I don’t know many dealers in the contemporary art world, I do know artists. My experience as a creative producer (working in site-specific art) gave me the personal desire to explore the push and pull of power that the world of art embodies. Julian is just the most creepy composite I could make of an art hound who lives off the creativity of others. That said, like all of the characters, I have empathy for his loneliness and hunger for meaning. So, yes, it’s a personal reflection of the trappings of power in the creative world.

JM: A lot of What Stella Sees concerns convergence. Stella’s treatment in Paris is an immersive experience combining art, technology, and psychology. Could you tell us a little bit about what we can learn from convergences like these and where you think they may lead us?

SK: Thank you, that’s spot on. About twenty years ago I knew people involved in utilizing virtual reality with dolphins! I never forgot their stories of trying to capture the sonic waves that mammals blast under the water.  The SeaBrain technology I made up for the novel is deeply inspired by these stories I heard floating around San Francisco, as well as the remarkable immersive experiences that friends of mine have innovated. So, the technology and the technologists are inspired by real people. As for now? We are living in a time where virtual reality, and more specifically augmented reality, are being used for healing. There are technologies that are being used for treating PTSD and general trauma that will probably be used more regularly in the future. While I don’t believe that technology heals all wounds, it certainly is interesting to think of its practical use for health.

JM: Would you agree the novel is also about displacement of various kinds?

SK: Yes, I agree with you completely. I had a goal to use the Talmudic exploration of inner worlds for this novel. That means the characters are intrinsically on their own path, a part of tribes that are not settled and looking to find their home. I found that walking a mile with each character, and sharing their displacement, provides a door into their humanity, as well as their path towards home.

JM: I described What Stella Sees as full of incidental pleasures, one of which, for me, is the passage where Rachel hurries to a café toilet to adjust her makeup and clothing, to emerge as a chic elegant woman. This behind-the-scenes view of her is somehow both touching and admirable. Please can you comment about this or any other favourite scene you might have?

SK: I am so happy you like that scene, Jack! I love the drama of being in another country and having to change your appearance to build a new chapter in your life. There are many scenes in the book that are looney, mad escapes, ranging from Mo leaving Bucharest in a garbage truck, Stella in Epilepsy camp getting it on with her first love (Andrea) as a means of escape, and others. I really do like the scene with Rachel, thanks for reminding me of that madcap scene.

JM: Michael is shown to be an emotional, vulnerable man, one who makes lists of women of his acquaintance for a possible relationship. There’s no indication you had trouble writing about him, but did you encounter any difficulties with him, or anyone else, come to that?

SK: Oh, I love poor Michael. He is such a soft soul. He means well, was a star very young in a very fickle world and now finds himself very alone. I felt, perhaps because of my theatre background, that Michael is an anti-hero – he’s weak, yet strong enough to try to be a good father. I found him heart-breaking to write, yet had to let him walk his path, one I don’t recommend to anyone.

JM: Perception is an extremely important theme of the book – the title is What Stella Sees, after all. There are all kinds of perceptions in play: professional, artistic, emotional, imaginative, you name it. Characters have their perceptions changed or need them changed, perceptions need to go beyond surfaces and appearances to discover what lies behind. Were you aware of this right from the start or did it creep up on you?

SK: Yes, I was very committed to perception as a construct for the characters. As I mentioned, I was Talmudic in my approach: every character has a perception of Stella’s point of view. Because of this, each character had to have very unique perceptions of their life.  Additionally, because water is a silent character, we needed to dive into the layers found in oceans, and similarly into people. We all have thousands of layers and currents, just as the ocean has. I loved exploring the power of perception, and the disconnection people can have when perceptions are not understood.

JM: You have managed effortlessly to avoid writing an ‘inspirational’ novel about a plucky young girl who teaches us true values. The world of What Stella Sees is a messy, conflicted one. The ghost of that other possible book might well have haunted you. Did you find yourself excising and revising to make sure it did not put in an appearance?

SK: Yes, I was very aware of not writing a ‘feel good’ story about a young girl. I wanted her mess to be our mess, and to let the conflict inform a dramatic experience, and reading of the book.  I spent a good amount of time with the editor, the remarkable Sally Arteseros, making sure that there was nothing ‘plucky’ (as you’ve said) about Stella or her experience. I wanted her to be as real to us as any kid we have met, and overlooked.

JM: Have you ever had a really perfect experience? The kind that you can’t believe you didn’t have anything to do with, or didn’t manage or manufacture? Just an amazing experience out of the blue?

SK: I have! When I was a kid I was an intern at the Bread and Puppet Theater summer extravaganza. We ran a football-sized field with fifteen-foot puppets that looked like birds. We ran these for hours in rehearsal and in performance. One day we ran them in the rain and I experienced what it might be like to fly. That was an almost perfect experience because I was so connected to the reality I was in, and I let go into the magic of that experience. Art can do that.

JM: Humanity faces climatic catastrophe. We may have two years to prevent our own extinction. If someone says to you we don’t need made-up stories when the world is in such desperate trouble, how will you reply?

SK: We must have the stories of our own lives, and of the planet. I think it’s very telling that storytelling and writers are so in demand, today. In Hollywood, TV and stories are exploding with new ideas. Even though publishing is very hard, writers are still moving forward with manuscripts and ideas. Nothing can stop our need to leave our handprints on the walls of the cave.  And, even more so now, now that we may have limited time on this planet, we need to state our meaning as a means for hope, or reflection.

JM: What can we expect from you next?

SK: I’m working on two projects right now. One is a novella about the lost limb of Sarah Bernhardt (true story!) as told by her red curtain. The other is a set of essays, 50 under 45. These are personal essays about being a woman hitting my second act of fifty while living under the reign of our 45th president (Trump). Both pick up themes of the arts, displacement and ethical dramas. I’m deep into both right now, waking early and choosing my genre with a cup of coffee. I look forward to sharing them with you when I am done!

JM: As do I, so I’ll leave you to your coffee. Thank you very much.

SK: Thank you!

Thank you for reading “Interview with Sarah Kornfeld” by Jack Messenger! If you liked what you read, spend some more time with us at the links below.

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by Jack Messenger

Sam Reese is the author of Come the Tide, a collection of short stories, reviewed here. Hailing from Aotearoa/New Zealand, Sam is an insatiable traveler and self-confessed short story nerd. He has lived and worked in Sydney, London, and now York, and his fiction has found further homes in magazines around the world. When not writing stories, he is usually writing about them; his first critical work, The Short Story in Midcentury America, won the 2018 Arthur Miller Centre First Book Prize.

JM: Sam, thank you very much for joining me.

SR: It’s my pleasure, Jack; thank you for your interest in my stories.

JM: I understand you’re from the island nation of Aotearoa. Can you tell us a little about that and how it might have influenced your writing?

SR: Absolutely. Growing up in Aoteaora I always loved spending time in nature. Rivers, mountains, bush and forests: it is a country of immense natural beauty – though sadly a lot of that is under threat. But I was taught from a young age to value, respect, and listen to the world around me. That definitely shaped the way I imagine relationships between people and the natural world.

I know that, in the midst of global political uncertainty, New Zealand’s distance from the rest of the world can look particularly attractive, but growing up I was conscious of this distance in a different way. There is a sense of being far away from everything important – so, as much as I appreciated the world around me, there was part of me that always wanted to escape, to travel. Storytelling, for me, draws on that yearning for imaginative escape.

Although I take inspiration from a wide range of writers, and don’t see myself as bound by a national identity, it is true that Aotearoa has a really strong tradition in the short story. Reading New Zealand short fiction at primary and secondary school taught me a lot about short-story-telling, and looking back, studying Katherine Mansfield’s stories in my final year of high school was probably my turning point as a writer – the moment when I said, I want to write short stories.

JM: In my reading of Come the Tide, I found the mythology aspects quite fascinating. How does classical myth square with Aotearoa? One thinks of ocean-going heroes such as Ulysses and Jason, and the various water deities, but is there more to it than that?

SR: You’re right to point to voyaging as an important link. For many New Zealanders, both Maori and Pakeha, stories of ocean travel and a quest for a new homeland are at the heart of their origin stories. All of the branches of my family have their own oral tales, passed down several generations, about the ocean journey to a vaguely imagined destination. This image symbolises a lot of my characters’ sense of being adrift: they know they are in search of something more, but they don’t have a clear image of where they are headed.

In my second year at university, the art gallery on campus hosted an exhibition of prints by a New Zealand artist, Marian Maguire, titled The Labours of Herakles (see above). Maguire blends images of colonial New Zealand with black-figure images of the demi-god Herakles – reimagining the European coloniser as this mythic, if brutal and sometimes clumsy, hero. I find her work fascinating. Her pictures point to different ways that classical myth and art can help us make sense of our past and present – without just idealising.

JM: You are an aficionado of the short story. In addition to your new collection, you have also written a book about the form. What is it that so appeals to you and which authors or stories do you most admire?

SR: There’s a line several critics use: novels are about communities, short stories about individuals. It’s an exaggeration, but it points to something that I love about short stories – they have a closeness that makes many feel very private. Another, similar line is that the novel tells a life, the short story a moment. There are some brilliant short stories out there that cover whole lives in the stretch of a dozen pages, but when I’m reading short fiction, it is that kind of intimacy and momentary insight I really crave.

As the title of my first book, The Short Story in Midcentury America, probably hints, I have a special love for the short stories of the 1940s and 1950s. Paul and Jane Bowles, Mary McCarthy, Tennessee Williams, Eudora Welty, Carson McCullers, James Baldwin, Flannery O’Connor, John Cheever, Richard Yates … As a reader, I can slip inside any of their works and it’s bliss. But as a writer, it is probably Julio Cortazar who has had the most influence. He describes the short story as a snail of language, a mysterious brother to poetry, and I often find myself turning to his way of framing and slowly unravelling stories when I am stuck with a piece.

I’m passionate about the contemporary short story, too, though. I mentioned before that reading Katherine Mansfield was a turning point for me – another was finding a copy of Laura van den Berg’s collection What the World Will Look Like When all the Water Leaves Us in a small bookshop in Potts Point, Sydney, where I lived at the time. It is one of my favourite collections – beautiful, strange, understated, with a brilliant way of telling a story – and sits alongside May Lan Tan’s Things to Make and Break, Margarita Garcia Robayo’s Fish Soup, Peter Stamm’s We’re Flying and Yoko Ogawa’s The Diving Pool as one of the collections I admire (and enjoy) the most.

JM: You’ve mentioned some of my favourites there, too, particularly James Baldwin. The image of rising waters, of drowning, is a recurrent one in Come the Tide. Ecologically speaking, with climate catastrophe upon us, rising sea levels are a dreadful threat. Yet often in Come the Tide, it is as if Nature is reasserting control and restoring harmony. It is an intriguing blend of dread and hope. How would you describe this aspect of your work?

SR: I’m really glad that both sides come across in the stories! I agree; rising sea levels are a major threat, already dramatically altering the geography of the Pacific. Many atolls have disappeared, and small nations like Nauru, Niue, and Kiribati face being completely submerged. It is one of the most visible signs of the larger ecological dangers we face.

For a long time, though, I’ve also thought about this from a different perspective. I remember being told that much of my home city, Wellington, was built on reclaimed land. That seemed like an odd phrasing to me; to my mind, reclaiming was what the sea would eventually do. Maybe it sounds fatalistic, but I find something about that image strangely reassuring – the idea of a return.

Some of my earliest memories are of the ocean, and from high school onwards I trained in free diving – something I still like to do, though not in any competitive sense! After just a little practice, diving on your own breath brings a deep calm. A stillness, and a connection to something larger. I’ve never blacked out, thankfully, but remember vividly the times I have come close, pushing myself too far in the pool. For better or worse, that peaceful, creeping darkness has shaded the way I imagine the change to our world.

JM: You are clearly interested in the idea of hidden depths, of secrets and unfinished business covered over by time and circumstance. Where does that come from?

SR: That’s a really good question! I’m a naturally trusting person, but I’ve also always been extremely inquisitive, to the point where I can come across as nosy. It’s an odd combination, but I’d say I’m driven by a desire to look below the surface and find the story that explains why a person acts a certain way, or why they hold a particular belief. When it comes to reading, I know I’m drawn to stories where cracks appear in characters’ facades, where we slowly learn that there is more to them than first appears.

JM: To begin with, some of the characters in your stories are ambiguous as to gender, moral status and what it is they are up to, so the reader has to be patient and put the clues together as best they can. Is this a deliberate approach on your part or does it spring from something else?

SR: I’ve always been drawn to stories where character is revealed slowly, where there is a key or hinge that allows me to recognise and understand the protagonist in an unexpected way. As a reader, I find that slow sense of discovery immensely satisfying – but it is also something I’ve had to work on a lot as a writer! This is one of the areas where my editor at Platypus, Michelle, has been extremely helpful: she has been amazing at honing in on places where there is not enough information to get to that moment of understanding. Or when there was too much, and the effect was lost! I’m trying, too, to find an ambiguity that is inclusive – that makes it easier for different readers to find themselves inside these stories.

JM: Feel free to disagree with me, but my view is that you have a certain reticence when it comes to people. As I mention in my review, it’s as if they are behind a glass screen, remote from the reader. Do you think that’s an accurate assessment and is it something you will vary in future?

SR: This is one area where my writing self and social self really differ! I’m fascinated by people – their tics, their quirks, their personalities – and it helps a fiction writer enormously to meet new people, to hear how they frame ideas or feelings. When it comes to writing, though, you’re right to think that there is a distance at play.

I’m very conscious of creating space when I write about people. Expansiveness is generative; it opens possibilities for the reader. And with the short story, where your focus is not on a larger life, but a moment – a sliver – that space allows the reader an entranceway into the action. It creates a way of feeling with the character. I’d hope that, with different pieces, this distance might vary for the reader, but I have a feeling that as long as I’m writing short stories, there will be an element of this!

JM: Personally, I found ‘Lake Country’ a disturbing story, particularly the point where the turbines are revealed beneath the ex-pump house – for me, there’s always something uncanny about big machines in strange locations, and the juxtaposition of the artificial with the natural. Is there a real-life counterpart to the lake, the tunnels and the dam in this story? Tell us a little bit about how ‘Lake Country’ came to be written.

SR: I’ve always found that kind of juxtaposition very unnerving myself; my parents used to take me for long walks through the bush to the reservoir in Wellington, and I still remember feeling deeply unsettled by the site of the concrete dam emerging slowly through the treeline, braced between the green curves of the valley. Perhaps because that emotional memory was so strong, I always kept an eye out for stories about dams; parts of ‘Lake Country’ were influenced by disturbing stories from North America and Japan about artificially flooding previously occupied valleys for hydro power. I had even written a few poems about dams!

But the story really came together when my partner, Alexandra, and I went to stay at an old pump house in Tasmania, in the middle of Lake St Clair. It was a haunting experience – there was almost no one else there, and in the middle of winter (the first time I think that I was actually cold in the five years we lived in Australia) the silence and stillness were both beautiful and unsettling.

This story is one of the longest in the collection, and it started out as a novella – almost 20,000 words. This was one of two or three stories where I needed to write a lot before I could then really feel the emotional heart of the story, and whittle down the words to something more intense.

JM: Humanity faces climatic disaster. If someone says to you we don’t need made-up stories when the world is in such desperate trouble, how will you reply?

SR: We use stories to shape the world, to make sense of all the chaos around us. To change the world, we first need to change our stories – to tell a different tale about humans and nature, about our responsibility. I think it’s true, too, that stories shape us. History shows how this can be used as a tool of power, of marginalisation and control – but it can be a force for positive change, too. We need new stories to see the world anew.

JM: Speaking of which, what can we expect from you next?

SR: I’ve been working on a new collection of closely linked stories. It is challenging, but I’m finding that the resonances I can build are also very satisfying. Later this year, my next critical book, Blue Notes: Jazz, Literature, and Loneliness, is coming out with Louisiana State University Press. And I’ve started writing a literary biography of the American writers Paul and Jane Bowles with Alexandra – a hybrid book bringing together biography, literary history, and travel writing.

Jack Messenger is the author and publisher of four literary novels, his latest being Farewell Olympus. In addition to writing fiction, he writes book reviews, blog posts, and conducts interviews at IBR and JackMessengerWriter.com.

Thank you for reading “Interview with Sam Reese” by Jack Messenger! If you liked what you read, spend some more time with us at the links below.

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Interviewed by Joe Walters

Laura Morrison wins the IBR Book of the Month Contest with her thrilling, spine-tingling, and wonderfully weird novella Come Back to the Swamp!

IBR’s editor-in-chief Joe Walters sat down with the author to discuss main characters, evil swamps, the “don’t go in there!” trope, and more.

 Interview with Laura Morrison

What Readers Want to Know:

IBR: Laura, thank you so much for writing Come Back to the Swamp. It enthralled us from beginning to end, proving to be an excellent choice for IBR’s Book of the Month. The book’s strange plotline and even stranger characters created a truly unique experience for our readers. What made you first begin this project?

LM: About ten years back when I lived in New Jersey, I worked at Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge removing invasive plants. One day, out of nowhere, this crazy old lady rose out of the muck. This chance encounter started me down a terrifying, supernatural, life-changing journey that I just had to get it down on the page so the world could know terror that dwells within the swamp. And that’s all a lie except that I worked at Great Swamp NWR. 

Really, it’s just that when I was out in the swamp getting all scratched up by thorny plants and getting eaten by mosquitos and ticks, I started thinking what a great setting a swamp would be for a story that was unsettling or scary in tone. It took me a few years to get started on it, but eventually I sat down and began writing, and Swamp just sorta happened.

IBR: As you may remember from our review, we admire Bernice for her ability to embrace her conflicts and drive this entertaining story forward. Not only does she approach her issues with bravery and strength, but she also does it with humor. If you could compare her to a few real-life and fictional characters, who would they be and why?

LM: As far as real-life individuals who inspired Bernice, first and foremost is Jane Goodall. I love her bravery, strength, and curiosity. A woman going off to research gorillas in the middle of the jungle when she was in her 20’s–in the 1960s no less–was quite a thing. 

Another real-life influence is myself, of course. I’m an environmental scientist by training, I worked with invasive species, and I like space operas. My younger sister was also an influence for Bernice. She studies snakes and turtles, and her stories about her fieldwork were often in the back of my mind when I was writing.

As for fictional characters, I’d say Bernice is a mix of Hermione Granger, Westley from The Princess Bride, and Marina Singh from State of Wonder. Hermione has Bernice’s determination, intelligence, and bravery. Same for Westley, except he’s not exceptionally bright–sorry, Westley! I call it like I see it. He does, however, know a thing or two about swamps, seeing as how he got Buttercup through the Fire Swamp alive. State of Wonder is one of my absolute favorite books, and the main character, Marina Singh, is a pharmacologist who goes down to the Amazon and has a pretty hellish time; she only manages to get through it as well as she does due to her strength of character.

None of them really have Bernice’s sense of humor, however. My sister and I are the only people in this list of influences who are very funny.

IBR: Come Back to the Swamp opens with a riveting passage describing the invasive species in the swamp and how they illustrate “the sad downsides of globalization.” Because this opens the novella, we consider the environmental aspects of the novella to be quite important. What else do you believe that readers could take away from Come Back to the Swamp from an environmental standpoint?

LM: While I didn’t intentionally plant an environmental message in the story, my opinions definitely bleed through in this book and everything I write. For instance, the swamp in this story has a very definite power. I love the idea that no matter what people do to the natural world, and no matter how much they encroach on it, in the end nature will always be able to bounce back in some capacity–perhaps not in the way it has evolved to be through the millennia, but nature really does have a powerful ability to keep on going.

IBR: What is one thing you would like readers to know before they start Come Back to the Swamp?

LM: Be prepared to be nervous next time you’re out in the wilderness alone. It’s probably rather evil of me, but I love the feedback I got from beta readers that after they read Swamp they found themselves looking over their shoulders when they were out hiking, and wondering what might be lurking behind the trees.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QpDZ38Hm3-o

What Writers Want to Know:

IBR: Like any good horror film, your book has the ability to urge readers to yell out, “Don’t go in there!” at any moment. But with your book, you make it clear why the character feels like he/she must “go in there.” Do you have any advice for how writers can effectively move the plot forward in such a believable way?

LM: I find that it’s helpful having thoughtful characters who go into the “Don’t go in there” situations with their eyes wide open. They see why they shouldn’t do it and they also see why they might want or need to. They weigh the consequences of both options and make their decision. It’s the characters who stupidly go running from safety and into obvious danger with no thought at all that I feel are unrealistic. The more they have a spirit of “Yes, I know this is dumb but here are reasons A, B, and C that I need to do it anyway” the better it is because the reader can then see that though the character is still doing a stupid thing it at least makes a bit of sense on some level.

Also, my main character Bernice clings quite tenaciously to science and logic, even in the face of what most others might see as the blatantly supernatural. Consequently, she finds it very hard to accept the supernatural, and her mind is quite good at finding ways to explain it away. Once she has pushed herself sufficiently far into denial, it’s easier for her to go into supernatural-related danger than it would be for a person who accepted the supernatural things.

IBR: Writers love to hear about a published writer’s early struggles, and unfortunately for you, we do too. What was the most difficult aspect of writing or publishing this book?

LM: If we were talking about general writing struggles I could rant for hours about the difficulties, but since we’re talking about Swamp specifically I have to honestly say the whole process was oddly easy. Usually I have to jam a bit of writing time in between parenting and gardening and beekeeping and all the other non-writer aspects of my life. But when I wrote this particular book I happened to be visiting my in-laws; when my kiddos are visiting grandparents they want nothing to do with their parents anymore because grandparents are much more fun, so I had an entire week where I had unlimited writing time. Since Swamp is only about 33,000 words, I was able to finish it in a week. It was amazing. I haven’t had as easy a time of writing a book before or since.

One of the characters, Kevin, did give me a lot of trouble, though. He was a headache in edits. I couldn’t make him a consistent character. I was only able to sort him out with the help of two of my writer friends who gave excellent advice.

As far as finding a publisher, there aren’t that many places that take novella-length stories so I didn’t have many places I could query, especially when I discounted the ones who turned up their noses at speculative fiction and humor. When I found Black Spot Books’ website I fell in love. They felt like such a perfect fit. I’m still stunned and grateful that they felt the same. Once Swamp was in their hands it was smooth sailing. The editing, the design, the marketing. Swamp and I are very, very lucky.

IBR: Before you leave us to create your next scintillating thriller, could you share some specific advice for an author looking to get published?

LM: In my case, all I had to do was go to the nearest crossroads at midnight and wait until this mysterious, dark figure materialized out of thin air before me. I asked, “Hey, will you give me a writing contract?” and he intoned in a voice to chill the marrow, “Sure thing, but the price is your soul.” Since getting published is really hard, I was like, “Cool, let’s do this,” and the next day Black Spot Books contacted me!

But also, write a book you love and believe in, share it with a few writers whose writing you respect, get their opinions, fine tune the manuscript, and begin hunting for a publisher. If you don’t personally know any writers whose writing you respect, join a writing group and find a few people; it takes a while and a lot of reading to make meaningful connections, but it is so, so worth it; finding a good group of writing friends is hands down the thing that has helped my writing the most, and with the magic of the internet any writer can find like-minded people, no matter how obscure their genre of choice or style. Never, ever give up. If you give up, you’ll certainly never get published. The more you try, the greater your chances.

To have the chance to be the next book of the month winner, get your book reviewed here.

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by Joe Walters

Annie Hartnett is the author of Rabbit Cake (Tin House Books, 2017). She is a 2013 graduate of the MFA program at the University of Alabama, a 2011 graduate of the Bread Loaf School of English, and a 2008 graduate of Hamilton College. Annie was the 2013-2014 Writer-in-Residence for the Associates of the Boston Public Library. She currently teaches classes on the novel and the short story at Grub Street, an independent writing center in Boston. She is currently at work on her second novel. Annie is represented by Katie Grimm of Don Congdon Associates, Inc. Annie lives in Providence, RI with her husband and their border collie.

Read our book review of Rabbit Cake here, or scroll below for our interview with Annie Hartnett.

Questions Readers Want to Know:

JW: Annie, thank you so much for sharing Rabbit Cake with us. I had an incredible time flying through its pages, urged-on by Elvis’s hilarious voice and the novel’s consistently building storyline. I’m curious though—what was the first idea that made you begin this project?

AH: I’m so thrilled you liked the book! Means so much to hear. The initial idea was to write about a family of sleepwalkers. I love books that are a little bit strange, a little off-kilter from reality, but not too far off. Sleepwalking is one of those things that is an unbelievable true thing. I wanted to explore it as if it was a family disease. That was the initial seed that Rabbit Cake grew from.

JW: Rabbit Cake must have required hours of research. From animal sleeping habits to sleepwalking, Elvis could inform the reader of fun facts galore. It made us wonder: Did you bake or eat any rabbit cakes for your research? If so, how were they?

AH: I did indeed do a ton of research into the animal facts, but I only baked two cakes during the writing process…and not really as research, but to bribe my MFA thesis committee into letting me pass my defense. (Rabbit Cake started out as my MFA thesis at U of Alabama.)

JW: The grieving process looks different to each and every one of your characters in the novel. But one thing that stood out to me is that the females and males respond to grieving in drastically different ways: the females springing to action and the men curling inward. Was this something you set out to do, or did your characters’ singular personalities take over?

AH: I think maybe it’s more accurate, at least in terms of my intentions with the book, to say that it’s a difference between children/adults rather than male/female. Elvis, in particular, as our young narrator, a kid with a scientific mind, thinks the grief is a problem to be solved. The father, Frank, being older and more experienced, understands that there is no real way to solve grief after a terrible loss. It’s just something you ride out…I think that explains Frank’s curling in, or at least my intention with it.

JW: Elvis Babbitt manages to tell the story of her grieving family with humor, clarity, and hope. What do you believe that a reader can learn most from a child narrator that they wouldn’t be able to learn from an adult?

AH: I think the daunting thing about writing any book is accepting that someone else has already told pretty much the same story – so what I like about the child narrator is that even If a story is the same as another, this character hasn’t experienced it before. Elvis has nothing to compare her loss to, she’s the only kid she knows who has a dead mom. It felt like a fresh place to write for me. Plus, Elvis as a character is just so fun to write because I love the weirdness of kids. They can really startle you with their insight and not be aware that they’ve been insightful at all.

JW: What is one thing that you’d like to tell your readers before they start Rabbit Cake?

AH: No rabbits were harmed in the making of the cakes.

Questions Writers Want to Know:

JW: I believe that writers could learn a lot from this novel: voice, structure, description, and way more. It seems like Rabbit Cake came out of your head as an already finished product. But how long did it take for you to complete, and how much did it change before and after Katie Grimm and Masie Cochran got to it?

AH: I’ll take that compliment! The voice did come to me from the first draft, and I knew there was magic in that voice if I stuck with it. The structure was something I had to work towards, on my own and later with Katie and Masie. That’s part of learning how to write a novel versus a short story, I think, learning to build towards something over a long stretch of pages. In terms of how long it took me, I started it in April 2012, Katie sold it to Masie in July 2015. It came out in 2017. It takes a long time.

JW: The characters feel real in Rabbit Cake—and not just the humans. From a dog named Boomer to a parrot named Ernest Hemingway, what advice could you give a writer for creating sympathetic and entertaining animals in fiction?

AH: Oh I love this question and not one I’ve been asked before! I’m an animal freak, and I always have been. Boomer was based entirely on Harvey, my border collie I had while writing the book, so I just put all his little quirks and funny habits in there. For Ernest, I watched a ton of parrot videos to get to his character. Youtube is your friend when observing animal behaviors. One of the few good things about the internet. Animal videos.

So my tips to create lifelike animal characters, I suppose, is to pay attention to their personality quirks. And just like human characters, you don’t want to make your animal characters too perfect. I mean Boomer is nearly perfect, but he does do some naughty things and he also fails, in some way. Ernest can be pretty nasty. That nastiness, or naughtiness, is something that will bring an animal character to life.

JW: Has your writing or your writing process changed since the publication of your first novel?

AH: Yes and no. When it’s going really well, it hasn’t changed: I’m just at my desk (or in my bed!), telling myself a good story. When it’s not going well, I’m thinking too far ahead to the publication process. When you’re writing a novel, you have to try to stay right in the moment, right in the story, so you can really bring the whole thing to life. The work is the best part anyway. Publication is great, but, for me, it is the work that holds the real pleasure.

Thank you for reading “Interview with Annie Hartnett” by Joe Walters! If you liked what you read, please spend some more time with us at the links below.

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