Interview with Su Smallen + Giveaways

Interview with Su Smallen + Giveaways

Su Smallen is the Minnesota Author in the Spotlight for the month of February and I had a chance to interview her about her two amazing books of poetry.  Read on to learn more about Su, her writing practice and her books of poetry.

Hello Su,

1. Please tell us a little bit about yourself?

I’m named after the flower rudbeckia, in the sunflower family, which my parents call brown-eyed susan. I would love to live in a yellow house and grow a garden of sunflowers.

2. What is the inspiration behind Kinds of Snow?

We experienced several years with little snow in Minnesota, relative to previous decades, and I missed it. I wrote to imaginatively call forth snow, and while doing so, snow called forth me.

3. What is the inspiration behind You This Close?

I was awarded a residency with the Science Museum of Minnesota’s St. Croix Watershed Research Station, which included the opportunity to learn from the scientists there about the river and its watershed. This gave me images and language for writing poems to a beloved I have not yet met.

4. Why did you become an author of poetry?

I come from quiet people who pay attention to small things. I am attuned to language, space, and light.

5. Where do you find your inspiration?

Nature, poetry, visual art, performance art, and the necessity of connection.

6. Do you read?  What books or author/poets inspire you?

Yes and never enough. I have studied Virginia Woolf half my life, she constantly evolved herself. Woolf saw through things; she focused the inner life within the outer life.

7. You’ve written and published several books of poetry.  Tell us a little bit about your other books.

Buddha, Proof was first published as an artist book, hand-stitched with original art by broadcraft press. The book became a Minnesota Book Award Finalist and quickly sold out of two printings; it was then picked up by a small press for traditional, perfect-bound publication of a new edition that includes more poems. Buddha, Proof is a seriously light-hearted portrayal of Buddha in the United States.

Wild Hush was also published as a hand-bound book with original art by Susan Solomon. It is about many kinds of silence.

Weight of Light is my first book, and I am excited to tell you that it has been picked up by a new publisher after being out of print for ten years. I don’t have a publication date for it yet, but perhaps late 2018.

8. How do you carve time out of your busy day to write?  Are you a full time writer or do you have a day job? What is one of your daily writing rituals or habits?

Yes, my day job as a science editor is impossible, and work days are too long and draining. During the week, I jot things down when they occur to me. Sometimes these are cryptic notes like "red-handled can opener" that I hope will be enough to remind me later what I was thinking. Also during the week I write for 20-30 minutes twice per day: when I wake and before sleep. Then, during the weekend, I set aside quite a bit of Sunday for writing, using my week's reading and writing notes.

9. Usually poetry is autobiographical and personal. Is it hard to share your personal memories and experiences with the world? Why do you do it?

By the time a poem is published, it has "grown up"; I have revised it, sought and considered feedback, tested its reception during poetry readings.  Along the way, the poem becomes its own being, separate from me. I write them to wonder, to connect, and to give.

10. In one sentence, tell readers why they should read Kinds of Snow.

Snow, because it conceals and reveals, can help you make your way, “from point A to point A.”

11. In one sentence, tell readers why they should read You This Close.

If you seek your soulmate, if you know your soulmate, or if your soul loves a river, these poems will resonate with you.

Thanks Su!

If you want to win a copy of Su's books enter here:

Kinds of Snow Giveaway
You This Close Giveaway

Charlie Quimby Author Interview + Giveaway

Charlie Quimby Author Interview + Giveaway

Charlie is the Minnesota Author in the Spotlight for the month of January and he has graciously agreed to answer some questions about this writing life and career, his favorite books and authors and so much more.  I hope you read on to discover more about this interesting author and his books Inhabited and Monument Road.

Hi Charlie,

1. Tell us a little bit about yourself.

I was born in Western Colorado and got away as soon as I could because I didn’t see a future for myself there as a writer. I went to Carleton College and have lived in Minnesota since, always making my living from writing, with a few odd jobs thrown in during those early days of selling book, music and theater reviews for $25 apiece.

Since then, I’ve had a historical play commissioned, worked in corporate communications, founded (and retired from) a marketing communications agency, taught information design, written about community planning, transportation, education and tax policy, helped nonprofits raise capital, kept a blog going for a dozen years and published two novels.

For the last decade, I’ve gone back to writing full-time versus running a business. This allows me the freedom to still live in Minnesota but spend the winters (and the disappointing part of spring) in Colorado.

Maybe best of all, I’m still married to the woman I first met at Carleton back in 1968.

2. What is the inspiration behind Inhabited?

For eight years I’ve volunteered for organizations that serve homeless people in Minneapolis and Grand Junction. Being granted access to the lives of the very poor in America inspired me to share what I’ve learned—not just about the conditions of homelessness but about the ways the rest of us

accept, explain or ignore severe poverty and dysfunction in our country.

Also, the culture, landscape and struggles of the hometown I fled are essential to the stories I tell. As a relatively isolated western community with an ambition to do more than tumble through boom-and-bust cycles, Grand Junction shrinks down to size the challenges facing many American cities.

The types of conflicts that arise in the novel are real everywhere. But writing about them in the country where I grew up takes me to my “bone place”—where emotion and sense of time are deep and palpable.

3. Tell us about your first book, Monument Road. How do Inhabited and Monument Road connect?

Both books are set in the Grand Valley and both concern how people survive grievous loss and its accompanying regret.

Monument Road focuses on a seventy-something rancher who has spent the year after his wife’s death preparing to fulfill a promise to her—and to end his life at the same time. Leonard Self is a decent but taciturn type who appreciates too late how much of the world he had walled off with his rectitude. His story intertwines with two young people who died along the road he will travel on his final day. One, a foster boy who once lived with Leonard and his wife. Another, a high school girl named Helen whose passionate nature took her too close to the edge.

Memories and encounters on his drive seem like obstacles but they may also be signs redemption waits at the end of the road.

Inhabited continues a theme that runs through Monument Road—how being at home involves feeling comfortable in a place, a set of a relationships and in one’s own skin. It also picks up a loose thread related to Helen’s death in Monument Road.
Inhabited is primarily the story of Meg, Helen’s sister. A successful realtor, Meg's involved with good causes, including serving on the town’s homeless coalition and bringing a promising development to town, and she helps homebuyers find the “lifestyle of their dreams.” But she carries an unresolved guilt that keeps her from fully being herself and from being intimately known by others.
And then she encounters a homeless man named Isaac, whose decency shines through his life's disrepair and whose desire for order could unmask Meg’s carefully constructed image.

4. Usually an author includes some of their life experiences in their books. Did you do that?  Do you have anything in common with your characters?

It’s inevitable that something of a writer’s nature ends up in the blender. For example, in both books characters arrive at perilous heights, which reflects my real-life experience of being drawn and repelled by such places.

I write about the country where I grew up but it’s more as an observer than as a participant. My father took his life in 1984, a period when the community hit bottom economically. Every suicide reflects, in a sense, the sufferer’s distorted view of oneself and poses a mystery that can never be solved. There’s nothing like my father’s death in my novels, but I’m sure my deeper themes flow in part from his life.

I hate characters who are the author in costume. In the few instances where I tried that, I either stopped writing or shrank the guy and moved him away from the center of the story. I already knew him and he wasn’t able to surprise me.

Unfamiliar characters and situations force me to go somewhere new or fearsome, to employ empathy more than memory. That’s what I find stimulating as a writer and as a reader. So I’ve written about an agnostic rancher and his very Christian wife, adventurous high school girls, homeless people with mental illness, a man in denial that he’s a serial killer, an enterprising nun, an alcoholic who finds his center late in life, a semi-redneck businessman, etc.

5. What are some of the issues in Inhabited that are integral to your story?

Your question makes me want to get on my soapbox, something I tried hard avoid in the book itself. I’ll just say the story’s focus on homelessness and economic development invites people of good will to ask themselves some fundamental questions about self-interest versus the interests of others.

For example, last night a book club reader identified a key question in the story: whether it’s possible to distinguish the “undeserving” homeless in order to help only the “deserving.”

Are economic outcomes the proper measure of mankind? Is wealth truly virtue’s reward, and if so, what does that say about the poor? Should we leave society’s toughest problems up to the market since diverse communities can’t seem to agree on solutions?

We tend to judge other human beings based largely upon how alike they are to us. That’s the core issue in Inhabited and at the center of our national discourse.

6. Do you like to read?  What are some of your favorite books and authors?

Reading is an essential part of the writing life. I tend to look for a book that is right for me at a particular moment, rather than pursue greats or favorites, because what concerns and influences me changes.

Life is short and even Pantheons go out of date. For example, writers as different as Edmund Wilson, Harry Crews, Wright Morris and Margaret Atwood once inspired me to acquire all their works. I still haven’t read all of them.

Not to totally dodge the question, here are some of my all-time favorite reading experiences. All of George Orwell, including the four-volume Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters. Loren Eiseley, an anthropologist and natural science writer, especially The Immense Journey and The Night Country. Wallace Stegner for his writing about the culture, history and environment of the west. And Joe Sacco for his use of the graphic novel form to give an intimate focus to the big subject of war.

7. What is one book that you think should be part of the school curriculum or a part of the great books canon?

1984 should be taught forever. Unlike many books in the canon, people will read it anyway.

8. How do you carve time out of your busy day to write?  Do you write full-time or do you also have a “day” job?

I have always written full-time, though only in the last seven years as a writer of fiction. I am very fortunate to have reached a point in life where my livelihood does not depend on being a novelist.

My first move each day is to fill my coffee cup and sit down to work on something—a novel-in-progress, a blog post, a letter to the editor. I don’t set goals or deadlines, such as words per day or number of hours. If I hit my desk and don’t write anything, that’s very unusual, but I don’t beat myself up over it because I’ll be back at it tomorrow.

9. Have you begun working on a new book?  Can you tell us about it?

I’m in the early stages of working on a third novel that is also set in Western Colorado. The story centers on a very wealthy patriarch who has made his fortune by exploiting the earth and is now building a trophy retreat in the mountains that he hopes will cement his legacy. I expect a lot will go wrong with his plan.

10. In one sentence tell readers why they should read Inhabited.

Inhabited will open your eyes to strangers, tune your ear to their voices, and perhaps change your mind about the boundaries of kinship and the meaning of home.

Thanks Charlie!!

If you would like to win a copy of Charlie's book Inhabited please enter here:  Inhabited Giveaway

David Oppegaard Author Interview + Giveaway

Author Interview with David Oppegaard + Giveaway

David is the Minnesota Author in the Spotlight here on Booksnob for the month of October. I had a chance to ask him some questions about his Young Adult novel, The Firebug of Balrog County.  I want you to know that I'm in love with the firebug.  Read on to find out more from David about his inspiration, what he's reading right now and what he recommends to read post election.  Enjoy.

1. Tell us a little bit about yourself.

I live in St. Paul with my cat, Frenchie. I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was about seven years old, when I started writing little stories about aliens and ninjas. I’ve published four novels but I’ve actually written sixteen, going on seventeen. I write in multiple genres including horror, fantasy, sci-fi, and literary. Most things I do are motivated by an urge to A) feel like I earned the whiskey, beer, and cheese I consume and B) not be bored.

2. What is the inspiration behind The Firebug of Balrog County?

My mother passed away from complications related to cancer in October of 2000. Firebug is my attempt to address that loss and come to terms with it while using a proper balance of humor and swear words. It didn’t take long to actually sit down and write because the mental process behind it took thirteen years.

3. Usually an author puts some of his own life experiences in the book.  Did you do that in
Firebug?  Do you have anything in common with your characters?

Autobiography is all over FIREBUG. The setting, the story of the mother. The cranky war vet mayor. The main character, Mack, is a lot like an eighteen-year-old version of myself, except I was never that into starting fires and was generally law abiding.

4.  Can you tell us about your previous books?

I‘ll stick to the published titles: The Suicide Collectors is post-apocalyptic speculative fiction about a suicide plague and a group of survivors searching for a cure. It was nominated for a Bram Stoker Award and blurbed by Stan Lee. Wormwood, Nevada is about a meteorite upending a small Nevada town and the lives of its citizens. And the Hills Opened Up is an old-school horror-western about a copper mining town that’s set upon by a murderous creature called The Charred Man.

5.  Do you like to read?  What are some of your favorite books and authors?

I’m always churning over a stack of books on my night stand. I’m a big fan of Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s complete works and Don Quixote. Right now I’m reading Mindy Kaling’s amusing autobiography Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?.

6.  Name one book that you think is a must read for everyone and tell us why?
Post-election, I suppose I’d choose 1984 by George Orwell or Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury for their frightening portrayal of oppressive regimes opposed to knowledge, though I guess the fat orange cat’s out of the bag now, isn’t it?

7.  How do you carve time out of your busy day to write?  Do you write full-time or do you also have a “day” job?
I work full time at the University of Minnesota as a staff member. I take a nap when I get home, make dinner, go for a run, then I usually write from 9-11 PM.

8.  Did you choose the title and cover for the book?  How did you come up with Balrog County?  Is it the name of a real place?

The title is mine and I was given two covers to choose from as well as feedback on the color scheme. Lisa Novak was the cover designer and she did a smashing job. Best cover ever.
Balrog County is a vague allusion to Blue Earth County in MN, though the book could be set in any Midwestern state.

9.  Have you begun working on a new book?  Can you tell us about it?
Since FIREBUG came out I’ve been working on three books. The newest one still in progress is called SUNDOWNING. It’s about a retired rancher in Montana and his family as they deal with the rancher succumbing to Alzheimer’s.

10.  In one sentence tell readers why they should read, The Firebug of Balrog County?
It’s funny as hell and there’s a dog in it named Chompy.

Thanks, David!!

If you want to win one of three copies of his book The Firebug of Balrog County, click here;
The Firebug of Balrog County Giveaway

You can find David on his website at:  https://davidoppegaard.com/ 

Jacqueline West Author Interview

Jacqueline West Author Interview

Jacqueline West was the Minnesota Author in the Spotlight here on Booksnob for the month of August.  I got a chance to interview Jacqueline and ask her about her new teen novel, Dreamers Often Lie and her reading and writing habits.  Read on to find out what Shakespeare play is her favorite and so much more.

Hi Jacqueline,

1.      Tell us a little bit about yourself.

            I’m Jacqueline West, and I live with my family in Red Wing, MN. I write middle grade and YA fiction, as well as short stories and poetry for adults. I’m a lazy gardener, a decent musician, and a mean cookie-froster.

2.      What is the backstory behind Dreamers Often Lie?

            Back in 2007, I was teaching high school English in the twelfth smallest school district in Wisconsin. This meant that I was the entire English department…and speech department…and drama department. Some days, I would lead a Romeo and Juliet unit with the freshmen, discuss Hamlet with the seniors, and then direct school play rehearsal. I’d go home at the end of each day with my head full of Shakespeare and drama and YA literature—and, of course, with my students and their lives. These things all tangled together, and I started to write the story that eventually became Dreamers Often Lie.

3.      Usually an author put some of her own life experiences in their book.  Did you do that?  Do you have anything in common with your characters?

            Oh, yeah. Like Jaye, my protagonist, I was a high school theatre kid. During college, I paid my bills by acting in shows at the local dinner theatre. Today, I do community theatre when I can; I love getting the chance to step inside of other people and wear their clothes and live their lives for a little while. (It’s a bit like being a writer, actually!)
            Beyond that, though, I don’t share much with any of the characters from Dreamers Often Lie. Unlike Jaye, I’ve never had a serious head injury. I haven’t lost a member of my immediate family. I’ve never had William Shakespeare show up in my bedroom. Jaye’s life is a lot more complicated than mine.

4.      Can you tell us about your previous books?

            My middle grade fantasy/mystery series is called The Books of Elsewhere. Volume One, The Shadows, was released in 2010, and the fifth and final volume came out in 2014. The series made the NYT Bestsellers list and has been published in eleven other countries so far, which still feels unreal to me.
            The story revolves around an eleven-year-old girl named Olive, whose brilliant mathematician parents have just bought an old stone house with a mysterious past. Because Olive is very different from her parents, she notices things about the house that they don’t notice…like the oddness of the paintings that have been left hanging on the walls. And when Olive finds an old pair of spectacles hidden in an upstairs drawer and puts them on, she discovers that all the paintings in the house can come to life. She can even climb inside of them, and talk to the people within them, and explore these eerie painted worlds—but it turns out that some of the painted people she meets are manipulating her for some very dangerous ends.

5.      Do you like to read?  What are some of your favorite books and authors?

            I’m an obsessive, scattered reader. I’m always reading at least four books at once, because I keep one in my purse, one in the kitchen, one in the bathroom, one on the bedside table, one in the car…
            I try to avoid reading anything too similar to my current works-in-progress, so these days I read a lot of memoir and contemporary or classic adult fiction. Some of my favorite authors are Margaret Atwood, Neil Gaiman, Kelly Link, Annie Dillard, Michael Chabon, Louise Erdrich, Haven Kimmel, Roald Dahl, Kurt Vonnegut, Sylvia Plath, Bill Watterson, Poe, Bradbury, the Brontes, Dickens, and Shakespeare. See? Scattered.
            I have a hard time naming any favorite books because I love so MANY, but if I could only bring a teeny tiny library to a desert island, it would definitely include Jane Eyre, Gaiman’s American Gods, Bradbury’s Dandelion Wine, and the collected works of Shakespeare. And some Calvin and Hobbes.

6.      What is your favorite Shakespeare play and why?

            Hamlet. Hands down. It’s endlessly fascinating. It’s so gorgeously crafted (just thinking of some of its best lines makes my heart beat faster) and the characters and their motivations are so rich with possibilities. And then there’s Hamlet himself. He’s so layered, and each of those layers can be interpreted in different ways. Is he sane? Or does he just believe that he’s sane, Catch-22 style? When is he being honest, and when is he just putting on a new ‘disposition’ in order to manipulate others? Is he even lying to himself, and thus to the audience? The reasons I love that play are some of the same reasons I wanted to write a story like Dreamers Often Lie, where the protagonist is a complicated lens, and truth and reality are slippery things.

7.      Where do you find your inspiration?

I’m going to give the flakey cop-out answer and say “everywhere,” because it’s true. Memories, daydreams, artwork, other people’s stories, travel, things I see out the car window… They’re all ingredients that I can put in my mental pantry.
 
8.      How do you carve time out of your busy day to write?  Do you write full-time or do you also have a “day” job?

            Writing has been my full-time job since 2010. As an author, I do a lot of school visits and writing workshops, both in MN/WI and around the country. The publication schedule of The Books of Elsewhere kept me pretty busy from 2010 – 2014, and in 2015, I had a baby, so I’m pretty busy these days too. I’m lucky enough to have my recently-retired, baby-adoring parents nearby, so now I have childcare two days a week, and on the other days, I have two blessed hours of naptime. I’m sure I’m less productive than I used to be, but if there’s anything that can help you kick the procrastinating habit, it’s a baby. Now I work like there’s a bomb about to go off.

9.      Name one book that you think is a must read for everyone and tell us why?

            Just ONE? Sheesh.
            This one’s barely even a book, although it was published as one, in one of those miniature, graduation-gift-style volumes: This Is Water, by David Foster Wallace. It will make your heart bigger.
 
10.  Tell us in one sentence why we should read Dreamers Often Lie.
         
            If you like your novels twisty and odd and romantic, laced with Shakespearean characters and dark humor, Dreamers Often Lie is for you.


Thanks Jacqueline!!!
You can find Jacqueline on her website at:  http://www.jacquelinewest.com/

Peter Geye Author Interview + Giveaway

Peter Geye Author Interview + Giveaway

Peter Geye was the June/July Minnesota Author in the Spotlight here on Booksnob.  I had a chance to ask this super creative and busy author a few questions about his new book and writing. Read on to learn more about Peter and to win a copy of his newest novel, Wintering.

Hi Peter,

1. Tell us a little bit about yourself.

I was born and raised in Minneapolis, where I continue to live. I grew up in North Minneapolis and went to Minneapolis South High School. I later attended Minneapolis Community College and got my BA from the University of Minnesota. I consider myself Minnesota through and through.

I have three kids. They’re spectacular little people.

I love to travel and read and eat good food and drink great beer and whiskey. I love music, especially anything with a little twang in it. And given a choice, I’d always choose a cold day over a hot one.

2. What is the back story behind Wintering?

When I decided I was going to try to be a writer some thirty years ago, the first idea I ever had for a story was about a showdown in the Boundary Waters, a place I’d been going to since I was ten years old. I’ve always loved the idea that you can get lost in this place, and that even for all of its serenity, it’s a place where you can get into trouble pretty quickly. These seemed—and still seem, I might add!—like pretty good ingredients for fiction.

But I spent a long time coming to this particular story. Or rather, these characters and how they might inhabit that place. It would take a very long time to describe in any sort of detail how I got to the story as I’ve written it, but in short, I discovered most of these characters when I started writing my last book, a novel called The Lighthouse Road. That book originally began as the story of one woman, a Norwegian immigrant who arrives in Minnesota expecting a life of promise, but finding something else altogether. It wasn’t long before her son was having a son of his own, and then I knew I was going to write this many-generations long story. Harry and Gus Eide, the two main characters in Wintering were born in my imagination that long ago.

3. Usually an author puts some of his own life experiences in the book.  Did you do that in
Wintering?  Do you have anything in common with your characters?

I’m a writer that puts a premium on his imagination, or at least tries to. I think it’s my job as a fiction writer to make things up—to invent. Because of that, there tends to be very little of myself in my characters. In fact, I like to think of myself as totally absent.

I will say, though, that I tend to identify with my characters an awful lot. In Wintering, for example, I relate in very real and serious and complicated ways with all of the characters. I understand Harry’s despair, Gus’s idealism and wanting to know his father. And certainly I understand Berit’s longing and patience and endurance. But perhaps most importantly, I understand the way the stories of these characters’ pasts haunt them, and inform their whole lives. This was the big lesson in writing this book.

4. Where do you get your inspiration or story ideas?

To answer this question would be impossible. It’d be like retracing all the moments that lead to the love of one’s life, or like trying to explain to someone how you developed the personality you have. These stories come from my imagination, from my own longings and desires, but that’s about all I can smartly say about them.

5. Do you like to read?  What are some of your favorite books and authors?
I’m an avid reader, and I read all sorts of books. I read a lot of books to review, and many others to blurb, and much if not most of this reading is pleasurable. But if I’m asked who my favorite books and authors are, I get a waylaid feeling. I have so many favorites. In the interest of playing along, though, here are a few favorite authors...

Lance Weller, Emily St. John Mandel, Amy Greene, Ron Rash, Jeffrey Lent, Richard Russo, Cynan Jones, Annie Proulx, Per Petterson, Joseph Boyden, Elizabeth Strout, Louise Erdrich.

My two favorite writers are Kent Haruf and Cormac McCarthy, for wildly different reasons.

6. Tell us a little bit about your two previous books?

My first book was a novel called Safe from the Sea and it’s the story of an estranged father and son who reconcile a lifetime of differences over the course of a few weeks in November. Most of the story revolves around the father finally telling the son about a Lake Superior shipwreck that the father narrowly survived.

My second novel was called The Lighthouse Road and it’s a story that moves back and forth between a young woman who has just arrived in northern Minnesota from Norway, and her son’s story many years later. I hope it’s a novel evocative of my favorite place—the North Shore of Lake Superior—and of a certain stripe of person, namely, the hearty, mostly laconic people who settled here.

7. How do you carve time out of your busy day to write?  Are you a full time writer or do you have

a day job? What is one of your daily writing rituals or habits?

My day job, if you will, is as a stay at home dad of three young kids. So I write around their schedules, which involve an amazing amount of food and trips to the park and games of every variety.

My writing life, accordingly, is pretty messy. That is to say, I write when I can, usually in the evenings and on weekends and whenever else I can squeeze a few minutes in with my notebook. I also teach at The Loft, which also takes up some time but is something I love to do. It’s a hectic, always changing schedule, but I’ve somehow managed to write and publish three books since I had kids, so I’ve figured something out. Just don’t ask me what it is!

8. Name one book that you believe is a must read for everyone and tell us why?

I think the book everyone should read is the one they’ve always wanted to, but never found time for. Pronouncements of important books always strike me as a little like religious fervor, all of this hear me, hear me, I have the answer? It sounds presumptuous and pompous and like nonsense. There are a thousand books that might fit into this category, but which book I would call “must read” would be different for almost every person I know.


9. Have you begun working on a new book?  Can you tell us about it?

I am working on another book. Two of them, to be exact. One is a novel I’m calling Northernmost, and it will be the last of the Eide family books. Or anyway I think it will be. It takes place in my fictional town of Gunflint, Arctic Norway, and Minneapolis and will span more years than either of the first two Eide novels.

The second is a book of nonfiction called Laurentide. It’s about my relationship with the North Shore, my life as a stay at home father, the things I treasure most in this world, and the things that mystify me most. I hope to finish both by the end of next year.

10. In one sentence tell readers why they should read, Wintering?

I would never say “this is the reason you should read my book,” I would only ask that if it sounds like something you’d enjoy, give it a try. I poured my heart into it.

Thanks Peter!

If you would like to win a copy of Peter's book, Wintering, please click here:

Wintering Giveaway

Pamela Carter Joern Author Interview + Giveaway

Pamela Carter Joern Author Interview + Giveaway

Pamela is the Minnesota Author in the Spotlight here on Booksnob for the magnificent month of May.  She has written three amazing books.  The floor of the Sky was excellent and now I'm in the midst of her book of short stories called In Reach. Pamela is a masterful storyteller.  I had a chance to ask her some questions about her writing life and her books. Read on to find out more.

Hi Pamela,
 
Tell a Bit About Yourself:

I grew up in western Nebraska, where all my books (so far) are set. The prairie landscape is deeply imprinted on me, as the north woods landscape is for many Minnesotans. I think there’s a yearning in all my books, a little homesickness for a place to belong that reflects my lonesomeness. I’ve lived in Minneapolis a long time, raised our two daughters here, and I love it. Still, even though we are firmly rooted here, there’s something about that childhood place that beckons. My husband recently retired, so we’ve been free to travel more. We have four young grandchildren, and it’s an adventure to see the world new through their eyes. I am a gardener. I quilt. Since my husband retired, I’m no longer teaching at the Loft, but I occasionally read manuscripts.

When did you begin writing?

I’ve always loved to read. In fifth grade, I wrote a story my teacher thought was good, so she had me read it to the class. Still, in the world in which I came of age, no one aspired to be a writer. In my 30’s, I started by writing poems. I went to a writer’s conference to work on poetry, but when I got there, I learned that the poet who was supposed to lead the workshop had died. Instead, I found myself in a drama writing class, which led to my first professional work as a playwright. I wrote six plays that have been produced in the Twin Cities, and I was co-director of a theater company called Role Over Productions. When that venture ended, I decided to pursue writing fiction.

Have you ever been discouraged about your writing? How did you move forward?

Oh, yes. And the discouragement doesn’t stop. After my theater experience, I tried writing a novel. I did write a novel, but I knew it had problems and I didn’t know what to do next. I decided to enroll in Hamline’s MFA program to explore writing prose. I had never taken a writing class, even though I was an English literature major in college. I thought there must be basic skills to learn, and I wanted to be immersed in a writing community. Now, when I’m discouraged, I find that diving into the work is the best antidote.

What is your favorite part about writing?

I have a lot of favorite parts. I love the process of discovery, uncovering some connection or deeper understanding of what it means to be a human navigating this messy and beautiful world. I like words. I like creating an imaginary world and stepping into it, breathing life into it. I even like the solitude—mostly. Once in a while, if you are very lucky, you get to hear that your work has meant something to a reader.

What are your writing habits? Do you work from an outline?

I’ve written plays, short stories, and novels. The form makes a difference in how I approach the work. I start with character, a situation, and curiosity. If I’m writing a story, I don’t want to know the ending when I begin. In something longer, like a novel, you can waste a lot of time going down dead alleys, so at some point, I will sit down and sketch out a very rough path. Even that is subject to change.

What is your favorite spot to write?

I have a second story study in my home with a lot of natural light. Except for the distraction of thinking I should get up and start the laundry, I like working at home. I do enjoy being able to go to my kitchen to make a cup of tea.

What is something you wrote that will never see the light of day?

That first novel I mentioned earlier.

What is the hardest thing about writing?

Believing in the importance of it enough to commit hours of time. There are a lot of other pleasures and obligations in life besides writing.

What inspires you to write?

I am moved by story. Not only fiction, but stories that deepen my compassion and empathy. I’m inspired by everyday encounters. I’m driven to write because that’s the avenue that helps me make sense of human experience.

How many books have you written and which is your favorite?

Three books. The Floor of the Sky (a novel), The Plain Sense of Things (a novel told in stories), and In Reach (a collection of stories). My favorite? All of them.

How do you relate to your characters? Do you see yourself in some?

Some people argue that writers reveal themselves in every character, the same way that dream interpreters say we are all the characters in our dreams. I don’t know about that, but I will say this. I love all my characters, even—maybe especially—the difficult ones. I write to teach myself compassion, so I grope to understand human complications and contradictions.

Thanks Pamela!!

If you would like to win a copy of Pamela's book In Reach, please enter here:
In Reach Giveaway

Kirsten Dierking Author Interview + Giveaways

Kirsten Dierking Author Interview + Giveaways

Kirsten is the Minnesota April Author in the Spotlight here on Booksnob this month and I had a chance to ask her some questions about poetry, her writing life and her creative ideas. Read on to learn more about Kirsten Dierking and her beautiful books of poetry.

Hi Kirsten

1. Tell us a little bit about yourself.

I went to Hamline University for my graduate degree in creative writing, but I've been writing poetry since I was a child.  Growing up I lived in Minnesota, Toronto, and Boulder, Colorado. I currently live just outside St. Paul, and I've been married for 27 years.  I run (slowly!) and finished my first half-marathon last fall (slowly!).  I have three dogs (small, medium and large).  The large dog is a Labrador mix, and she just turned sixteen and a half!

2. Why did you become an author of Poetry?

My mom read poetry to me when I was little instead of bedtime stories, so I always had poetry in my life, and I always had that rhythmic language in my life.  As a kid, I wrote poetry in school whenever I could, and sometimes I just wrote it for fun.  When I got older I did write fiction, and in fact, I went to grad school thinking I would write fiction, but once I got there, my voice kept going back to my first love, poetry.  Poetry suits the way I think in my own head the best.


3. How are poetry books compiled?

I usually write a lot of poems, on whatever diverse topics come to me, and when I have a good pile of them, I start to look at them for commonalities, to see how they might fit together as a collection.  I look for common themes, recurring imagery, things like that.


4. What is the back story behind Tether?

Tether was put together the same way.  I think of each of my books as a reflection of where my thoughts were at that time in my life.  When I wrote Tether (and I wrote it over a period of about 5
years), I was interested in the way time passes - sometimes it moves so fast, at other times you have these pockets of stillness where time seems to slow, even stop.  I wanted to capture both those things.

5. Where do you get your inspiration?

A lot of Tether was inspired by water - there are lake and river and ocean poems in this book, a lot of water imagery.  A lot of blue!  I am inspired by water, and by nature - places that allow my mind to relax so I can think.

6. Do you read?  What books or author/poets inspire you?

I am a big reader, I don't think I've ever been without a book since I learned to read - I read everything from poetry to mysteries to young adult fiction to classic literature.  See my earlier guest post for poets who I love and who inspire me.  As for fiction - I love Wuthering Heights, I also really liked the Red Rising series.  Kate Atkinson's A God in Ruins was the book that left the biggest impression on me last year - I was kind of shattered by the ending of that book.  I really like Hilary Mantel's historical novels, particularly Wolf Hall.  But I also enjoyed World War Z, a zombie apocalypse book.

7. I am intrigued by the other books you have written.  Tell us a little bit about your other books.

One Red Eye was about my experience as a rape victim when I was in college.  It was a very violent attack, I almost died, and I suffered from PTSD afterwards.  I had to write that book first, as it was, unfortunately, the dominant event in my life at that point.  I needed to get that story out of my head and onto paper, so I could move on to other things.  My second book, Northern Oracle, is more what I wanted to write, it's much more of an immersion in nature.

8. How do you carve time out of your busy day to write?  Are you a full time writer or do you have a day job? What is one of your daily writing rituals or habits?

I do have a full-time job teaching at a community college.  I used to teach part-time and write more, now that I teach full-time I do find it difficult to find time to write.  A lot of my creative energy goes into creating lesson plans and class activities.  These days I do most of my writing in the summer when I have a break.  Sometimes I just have to make myself sit down and write. Sometimes I need prompts or exercises to get me going.  Sometimes I have ideas that I've jotted down, and I’ll take those out and work on those. I get a lot of ideas when I'm out running through the woods, or around the lake - I try to remember them as I run home, and I'll write them down to work on them later.  Sometimes it takes me so long to get home, I forget the idea!

9. Usually poetry is autobiographical and personal. Is it hard to share your personal memories and experiences with the world? Why do you do it?

It was a little hard when my first book came out since it was about rape, I wasn't sure how people would react, but everyone I knew was so supportive.  I'm an introvert, and I feel like if I really want to communicate with the world, writing is a good way for me to do that.  And even though I might prefer to do it through writing, I do want to communicate, I like the idea of sharing thoughts and ideas with others, and particularly with readers, maybe because reading is one of the great pleasures in my life.

10.  In one sentence, tell readers why they should read Tether.

To pause with me, and think about our lives, and consider some lovely images -- while we let the world hurry on around us.

Thanks Kirsten!!

If you would like to win copies of Kirsten's poetry books please click the links.
Tether Giveaway
One Red Eye Giveaway

Katie Pierson Author Interview + Giveaway

Katie Pierson Guest Post + Giveaway

Katie Pierson is the Minnesota Author in the Spotlight here on Booksnob for the maddening month of March.  She is giving away 5 copies of her awesome book '89 Walls, which takes place in, you guessed it, 1989.  Read on to find out all about Katie and her writing life.

Hi Katie,

Tell us a bit about yourself.
My day job is public affairs consulting for local non-profits, using my background in public policy and grassroots organizing to overthrow the patriarchy one introverted step at a time. When I’m not writing fiction, I return library books, make soup, and try to be cooler than I really am by hip-hopping at the YMCA. I live with my husband and two daughters in a suburb of Minneapolis.

When did you begin writing?
I’ve been writing since I could hold a crayon. I had a wonderfully encouraging seventh grade English teacher. I staffed the high school yearbook and wrote a column for my college newspaper. In my office jobs, I contrived to write whether or not it was in my job description as a fundraiser for the Nebraska Humanities Council or lobbyist for Planned Parenthood. I’ve written a bunch of political commentaries for the Minneapolis StarTribune and have an actual fan base for my annual holiday letter. But I didn’t claim writing as my vocation until I was in my thirties. Taking a memoir class at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis motivated me to finally put “writer” on my business card.

Have you ever been discouraged in regard to your writing ability and if so, how did you get past it and move forward?
Absolutely. I feel like a fraud most of the time. When I’m stuck, I force myself to do one writing prompt a day. My favorites are from 642 Things to Write About by the San Francisco Writers' Grotto and A Writer's Book of Days by Judy Reeves. I also take classes at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis.

What's your favorite thing about writing?
It’s my happy place. It’s the only thing in the world (besides food poisoning) that can make me forget to eat a meal. The best part about writing for a living is the schedule. I write for two hours. I put my youngest on the school bus. I work out at the YMCA at 9:00. I write for another two hours. I read a section of the Sunday New York Times while eating lunch. (It takes me a week to read the whole paper). Then I write for another two hours before ramping up for after-school craziness and the dinner hour. Is it me or does literally everyone call my house at 4:00? I work in my yoga pants and t-shirts, usually with my hair sticking up. I feel lucky to be able to do daily this thing I love.

What is your writing style? Do you like to outline or just write as you go?
I start out just writing. If it seems like it’s turning into something, I outline the whole thing. I have a quote by Ernest Hemingway taped to my desk that says, “The first draft is always shit.” It’s so true. But Anne LaMott says go ahead and write that “shitty first draft.” So that’s what I do. My first drafts are painfully earnest and rambling. Revising is way more fun.

Do you have a favorite spot where you like to write?
I do all of my writing in my office. My dog sits on the red sofa behind me all day and stares at my back.

What is something you've written that will never see the light of day?
My journals. I also wrote a lot of memoir in my thirties: great therapy but not for public consumption.

What is your writer food?
I’m kind of a hippie health nut but under stress, my go-to junk is Lay’s potato chips and Chocolove cherry-almond chocolate bars.

What's the hardest thing about writing for you?
The isolation. I’m an introvert and love my solitude but it’s easy to get lost in my own crazy head. Once in a while my husband will joke, “You’re not going to pull a Sylvia Plath on me are you?” Going to the gym every day is crucial: my YMCA friends serve as my social life, colleagues, and therapy. And my daughters definitely ground me in daily reality.

What inspires you to write?
Real life, current events, random conversations. Like most writers, I start out trying to make myself understood and discover that I’m actually writing to understand.

How many books have you written and which is your favorite?
’89 Walls is my first book. I'm toying with a memoir of my family's sabbatical year in London during the final year of the Bush administration. The working title is Acting Canadian. I loved writing '89 Walls and read as much YA as I do adult fiction. I would love for another idea for a YA novel to drop in my lap.

What are some of your favorite books?
I love every single one of Alice Munro’s short stories. Wallace Stegner’s Crossing to Safety is like comfort food. Persuasion by Jane Austen is my favorite book of all time. Cheryl Mendelson is as close as it comes to a modern-day Jane Austen. Anything for Jane is my favorite of her books.

What authors do you like to read?
Gwendolyn Brooks, Sarah Waters, M.T. Anderson, Laurie Halse Anderson, Elizabeth Wein, and Selden Edwards are my favorite authors of historical fiction. My favorite YA authors are Chris Crutcher, John Green, Kathryn Erskine, E. Lockhart, Norma Klein and Paula Danziger. John Green is also my famous author boyfriend although he is not aware of this having never met me.

What inspired you to write ’89 Walls?
Author Will Weaver says that Full Service was the book he had to write about the summer that changed everything. ’89 Walls is my Full Service—1989 was the summer that changed everything for me. That said, almost nothing in the novel actually happened. In 1989, I was a college junior home from the University of Pennsylvania and helping take care of my dying father. This book was a chance for me to imagine the adult conversations with him that would have helped me make sense of the huge shifts in the political landscape in the late Eighties.

Would you say you relate to any of your characters? If so, which one and why?
I relate to Quinn’s character. Her relationship with her father is 100% emotionally true for me although almost none of the events in the book actually happened. I did switch from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party after the Supreme Court’s Webster decision restricted abortion rights. Plus, I listened to Madonna in 1989, enjoy gardening, and grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska.

Thank you Katie for this informative interview on your writing life.
Thank you so much for having me, Laura!

If you would like to win a copy of Katie's book "89 Walls, please enter here:  "89 Walls Giveaway

Lauren Fox Author Interview

Lauren Fox Author Interview

Lauren Fox was the Minnesota January Author in the Spotlight here on Booksnob and she has written a wonderful novel about marriage and grief.  Recently, I had the chance to ask her some questions about her books and she's sharing some of her secrets with us.  Read on to find out more.

Hi Lauren,

1. Tell us a little bit about yourself?
Since you can find my bio anywhere, I’ll tell you all my secrets instead.  Um, let’s see… I have the palate and aesthetic sensibilities of a nine-year-old. (My favorite food is Little Debbies.)  My lovely and smart thirteen-year-old daughter still calls Raisin Brain “Raisin Brand,” and I have decided that I’m not going to correct her, because it’s the only remnant of her babyhood.  I recently bought three pairs of fleece leggings, because I like to feel like I’m wearing pajamas 24 hours a day.  I hide ice cream from my unsuspecting husband by pushing it waaaay back in the freezer.  Three out of four of my secrets are about food!


2. What inspired you to write Days of Awe?
There was no single inspiration; Days of Awe is a book that I’d been ruminating about for years.  Jewish history and identity, mothers and daughters, the complexity of marriage, grief – they’re themes and ideas that have been living in my brain (and on a Word document) for a long time.

3. Can you tell us why or when you decided to become a writer?
I have always loved to write (or maybe, as they say, to have written?) I have a friend from grade school who told me recently that that’s how he remembers me – always writing.  There are notebooks in my parents’ house filled with my early poetry.  So I think it’s just always been a part of me.

4. Usually an author puts some of his own life experiences in the book.  Did you do that in Days of Awe?  Do you have anything in common with your characters?
I’m sure I include my life experiences in all of my books, in some ways, but it’s less like I drop them into the book and more like a prism – reflected and faceted and refracted. I take as much from my observations of others as I do from my own life, and of course I combine and alter and invent details

and characteristics. That’s what makes writing fiction such a pleasure for me.

5. I am intrigued by the other books you have written.  Tell us a little bit about your other books.
My first novel, Still Life with Husband, is about a thirty-year-old woman who deliberately sabotages her own life by having an affair.  Friends Like Us, my second, is about the close friendship between Willa and Jane, two women in their twenties, and how that friendship is tested when Willa’s male best friend from high school re-enters the scene and starts dating Jane. Both novels explore the complexity of friendship, love, and betrayal. Both feature flawed protagonists at a moment in their lives when they’re forced to figure out who and how they want to be.

6. Do you like to read?  What authors or books influence you?
I read all the time.  I feel like reading is the part-time job of the writer.  I love being part of a broader conversation about contemporary literature.  I always read as a writer – to learn something about how an author constructs plot, or works with a complicated timeline, or invokes a mood.  Some of the books that have meant a lot to me over the past few years are Let the Great World Spin, by Colum McCann, The Stolen Child, by Keith Donohue, Falling to Earth, by Kate Southwood, and The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, by Aimee Bender.


7. Are you working on a new book?  Can you tell us a little bit about it?
Yes! No. Honestly, I’ve learned the hard way not to talk about the stuff I’m working on while I’m working on it – it petrifies it, in a way, sort of stops it in its tracks.  But I am working on book four.

8. How do you carve time out of your busy day to write?  Are you a full time writer or do you have a day job? What is one of your daily writing rituals or habits?
I’m lucky that, right now, writing is my full-time (full-ish-time) job.  My kids are in school, so from 8:30 to 3:00, I’m at my desk. I don’t really have any rituals or habits. I’d probably be more productive if I did. Oh, I do have one:  I have an app on my computer called “Freedom,” which

disconnects me from the internet for a set period of time. That’s my best habit – clicking on the little Freedom butterfly and going offline.

9. What is the most important lesson/idea you want readers to take away from your book, Days of Awe?
I don’t really think that good fiction has obvious lessons.  I hope that Days of Awe doesn’t. I don’t really write to impart a lesson; I write to try to tell a good story, to excavate a complicated character, to touch on themes and ideas that preoccupy me. If I’m lucky enough that someone wants to read it, then that’s really the very best outcome.

10. In one sentence tell readers why they should read Days of Awe?
I’ve been thinking about this question for hours! It’s too hard!  I’ve decided to eat some M&Ms instead of answering it.

Thanks Lauren.

You can find more information about Lauren Fox and her books at her website:
http://laurenfoxwriter.com/

Lin Enger Author Interview

Lin Enger Author Interview

Lin Enger was the December, Minnesota Author in the Spotlight on Booksnob.  I asked him some questions about his books, his reading life, his writing life and more.  I've had a really busy month and I'm a little behind in posting this so I hope you'll forgive me and read this interesting interview.  Did I mention that Lin's book, The High Divide is awesome?  Well, it is.

Hi Lin,

1. Tell us a little bit about yourself?

I grew up in central Minnesota, a small resort/farming town in Douglas County called Osakis, and have spent nearly all of my life in the state.  For more than thirty years I’ve been teaching English, first at the high school level, and since the early 1990s at Minnesota State University Moorhead.  I earned my MFA at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop in the late 80s and since then have been writing seriously—or as seriously as possible while teaching full-time.

2. Why did you decide to become a writer?  What is one of your daily writing habits or rituals?

Writing is what I’m able to do well.  Nothing else gives me the same satisfaction or pleasure; that’s why I do it.  If I’d been able to play baseball at the professional level, I would have done that.  I would have made a lot more money, but then again, I would’ve been washed up by now.  If I’d been good in biology, I might have gone to med school.  We do what our gifts allow us to do.

For most of the year I don’t have much of a writing schedule.  While teaching, I try to work whenever I can find an hour or so, before, after, and between my classes.  During summers I write all day.  When I’m composing a rough draft, my habit is to write quickly and with intensity for no more than a few hours.  When revising, I can work all day and into the night.  Time disappears.

3. What is the inspiration behind your book, The High Divide?

In 1886 William Hornaday, curator and taxidermist of the National Museum in Washington D.C., led an expedition into the Montana badlands to shoot some of the last of the continent’s wild Bison; he did this because he needed (stuffed) specimens for his museum and knew the animal was all but extinct.  I need to add that Hornaday was also one of the leading conservationists of his day, and later, he led the fight to win legal protection for the species.  When I came across this story in the 90s, I knew I’d write about it some day.  And though Hornaday himself is not central to the plot of the finished novel, I have to give him credit for launching me into the story.

4. Usually an author some of his or her own experiences in the book?  Did you do that?  Do you have anything in common with your characters?

I don’t tend to work consciously from personal experiences.  That said, that I’ve long been fascinated with the American Bison, in large part because of a family legend.  In 1884, the story goes, my great-grandpa, a new immigrant from Norway who was homesteading in southeastern North Dakota, shot and killed the last wild Bison east of the James River.  The animal had wandered onto my great-grandpa’s land and was taking a drink from the stock tank behind his sod barn.

As for my characters, I have something in common with all of them.  If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be able to imagine their inner lives.

5. Do you like to read?  What books or authors influence you?

I love to read, as every writer I know does.  I can’t imagine life without books.  Influential writers in my life have included:  Dostoevsky (Crime and Punishment is the best book I’ve read); O.E. Rolvaag (Giants in the Earth); Cormac McCarthy (All the Pretty Horses); James Welch (Fools Crow); Jon Hassler (Staggerford, Rookery Blues); Chaim Potok (My Name is Asher Lev).  More recent novelists I admire include Jennifer Egan (A Visit from the Good Squad); Karl Marlantes (Matterhorn); my brother Leif Enger (Peace Like a River, So Brave, Young, and Handsome); Ann Weisgarber (The Promise); Emily St. John Mandel (Station Eleven); etc., etc.  It’s been said before, and I concur: we’re living in a golden age of literature.

6. Name one book that you believe is a must read for everyone and tell us why?

I recommend all of the above and could recommend many others.  But I hesitate to say that any single book, aside from the Bible, is a “must read.”  To do that, I’d need to possess a universal sensibility, which I don’t have.

7. Your book, The High Divide takes place in the West and embodies the hero’s journey.  What places would you recommend we visit if we go on a vacation out West?

Yellowstone Park, of course.  The Little Bighorn battlefield in southern Montana.  The redwood country of northern California.  Mount Rainier.    

8. As a college English teacher, what advice would you give to new writers?

Read indiscriminately, according to your interests.  Make a habit of listening and watching.  Instead of surfing the web, spend your time—hours and hours of it—putting your thoughts on paper, even if you have nothing to say; because, as with anything else, there is no substitute for practice, and because there are no shortcuts.  In the end, you must either (1) learn to love doing it, (2) live for the satisfaction of having done it, or (3) both.

9. Are you working on a new book?  Can you tell us about it?

I’m superstitious and don’t dare talk about it much.  Hemingway said if you talk about the book you’re writing, you won’t need to write it.  I will say that my new novel is set in the 1970s, in New York City, southern California, and northern Minnesota, all places that I love.  I’m working on the second draft.

10. In one sentence tell readers why they should read, The High Divide?

If you agree that the stories in Western fiction and film tend to be driven by the revenge motive (and I would argue that you should), The High Divide is one of very few anti-Westerns.

Thanks Lin!!

You can find Lin Enger at his website:  http://www.lin-enger.com/

Faith Sullivan Author Interview

Faith Sullivan Author Interview

Faith is one of my favorite authors and happens to be the November Author in the Spotlight here on BookSnob.  I had the chance to ask her some questions and we played email tag for a couple of weeks but finally the interview answers are here.  I am thrilled and you will be happy to know more about Faith Sullivan and her reading and writing life.

1. Tell us a little bit about yourself?

 I grew up in small-town southern Minnesota, hence the locale of my Harvester novels, I suppose.  I'm married to retired journalist Dan Sullivan, have three grown children, all writers, and a two-year-old grandson Jack, whose parents are a writer and a librarian.  As the child is alarmingly verbal, he's quite possibly headed in the same direction as the rest of the family.

I began writing novels in my forties and have continued for forty-some years, producing eight, with two more "in the oven," so to speak.

2. What inspired you to write Good Night, Mr. Wodehouse?

I was inspired to write Good Night, Mr. Wodehouse because I have worshipped at the Wodehouse altar for about as many years as I've been wandering the novel-writing territory.  And, when I sat down to write about Nell Stillman, a woman I've dealt with in previous novels, though never as a leading character, her life seemed perfect for a union with Wodehouse.  She has a hard life and his stories are an anodyne.

3. Usually an author puts some of his own life experiences in the book.  Did you do that?     Do you have anything in common with your characters?

My novels are never autobiographical though I do avail myself of things I know: small town life; teaching in public schools; Catholicism; and since I was a history major, I enjoy throwing a bit of that into the mix.

4.   Can you tell us why you decided to become a writer?  What is one of your daily writing rituals or

habits?

 I became a novelist because I had stories to tell that no one else wanted to write.  Or maybe could write.  They were mine. They grew out of my particular and peculiar brain.  I continue writing for the same reason.  Basically, I am a morning writer, always have been.  In the p.m., I edit or research. I am fortunate enough to have a book-filled office in my home, though I suppose I could write anywhere. Most writers could.  Writing fiction is a fine madness, and those afflicted will find a way to do it, no matter what.

5.   Do you like to read?  What authors or books influence you?

Any fiction writer who doesn't read is either a fool or a liar.  Writing is a craft as well as an art and it must be constantly honed if rot is not to set in.  We learn from each other, as with any art or craft.  So we read and write and write and write.  Among my favorite writers are P. G. Wodehouse, Jane Austen, David McCullough; Geraldine Brooks; the late Bill Holm; and my many brilliant friends  --  novelists, children's writers, poets, etc.  As to what authors have influenced me, all of them in some way.

6.  Name one P.G. Wodehouse book that you believe is a must read for everyone and tell us why?

If, as a reader, one is just setting out on the Wodehouse trail, I'd say begin with any of the Jeeves and Wooster books. Jeeves and Wooster are so exquisitely realized, it is difficult to find their equals in modern literature.  But do not stop there.  Race on to the Blandings Castle books and the Psmith novels, and . . . well, just keep going.

7.  I love that many of your books center around a small fictional town in Minnesota called Harvester.  Was this intentional?  Did you know this would happen when you started The Cape Ann?

The Harvester Books, so called, began when my husband suggested that I should write a sequel to The Cape Ann.  I, in the meantime, had grown attached to the Wheeler family in that same book and had determined to explore the dynamics of a family in which the mother was a severe depressive.  In writing The Empress of One, I found that I savored the opportunity to return to earlier characters, further revealing their complexity.

8.  Nell Stillman, the main character of Good Night, Mr. Wodehouse plays a role in some of your other novels as well.  Can you discuss which novels and why Nell’s story needed to be told?

Nell Stillman, protagonist of Good Night, Mr. Wodehouse, appears in The Cape Ann, The Empress of One, and peripherally in Gardenias.  In these novels, I found her both heroic and human, someone extraordinary who would characterize herself as "very ordinary."  And isn't that the way with many of the extraordinary people we encounter?  I suppose one of the reasons I write fiction is to explore this phenomenon of the extraordinary in the seemingly commonplace.

9.  Are you working on a new book?  Can you tell us a little bit about it?

I am at work on two new novels.  I'll speak about the first, Ruby.  It grew out of a recollection in the Wodehouse book of a farmer's hired girl who falls in love with the married farmer across the road and what unexpected consequences ensue.

10. In one sentence tell readers why they should read Good Night, Mr.Wodehouse?

Reading Good Night, Mr. Wodehouse is worth a reader's time because, as well as chronicling the life of an extraordinary woman, it offers fresh insights into the reasons we read and why books are the most accessible of all life-saving devices.

  

[COPYRIGHT 2015 FAITH SULLIVAN]

Thanks Faith!!

You can find Faith at her website:  http://faithsullivan.com/