reprinted with permission from www.workinprogressinprogress.com

Give us your elevator pitch: what’s your book about in 2-3 sentences?

The Last Supper follows three months in the chaotic life of Amanda, who has just turned 40, has two young children, and is searching for something more in her life. She’s failed at being a momfluencer, she’s failed at MLM entrepreneurship, and she’s living in terror of what to make for dinner. Desperate for something more than the isolated world of her suburban home, but consumed by parenting, her illusory stability collapses when the cracks in her marriage finally split open so wide she sees a way out, and a pathway to reclaim her own creative and economic agency.

Which character did you most enjoy creating? Why? And which character gave you the most trouble, and why?

The character I most enjoyed creating was the mother in the novel—Camille is a successful attorney who specializes in family law and clawed her way into financial stability after being a single parent. The reason I felt energized when I was in her perspective is because she’s a successful woman who is not defined by caregiving relationships. She’s just who she is and doesn’t really care what other people think about her.

The character who gave me the most trouble—and I think this will track for other writers—was the protagonist, Amanda. She is the hinge the door of the novel hangs on, and it is from her perspective the plot unfolds.

With the most space and time with a protagonist, there’s also more chance for narrative discontinuity or character motivation issues to arise. She goes through a period of awaking in the novel, and while I think it is fair to say all writers of literary fiction or character-driven fiction want to represent the change that occurs, sometimes I have to work on not being didactic or too interior.

Still, from a process perspective, I enjoy the building of a character, inclusive of the hard parts. (This is why I don’t understand would-be creatives leaning on generative AI.)

If you can’t sit with your characters and really think about them, what’s the point?

While sure, it can be difficult, there’s also so much joy in figuring out a tricky sentence, so much satisfaction in revising a critical scene.

How I have come to think about AI chatbots (which you didn’t ask about but is on my mind all the time) is that chatbots are all output, in contrast to creative writing being largely about input.

Tell us a bit about the highs and lows of your book’s road to publication.

This is my fifth book, so at this point I can mostly roll with anything. That said, for me there is always the high of getting to contract with a manuscript, and the low of worrying about it.

The thing that has not changed at all—the thing I roll less well with is worrying how the book will be received.

I often say to people that I have this conundrum of: What if nobody reads it? And then: Oh crap, what if they do?!

Writing and publishing are just two different animals.

However, I do want to say to anyone out there shopping a manuscript: you might (will probably) at some point have a weird interaction with an agent, an editor, a publisher that will shake you. You might wake up in the middle of the night wondering if you wasted the last five years or more of your life.

It’s fine. Not every editor will get you. Lots of agents won’t. Do your work.

When you find the right publishing partner/model, you will know.

The lows are getting through the doubt. The highs are knowing you honored your work—whether it is published or not.

What’s your favorite piece of writing advice?

Over a decade ago, before I had a single book in print, I went to a panel where Andre Dubus III talked about the need for tension in every narrative.

That idea has crystallized over the years into really thinking about stakes.

On the panel, Dubus III said something like “If there’s no tension, who cares?” I think about that a lot.

My favorite writing advice is “write until something surprises you.” What surprised you in the writing of this book?

I love your writing advice.

What surprised me in writing The Last Supper was the way the manuscript changed over time. At first, I was writing from a character sketch, then I was developing in earnest. The beginning versions were very different, both in tone and plot.

But! That’s part of the whole point of the process. Which is also, again, why I can’t get down with AI, as there’s no process there.

How did you find the title of your book?

I am notoriously bad at titles.

Once, I turned in a book to my publisher called “Office Stories” – and talk about a snooze in the title department (thank goodness I was already under contract). And definitely no tension there, à la Dubus III. With some help, the title of the book became What If We Were Somewhere Else, which does have tension and also is appropriately descriptive of what it feels like to work in an office.

The title for The Last Supper came from a highly trusted reader.

I’m pretty transparent as a person and a writer, but my beta titles for what became The Last Supper are too embarrassingly bad for even me to share publicly.

reprinted with permission from www.workinprogressinprogress.com

Give us your elevator pitch: what’s your book about in 2-3 sentences?

When the unnamed protagonist meets Dutch, she believes that he is her Johnny Cash, that she is his June Carter, and that theirs is a great love story. As the novel progresses, it tells a different story, one swirling with the chaos of addiction. It raises questions about our devotion to people who are terrible for us and at what personal cost.  

Which character did you most enjoy creating? Why? And which character gave you the most trouble, and why?

I really enjoyed writing Dutch’s mom, June. She’s a powerhouse. At the same time, beneath all that strength and polish, she’s as vulnerable as the protagonist. I saw and heard her so clearly. I’d like to grab drinks with her. I’d like to be friends.   

I struggled with Tim, one of the protagonist’s romantic partners. Some find him endearing, the obvious “good guy” opposite of Dutch. But even as Tim pledged himself to the protagonist, I’m not sure he ever fully saw her. I’m not sure he was capable.       

Tell us a bit about the highs and lows of your book’s road to publication.

This road has been a long one. I’m such an impatient person, and before A Woman in Pink, I had only ever written short stories and essays. To give this book the best possible shot, I had to slow down and hone my discipline. Books take time. Thoughtful editing and querying take time.  

I also had to toughen up. This process comes with so much rejection. It’s like drinking from a firehose.

One of the best moments was my first conversation with Jaynie Royal, Editor-in-Chief at Regal House Publishing. She had read my manuscript, and she wanted to talk.  

For context, I had struggled with a recurring comment from early readers: “You have to name your protagonist.” I didn’t want to withhold something readers felt they needed, but I also knew that the omission of the name was critical to the story. Jaynie Royal was the first person who not only understood but appreciated my decision. I felt like my book was finally being seen, and that I was, too, as an author. I signed with Regal House Publishing shortly after that conversation.             

What’s your favorite piece of writing advice?

Those lovely people in your life who tell you how great you are? Don’t share your early drafts with them. Share your work with critical readers who will point out the weaknesses and tell you the truth.

My favorite writing advice is “write until something surprises you.” What surprised you in the writing of this book?

The ambiguity of the book’s conclusion surprised me. I didn’t know the protagonist’s precise fate, and I decided that I was okay with not knowing. I didn’t need or want a tidy ending. I wanted to leave some room for interpretation and hope.  

What’s something about your book that you want readers to know?

I want readers to know that A Woman in Pink is not a romance. It’s not cynical, either. It’s a messy story, one that veers away from “happily ever after” toward lived experience, one I hope will resonate with anyone who’s ever loved an addict.

Interview by Leslie Pietrzyk

Give us your elevator pitch: what’s your book about in 2-3 sentences?

A Complete Fiction is about a writer who takes to social media to accuse an editor of stealing the novel she submitted for publication, and is then herself accused of revealing her sister’s secrets in the book. The novel examines the questions of who has a right to tell a story and has cancel culture gone too far in our social-media obsessed world?

Which character did you most enjoy creating? Why?

I most enjoyed creating P.J. Her aspirations are frustrated, as often as not she gets in her own way, and she just manages to stumble toward her goals, but I found all of that endearing and recognizable. She continues to create in the face of repeated disappointment, which is true of a lot of writers, present company included, and which I find admirable. It’s challenging to create a flawed character that readers root for and remember, rather than just complain about in reader reviews. Reaching a balance between the flaws you give the character and the redeeming qualities is hard. I don’t think I had the right balance with P.J. until one of the very last drafts.

And which character gave you the most trouble, and why?

If there’s a victim in the story, it’s George. I say if because both P.J. and George are complex characters and there are ways that George contributes to his own troubles. But he’s more of a victim than P.J. for reasons I won’t go into to prevent spoilers. What I will say is that it’s tricky to create a victim. A character has to have some agency or there will be no character arc. I struggled with that in the book until I found ways for George to take control of his own story.

Tell us a bit about the highs and lows of your book’s road to publication.

Wow. This was such a torturous road. The low was when an editor strung my agent and me along for months, repeatedly assuring us that he wanted to buy the novel, and then ghosted us. I hope he reads this. All told, more than two dozen editors rejected the book. All of that was very tough. The high came after that when I had an insight into how to improve the book, took it back from my agent, and rewrote it. It sold two weeks after that rewrite. I’m glad all of those editors rejected it, so I had a chance to make the novel the best version of itself. I’m happy readers will get to enjoy it, happy I can stop obsessing about selling it, but mostly happy for all my friends and family and the Trader Joe’s clerks who won’t have to hear me go on about it. Writers can become very one-dimensional when their books are on submission. We should be exiled temporarily from polite society without any electronic devices and with an enormous pile of chocolate and an equally enormous pile of literary classics all of whose authors are dead. It’s hard to envy a dead author, though not impossible.

What’s your favorite piece of writing advice?

Fifteen years ago, I took a novel workshop with Karen Shepard. I was working on my first novel, which I later abandoned. But she taught that once you set a plot in motion certain events will naturally follow, and you can just think about what those events would be to keep the story moving forward. That advice has helped me write both of my published novels. I think about what would naturally follow not only from the plot I’ve set in motion but also from the characters I’m developing. What would these characters in particular do in the situation I’ve put them in? I also think about something Jennifer Egan once said in a class I took from her, which is that your characters shouldn’t be consistent because people aren’t consistent. That shocked me at the time because in all my fiction workshops I’d heard the same orthodoxy that characters had to be consistent. So I imagine what my characters might do that is inconsistent and might, like a mutation, allow them to grow or change. Egan’s linked stories A Visit from the Goon Squad make an appearance in my new novel. Go read the novel and find the reference.

My favorite writing advice is “write until something surprises you.” What surprised you in the writing of this book?

Without giving anything away, I’ll say the end very much surprised me. I had a different ending through all the drafts, until I did a final big revision and thought about what my brilliant developmental editor, Erika Krouse, says, which is that “endings make meanings.” The revised ending means something very different than the earlier ending did. It will give readers more to think about when they put down the book, at least I hope it will. The new ending couldn’t have existed without the changes I made in the final revision, and it surprised me.

How did you find the title of your book?

The book went through many titles including Blank Page, Cancel George Dunn, and others, but neither my agent nor my editor at the publishing house liked the title I had, so I literally stared at the novel for three days until my sacrifice to the publishing Gods was recognized and I was rewarded with the current title, A Complete Fiction, which pleased all the relevant parties.

Who is your ideal reader?

My ideal reader is someone who likes to laugh. I might even say someone who’s generous in that way. It’s also someone open to new ideas and who’s willing to engage with nuance. It’s someone who says to their friends, “You have to read this.” Someone who buys books as gifts. A lot of them.

***

Leslie Pietrzyk is the editor of South 85.

reprinted with permission from www.workinprogressinprogress.com

Give us your elevator pitch: what’s your book about in 2-3 sentences?

At a remote Southern university in the late 1980s, student Leah Gavin becomes obsessed with a classmate’s unexplained fall from the bell tower, then begins to realize the mystery might implicate people close to her. It’s a literary thriller and heartfelt coming-of-age story with a kick-ass mixtape soundtrack.

Which character did you most enjoy creating? Why? And which character gave you the most trouble, and why?

My most enjoyable character, a frat boy named Quinn Cooper, was intended to have only a minor role in the story: a sort-of friend Leah doesn’t trust who has some information to deliver. But he showed up with this outsized personality and rapacious desires and a vestigial conscience, and he just kept demanding more space, until he became my Iago—which, in John Updike’s terminology, is less the villain than the character who pushes all the other characters around. He completely took over the book, in large part because he was so much fun to write. I had the most difficulty with Leah, who is not me but is very often standing in my place, within my emotional experience. So it was hard to keep her vividly and precisely herself.

Tell us a bit about the highs and lows of your book’s road to publication.

The less said about that, the better! My agent sent it out to editors for years, but what happens to most writers who have published a few books without selling any great numbers is that no one not already attached to the writer will read the book. Editors just let the manuscript sit on their desk until they have the pressure of another offer to compel them to pick it up. Even if they do read it and love it, “the numbers” don’t support taking the risk. So I took the book to a wonderful small press, Regal House, which has more freedom to avoid the really destructive business model of bigger publishers and can just publish good books.

What’s your favorite piece of writing advice?

As a teacher of writing, I have a few hundred go-to favorites! Most of them require a whiteboard and a weird approximate drawing of what a story looks like inside my head, just as a starting point. Maybe that’s more instruction than advice. The best advice I’ve ever received about my own work was “Be more forthcoming.” That’s one I’m often repeating to students who overvalue mystery. And my evergreen, bedrock advice is read. Reading is the best teacher. Read widely at the level of quality you hope to achieve in your own work.

My favorite writing advice is “write until something surprises you.” What surprised you in the writing of this book?

I’m with you on that advice! Almost everything I write surprises me because I start from a compelling situation I don’t fully understand, then I write to discover what’s going on. In this book, that included about 80% of the central mystery. Also, most of Leah’s love life and several key friendships got pulled in directions I did not expect. And some of my favorite scenes came from just asking myself a question mid-draft like “What’s Leah’s most intense relationship with a professor?” then writing toward that.

What’s something about your book that you want readers to know?

The campus setting, Rockhaven, is very closely based on my alma mater, as will be obvious to anyone who knows and loves Sewanee. I renamed everything only to give myself the smallest room for fiction. My goal was to write a memoir of emotion and place, a novel in which everything is true except all of the characters and all of the events. Rockhaven as a place is so very Sewanee in the 80s that I worry it’s going to be hard for some alums to avoid thinking it’s a code pointing to real people and events. So I’m here to declare that 1) none of this happened and 2) (almost) no one I know is in this book! The exceptions are my late, great professor Douglas Paschall, who is dropped into the book as I remember him with only a name change, and two of our presumably late horses, Jojo and Matchless, who are playing themselves.