Tag Archives: #novel

Interview with K.E. Semmel

This interview is reprinted with permission from Work in Progress (www.workinprogressinprogress.com)

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

THE BOOK OF LOSMAN is about a literary translator in Copenhagen with Tourette Syndrome who becomes involved in a dubious and experimental drug study to retrieve his childhood memories in a tragicomic effort to find a cure for his condition.

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

Daniel P. Losman—who goes simply by Losman—was very much a fun character to write. I’ve written 7 completed manuscripts over the past 30 years, five novels and two collections of stories (there were more manuscripts I simply abandoned). Nearly all of those manuscripts contain stories and characters that involve background research. This is especially so with one manuscript, a retelling of Beowulf set in the Southern Tier region of New York State. I spent 10 years writing that book, which is called IN THE COUNTRY OF MONSTROUS CREATURES. To do it properly, I had to read and reread Beowulf, I had to research the process of fracking (which plays an outsize role in the novel), and I had to invest a great deal of time learning more about this region of the state. I am from New York State—I love New York!—but I grew up in the Finger Lakes. There are great differences between these regions. Since I was after a certain degree of verisimilitude, research was necessary.

I pitched agents and eventually signed with one who loved the Beowulf retelling. He shopped it around and I got a lot of wonderful responses from major editors and publishers, though all of which were, ultimately, rejections. So I ended up giving up on the novel. Now it’s just a lonely Word doc on my laptop. I mention all this because, with The Book of Losman, I wanted to tell a simpler story, one that didn’t take a decade to finish or force me to spend countless hours doing research. I felt I knew Losman from the start. The two of us share some commonalities. He is a literary translator with Tourette, like me, and because of this his character traits slotted into place rather easily. Also, he lives in Denmark as I once did. Losman is not me, far from it. But because my life experiences are close to his, I didn’t have to do as much research. As a result, I was able to write the first draft in less than two years. 

The hardest character for me to write was Losman’s crush, Caroline Jensen. She’s an artist, and a bit of an odd duckling. I had to figure out a way to create her character without resorting to caricature. I didn’t want to write a story with a traditional romance, either, so there’s this awkward tension between them throughout the novel. Balancing that tension took some effort.

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

One interesting tidbit: this book actually started as a memoir. But the writing felt forced, and I limped along, not certain how to go about putting together a memoir. Besides, I kept asking myself, who wants to read a sad story about a boy with Tourette? I sure didn’t. I wanted to write something that contained both sadness and humor but was still entertaining. I’d been chewing on one particular idea for years—What if there was a pill that could return our childhood memories to us?—and it dawned on me that this was the perfect story for that idea. So I pulled one small scene from the memoir, the “truest” scene, and reimagined the entire book as fiction. Once I did that, the flood gates opened and the writing gushed. Fiction has always been my preferred medium. (Though I will add that I published a personal essay in HuffPost that served as all I wanted to say, or would have said, in a memoir.)

My agent loved this manuscript too, and he gave me some feedback that I incorporated. The book went out on submission but, like with the Beowulf retelling, I ended up getting only rejections. They were nearly all uniformly praiseful of my writing, but such praise often feels hollow when it’s accompanied by the words “it’s not right for us” or “we hope it finds the right home.”

While the book was out on submission, I began writing a middle grade novel. Once it became clear that The Book of Losman was going to suffer the same fate as In the Country of Monstrous Creatures, I made the decision to drop my agent (it was an amicable split; he does not represent middle grade books). I assumed, wrongly, that I would be able land another agent. I still don’t have an agent—and it’s not for lack of trying!

But I never stopped believing in The Book of Losman, so I submitted the manuscript to SFWP’s Literary Awards Program two or three years ago. I’ve known the publisher, Andrew Gifford, for years. SFWP published my translation of Simon Fruelund’s collection of stories, Milk, in 2013, and I even published a number of interviews with translators at SFWP’s online literary journal for a few years (“Translator’s Cut,” I called my interview series). Since I playfully incorporate stories and characters (and themes) from Simon’s work in The Book of Losman—the opening chapter is very much a reimagining of Simon’s story “Kramer” from that collection—the manuscript found fertile soil at SFWP. The manuscript didn’t win the contest, in fact it only made the longlist, but Andrew liked the story and decided to take a chance on publishing it. Around the same time, another indie publisher offered me a contract to publish the book, but I knew SFWP was the right choice. This has absolutely proved true.

What’s your favorite piece of writing advice?

Don’t take rejection personally. Your work can be rejected for many reasons, but you’ve got to keep plugging away, chasing your vision, and getting better. Once you find your stories, good things will happen. It may take 30 years, as it did for me, but if you’re patient and willing to work through all the rejections, you’ll publish your work eventually.

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

I don’t write with an outline. I put a character in a situation and see what happens, building the story as I go along. So in this sense, everything that happens is a surprise. It’s this kind of creativity that excites me enough to wake up at 5:00 a.m. to get back to work. It’s not until after the draft is complete that I go back and make sure things connect properly. Sometimes I have to rewrite or remove scenes, but generally speaking, in the first draft, I want to write as though I’m a reader engaging with this story for the first time. Which I am.

The biggest thing that surprised me in this particular novel is just how much Simon Fruelund’s work influenced the story. Perhaps it shouldn’t be such a surprise, since I’ve known him for more than fifteen years and I’ve translated three of his books. Simon’s ideas on literature and fiction have also proven hugely important to me. And he’s a friend. The Book of Losman is, in a sense, an homage to his work.

Still, even though I deliberately began The Book of Losman with a reimaging from one of his stories, I didn’t quite anticipate that Losman would share certain character affinities with Pelle, say, the main character from Simon’s novel The World and Varvara (published by Spuyten Duyvil in 2023) or that Losman would also be working on a book, like Pelle, with a publisher breathing down his neck. It was only after writing the manuscript that I realized how deep the connection ran. I don’t mind this at all. I love Simon’s books, and I think it’s wonderful that my novel is engaged in a dialogue with them.

How did you find the title of your book?

The Book of Losman has been the title for as long as I can remember, though I did hem and haw a bit once I realized there were already a lot of books that included “The Book of—” in the title. I debated just calling it Losman. But I couldn’t shake one important thematic significance that would justify me calling it simply Losman. There’s a kind of meta-quality to this novel, right from the opening sentence:

“When he moved to Copenhagen with his Danish girlfriend, Kat, fifteen years ago, Losman imagined his life like a Fodor’s guidebook, rich with possibility and adventure.”

Simply put: As a character, Losman is a kind of “book” to be read, translated, and understood. The narrative follows a circular pattern that only becomes clear at the end. So, to me, The Book of Losman always had to be the title. I’m happy with it.

Inquiring foodies and hungry book clubs want to know: Any food/s associated with your book? (Any recipes I might share?)

My favorite Danish pastry makes an appearance: Tebirkes! They are hunks of buttery deliciousness.

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READ MORE ABOUT THIS AUTHOR: https://kesemmel.com/

ORDER THIS BOOK FOR YOUR OWN TBR STACK: https://www.amazon.com/Book-Losman-K-Semmel/dp/1951631374/

Interview with Jody Hobbs Hesler

Without You Here by Jody Hobbs Hesler

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

When Noreen is eight years old, her beloved aunt Nonie dies from suicide. This loss, compounded by the family’s fears that Noreen will follow her aunt’s troubled path, reverberates through her life, planting doubts about her own judgment and landing her in the novel’s present day. The same age now as her aunt was when she died, Noreen is a young mother stuck in an increasingly precarious marriage whose imminent crisis will force her to choose between allowing history to repeat itself or setting a new course. (More details below!)

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

Both Noreen and her aunt Nonie act as point-of-view characters. Of the two, Nonie arrived in my mind more fully formed. She’s a deeply complicated person who struggles with self-worth and mental illness, but I enjoyed every moment of bringing her to the page. I loved her whimsy, her close-to-the-bone vulnerability, and her big, beautiful heart.

Noreen’s character demanded more from me. The sweep of the novel’s timeline encompasses a much broader swath of Noreen’s life than Nonie’s, following her from eight to twenty-seven years old. Rendering her character consistently, but with believable growth across decades, was tricky. Sometimes I resorted to writing letters to her in my journal, posing questions about her personality and motivations. Asking the questions implied answers could exist, so the rhetorical exercise nearly always yielded them.

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

By the time the world started opening up again after pandemic lockdown, I had two books ready to shop around—my story collection What Makes You Think You’re Supposed to Feel Better and Without You Here. I’m a careful vs. high-volume submitter, so I curated my way through lists of agents before turning to small presses and curating my way through them, over months and months. Without You Here came awfully close to acceptance at a different publisher in spring of 2021. That rejection after a particularly close call, punched me in my hopes. I felt like I’d already queried the universe, so where was I meant to turn now?

In a wacky turn of events, Cornerstone Press accepted my first book, the story collection What Makes You Think You’re Supposed to Feel Better, in September of 2021, then that December, Flexible Press accepted Without You Here. Going from zero books to two within three months after achingly long years of near misses, new projects, rewrites, and busts, knocked me sideways—in the best possible way. For a long while, it felt like a few hamsters were galloping on their wheels in my head, stopping short every now and then to say to each other, “Two books? Two?” before hopping on again. And both presses have been truly lovely to work with.  

What’s your favorite piece of writing advice?

I have a couple. In a writing conference workshop, someone asked Tim O’Brien about how to avoid sentimentality, and he said, “Don’t worry about sentiment. Worry about fraudulence.” Which I love, because a lot of writers favor action over poignancy or skew in the opposite direction by overtelling emotional reactions. So don’t avoid feeling, embrace it. Show its ugly neediness or extravagant beauty with precision and honesty.

Another favorite comes from Flannery O’Connor’s Mystery and Manners: “It’s always wrong of course to say that you can’t do this or you can’t do that in fiction. You can do anything you can get away with, but nobody has ever gotten away with much.” Which is something I tell students and fellow writers when they’re trying something wild and new. Yes, it could work—Don’t let anyone tell you something’s impossible just because it hasn’t been done—but don’t expect it to be easy.

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

The final (hard-won) draft of this book follows a nonlinear structure. I knew from early on that maintaining the pressure of a past event over the course of twenty years of Noreen’s life would require something different structurally, but I had no idea what. Jane Alison’s craft book Meander, Spiral, Explode, which explores a host of nontraditional plot shapes, assured me that an asynchronous timeline could work, and my adult children helped input chapter descriptions into a spreadsheet then organized them into a potentially functional sequence. I wasn’t sure until I’d finally fit all the pieces together that this spiraling timeline could achieve what I’d wanted it to; realizing that it did was a happy surprise.

Along the way there were plenty of other surprises. Nonie and Noreen are bigger risk takers than I am, so I had to create misadventures for them that I would never have joined. I was always surprised, and relieved, when those episodes rang true. It was also interesting and surprising when snippets of my own life experience showed up in a scene here or there, disguised completely as belonging to the characters in the book.

How did you find the title of your book?

For the longest time the title was Little Angel, which is Nonie’s nickname for her niece, and that title worked for me because it showed their fondness for each other and the depth of their affection despite the obstacles in their story. But it also accidentally made me think of those Hallmark Precious Moments angel figurines, which, pardon to anyone who likes those, but they strike me as cutesy and saccharine. This isn’t a cute story, so I didn’t want anyone making the same association.

A late-stage revision generated a scene where Nonie says to Noreen, “Without you here, I’d think this was someone else’s family,” and that line resonated right away. The whole novel is about a broken connection, about the absence that Nonie leaves behind. Almost as soon as I wrote the line, I knew I’d found the title.

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READ MORE ABOUT THIS AUTHOR:

www.jodyhobbshesler.com

ORDER THIS BOOK:

https://bookshop.org/p/books/without-you-here-jody-hobbs-hesler/21428898?ean=9798988721383

Jody Hobbs Hesler is the author of WITHOUT YOU HERE (September 10, 2024; Flexible Press) and WHAT MAKES YOU THINK YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO FEEL BETTER (October, 2023; Cornerstone Press). She serves as assistant fiction editor for The Los Angeles Review and teaches at WriterHouse in Charlottesville, VA. You can visit her at jodyhobbshesler.com.

Synopsis for WITHOUT YOU HERE (September 10, 2024; Flexible Press)

Noreen, twenty-seven, is the same age as her beloved Aunt when she died by suicide.

When Noreen was little, she had a special connection to her Aunt Nonie, her namesake and kindred spirit. They seem to understand each other in a way that no one else can. But what Noreen is too young to understand is that her aunt is spinning out of control, her grasp on reality slipping, her alcohol use accelerating, her personal life in shambles. Noreen’s mom, Nonie’s sister, tries to help—jobs, housing, counselors—but Nonie is not getting better.

The only thing Nonie can hold onto is her niece, who she loves more than anything in the world. But when Noreen is playing on a tire swing under Nonie’s supervision there’s an accident, sending Noreen to the hospital and Nonie into a spiral from which she will not recover.

From that day in 1980 to the last months of 1999, Noreen’s life spirals around the axis of Nonie’s suicide, tightening the past’s pressure on the present.

Now an adult, Noreen finds herself a young mother trapped in a marriage with a controlling, manipulative husband. Or is she? She is haunted by the memory of her aunt, and she is afraid her own grasp on reality is slipping away. In the end Noreen is left to ask: Will her life forever be defined by her aunt? And can she stop history from repeating itself?

Interview with novelist & poet Andrew K. Clark

Interview by Christine Schott

Andrew K. Clark is a self-described Appalachian Gothic novelist and poet. His book of poetry, Jesus in the Trailer (Main Street Rag Press) and his debut novel, Where Dark Things Grow (Cowboy Jamboree Press) both draw rich inspiration from the world of Appalachia, past and present. I had the opportunity to explore place, inspiration, and more with Andrew in the lead-up to his book launch on September 10, 2024.

Tell us a little about what Appalachia means to you. What do you want people to see of Appalachia through your work?

To me, Appalachia is certainly our beautiful geography which makes us famous, but it’s also about the uniqueness of our people. Appalachia is diverse racially, culturally, and in thought. If I could wave a magic wand, I would use it to let all the old caricatures die. In my work, I hope readers see what they’ve come to expect from great Appalachian literature (sense of place, family bonds, survivalism, dialect tradition, etc.) combined with the fantastical elements of magical realism and horror stories.

Your poetry collection, Jesus in the Trailer, is populated by people we feel we might have met before: struggling people, hard-edged people, generous people. Your novel, Where Dark Things Grow, draws on folklore, horror, and the preternatural. Do you see fundamental connections between these two works?

I think both books are exploring the same themes at their core. The religious traditions & superstitions of the narrative voices in Jesus in the Trailer are present, and perhaps more fleshed out, in Where Dark Things Grow. Family dysfunction and struggle are at the heart of both, along with a love story along the way. Also, my prose leans poetic, at least according to early reviews, so I think fans of one would be natural fans of the other.

What drew you to poetry, and what has since tempted you into the world of fiction? Do you see your future self as moving between these two worlds frequently?

When I was in high school, a friend gave me a collection of Langston Hughes poems. That flipped a switch for me; prior to reading Hughes I had thought of poetry as Shakespeare, and while I’ve grown to love Shakespeare, I didn’t immediately see it as accessible for someone like me. Hughes wrote in his natural vernacular and showed me I could do the same as a Southern Appalachian poet. I think the draw to fiction is a product of that same realization when I discovered southern writers, and the connections I later made to writers using fantastical elements like Murakami and Marquez. At my core, I love stories, and I love language. I cannot imagine not writing both.

Where did you first encounter the folklore you draw on for Where Dark Things Grow? Did you adhere closely to real folklore, or did you make significant changes to suit your novel?

Once I knew I wanted to include fantastical elements in the story, I decided early on to use only folklore I could trace to my family heritage. The idea for wulvers came from Scottish folklore, but I twisted them into something new in the story, giving them some of the elements of the dire wolves from Game of Thrones books. Mr. Wake, one of the novel’s villains is Norwegian, which I can trace to my own heritage. The religious traditions explored in the book are mostly from my own personal experience growing up in a very conservative strain of Christianity. Some characters in the book wear wooden booger masks from Western North Carolina Cherokee tradition, but they’re white men co-opting this tradition; classic cultural appropriation.

In marketing, we talk about “comparable titles.” The best way I’ve heard comps described is as books that belong on the same shelf as yours. What books would you love to see your novel share the shelf with?

Where Dark Things Grow belongs on horror bookshelves alongside books like The Hollow Kind and The Boatkeeper’s Daughter both by Andy Davidson, and The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones. It also belongs on the southern gothic lit bookshelf beside books like The Gods of Howl Mountain by Taylor Brown, Serena by Ron Rash, and Winter’s Bone by Daniel Woodrell.

What was the publication process like for you? You’ve gone the route of publishing with small presses without an agent. What are some of the advantages and disadvantages of that approach?

One thing I am proud of with Where Dark Things Grow – out 9/10/24(Cowboy Jamboree Press) and its sequel Where Dark Things Rise – coming fall of 2025(Quill & Crow Publishing House) is that they bend genre. They contain elements of horror, magical realism, historical fiction, and southern gothic. But this means that the work doesn’t fit neatly into a traditional marketing box understood by the agent querying process. Indie presses are generally bolder and more welcoming of books that defy such easy categorization. So, the positive of traditional indie press publishing, although still quite competitive, is being able to tell a story the way I want as an author. I also have a say in elements such as my cover designs. The negatives would be distribution (your book isn’t automatically in a large number of bookstores) and that I am basically my own marketing department alongside a publicist I hired.

What’s your next project? Do you always have a new project up your sleeve when you finish something, or do you need a creative break between endeavors?

I have started on a third novel and a second poetry collection, both of which are quite different. I don’t think I need creative breaks; I don’t think there’s any such thing for writers. Even when we’re not writing, we’re writing. But I do crave breaks from the marketing involved with book launches and promo; if for no other reason than to get back into the right headspace to create something new.

What do you wish people would ask you about your writing?

I wish more readers would connect or comment on what I am saying about class in my work.

For more information on Andrew and his work, visit the following pages:

ABOUT

Andrew K. Clark is a writer from Western North Carolina where his people settled before the Revolutionary War. His poetry collection, Jesus in the Trailer was published by Main Street Rag Press and shortlisted for the Able Muse Book Award. His debut novel, Where Dark Things Grow, is forthcoming from Cowboy Jamboree Press in September of 2024. A loose sequel, Where Dark Things Rise will be published by Quill and Crow Publishing House in the fall of 2025. His work has appeared in The American Journal of Poetry, UCLA’s Out of Anonymity, Appalachian Review, Rappahannock Review, The Wrath Bearing Tree, and many other journalsHe received his MFA from Converse College. Connect with him at andrewkclark.com.

Christine Schott, South 85 Fiction Editor, teaches literature and creative writing at Erskine College.  She is Pushcart-nominated author whose work has appeared in the Gettysburg Review, Dappled Things, Casino Literary Magazine, and Wanderlust.  She holds a PhD in medieval literature from the University of Virginia and an MFA in creative writing from Converse University.

Interview with Maribeth Fischer

Reprinted with permission from Work in Progress


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

Ten years before A Season of Perfect Happiness begins, Claire had a life she loved:  She lived in a beautiful beach town, was close to her family, had great friends, and was married to her high school sweetheart. When a tragedy upends it all, she understands that her only chance to have “a normal life” is to start over in a new town. Now, after nearly a decade in Genesee Depot, Wisconsin, she’s finally ready to find love, even happiness. But what of her past does she owe her new friends or the man with whom she falls in love? This is the question at the heart of the novel: What is our most authentic self? The one we try to hide or the one we strive each day to be?  

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

I loved writing Annabelle, the ex-wife of the man Claire falls in love with, and Claire’s closest friend.  Right there, you have a complicated, tangled relationship. In an early draft, a reader told me she didn’t find it believable that an ex would get so friendly with the new woman. But I’d grown up in a family where my dad and stepfather became close friends, and I knew it was possible. I loved the challenge of making Annabelle and Claire’s friendship believable. Annabelle was fun too because she herself is fun, and funny, smart and generous. But she is also damaged and insecure and so ends up causing enormous damage to the people she loves. So far readers have loved and hated her all at once, which thrills me!

The most difficult character was Claire’s former best friend, Kelly, who didn’t want Claire in her life after the tragedy (which was connected to Kelly). I didn’t always understand why Kelly would be so unforgiving and I had to work hard to figure her out…

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

The highs

·       Getting the first email from my editor at Dutton, which began, “welcome home.” Dutton had published my first book 20 years earlier. It felt like a homecoming.

·       Seeing the cover for the first time,

·       My dad, who was the first one to read the galley, calling in tears to tell me he’d finished it in two days—and couldn’t stop thinking about it.

·       A similar call from my older brother and my mom

·       Seven months before the release date, having the event coordinator at my local library (Lewes Public Library) and the owner of my local independent bookstore (Browseabout Books) telling my publicist that they wanted to host a launch party for me. Arrangements were made and the event was ready for RSVP’s in a less than an hour. I felt so lucky and grateful to live in the community I do.

The lows

·       Redoing a major piece of the plot—and having to do it in ten days. So, basically rewriting the novel in little more than a week. I didn’t, sleep, eat, bathe! But also in this, my husband, when I said, “I can’t do this. It’s not possible,” looked at me and responded, “What do you mean? This is what you do, Maribeth. This is who you are. Of course you can do it.” His saying that, his unequivocable belief in me? That’s another high.  

What’s your favorite piece of writing advice?

Write big and messy; write way more than you’ll ever need and then edit. Along with this is my favorite quote, by Elie Wisel. “There is a difference between a book of two hundred pages from the very beginning, and a book of two hundred pages, which is the result of an original eight hundred pages. The six hundred pages are there. Only you don’t see them.” 

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

Near the end of A Season of Perfect Happiness a minor character suddenly sort of stepped out of the pages and came alive in a way that allowed me to see a whole other aspect of him. I didn’t need him to do this 40 pages from the end of the book, but the novel is so much better because he did.  

How do you approach revision?

I love revision. It’s part of my “write big and messy.” I meet with poet and novelist, Anne Colwell every week to review our writing (and we’ve been doing this for twenty years) and every place she says, “I could stay here awhile,” meaning, “I want more,” I dive in and see how far I can take the scene she’s questioning or the backstory or the thoughts she wants my character to consider. I write into the story as long and as deeply as I can. I have never not discovered something important that I needed to know in doing this.

Inquiring foodies and hungry book clubs want to know: Any food/s associated with your book? (Any recipes I might share?)

Alas, no…but the book mostly takes place in Wisconsin, so there’s always bratwurst…

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MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THIS AUTHOR: https://www.maribethfischer.com/

ORDER A COPY OF THIS BOOK FOR YOUR OWN TBR STACK: https://browseaboutbooks.com/book/9780593474679