Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I have either three novels and one collection of short stories, or two novels and two collections of short stories, depending on how you look at it 🙂 My first novel, which won the 2005 International Three Day Novel Writing Contest, is a set of interlinked short stories featuring a variety of monsters with hang-ups (the title character of _Day Shift Werewolf_ is a vegetarian, which complicates his job as a hunter of manflesh.) DSW was followed by the novel _Utterly Heartless_, a magical realist satirical murder mystery. As you can see, I like to play with genre. 🙂 Next came a more serious work of short fiction, _The Bell Lap_, which is a work of “cli-fi” or climate change science fiction. In my newest novel, _Fault Lines_, I return to magical realism while maintaining the more somber tone befitting a work that addresses political and personal injustice, anxiety and depression, and war.
I’ve also had numerous short stories appear in magazines and anthologies.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
_Fault Lines_:
“Cathie Ayala has never been to Santa MarĂa, the country of her parents’ birth. Now her beloved godmother has gone missing in that South American nation’s political turmoil. Risking her safety and sense of self, Cathie sets out to find the woman who raised her.
Instead she stumbles on two young people facing crises of their own. Injured in a terrible accident on her way to her fiesta de quinceañera, Jewel seems to have one foot in this life and one in the next—while Nicky is reeling from a spectacular failure to solve his own existential problem. The companions must succeed or fail together, navigating not only a war zone but each one’s relationship to death and life.”
I have taught Spanish for thirty years and have lived in several Spanish-speaking countries. My interest in Latin America has deep roots. I wanted to write about life there (Santa MarĂa is a fictitious, “composite” portrait of several real countries) while exploring the emotional lives of individual characters.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
I used to write in a very non-linear fashion, beginning with a vignette, a description, a turn of phrase, or a line of dialogue, and building a story out from there. That approach is as legitimate as any other, but it is very inefficient! With _Fault Lines_ I experimented successfully with a more linear writing style–crafting the story from beginning to end, and not working on a draft until I’d completed the one before.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
Margaret Atwood, Ursula LeGuin and Barbara Kingsolver are three that leap to mind. They are master storytellers who take care to develop their characters fully and who pay close attention to the use of language.
What are you working on now?
I have completed the second draft of a new novel called _Lonely House_, about the sexual abuse of children at the hands of Catholic priests and the horrors of the Indian residential schools of the first half of the twentieth century.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
So far as I can tell, there is no magic. Getting your name out in front of your most likely audience in as many ways as you can is key. But probably even more important is developing genuine relationships along the way–based on authentic connection and mutuality–with readers.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Find yourself a good writers’ group that knows how to give and receive critiques. The members should be supportive of one another and not feel they are in competition. They should know how to give feedback that is descriptive, not evaluative (“this gave me goosebumps!” rather than “this is so good!”)–so you know exactly what you’re doing right–and that is honest without being mean, so you can improve.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
In life? Maybe “Don’t postpone joy.”
What are you reading now?
In fiction, I’m just about to finish the first of Frank Herbert’s famous _Dune_ series. In nonfiction, I am working my way through Robert Sapolsky’s _Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst._
What’s next for you as a writer?
I will be promoting my newest novel, which came out Dec. 15, for some time yet. And my next novel has many drafts to go before it will be ready for the public 🙂
If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
What an agonizing question! I’d want something meaty, like a complete works of Shakespeare, maybe alongside a book of interpretation for the moments when I get lost. I might like a Bible, not for religious reasons, but because it’s a very long and difficult book and would keep me busy for quite a while. Would it be cheating to take an anthology?
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