Anna Solomon talks about The Little Bride, when writing feels like a lie, and the joys of research

Let's begin with this: I love this novel. Anna Solomon's The Little Bride, about a young Jewish woman who comes to the West as a mail order bride, is always haunting, sometimes horrific, and totally  sublime. I raved about this novel for my column at Shoptopia.com, and I wanted to talk more with Anna about her book.  Thank you, Anna!

How did the idea for the novel spark?

You had to ask that, didn't you? It's a bit embarrassing, actually. I was Googling myself - yes, indeed, in the good old days before 'Google Alerts' - and among other Anna Solomons, I came across one, Anna Solomon Freudenthal, who was on this website called "Stories Untold: Jewish Women Pioneers." I was fascinated. I had no idea that Jewish pioneers even existed! It seemed like a wonderful, exaggerated version of my own experience growing up Jewish in New England. I poked around, and saw that one of the women on this site, a Rachel Bella Calof, had been a mail-order bride to North Dakota. Now I was more than fascinated, I was hooked. I read Calof's memoir (an amazing account her children discovered and had translated from the Yiddish) and when I was reading her description of the "Look" she'd been given - this was the examination she had to undergo to see if she was fit to be a bride - when I read her line, "They inspected me like a horse," I was stunned. It's one of those lines that says everything and nothing. A perfect entry point for a fiction writer. So that's where I began.

What was the research like? Did anything surprise you?

My research process was intensive, thorough, and also random. I didn't research for a year and then start writing, I started writing immediately and researched as I went. I never really set out to write a historical novel. I felt like I was writing a novel that happened to be set during a different time. (I felt this way until I sold the book and was informed that what I'd written fell firmly into the category of 'historical novels.') So I really used the history to inspire the story, but I didn't want to be inhibited by it. Most of the book turned out to be true to history - or true enough - but I knew that for me the story's truth had to come first.

One thing that surprised me was that other fiction often turned out to be the richest source of information for me, especially when it came to bringing particular places to life. Odessa, for instance, I couldn't have written without Isaac Babel's 'Odessa Stories.' And Willa Cather's 'My Antonia' was critical to my own experience of - and expression of - the Great Plains.

 What I loved (and I don't want to give it away) was the ending of the novel, which was that glorious combination of exactly right and yet totally surprising. At Because I am always so interested i process, can you tell me when you knew the ending? Did you always know it or did it startle you?

I'm so glad you loved it! I love the ending, too, in part because it did surprise me. Not the general trajectory - I had a sense of where Minna (my protagonist) would end up pretty early on in the writing process - but how it occurs, how she gets herself to that ending. A lot of my writing it like that: I know where I want to go, but have no idea how to get there. For me, this ending is an opening out. Most of the book is very intimate, it's very close to Minna's point-of-view and you don't see a whole lot of what's going on in the wider world - because she doesn't, she is very focused on what's right in front of her, she is also pretty self-absorbed, I think that's fair to say. At the end, though, she changes, and so the book changes: suddenly the world (the public world of the 1880s - the events and trends and architect of the time) comes spinning into view. I found that exhilarating, and unexpected, but it was also just right, for Minna and the book. To me, it's a very hopeful ending.

What's your writing life like?

Usually, very regular. I thrive on routine, and discipline. (Sexy, right?) I write in the mornings. I used to write within 15 minutes of waking but now that I have a small child I can no longer do that. I have to come at my work after being awake for two hours and sending her off to school. I've adjusted, though. I write for 3 hours, on average, then try to take a break, a shower or a run, maybe one more idea ekes out of my unconscious, and then I open myself up to the world. Turn on the wi-fi, deal with emails, write copy for a PR firm, etc. But it's so important to me not to do any of that before I get the writing done. Sometimes I don't write very much, or what I write is bad, but I sit there anyway. It's a kind of faith, I guess.

Right now, though, everything I just wrote feels like a lie because I have been working really hard to promote this book and traveling a lot and writing essays and answering wonderful q&a's like this one and so I have absolutely no routine. I find it very disorienting. I mean, it's a lot of fun and I love giving readings and I am so thrilled and gratified to hear from people who are actually reading and discussing and debating my book! It all feels totally worthwhile and wonderful. But I do miss my good ol' daily routine. My goal is to be back to it by January 1.

 What's obsessing you now?

A personal essay I'm writing, for a magazine I won't name for fear of jinxing myself. It's a family story - about suicide, and memory, and living in the present. Small topics, right? It's kicking my butt. But it feels great to be struggling in that way, even if I'm not able to struggle with it every day right now.

What question should I have asked that I didn't?

Oh let's see. How about my short stories? It's funny, because I've been publishing short stories for years and this novel thing is so new so I still identify myself more as a short story writer and I have this weird feeling about the fact that more people are reading my novel than have ever read my stories. I'm so happy they're reading it but I want to knock on their doors and say, hey, you know what? It's not really my first book. My first book  - in my mind - is made up of short stories. I love short stories. They are such a demanding form, and they've been so important to my development as a writer.  I plan to keep writing them, even as I write my next novel. And yes, there is a next novel. It's set in Gloucester, MA - my hometown - during Prohibition.

Pictures of You on Bookmark Magazine's Best of 2011 List

I am thrilled, honored, and totally jazzed to announce that PICTURES OF YOU made Bookmark Magazines Best Books of 2011 list.

Thank you to everyone who read my book or supported it in any way.
I want to buy you the planet Saturn.

Jessica McCann talks about writing a jigsaw novel

Jessica McCann is the author of the award-winning novel, All Different Kinds of Free. Inspired by a true story, the novel follows Margaret Morgan, kidnapped in 1837 along with her  free children and sold into slavery. And on a personal note, Jessica is one of the coolest, warmest writers on the planet. I'm thrilled to have her here on my blog. And you can follow her on twitter and facebook at Twitter: @JMcCannWriter

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/AllDifferentKindsOfFree .

Thank you, Jessica. 

Writing a Jigsaw Novel

by Jessica McCann

As a kid, I used to do a lot of jigsaw puzzles with my mom. She taught me to put together all the edge pieces first, to create the outline, and then fill in the middle. In school, that seemed to be the conventional wisdom from my writing teachers, too. Start with an outline, then fill in the details. For better or for worse, I’ve never been very good at following conventional wisdom.

When doing jigsaws, I would try to work the edges first. I really would. But then, what’s this here? Could it be part of an elbow? Maybe it’s an ear. And what about this piece? It has the same peachy hue, maybe it goes with this one. Ah ha! Little by little, section by scattered section, the big picture would eventually come together. Inevitably, the final piece to snap into place would be some flat-edged rascal that seemed to be lost until the very end.

My writing generally takes shape the same way. Even for the shortest magazine article, I struggle with sticking to an outline. A quote jumps out at me. An anecdote begs to be fleshed out. A statistic yearns to be researched. Then all the pieces get shifted and rearranged again and again, until the big picture finally materializes. The opening paragraphs are usually the last thing I write.

Multiply that by about a hundred, and you have a pretty good idea of how I wrote my first novel -- little by little, scene by scattered scene, until the last plot point finally snapped into place. ALL DIFFERENT KINDS OF FREE was inspired by actual events. It tells the story of Margaret Morgan, a free woman of color in 1830s America whose perfect life was shattered when she was kidnapped and forced into slavery. It took me a good five years to figure out all the plot points, to write and assemble all the scenes and chapters of the book. And the first scene I wrote, the one I thought would be the opening scene, ended up somewhere in the middle.

For a long time, the realization that this is my writing process was daunting as hell. Oh, it's fine for a 1,500-word article that takes a few weeks to complete. But apply it to novel writing, and you're looking at years of writing and revision for every book. Finally, I came to accept that writing a novel (and doing it well) simply takes as long as it takes.

Freelance writer and memoir author Jessica Handler also thinks it's OK write out of order. In fact, she encourages it.

"Just because your story follows a timeline doesn't mean you have to write it linearly," she said in her article "Writing without a Map" (The Writer magazine, May 2011). "If you're inspired to write a scene other than the one that comes next in your manuscript, go for it. You can put the story in the right order later."

You can put the story in the right order later.

Handler’s advice is comforting as I hammer away at my second novel. My outline is sketchy, at best. I have about two dozen scenes and vignettes written, which are random and completely unrelated. But that’s OK. I know now the big picture is there somewhere, waiting to reveal itself. And as I shift and re-arrange all the sections, I know that final flat-edged piece is just waiting to be snapped into place.

J

Cindy Bokma talks about writing, beauty blogging and Here If You Need Me

I first met CIndy when she interviewed me for her great blog Cindy Reads. We became friends and Cindy now even has me writing about beauty products for her fantastic beauty blog Hello Dollface (You cannot imagine how much fun this is to try out $70 lipsticks and $200 skin creams!) But Cindy and I also have many, many conversations about writing, novels, scripts, the works, and one of the best times of my life was shopping in Manhattan with her--No one has a sense of style like Cindy, or better celebrity gossip.  Her new novel, Here If You Need Me is as sparkling as Cindy herself, and I'm thrilled to be peppering her with questions.  Thank you, Cindy!

So tell me about your book. What sparked the idea?

The book is about a working class young woman befriending a down- on- her- luck celebrity with disastrous results. When I wrote the book, I was running my celebrity gossip website. I considered what would happen if a regular person like myself became friends with a celebrity. I don’t think it would be as glamorous as most people imagine. In fact, I could see being sucked into that world of fame and money and losing everything!

What's your writing process like? Are you an outliner or do you just "follow your pen?"

I love to follow a screenplay format. It helps to keep my ideas clear so I know where I’m headed. I use Blake Snyders “beat sheet” from his Save the Cat book. Its brilliant. Once you kind of know what your character is going to do, and is supposed to do, you can be free to fill in the blanks. It works for me...most of the time.　

You run a successful beauty blog, Hello Dollface, another literary blog Cindy Reads, and you're also a screenwriter as well as a novelist. Plus, you're a wife and mother! So how do you juggle everything in your day?

Oh my gosh, Caroline, I’m overwhelmed! I am super busy every single day. There isn’t one day of the week where I’m not on my computer, working on something. I feel like in order to reach the level of success I’m after, I have to put in the hard work! Its been ten years of sitting at the computer every single day whether I feel like it or not.

What's obsessing you now?

Right this second, it’s the pile of laundry in the bedroom and the fact Project Runway is on!

There are a few projects on my mind- one is my 40 Things Before I Turn 40 series, about trying to cram in all the things I want to do before I turn 40. I want to try NaNo and bang out a novel in November. And I have an idea for a television series I’ve been planning in my mind- I have to get that on paper.

What project are you working on next?

NaNo! I have an idea for my book and it will be the first character I write that is a mother and wife in the suburbs, which is exactly what I am.

What question didn't I ask that I should have?

Maybe if I have an agent? Which I do not, but I desperately need! 

Danielle Younge-Ullman talks about writing, divorce and dysfunctional families

Danielle Younge-Ullman's Falling Under is the story of a reclusive young artist whose past begins to catch up with her when she falls in love. Gripping, disturbing and deliciously dark, it's a book that gets under your skin. I'm honored to have Danielle here to write about it. Thank you Danielle!

Agoraphobia, sex, art, gay rights, religious extremism, alcoholism, dysfunctional families…these are some of the things I talked/wrote about when Falling Under first came out.

But I recently realized I’ve never said, in blunt terms, what the book is about.

Kind of a major omission, I know—one I’m going to remedy right now.

Falling Under is about how hard divorce hits kids, and how deep and long-lasting the effects are.

It’s about how much harder divorce hits a kid when the parents stop being parents.

It’s about how those kids go forward with a profoundly changed view of the world, and how, despite everything they count on being ripped from under them, they bravely adapt and survive.

Finally, it’s about how some of the deepest effects of divorce are not seen until the children become adults and tackle adult relationships. This is where their world-view (often “trust nothing”) becomes hard to live with and the survival skills that got them through child/teenage-hood stop working.

I wrote Falling Under to explore these issues and demonstrate the effects. I hope readers come away with a deeper understanding, and a motivation to do better and be better, whatever their circumstances.

Now, I am not anti-divorce, nor am I in favor of blaming one’s parents for everything.

I am in favor of fighting like hell to save a marriage, YES for the sake of their kids, before giving up. Because as much as people want to tell themselves that getting out of an unhappy marriage will benefit their kids, across the board, statistics say otherwise. (Sorry.)

I am in favor of putting the kids first in every subsequent decision, once you decide to divorce. Difficult? Yes. Impossible sometimes, when two parents have different opinions on what “putting the kids first” actually means? Yes. But TRY, and KEEP TRYING. These kids need to be protected and supported, not used/fought over/abandoned, and/or turned into mini-adults. Many parents, I believe, do their best. Many more could do better.

On the flip side, if you are/were the kid and you’re not coping well and maybe living with a continual feeling that the sky is falling, you are not crazy—you’re having a normal psychological reaction. (This applies even if your parents had a “good” divorce.)

Bottom line: you’re going to need to do some work and/or get some help. Look at where you came from for understanding, though, not for blame, or justification for your own mistakes. Fact is, parents are flawed, and sometimes they’re going to fail to give you what you need, probably because they don’t have it to give. Cultivate empathy. Learn to forgive, because when you’re an adult (and parent) you’re going to fail too sometimes. And know that while this experience may have messed you up, if you pull through it, you will be a bigger, stronger, better person with a deep understanding of the human condition and the fierce power and perspective of a survivor.

That’s it. Now you don’t even need to read the book. But if you do, and you want to drop me a line, you can find me on Twitter @DanielleYUllman and at www.danielleyoungeullman.com

The hilarious Greg Olear warns writers what NOT to do when your book comes out

I've had Greg Olear on my blog before to talk about his fantastic new book Fathermucker. (He's also the author of Totally Killer, which is totally killer, and the senior editor of the fabulous The Nervous Breakdown.) Now I'm thrilled that Greg is giving advice about how to deal with the release of a new book. Oh, and Greg? About the new Book Scan feature on Amazon? Be afraid.  Be very, very afraid.

The Second Coming

By Greg Olear

With one novel under my belt—it’s called Totally Killer, and there are plenty of good copies still available—I’m now the world’s leading expert on how to approach the release of a new book.  Here are five inviolable rules:

1. Thou shalt not obsess over thine Amazon ranking.

Yes, fine, it’s the only real metric we have.  And the rest of the publishing world has access to it, so it’s sort of like having to publicly tape-measure your pecker in various stages of post-pool shrinkage—except with Amazon rankings, unlike priapic endowment, large size is not desirable. 

But it’s just a number, man, and a fickle one at that; blink and you miss when it breaks 2,500.  And it doesn’t take into account all those pre-orders.  Or the legions of fine consumers who buy their novels from indie bookstores or the Nook.  So don’t let it ruin your whole day when it plummets like lead to the high six digits.  And whatever you do…

2. Thou shalt not buy thine own book on Amazon to improve thine Amazon ranking.

Do the math, dude.  Just not worth it.  But very, very tempting.  In fact, I’m completely certain that the nefarious purpose of the Amazon ranking is to shame authors into buying their own books.  Speaking of Amazon…

3. Thou shalt ignore thine Amazon reviews.

Although the volume of reviews, good or bad, is probably a better indicator of sales success than the aforementioned Amazon sales ranking—case in point: 151 reviews of a certain New York Times bestseller with a picture of a wingèd camera on its cover—you should read those things at your own peril.  People can be mean.  Sadistic, even.   And in the same way that the über-conservative Republicans are always the ones who vote in every single election, the sadistic one-star-givers are always the ones who cross-post, so…

4. Thou shalt not visit Goodreads.

Seriously.  Just stay away from that site.  Block it with your parental controls.  If being a working writer is like living in a 12-step program, Goodreads is a hideous bender from which you wake up a week later, in some Bangkok slum, with a gang symbol tattoo on your forehead and a bad case of the clap.  There should be the Dantean warning on the splash page: abandon hope all ye writers who enter here.  Yes, there are a lot of excellent, excellent people on there, and the site has been good to me…but it has also made my heart sink.

5.   Thou shalt not visit thine bookstore.

I went a few days before Fathermucker came out and bought a stack of books to last the next few months, because once my novel drops, it fills me with dread to walk into a bookstore.  What if they don’t have my book?  What if they do, but it’s not prominently placed?  Should I swallow my pride and explain to the friendly bookseller that they should carry it?  No, no, better to stay home and try one more time to get through Swann’s Way.

Those are the rules.  Break them at your peril.  Now if you excuse me, Amazon has this new Book Scan feature I have to investigate…

Alma Katsu talks about the truth about love

I'm just back from the phenomenal  Brattleboro Book Festival and I'm honored to have Alma Katsu on my blog today, writing about the mysteries of love. (Her book The Taker is fierce, thrilling and gorgeously written.)  Thanks, Alma!

The Truth About Love

When I decided to write a novel, I decided that I wanted it to be about love. Not just any love story, though: I wanted to write something epic, a tragic story that would grab readers right away and sweep them up in a story that would break their hearts but that they could not stop reading.

I knew all about love, didn’t I? I’d been married over twenty years. You don’t stay married for that long without knowing about love. Or so I thought.

Funny thing about writing a novel: all those wisps of feelings and fragments of situations that are the fabric of your story come from somewhere inside you. Your story comes from your subconscious. Your subconscious knows what you’re afraid of, what really drives you, what you’d like to stay hidden and what you never want to face. Writing a novel is an exercise understanding yourself—if you’re brave.

So I started writing The Taker and quickly found, oh damn, this isn’t a conventional love story. It’s not going to be tied up with a pretty bow at the end, with the main characters living happily ever after. This story is a knock-down, drag-out examination of the nature of love.

The Taker is not a sixteen-year old girl’s idea of love. It’s not about having a man who makes you the center of his universe. It’s not about the white poofy dress and the perfect wedding. It’s not about being in love with the idea of love, of confusing love with romance. Romance is nice, but love is hard. Romance is sweet, but love is rewarding.

What if you loved someone who couldn’t give you what you wanted? What if you knew you were the best thing in the world for him, but he still couldn’t commit? What if you gave him everything you could and it still wasn’t enough? What if making him happy meant letting him go?

Don’t be too quick to think you know the answer to those questions. The divorce rate wouldn’t be so high if we all knew what we were doing when it comes to love. People wouldn’t stay in relationships that are bad for them, parents wouldn’t cling to children when they should be teaching them to be independent.

We do funny things in the name of love.

Do you know what really draws us to another person? It’s not the color of their eyes, or their pretty/handsome face. It’s not what they do for a living, or where they went to school, or that he finds all your jokes funny or that she loves how handy you are with tools.

I thought about giving you the answer here, but I decided not to (hey, I want you to read the book.) But I’ll give you a clue. It comes right out of The Taker:

“Looking back, I know we were only filling in the holes in our souls, the way the tide rushes sand to fill in the crevices of a rocky shore. We – or maybe it was just I – bandaged our needs with what we declared was love. But, eventually, the tide draws out what it has swept in.”

Why I Love Dear Reader and why you should, too

Suzanne Beecher is amazing. Warm, bubbly, and so positive you believe she could walk on Jupiter if she wanted to, she's a best friend to readers and writers. Dear Reader is her invention, a way to sample a huge variety of books, get hooked, read author essays and so much, much more. I'm honored to have been featured on her site twice, and to have written essays for her, and I've found dozens of fascinating books just browsing Dear Reader.com.

Sign up for a free book club and every day she'll email you a 5-minute portion of a book. She'll send a different book each week and you can sample two to three chapters. Before long you’ll be hooked on a book and you just might win a bubble machine, a signed copy of a book, or some of Suzanne's homemade chocolate chip cookies too--she loves to bake for readers.

Lisa Tucker talks about Creativity, questioning and The Winters in Bloom

Completely kind. Totally generous and warm. And very, very funny. You can't ask for better adjectives than that to describe yourself, but these apply to Lisa Tucker. I first met  Lisa Tucker at Readerville.com, a now defunct online stomping ground for writers. Her latest novel The Winters in Bloom is about families, secrets, and the ways we navigate our lives--and it's been racking up the raves. And take a look at these other accolades: Lisa is the author of six other novels, she's been published in a dozen countries and her books have been selected for Border's Original Voices, Book of the Month Club, the Literary Guild, Doubleday Book Club, People magazine's Critic's choice, Amazon Book of the Year, Target "Breakout" books, and more. I'm honored to have Lisa write something for my blog about her process.  Thank you so much, Lisa! 

All of my novels begin with a sentence that intrigues me, a sentence I simply can’t get out of my head.  In the case of The Winters in Bloom, that sentence would become the opening line of the novel: “He was the only child in a house full of doubt.”  I had to know who “he” was and why his house was “full of doubt.”

Within a week, I had the first chapter, and I knew that the child was five-year-old Michael Winter and the “doubts” he was talking about belonged to his mother and father.  The Winters are extremely anxious about Michael’s safety; indeed, they are so fearful that they made the parents around them feel better: “for if they were a bit overprotective at times—or more truthfully, when they were overprotective—at least they were nowhere near as bad as David and Kyra Winter.”

Of course I still didn’t know why the house was full of doubt, what had made David and Kyra so fearful.  And by the end of chapter one, two new questions were haunting me.  Where was Michael and who was the mysterious woman who’d come into the Winters’ backyard and taken him away?

Obviously, I’m one of those fly-by-the-seat-of-the-pants writers.  I’ve never made an outline until after I’ve finished my first draft.  Then I can see the story and I make lots of outlines: to access the emotional arc of the story, to evaluate the momentum of the plot, and to trace the development of each character.  But while I’m writing, I feel like I pray the reader will feel.  I’m driven by curiosity to find out who these people are and what will happen to them.

Admittedly, I become somewhat obsessed while I’m writing a novel.  I find myself thinking about the story everywhere: in the shower, while I’m driving or cooking or even listening to my family or friends.  My son calls me “286” when he realizes I’m not paying attention—referring to the old computer we had before he was born, with a very slow processor: the IBM 286.

I never think about themes while I’m writing, but of course I wonder what the book will mean to readers when it goes out into the world.   In the case of The Winters in Bloom, I’ve been told that it’s about learning how to forgive other people and especially ourselves.  Kyra and David Winter had been keeping secrets from each other: to find Michael, they have to travel through time and accept who they’d been and what they’d done.  As odd as it sounds, I feel very lucky that they trusted me to guide them on that journey.

Matthew Leutwyler talks about Answers to Nothing, writing, movie making, redemption and hope

Anyone who knows me knows that I’m a movieholic with very definite favorites. When I saw that brilliant producer/writer/director Matthew Leutwyler had a new film out, called Answers to Nothing (Great title, isn’t it? Plus, I had loved his This Space Between Us), I tracked him down, wanted to interview him, and he generously sent me a screener—and gave me a phone number.

Answers to Nothing is one of the most mesmerizing, moving, brilliantly done films I’ve seen. These adjectives are not hyperbole.The performances are knockout (the film features Dane Cook, Barbara Hershey, Julie Benz, Kali Hawk and more), and the film, which swirls around the main story of a missing young girl, is so haunting, that there were moments I was watching while weeping—yet, it’s very much a story that is also filled with redemption and hope. I’m still thinking about the story. It’s officially opening December 2 and already is creating a sensation (at the Woodstock Film Festival, people were unabashedly crying.) So I’m honored and thrilled to reproduce the conversation I had with Matthew here. Thanks, Matthew!

Your upcoming film, swirls around a missing girl, but the film is really about all the things missing inside of us that we try to fill. How did the idea for this film spark?

It was a really interesting process. Six years ago, I was going through a divorce and looking at all the mistakes I had made in my life. I started jotting down lists of all the personality traits of myself. Then I began developing characters based on those traits and all those conflicts I have internally. So I came out with all these characters, but I thought, well, I have to have one thread that binds all these characters together, don’t I? And I came up with the missing girl. I always wanted to do a film that was an unflinching look at modern relationships and the mistakes that we make—and how we go about making them right.

My previous work was comedies, or horror, amusing things. It wasn’t really the road I wanted to go down creatively. In fact, I hated the stuff I was doing before and I wanted to get back to dealing with the real issues. It’s uncomfortable to expose your inner workings, but it just felt more authentic.

Although a haunting and dark film, Answers to Nothing also has this seed of hope—lives are disrupted but they are not ruined, and people do find their own kinds of redemption. Can you talk about this?

The film was always about this, people all trying to do the right thing. They take a half step forward and attempt to correct their mistakes. When I first started writing, I wrote sixty pages and then sat on it for four years. I thought I knew where I wanted to go, but I brought in another writer, Gillian Vigman, both to force me to write (I had terrible writer’s block) and to bring in a woman’s touch to it. She helped to lighten the tone. I also got into a relationship and those positive feelings found their way into the writing.

In my novels, I always try to create what I call the never-ending story—a sense that nothing is neatly tied up but these lives keep going on and you wonder about them past the last page. I felt that same sense in your film.

 I think about that sense, too. I still wonder, what the characters are doing.

 I also wanted to talk about the moments in the film that are so striking. In novels, as well as films, there are always these moments that really resonate—images more than plot pushers. In your film, there is this incredible marathon race. There is a moment when Barbara Hershey opens a box and finds a scarf and we see the pleasure on her face. There is the weird school teacher playing the dangerous video games, and there is the African American woman who is never very nice to people, finally buying coffee for two security guards –I can’t get these moments out of my mind. Did these come organically or were they conscious decisions?

Every single thing was written except for the coffee. The actress, Kali Hawk started fiddling around. She liked to add on these small moments and when she was doing something with the coffee, I thought, “this is really interesting,” We kind of moved the camera around to it and made it a bigger deal.

Can you talk about the title, Answers to Nothing?

This was a title that I had in my head that I thought was going to change. It felt to me like a novel title. The movie is really about all these small moments of decision that we make in our life that we usually feel are small nothing moments, but when we look back on them, they turn out to be the most significant things in our lives.

What's obsessing you now?

Gillian and I are writing a wacky comedy about two women with dead end jobs that open up a brothel. Sort of in the vein of NIGHT SHIFT meets BRIDESMAIDS called ACCIDENTAL MADAMS, a couple of dramas, particular one about the border towns, based on true stories.  I used to go down to Tijuana, Rosarito, and Ensenada a lot, but now, no one goes there anymore. It’s pretty much a ghost town. I found a lot of interesting true stories, especially about the locals that have stood up to the forces around them.

My company, Ambush is also producing a whole lot of stuff, the comedy IMOGENE with Annette Bening, a documentary, SPINNING PLATES, about three restaurants, and producing a film version of Martha O’Connor’s THE BITCH POSSE.

Chris Bohjalian talks about The Night Strangers, Ghosts, Plane Crashes, Locked Doors--and wait, there's more!

You can't help but adore Chris Bohjalian. First, he's a wonderful writer.  But he's also one of the funniest, warmest people on the planet. I'm honored he blurbed me, and I was thrilled to share a stage with him at Rainy Day books, where Chris threw out t-shirts to audience members who could answer questions like "Which book has more pages, mine or War and Peace?" and he wore the coolest yellow sneakers around. Plus, of course, he likes cupcakes.

The Night Strangers is an unsettling and eerie novel about plane crashes, sinister herbalists, and how the dead and the living interact. I can't thank him enough for answering my pesty questions. But I'll try: Thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks, Chris! And just for the record, those shiny yellow sneakers below, beside the red cowboy boots? They belong to Chris and me--we are at the fabulous Rainy Day Books Event!

So much about The Night Strangers is harrowing and fascinating. Where did the idea spark?

First of all, thank you. I’m so glad you enjoyed the novel.

And spark is an interesting word in this case. More on that in a moment.

My basement just might be the scariest place on earth. It’s not merely that a sizable chunk of the floor is dirt, which means that after a good rain whole sections become the sort of slop that swallowed humans alive in bad science fiction movies from the 1950s. It’s not the fact that there is a Gordian knot of tubes and pipes along the ceiling (which is little more than a crawlspace in some sections), some of which carry water and some of which carry LP gas.

            

It’s the door.

            

Along one of the basement foundation walls, below ground, is a door about five and a half feet tall and three feet wide. It’s made of unfinished wooden planks and was added at some point after the 1898 Victorian above it was first constructed. When my wife and I moved into the house in Vermont, it was nailed shut. There was a moldy pile of coal beside it, a decomposing little mesa, and so I convinced myself the door was merely a part of an old coal chute. (Of course, to this day I have yet to find the exterior entrance to the chute.)

Now, the closest I have ever come to accidentally killing myself in my 24 years as a homeowner in northern New England occurred in that basement. Sure, I’ve nearly slid off the roof shoveling snow from atop of the screened porch. I’ve been conked in the head by the blunt side of an ax while hammering away at an ice jam. But the least competent (translation: seriously stupid) thing I have ever done as a homeowner occurred in that basement.

Our first winter in Vermont, our pipes froze. Still under the delusion that I had the slightest idea what I was doing when it came to this old house, I borrowed a friend’s propane torch. His advice? Run it along the pipes and it will thaw the ice. My wife and I descended into the crawlspace and began carefully running the flame over the tubing. We’d been at it two or three minutes when my wife remarked casually, “I wonder if this is a gas pipe or a water pipe?” Yes, it was a gas pipe. My bad. I still get a little queasy when I think about how close I came to blowing up the village.

In any case, it would be years after we had moved in that I would decide to man up and pull that basement door open. The project demanded a crowbar, a wrench, and – at one point – an ax. After hours of toil, behind that door I found. . .nothing. There was a slender cubicle the height and width of the door and maybe eighteen inches deep. The walls were made of wood, and behind them was nothing but earth. It certainly did not resemble a coal chute. It was more like a closet – or a crypt behind which you might wall up a neighbor alive. So, I nailed the door shut and now stay away from that corner of the basement.  

Nevertheless, I think I understood even then that the door was going to lead to a novel. I just didn’t know how.

In 2009, I got my answer. One January afternoon, along with many thousands of other people, I raced to my television set and watched the evacuation of US Airways flight 1549 as it occurred, staring enrapt as passengers stood on the wings and the plane floated amidst the waves of the Hudson River. It may have been the shape of the jet’s cabin doors, but I thought of the door in my basement. The next morning, I wrote the following sentence: “The door was presumed to have been the entry to a coal chute, a perfectly reasonable assumption since a small hillock of damp coal sat moldering before it.” 

And so begins “The Night Strangers.”

I loved all the research that must have gone into all the herb lore. Were you ever tempted to try them yourself?

I am always tempted. Once I wrote an article for Cosmopolitan magazine on herbal aphrodisiacs. My wife and I had the best time.

And knowing what you now know about planes, are you more nervous flying?

I fly way too often to be a white-knuckle flyer. But I am the sort who counts the number of seats between me and an emergency exit. Still, I did read a disturbing number of black box transcripts from doomed airliners. I also watched a lot of terrifying NTSB computer animations of crashes and interviewed pilots. I was even dunked in a mock plane ditching.

Nevertheless, I still rather like the whole experience of arriving at an airport and flying. I have made my share of bad jokes about TSA pat-downs and certainly complained about the size of a seat in a regional jet. But when I travel, I pretend I am George Clooney in “Up in the Air” or that it’s 1967 – an era when people still wore skirts and blazers when they flew, instead of flip-flops and sweatpants. I stand a little taller, walk a little more briskly, and treat myself to a pretty good glass of wine.

 What also impressed me is how different this novel is from your last--how, every novel seems to be different. Is this something you consciously strive for or does your subconscious just hijack things?

I never want to write the same novel twice. “Secrets of Eden” was about domestic violence, a double murder, and a Vermont pastor’s guilt. “Skeletons at the Feast” was a love story set in the last six months of World War II in Germany and Poland, and explored one family’s complicity in the Holocaust. And “The Double Bind” was the tale of a young social worker’s descent into madness after a violent sexual assault.

And so while my characters do take me by the hand and lead me through the dark of the story, I tend to begin with an idea relatively far removed from my most recent novel.

           

What's obsessing you now?

I just completed a draft of a novel set amidst the Armenian Genocide in 1915 and the World War One battle of Gallipoli. A young Boston graduate from Mount Holyoke College and an Armenian engineer are among the main characters. It’s called “The Sandcastle Girls.” I am half-Armenian and three of my four Armenian great-grandparents died in the Genocide.

 I love historical fiction. Although the research for this novel and “Skeletons at the Feast” was wrenching, I found the experience of writing those books among the satisfying things I have ever done.

What question didn't I ask that I should have?

Are you excited about the movie of “Secrets of Eden?” I am, yes. John Stamos and Anna Gunn are terrific. This is second time Lifetime has adapted one of my novels for a TV film, and I have found them a delight to work with. It airs for the first time on November 21.

Rick Kleffel talks about The Agony Column, technology, insomnia, and when author interviews don't go as planned

What do Mary Roach, Vindela Vida and Siobhan Fallon all have in common? They’re all been guests on Rick Kleffel’s  amazingly entertaining Agony Column. The interviews are so quirky and so fascinating that I decided I need to talk to Rick and he graciously obliged. Thank you, Rick! 

I love the title The Agony Column. Why that title, though? And tell us how the Agony Column came about?

It actually started with my dislike of the horror genre.  I'd always enjoyed the work of H. P. Lovecraft, but beyond that thought it was a wasteland.  Then, for reasons I don't remember, I decided to buy a mass-market paperback of Clive Barker's Books of Blood, which I enjoyed very much.  Barker used the tropes of the genre to tell a variety of stories.  As I read further into the horror genre, I found a lot to like.  I picked up a Scream/Press limited edition of Books of Blood, which I loved (and still love) and that led me down the path to a lot of outsider publishing.  This was back in the mid-1980's and I was working at a firm that was connected to the Internet, where I found Chuq Von Rospach's OtherRealms USENET magazine.  I proposed writing a review column for that publication, and chose The Agony Column as a nod to both the horror genre I was covering, my attitude in general, and of course, Sherlock Holmes' source for clues and clients.

You've interviewed everyone from Penn Gillette to Lev Grossman and what makes listening to the Agony Column so much fun is the fun that YOU clearly are having. How do you approach these interviews?

First, I find books that I want to read, that interest me. I read all sorts of books, and try to stay away from doing too much of any one thing.  I can tell pretty quickly if I'm going to like a book, or not.  here are enough books out there that I'd love to read, or re-read, so I see no reason for me to waste my valuable reading time on something I'm not going to enjoy.

Then, I read the books, and take notes.  I have a rigorous process so that the ideas, concepts, characters, the whatevers of the books I read eventually make it into my overcrowded mind, generally forcing something else out.  By the time the interview rolls around, I'm eager to talk with the author about how they brought the book into being, in a manner that does not spoil the reading experience but enhances it, I hope, whether you hear the interview before or after you read the book yourself.

Do you know what you are going to talk about or do you let the conversation just evolve and see what happens?

I know in general what I'm going to talk about, but don't write specific questions and don't map the general flow of the conversation.  I sometimes have some idea of where I'm going to start, but after that, I just let the questions fly from the shattered remains of my memory.

I used to script interview questions and carefully sequence them for a more "polished" feel, but I've given that up in favor of pretty much making everything up on the spot.

Have interviews ever not gone as planned?

All of them, and some disastrously so.  Interruptions, forget the cell phone is on, ask a questions and have the author look at me like I'm from the mailroom and reply to my question, "I don't know what to do with that."

Of course, since I don't plan them, none go as planned. They sometimes seem to go well.  But to be honest, afterwards, I'm generally hitting my forehead and feeling like an idjit. Then maybe in the edit, I listen and figure, well, that wasn't so terrible.

You also do commentary and reviews on books as well as the podcasts for NPR as well as for the Agony Column. And your references other movies and tell people about other sites--all in such a warm and funny and engaging way.

I suppose this is because I pick my subjects carefully, so I like them.  I've been lucky to have a home at NPR affiliate KUSP for nearly ten years now. They're very kind to tolerate my generally messy style and a flat-out refusal to be limited by genre.

My goal with The Agony Column website is quite simple -- and selfish.  I want publishers to keep making the sort of books I enjoy reading, so I write about them to bring them to the attention of others like myself, and I know they are out there, so that they can buy them and provide a profit margin for all involved. So I'm happy to direct others wherever they need to go to find what they want.

And, since I talk to writers about writing, I also tend to see the podcasts as a means of mentoring writers-in-the-making.  Anyone who wants to can listen, at no cost to them, to literally thousands of hours of writers talking about their craft.  The site is a sort of structureless writing class with advice from top-notch successful, money-making writers.

So you rarely sleep and you play electronic music. Does one have something to do with the other?

No, I'm a hereditary insomniac.  I require about four, five hours a night sleep.  I only wish I needed less so I could devote more time to playing music, which I find very relaxing and enjoyable.  I try to emulate the electronic chamber music of the late 1970's and early 1980's.

And what about technology interests you so much?

It's totally the new toy, techno-lust factor, but I move in unpredictable waves.  If I made any money, I *might* buy more new toys, but I have an abiding trust of trailing edge technology.  It's cheaper, the bugs have been worked out and you don't have to deal with disaster issues as much.  That said, there are lots of times that I go out and buy something hot off the shelf.  Last time, was the iPad, which has proved very useful for interview notes.

So what's obsessing you now in the world of books?

Tomes. Neal Stephenson, Haruki Murakami. Book bricks. And totally, one-hundred percent, Tartarus Press.  Everything Ray Russell touches is GOLD, I tell you, GOLD.  Subterranean Press as well. Night Shade. Pyr.  Macmillan UK. I'll stop now.  But I could go on and on.

And here's an old style Barbara Walters question for you: Which dead writer would you most like to have a conversation with and under what circumstances (Fitzgerald when he's not drunk? Hemingway before or after he got punchy?)

Three; Flannery O'Connor, on her porch with a jar of iced tea in the summer, Philip K. Dick in the Mexican restaurant in Santa Ana where I got lamb burritos, and Stanislaw Lem at Google HQ.

How do you choose the authors you converse with?

If I like the book, and they'll talk to me.  I prefer to speak in person.  It makes a HUGE DIFFERENCE to be in the room and look someone in the eyes; that said, sometimes you just get on the phone and do the best you can do.

What question didn't I ask that I should have?

Oh, I guess a a gearhead question, to wit, How do I record on the fly? And the answer is: with two Electrovoice RE50's and a very old (beyond trailing edge) Marantz digital recorder.  I edit using Peak on a MacBook Pro.  The whole shebang is shockingly primitive.

The food of love and grief

When you're grieving, people are usually trying to feed you.  But many years ago, in an attempt to outrun my terrifying grief, I got involved with a man who wouldn't let me eat. To leave him meant I'd have to grieve again--so I stayed in a relationship that was controlling and toxic. I did, of course, get out, and I wrote about this relationship, masking/changing the person's name and profession--but not the cruelty--for The London Telegraph --and many thanks to my stupendous UK publisher, Allen and Unwin, for making this happen!