Authors are a creative bunch. One such creative type, Mary
Biddinger (Prairie Fever, St. Monicas, and O Holy Insurgency) started a
self-interview series called "The Next Big Thing," whereby writers
administer the Q&A below to themselves, then tag others to do the same.
It’s been zinging around the Internet, building a fine collection of
interesting insights from a diverse group of authors about their books. I mean,
self interview? Bring it on.
I've been tagged by two writers to participate:
Laurie Frankel, author of the
intriguing and brilliant
Goodbye For Now
(soon to be a major motion picture) and
Atlas of Love, and poet
Denise Banker, whose luminous
book of poetry is called
Swimming the
Colorado. Both of these women are dear friends and exceptional writers, and
I hope you will discover that for yourself by reading their books.
And now, for the self interview.
What's the title of your book?
Love
Water Memory. That was not my first title choice. It was The Amnesiac’s Love Story. My publisher
thought, and probably rightly so, that title sounded too much like a
Lifetime TV movie or a thriller. In the midst of trying really hard to think of
a new title, I woke in the night, twice, with these three words: love,
water, memory. I ignored them the first time, but when they came back the
second time, I jumped up and wrote them down, sent them to my agent and editor,
saying, What do you think? And they loved it.
What is the one-sentence
synopsis of your book?
It’s
a mystery wrapped in a love story about an amnesiac who remembers nothing,
and her fiancé, who remembers too much.
What genre does your book fall
under?
I
would call it simply fiction. A novel. The publishing business has many
categories, even for non-genre fiction ("genre" typically meaning scifi, mystery,
romance, thriller, etc.) This particular novel is in the category of upmarket
hardcover fiction. See? Means nothing. Let’s move past genres and categories,
and just read good books.
Will your book be
self-published or represented by an agency?
This
book is published by Gallery Books, a division of Simon and Schuster. I am
represented by Stephanie Kip Rostan of the Levine Greenberg Literary Agency. I love them both.
Where did the idea come from
for the book?
A Seattle Times
article in February 2007. The headline was: “His memory fails him, but his
heart won’t forget.” It was about a man who suffered from a rare condition that
steals his memory and makes him flee his life, over and over, and about his
fiancée, who goes to get him. It made me want to know what would happen, so I
wrote a book to find out.
Which actors would you choose
to play your characters in a movie rendition?
Hmm. I always try to turn this question around and ask
readers, because they have such definite ideas. I already see Lucie and Grady
and Helen and all the rest as real people, so it’s difficult. But, off the top
of my head, how about Cate Blanchett for Lucie (with one of her brilliant
American accents)? I can’t even imagine who might play Grady, who is half
Native American and has the long lean body of a swimmer. Can you?
How long did it take you to
write the first draft of your manuscript?
I
think about 18 months? I lose track. Meaning, I don’t want to remember. But
usually, it takes me about a year to a year and a half to do a first draft,
then anywhere from a few months to another year or so to do revisions.
Who or what inspired you to write
this book?
Love inspired me to write this book, the power of it, the
difficulties inherent in it, and the sheer beauty of it when you let it in.
And now my tags:
When my first book was published by NAL/Penguin, I attended regional bookseller tradeshows and met the loveliest young woman working in the Penguin booth.
Jeanine Cummins was kind and helpful and gave me a human connection in a big publishing world. She has since written three wonderful books, including her latest, just released novel:
The Crooked Branch.
At another regional tradeshow, for another book (I don't remember which), I met the amazing author
Susan Jane Gilman. What a lovely force of nature she is! She's currently on deadline for her new book, so she will post at a later date, but in the meantime, check out
Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven.
