Those lovely folks at the Fresh Fiction blog asked for the answers to twenty questions to accompany their feature on The Harvey Girl. As follows:
FRESH FICTION 20 QUESTIONS
What is the title of your latest release?
The Harvey Girl.
What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book?
A Pinkerton detective goes undercover as a Harvey Girl in the New Mexico Territory in 1890.
How did you decide where your book was going to take place?
I looked at a map of Harvey Houses in Arizona and New Mexico, read a lot of Fred Harvey history, read a lot of Old West history, and did a lot of road trips. Las Vegas (NM) was the perfect spot on which to base my fictional Montaña Roja, geographically with the Sangre de Cristo Mountains on one side and the Chihuahuan High Desert on the other; historically as it feels kinda epicentral to a lot of wild, wild West events; and perfect from the viewpoint of writing about Harvey Girls as they were essentially invented a hundred miles up the railroad in Raton.
Would you hang out with your heroine in real life?
Absolutely. I wouldn’t get in her way, though.
What are three words that describe your hero?
Tough, focused, protean.
What’s something you learned while writing this book?
That most of the men of the Old West were drunk most of the time, which explains all the gunfights. There was more truth in those trope-y saloons in the old Western movies and television series than we knew.
Do you edit as you draft or wait until you are totally done?
I had a lot of help from both my editor and my copyeditor this time out. They found all the plot holes and there were plenty. All I can say in my own defense is that I’m writing a trilogy and I was hanging on like grim death to any reveals that would spoil the plots of 2 and 3. Liz and Greg kindly pointed out that there’s a difference between allowing your current plot to make sense and giving away what happens next too soon. Oh.
What’s your favorite foodie indulgence?
Bread and butter, so long as it’s bread I make myself and so long as the butter isn’t American.
Describe your writing space/office!
It is an actual office! I excuse the exclamation point by adding that I spent a lot of time writing in a friend’s kitchen, the Loussac Library, my dad’s spare room, a friend’s lanai on the Big Island, and the driver’s seat of my car before I was able to build a house that had an actual office with an actual desk and actual shelves for reference works in it. Even after twenty-one years, it never gets old.
Who is an author you admire?
I mean, how long have you got? Dead or alive? How about this instead, here’s some great books I read this year:
The Night in Question by Susan Fletcher and How to Age Disgracefully by Clare Pooley, two novels about old farts that should be read back to back.
A Race to the Bottom of Crazy by Richard Grant, although anything by Richard Grant, really.
The Ballad of Innes of Skara Skaill by Faulkner Hunt, great characters, great plot, great setting, heart-warming, heart-wrenching, heartening all at once. Da-yam.
Introducing Mrs. Collins by Rachel Parris, the best Austen spin-off yet.
Is there a book that changed your life?
The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, given to me by my freshman English teacher. If there is an ounce of storytelling ability in you, those books will cause it to rise inexorably to the surface and take over. God, could that guy write.
Tell us about when you got “the call.” (when you found out your book was going to be published). Or, for indie authors, when you decided to self-publish.
You mean my first book? That’s going back some. I’d been submitting The Great Alaskan Novel to all the agents in NYC and it had come back every time like a faithful homing pigeon (as well it should have), so I decided to give my first science fiction novel, Second Star, a try. I sent it to Ace Science Fiction which was first alphabetically in the sf section of Writer’s Market. My soon-to-be editor called on my birthday (on purpose) to make me an offer, but she didn’t know about the four-hour time difference between NYC and Alaska so the phone rang at 4am. I don’t remember a lot about the conversation other than “We’re going to publish your book.”
What’s your favorite genre to read?
I like ‘em all. Mostly. Don’t read or watch much horror. Not a fan of the jump scare, or maybe it’s just that I don’t like loud noises. And I find a lot of modern so-called literature to be wholly devoid of plot or character.
What’s your favorite movie?
The Americanization of Emily, written by Paddy Chayefsky and performed by a fabulous cast who knew exactly how to deliver his lines.
What is your favorite season?
Fall. I live in Alaska and fall means the tourists and the mosquitoes are both gone and the winter’s supply of fish and moose and berries are in the freezer and the dark is coming back. Time to light a fire in the wood stove, make a cup of cocoa, and sit down with a copy of whatever I’m reading next. Bliss.
How do you like to celebrate your birthday?
Go to Hawaii.
What’s a recent tv show/movie/book/podcast you highly recommend?
For books see above. Movie ditto. TV show, The Extraordinary Attorney Woo. Podcast, the Dwarkesh Podcast whenever he has Sarah Paine on.
What’s your favorite type of cuisine?
Filipino.
What do you do when you have free time?
At home, read and knit and walk on the beach. Away, travel. This past May I did a cruise around the Tyrrhenian Sea. Gorgeous scenery, great food, and lots of Greek and Roman history to fuel future Eye of Isis novels. I’m saving up for a trip to Japan next.
What can readers expect from you next?
The second in the Harvey Girl series, where Clare stays undercover and goes to open a Fred Harvey restaurant at Fort Union and [REDACTED] How’s that for not giving things away, Liz and Greg?
Me, again–
This, too, is part of #thiswritinglife. Not only do you spend a long time writing the book, you hope for pay, you also spend a great deal of time writing pieces for free for your publisher’s promotion department, your publisher’s sales department, for including with the ARCs that go out to blurbers and reviewers, and pieces like these for other people’s blogs, like Fresh Fiction because they have been nice enough to give your book a push.
Marketing theory, at least when I studied it, held that a producer must present his brand to the consumer a minimum of seven times before it imprints. AKA the sweet spot where you might, fingers crossed, get a sale.
And — ta dah! — here is their review.
And lo and behold, here’s the cover art with–you guessed it–a buy link beneath it.
Now available in bookstores near you,
and in e on
#thiswritinglife Chatter The Harvey Girl author interview Fresh Fiction