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In this episode Deeba Zargarpur and Lori discuss:

• How to write a creepy book your audience will have to read with the lights on.
• Why she focuses on the grandparent and grandchild relationship in her book.
• When to edge the supernatural elements of your story toward the chilling.

Plus, her #1 tip for writers.

About Deeba Zargarpur

Deeba Zargarpur is an Afghan-Uzbek American. She credits her love of literature across various languages to her immigrant parents, whose eerie tales haunted her well into the night. 

If given the choice, Deeba would spend her days getting lost in spooky towns with nothing but a notebook and eye for adventure to guide her. House of Yesterday is her debut novel.

You can find her on her website or follow her on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and Goodreads.

For more information about the organization Deeba refers to in the interview, check out sahareducation.org.

House of Yesterday

Taking inspiration from the author’s own Afghan-Uzbek heritage, this contemporary YA debut is a breathtaking journey into the grief that lingers through generations of immigrant families, and what it means to confront the ghosts of your past.

Struggling to deal with the pain of her parents’ impending divorce, fifteen-year-old Sara is facing a world of unknowns and uncertainties. Unfortunately, the one person she could always lean on when things got hard, her beloved Bibi Jan, has become a mere echo of the grandmother she once was. And so Sara retreats into the family business, hoping a summer working on her mom’s latest home renovation project will provide a distraction from her fracturing world.

But the house holds more than plaster and stone. It holds secrets that have her clinging desperately to the memories of her old life. Secrets that only her Bibi Jan could have untangled. Secrets Sara is powerless to ignore as the dark truths of her family’s history rise in ghostly apparitions — and with it, the realization that as much as she wants to hold onto her old life, nothing will ever be the same.

Told in lush, sweeping prose, this story of secrets, summer, and family sacrifice will chill you to the bone as the house that wraps Sara in warmth of her past becomes the one thing she cannot escape…

If you decide to check out the book, we hope you’ll do so via this Amazon affiliate link where, if you choose to purchase via the link, DIY MFA gets a referral fee at no cost to you. As always, thank you for supporting DIY MFA!

Link to Episode 439

(Right-click to download.)

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Until next week, keep writing and keep being awesome!

The post Episode 439: Blending Family Trauma with the Supernatural – Interview with Deeba Zargarpur appeared first on DIY MFA.