Traci is the author of the critically acclaimed book We Are Grateful: Otsaliheliga. She is an enrolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation and lives in northeastern Oklahoma, where her tribe is located. Today we’re talking about her picture book Classified: The Secret Career of Mary Golda Ross, Cherokee Aerospace Engineer (Illustrated by Natasha Donovan).

Carole is the author of numerous award-winning books including the Newbery Honor book Box: Henry Brown Mails Himself to Freedom (illustrated by Michele Wood), and R-E-S-P-E-C-T: Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul (illustrated by Frank Morrison). Today we’re discussing her picture book Unspeakable: The Tulsa Race Massacre (Illustrated by Floyd Cooper).

When she’s not traveling or visiting museums, Carole is mining the past for family stories, fading traditions, and forgotten struggles. She lives in North Carolina.

In this episode Traci, Carole, and I discuss:

• Why they each decided to tell these forgotten stories as middle grade picture books.
• The deliberate and unique choices they made in structuring their narratives.
• How they created a distinct sense of time and place to ground their books.

Plus, their #1 tip for writers.

About Traci Sorell 

Traci Sorell is the author of Sibert, Orbis Pictus, AILA American Indian Youth Literature Award, and Boston Globe–Horn Book Honor Book We Are Grateful: Otsaliheliga. She is an enrolled citizen of the Cherokee Nation and lives in northeastern Oklahoma, where her tribe is located.

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

Classified: The Secret Career of Mary Golda Ross, Cherokee Aerospace Engineer

Mary Golda Ross designed classified airplanes and spacecraft as Lockheed Aircraft Corporation’s first female engineer. Find out how her passion for math and the Cherokee values she was raised with shaped her life and work.

Cherokee author Traci Sorell and Métis illustrator Natasha Donovan trace Ross’s journey from being the only girl in a high school math class to becoming a teacher to pursuing an engineering degree, joining the top-secret Skunk Works division of Lockheed, and being a mentor for Native Americans and young women interested in engineering. In addition, the narrative highlights Cherokee values including education, working cooperatively, remaining humble, and helping ensure equal opportunity and education for all.

About Carole Weatherford

Carole Boston Weatherford is the author of numerous award-winning books including and Box: Henry Brown Mails Himself to Freedom, illustrated by Michele Wood which received a Newbery Honor; R-E-S-P-E-C-T: Aretha Franklin, The Queen of Soul, illustrated by Frank Morrison which won the 2021 Coretta Scott King Illustrator Book Award. When she’s not traveling or visiting museums, Carole is mining the past for family stories, fading traditions, and forgotten struggles. She lives in North Carolina.

You can find Carole on her website or follow her on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Unspeakable: The Tulsa Race Massacre

Celebrated author Carole Boston Weatherford and illustrator Floyd Cooper provide a powerful look at the Tulsa Race Massacre, one of the worst incidents of racial violence in our nation’s history. The book traces the history of African Americans in Tulsa’s Greenwood district and chronicles the devastation that occurred in 1921 when a white mob attacked the Black community.

News of what happened was largely suppressed, and no official investigation occurred for seventy-five years. This picture book sensitively introduces young readers to this tragedy and concludes with a call for a better future.

If you decide to check out these books, we hope you’ll do so via these Amazon affiliate links for Classified and Unspeakable 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!

(Right-click to download.)

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Until next week, keep writing and keep being awesome!

The post Episode 375: Bringing Omitted BIPOC History to Light through Middle Grade Picture Books – Interview with Traci Sorell and Carole Boston Weatherford appeared first on DIY MFA.

Ken Liu

Ken Liu is author of the Dandelion Dynasty silkpunk series and the translator behind Liu Cixin’s Three Body Problem and Death’s End. He’s written a Star War, too, but the book I’ll direct you to is his short fiction collection, The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories. The titular story is about a boy whose mother makes him origami animals that appear to come to life when she breathes on them. “The Paper Menagerie” was the first piece of short fiction to win the triple crown of science fiction and fantasy awards, the Hugo, the Nebula, and the World Fantasy Award.

Nghi Vo

The Chosen and the Beautiful is Nghi Vo’s debut novel (published June 1, 2021), but she’s had great success with her novellas, The Empress of Salt and Fortune (Hugo, Locus, and Ignyte Award finalist, winner of the Reddit Stabby and IAFA’s Crawford Awards) and When the Tiger Came Down the Mountain.

She’s also published a lot of short fiction. Read her at any length you choose; Nghi Vo’s one to watch.

Aliette de Bodard

Aliette de Bodard has won three Nebula Awards, a Locus Award, a European Science Fiction Society award, a British Fantasy Award and four British Science Fiction Association Awards for her short fiction, novellas, and novels. She is of French and Vietnamese descent and though her first language is French, she writes in English.

Last year the sapphic romantic fantasy Fireheart Tiger was released, in which a diplomat princess faces her former lover and must decide both her future as well as that of her country.

Isabel Yap

Isabel Yap is a Filipino writer of speculative fiction and poetry. Her first collection of short fiction, Never Have I Ever, contains 13 stories that entwine fantasy, horror, and science fiction to explore monsters, Filipino folklore, immigration, and queerness.

In “A Cup of Salt Tears,” Makino’s mother warns her of the dangers of making deals with kappas even though a kappa saved Makino as a child. When Makino’s husband becomes ill, she seeks out her savior. In “Hurricane Heels (We Go Down Dancing),” a group of five girls befriend one another at a summer camp when a goddess charges them with protecting the world from darkness.

Yap admits to liking ambiguous endings, so be prepared for a few of those when you pick this collection up.

Yoon Ha Lee

Yoon Ha Lee’s space opera trilogy, The Machineries of Empire, is comprised of Ninefox Gambit (2016; Locus Award for best first novel, Hugo and Nebula finalist), Raven Stratagem (2017; Hugo finalist), and Revenant Gun (2018; Hugo finalist).

Phoenix Extravagant is a standalone fantasy set in a world reminiscent of Korea during the Japanese occupation of the early 1900s. Jebi is a nonbinary artist hired by the Ministry of Armour to paint magical sigils onto masks for the conquering government’s automata. Jebi doesn’t consider themselves political, but after befriending a pacifist dragon automata (as one does), Jebi decides they’ll do whatever it takes to keep the dragon from becoming a weapon of war used to kill and subdue their people. Unfortunately, Jebi discovers that sometimes you have to choose a side.

Ted Chiang

Ted Chiang’s work has won four Nebula awards, four Hugo awards, the John W. Campbell Award (now the Amazing) for Best New Writer, and four Locus awards. His short story “Story of Your Life” was the basis of the film Arrival (2016).

In Exhalation, Chiang examines technology’s effect on humanity. The opening story, “The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate,” a portal leads people 20 years into the future or 20 years into the past. Time-travel shenanigans of the best kind.

Fonda Lee

Fonda Lee’s debut young-adult novel, Zeroboxer, was nominated for the 2016 Andre Norton Award. Her second novel for young-adults, Exo, was nominated for the 2018 Andre Norton Award. Her debut novel for adults, Jade City, was a finalist for the 2018 Nebula Award for Best Novel and won the 2018 World Fantasy Award.

Jade City, the thrilling first book in the Green Bone trilogy takes place on the gangster-controlled island of Kekon, where magical jade grants superhuman powers to those who can wear it. The Kaul family is one of two major crime syndicates that control the city. When a rival syndicate threatens their authority, the three Kaul siblings must band together to protect their power. Jade War was published in 2019, and the third novel, Jade Legacy, will be published in November of 2021.

Gabriela interviewed Fonda Lee about world building for DIY MFA radio.

Shveta Thakrar

Shveta Thakrar characterizes herself as a part-time nagini and full-time believer in magic. Her work has appeared in magazines and anthologies including Enchanted Living, Uncanny Magazine, A Thousand Beginnings and Endings, and Toil & Trouble. Her debut young adult fantasy novel, Star Daughter, is a finalist for the 2021 Andre Norton Nebula Award.

In Star Daughter, Sheetal Mistry is (surprise!) the daughter of a star, but she manages to live a mostly normal life until her nascent abilities surface and will not be denied. When, through a surge of uncontrolled magic, Sheetal’s father ends up in a coma, she and her friend embark on a journey to the stars to seek her mother’s help. What Sheetal finds when she arrives is political turmoil and … a magical music competition.

Roshani Chokshi

Roshani Chokshi’s New York Times bestselling series include The Star-Touched Queen duology, The Gilded Wolves, and Aru Shah and The End of Time, which was recently optioned for film by Paramount Pictures. Her work has been nominated for the Locus and Nebula awards.

In The Star-Touched Queen, a YA fantasy rich in world building and Indian mythology, Maya lives a relative life of freedom thanks to a cursed horoscope that predicts death and destruction following her marriage. Then her father marries her off and she becomes the queen of Arkan. Romance and hijinx (preventing the aforementioned death and destruction) ensue.

Renée Ahdieh

Renée Ahdieh is an American-Korean author, best known for her New York Times best-selling duology The Wrath & the Dawn. Imagine Entertainment optioned the film rights to the duology in 2017. Ahdieh says she loves to wreak havoc on the lives of her characters.

In the first novel of the duology, The Wrath & the Dawn, Ahdieh reimagines The Arabian Nights. The evil Caliph, Khalid, marries a new woman every night and murders her in the morning. When 16-year-old Shahrzad’s best friend becomes one of his victims, Shahrzad vows vengeance and volunteers to become his next bride. Every night she spins tales to her husband to postpone her execution but, as night follows night, Shahrzad fails to find the monster she expected in Khalid.

Read with Purpose

One of the core tenets of the DIY MFA philosophy is to read with purpose. In reading the works of AAPI authors, you may encounter plot structures or storytelling techniques that are different from, but equally effective to, the western ones you’ve become familiar with. The core myths and legends from which these stories derive may also be unfamiliar. Expand your writerly horizons and dig in.

These authors and their stories deserve both your reader brain (enjoyment) and your writer brain (analysis).

Until next time, keep speculating, and see where it leads you!

Melanie is an instructional designer by day, SF&F author-in-progress and ink alchemist by night. She is the third generation of Marttilas to live in her little house on the street that bears her family name. She blogs at https://www.melaniemarttila.ca and you can find her on Facebook and
Twitter.

The post Ten AAPI Sci-Fi/Fantasy Authors to Read Right Now appeared first on DIY MFA.

First and foremost, hate crimes and violence against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders is wrong. My team and I will not condone or allow any of this language or behavior in our community.

We have been lucky not to have this ugliness infiltrate our word nerd community thus far, but I want to make something very clear: the racist vitriol and verbal abuse that has permeated certain pockets of social media has no place at DIY MFA. If we see so much as a hint of this in our community, my team and I will shut it down. Clear? Cool.

In moments like this, it is important to amplify voices, particularly the voices of those who may be most harmed by these events. Right now, it is the AAPI author community that needs our support, so we would like to highlight the amazing authors from the Asian American and Pacific Islander community who have participated in our podcast and summits.

Please support these authors by buying and reading their books and spreading the word about their work. If you would like to meet some awesome authors and add some great books to your TBR (to be read) pile, check out the interviews below.

Past Podcast Guests:

Alka Dhillon

Alka Dhillon is a self-help author and founder and CEO of Technalink. Alka was interviewed on DIY MFA Radio in Episode 59: Finding Your Om Factor. If you want to find Alka, you can follow her on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram, or visit her website.

Yang Huang

Yang Huang writes contemporary fiction novels, short stories and essays. Her interview can be found in Episode 217: Write Dangerously of DIY MFA Radio. You can find Yang on her website.

Guy Kawasaki

Guy Kawasaki is a non-fiction author of useful how-to guides on social media, marketing, and business. Guy appeared on DIY MFA Radio along with his co-author, Peg Fitzpatrick, in Episode 27: Social Media for Writers. You can connect with Guy on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, or LinkedIn. 

Fonda Lee

Fonda Lee is an author of both adult and young adult fantasy and science fiction. Fonda was interviewed in Episode 262: Inside the Mind of a Worldbuilding Junkie of DIY MFA Radio. To connect with Fonda, check out her website.

Virginia Loh-Hagan

Dr. Virginia Loh-Hagan is an author of children’s books and academic works. Virginia was interviewed on DIY MFA Radio in Episode 284: Adapting Legends While Staying True to the Story. Visit her website, or connect with her on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

Alexandra Monir

Alexandra Monir is a popular author of young adult fiction across genres like science fiction, paranormal, romance, and mystery. Alexandra was interviewed on DIY MFA Radio in Episode 338: The Dystopian Superhero Story in which she discusses her recently released contribution to the DC ICONS series, Black Canary: Breaking Silence. You can find Alexandra on her website or follow her on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Veena Rao

Veena Rao is an author of literary fiction as well as a founder, publisher and editor-in-chief of NRI Pulse. Veena appeared on DIY MFA Radio in Episode 334: The Unexpected Female Protagonist. You can find Veena on her website or follow her on Twitter and Instagram. 

Abbigail Rosewood

Abigail Rosewood is an award-winning author of historical fiction. Abigail was interviewed on Episode 308: Setting, Characters, and Identity: Your Story’s Ecosystem of DIY MFA Radio. Check out her website or follow her on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. 

Shanthi Sekaran

Shanthi Sekaran is an indie contemporary fiction author. She was interviewed on DIY MFA Radio in Episode 132: Capturing Diverse Experiences on the Page. You can read more about Shanthi on her website or on Twitter.

Nisha Sharma

Author of both young adult and adult contemporary romance, Nisha Sharma’s interview can be found on DIY MFA Radio in Episode 268: From Bollywood-Inspired YA to RWA. You can find her on her website or follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Lauren Sharkey 

DIY MFA Columnist and creative non-fiction writer, Lauren J. Sharkey’s most recent DIY MFA article is Dollars and Sense, about reframing your writing career to avoid becoming a starving artist. Lauren was interviewed on DIY MFA Radio in Episode 316: Truth with a Capital T. You can find Lauren on her website or follow her on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Carol VanDenHende

Carol VanDenHende is a DIY MFA Columnist and an award-winning author of contemporary romantic fiction. Check out her most recent DIY MFA article, What Is Author Brand and How to Craft Yours. Carol is also interviewed on DIY MFA Radio in Episode 328: Book Marketing for Busy Writers. You can find Carol on her website or follow her on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest.

K.S. Villoso

K. S. Villoso writes speculative fiction with a focus on deeply personal themes and character-driven narratives. Listen to our interview with her on DIY MFA Radio in Episode 292: World Building in Epic Fantasy. Visit her website or connect with her on Twitter and Facebook.

David Yoon

David Yoon is an author of young adult romances and adult thrillers. Read the guest blog he wrote for DIY MFA here: How to Write Sparky Dialogue. David was very recently interviewed on DIY MFA Radio in Episode 353: Making the Shift from YA Romance to Adult Thriller. You can find David on his website or follow him on Instagram.

Summit Interviews:

Guy Kawasaki

Guy was also featured in our Memoir Summit. His interview is called Wisdom in Small Moments.

Fonda Lee

Fonda appeared in our Science Fiction and Fantasy Summit. Her interview is Creating Dynamic Characters through Conflict.

Mona Shroff 

Mona Shroff writes adult contemporary romance novels, and she has contributed a #5onFri post to DIY MFA which you can read here: #5onFri: Five Questions to Ask when Writing a Second Chance Romance. She was featured in our Romance Summit. Her interview is The Debut Author’s Journey. To connect with Mona check out her website.

These Summit Interviews will be open until Monday, May 3 at 12pm ET.

Upcoming Episode on DIY MFA Radio

Stay tuned! DIY MFA is featuring the following AAPI authors in upcoming podcast episodes:

Thien-Kim Lam

Thien-Kim Lam is an adult contemporary romance author. You can find Thien-Kim Lam on her website or follow her on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

Rajani LaRocca

Rajani LaRocca writes middle grade contemporary and historical fiction. Connect with Rajani on her website, or find her on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

Tasha Suri

Tasha Suri writes young adult fantasy and romance. Read more about Tasha on her website or connect with her on Twitter, and Instagram. You can also sign up for her newsletter.

Gabriela Pereira is an author, speaker, entrepreneur and the founder of DIY MFA.

Please note: We are disabling comments for this post. Here’s why. While we appreciate all the love and support we receive from our community, we are keenly aware that this is not about us. If you’d like to show support for what has been said here, do it by purchasing a book by one of the wonderful authors listed above. Our goal is to keep this post focused on what it’s really about: amplifying Asian American and Pacific Islander voices. If you have something you need to say, reach out to support@DIYMFA.com.

The post Supporting the AAPI Community appeared first on DIY MFA.

About Elizabeth Little

Elizabeth Little is the Los Angeles Times-bestselling author of Dear Daughter and Pretty as a Picture. She won the Strand Critics Award for Best First Novel and was nominated for the Macavity, Barry, and John Creasey New Blood Dagger awards. She lives in Los Angeles with her family. elizabeth-little.com

The Interview

Sara Farmer: As a neurodivergent person with an alphabet soup of diagnoses, I found your portrayal of Marissa’s differences and coping mechanisms to be very accurate. Almost uncomfortably so at times. I felt very seen, especially with her bedtime routine and her desperate need for alone time at the end of the day. (She’s much better at calming anxiety than I am. I might have to try her methods.) Did you write from personal experience? What inspired this character? 

Elizabeth Little: It’s funny, looking back, because when I was first conceptualizing this story in early 2017, the thought occurred to me, “What if Marissa is autistic?” I sat with that idea for a little while before convincing myself that, no, I wasn’t the right person for that particular story. I decided instead to write a character based very deliberately on my own experience of the world, because I so rarely saw myself in the thrillers that I read and I thought it might be a nice change.  

Then, six months later, I was informed not only that my child was autistic, but that I probably was, too. 

By the time I sent the manuscript to the printers, nearly two years later, I’d come to a rather more complex understanding of both Marissa and myself, but a surprising amount of that early material made it into the final draft. The prologue, for instance, was the very first thing I wrote and it barely changed throughout revisions. 

When I read it now, of course, all I can think is, “How in the world was it possible I didn’t know I was autistic?”

Sara: You let the symptoms and coping mechanisms speak for themselves in the book. Marissa shows signs of anxiety, Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), ADHD, OCD, and Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD). Those disorders often overlap or mimic each other, as well as share symptoms with others. What was your purpose in avoiding specific clinical labels for Marissa? 

Elizabeth: I had a few reasons. First and foremost, I didn’t include labels in the story, because Marissa herself doesn’t know she’s autistic. That’s fundamental to her character: She knows she’s different, somehow, but she doesn’t know why or how or what to do about it. (It’s possible I was working through some stuff.) Even though I was purposeful, deliberate, and specific in the way I depicted Marissa’s mannerisms and thought patterns—if you know anything about ASD, I think it’s reasonably obvious what I’m trying to do here—I still wanted Marissa to be something of a mystery to herself. 

It was also important to me to be mindful of the limitations of my own perspective: Being diagnosed with autism as an adult does not make me an expert on the lived experience of adults who were diagnosed with autism as children. Maybe one day a character with a different diagnostic and therapeutic history will feel within responsible reach for me, but at the time I was still trying to figure out the basics. I mean, I barely knew what IDEA was until I had to start citing it! I was simply not equipped to write about anything in the neurodiversity space save my own, very specific experience. 

All this said, I certainly could have used the word “autistic” on my website or in the flap copy. This is something I went back and forth on a number of times and I’m still not entirely certain I made the right choice. Ultimately, I was worried that neurotypical readers wouldn’t allow themselves to relate to Marissa if they knew from the outset that she’s autistic. I also feared that my own diagnosis would be discounted (because the internet is awful), so I told myself I had to scrape together the money for a formal assessment before saying anything publicly. And that took a while (because our healthcare system is also awful).

But now I wonder if I was worrying too much about the wrong people—admittedly, something of a weakness of mine. I definitely wish I had better signaled to other neurodivergent book-lovers that they are welcome and loved within the pages of my stories. I just couldn’t find a way that felt right. My diagnosis—this self-knowledge—is something I have been struggling my way toward since I was first sent to a psychologist at age 4. Even though I’m still unraveling all its implications, the fact alone is precious to me. An answer to a question I’ve had my whole life. And the idea of using it for publicity—even well-intentioned publicity!—left a sour taste in my mouth. (Because it was the only personal essay I could even imagine writing in conjunction with this book, I ended up not writing any release-week essays at all. I did a glib piece on the personal essay industrial complex for McSweeney’s instead.)

I’m certain the Autistic community would have been happy to help show me the way, but of course—ironically!—I’m extremely shy and nervous about reaching out to people, perpetually certain I’m doing something wrong, something offensive. It’s totally possible that if you hadn’t reached out to me, I would have continued quietly stewing about it in my office, wondering if I should just blurt out on Twitter, “MARISSA AND I ARE AUTISTIC, OK???”

Sara: Are film and editing interests of yours? Did you do a lot of research for this book?

Elizabeth: I have a long-standing interest in film—although unlike most movie buffs I’ve met, I didn’t watch what I would call an unusually wide variety of movies as a kid or teen. My viewing habits were much more limited than my factual knowledge suggests: My dad did his best to make sure I saw the classics, but otherwise I had a few favorites that I watched over and over (and over (and over)). 

What set me apart, really, was my affinity for metadata. When I was very young, I would watch the Preview Channel on a loop and memorize the titles and descriptions of all the movies on premium cable. Then when I was a little older, I’d spend hours walking the aisles of Blockbuster, picking up the cases and reading the synopses and credits as I went. I built up a treasure trove of film-related information that wasn’t (and frankly still isn’t) necessarily rooted in the experience of actually *watching* those films. 

Even that wasn’t enough to go on when writing a book that has so many specific details about film production and editing, so yes, I did do some additional research. I find it excruciatingly difficult to reach out to people I’m not close to—a limitation that weighed heavily on me when I was still writing nonfiction—but I happen to be married to a former filmmaker and am friends with several TV and film writers and editors. It’s safe to say I bugged them a whole lot over text while I was writing this book.

Sara: Did you receive any pushback about her character? Did anyone think she was unrealistic or unlikable? 

Elizabeth: I’m really happy to report that I didn’t get any pushback at all on the likability front from my agent or editor—but my agent and editor have worked with me for a long time, so maybe I primed them for Marissa’s eccentricities. By the same token, it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that there are readers out there who didn’t take to Marissa. After all, there are certainly plenty of people who don’t take to me.

It didn’t even occur to me that someone might find her unrealistic! She is so real and dear to me that I can’t imagine it! Of course, those readers must exist, too. But I would like to think that, maybe, some bits and pieces of Marissa will stay with them such that they are able to better connect the next time they encounter a neurodivergent person or character.

Sara: “I’m doing it again. Convincing myself that I’m important – that I matter. That I might have a key role to play in what’s to come.” Marissa relates this sentiment several times in the book. She thinks that she tries to make herself the center of things and that she is bad for doing it. I identified with this so strongly. The sense that of course you’re not special, no matter how many people insist they care about you or how many things you achieve. Or you’re just going about your day and someone accuses you of being rude or showing off and completely blindsides you. Twice exceptional (having an area of disability and an area of giftedness) people get a double dose of accusations of “specialness” through needing accommodations and acceleration. Would you say Marissa’s insecurity about enjoying herself and feeling like an important part of a team stem from a history of negative feedback she internalized? 

Elizabeth: Absolutely. This is something I see not just in myself, but in so many friends with disabilities. For me, it’s really about the tension between an aversion to being noticed and a deep desire to be *seen*. On the one hand, I constantly try to file down my rough edges, so people don’t notice how out of place I am: keeping track of every off-putting, exasperating preference or habit—clocking every sigh, every sneer—and then ruthlessly suppressing whatever I can because, historically speaking, “just being myself” has not been a winning strategy. 

At the same time, my life’s work is a function of self-expression. Of finding ways to clearly and effectively share my best ideas, jokes, stories, and lines. So, I can’t exactly pretend I want to disappear, either. 

I’m bad at feeling out the distinction between doing well and showing off. I’m just as bad at feeling out the distinction between fitting in and rolling over. Both, I think, are reflected in Marissa. 

Sara: Now for my signature question – how long did it take you to write your first novel? Do you have drawer novels? 

Elizabeth: My first novel came relatively quickly, all things considered! I think I wrote the first draft in about a year and then my stalwart editor rolled up her sleeves and helped me polish it in time for a comparatively speedy publication. The first draft of Pretty as a Picture took about a year and a half—once I got going, that is. I had a misfire along the way: 85,000 words of a novel so terrible it doesn’t even merit a drawer. I’m not sure I would even trust it as compost.

Sara Farmer lives in Austin, TX, with her husband, three kids, and two cats. When she’s not chasing kids and cats, she reads and writes mysteries. You can find her at www.kittymomma.com and on Twitter @avonlea79.

The post Interview with Elizabeth Little appeared first on DIY MFA.

About Sheena Kamal

Sheena Kamal holds an HBA in Political Science from the University of Toronto, and was awarded a TD Canada Trust scholarship for community leadership and activism around the issue of homelessness. 

Her bestselling debut The Lost Ones won her a Kobo Emerging Writer Prize, a Strand Critics Award, and Macavity Award for Best First Novel. The sequel It All Falls Down has been called “a stunning, emotionally resonant thriller” in its Kirkus-starred review. No Going Back and her first YA novel Fight Like A Girl were released in 2020. 

Additionally, her writing has been featured in The Guardian (U.K.), Bustle, The Irish Times (Ireland), Writers Digest, and Entertainment Weekly.

The Interview

Sara Farmer: There are so many wonderful characters in these books – Nora, Whisper, Bonnie, Leo, Seb, Brazuca, Simone. I even liked Lynn after a while. Do you have a favorite among the characters? How did you choose to include Brazuca’s and Bonnie’s POVs, as well as Nora’s?

Sheena Kamal: I think my favorite character is Whisper, because I’m a dog person and I love writing her. As for the POVs, that came about fairly naturally. I wanted to show the other side of the action, so to speak, so it became apparent that I’d need their perspectives. 

Sara: What was your inspiration for Nora Watts? She is a fantastic character. Her narration, with the sly bits of humor, is spot-on. And her inner turmoil is so compellingly portrayed. She rings true in every way, yet does things a regular person of her age and fitness probably shouldn’t, like that crazy escape from the “not-cops” at the library.

Sheena: I don’t know what my inspiration for her is, other than she just came into my life one day and hasn’t left! When I write her, I listen to a lot of blues music and soul just to put myself in a space of vulnerability. All the action and humor are a foil for her inner turmoil, which is the most difficult and also the most compelling part of her character to write. 

Sara: Will there be another book? There seem to be loose ends to tie up with Nora’s relationship with Bonnie and the backstory of what happened to Nora’s parents. Plus, her relationship with Brazuca. (Which I loved.)

Sheena: I hope so! We’ll just have to see. I’m working on a couple other projects right now, but Nora is always on my mind in some way or another. 

Sara: Writers like you, Louise Penny, and Ausma Zehanat Khan have written books that poke holes in the veneer of mild-mannered good nature that many ascribe to Canada. I’m a big fan of Canada and, while I didn’t think it was perfect, I never considered that it had corruption and racism anywhere close to the level present in other countries. What motivates you to reveal Canada’s dark side? Does Canada’s “nice” reputation bother you?

Sheena: It does bother me sometimes, because Canada is a complicated country and I really want to explore those complexities in my work. I know what it’s like to feel like an “other” in Canada, so that’s my primary motivation. To take an unflinching look at the gray areas in this country. 

Sara: Now for my signature question – how long did it take you to write your first book? Do you have drawer novels?

Sheena: It took me about eight months to have a solid first draft of The Lost Ones that I showed to agents. I have drawer ideas, but not full novels. If I write something, I usually try to put it out there.

Sara Farmer lives in Austin, TX, with her husband, three kids, and two cats. When she’s not chasing kids and cats, she reads and writes mysteries. You can find her at www.kittymomma.com and on Twitter @avonlea79.

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About Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Silvia Moreno-Garcia is the best-selling author of the novels Mexican Gothic, Gods of Jade and Shadow, Certain Dark Things, Untamed Shore, and a bunch of other books. She has also edited several anthologies, including the World Fantasy Award-winning She Walks in Shadows (a.k.a. Cthulhu’s Daughters).

SARA FARMER: In all the buzz about your latest release Mexican Gothic, the most frequent comparison I’ve seen is with Daphne duMaurier’s Rebecca. I do see those parallels in the plot and story. But when I read Mexican Gothic, it was strong echoes of “The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman that struck me the most – the moving golden pattern on the wall, the golden woman, and the yellow dust. An argument could be made that Gilman’s work is horror, like Mexican Gothic, while Rebecca is more of a thriller. Do you like du Maurier’s and Gilman’s work? Was this book influenced by either?

SILVIA MORENO-GARCIA: I like du Maurier’s work, especially her short stories “The Birds” and “Don’t Look Now,” but I was not trying to invoke her specifically. I think Rebecca is just one of the titles that people think automatically about when they think “Gothic” because it’s very famous, but I pulled from a large body of work that includes both short fiction and novels (The Monk, Poe, etc.), Latin American influences (Quiroga), and film work (the movies of Carlos Enrique Taboada). Gothic is a very big category that includes horror (Dracula) and the more romantic suspense stories such as Rebecca and even works like Wuthering Heights. It’s a huge category. 

The explanation behind the strange happenings at High Place was so intricate. It was imaginative, but made perfect logical and scientific sense within the world you created. How did you construct the plot and keep it straight? What is your process for plotting and world-building?

This book was inspired by a real-life town called Real del Monte, which was a British mining town located in the mountains of Mexico. So, the setting really was like the grain of sand around which the pearl grew. It became like a fever dream of a real place. That’s what happens with me. It’s one or two ideas that I keep circling around and around until something emerges.

The other thing that happens is I like my characters to talk. So, once I have an idea I start having conversations with my characters. I know it sounds weird and it even looks a little bit weird when I’m doing it, but it allows me to figure out their physicality. I start hearing them in my head and then I start speaking in their voice, if that makes sense. Once that is there, then I can do further research and sand off some bits and fill some holes. 

Plotting is normally a series of Post-It Notes and sometimes napkins, where I can hammer out beats. This rough outline is refined either by removing or adding scenes, which can consist of a simple line or even a couple of pages. Scenes that were removed for Mexican Gothic early on included a breakfast scene with the protagonist’s family where you met her mother and her brother, a prologue where Catalina was being chased through the forest, bits of Ruth’s journal, and more. Once I’m more or less happy with this outline and I have all my research notes in order I can write.  

I’ve read that some authors who wrote books set outside the United States were pressured to change the setting, because Americans supposedly only want to read books set in the U.S. Have you experienced pressure to set books in the U.S.? 

I was told that something set in Mexico wouldn’t sell which is one reason why, perversely, I called this novel Mexican Gothic. 

Many of your books showcase strong females who want more like Noemí in Mexican Gothic, Viridiana in Untamed Shores, and Casiopea in Gods of Jade and Shadow. But they often don’t know exactly what they want, just that it’s not what they currently have. I like that you’re not afraid to portray them as uncertain and that you send them on quests, sometimes literally like with Casiopea. You also show Noemí facing condescension and criticism for her many different career choices and romantic entanglements, but standing her ground with spirit. Is this aspect of feminism (women not having to be perfect to be equal) an important part of stories for you? Do you wish for your books to be seen as feminist works?

In fiction and real life, women still have a hard time navigating the world. Mr. Rochester can be much older than Jane, not very attractive, bad-tempered, and keep a wife locked in his attic, and he’s still a romantic hero. Then you have someone like Noemí, who thinks highly of herself and some people may say she’s an a——, because she’s confident. A trait that is positive in a man is negative in a woman. Women are complex and that complexity should be reflected in books. 

Noemí is twenty-two. At her age, my grandmother was forced to get married. She felt great pressure to do this and so I gave Noemí some of that pressure, but I also gave her opportunities my grandmother did not have. Noemí has many aspirational traits. She is smart, she is beautiful – I like making my women dark-skinned and beautiful, because my mother felt very poorly about herself due to colorism – and she is determined. But she’s also young and hasn’t quite figured out everything in life, which I think is fine. Part of feminism, I think, is allowing women the time to find themselves. 

I plan for this to be a regular question in my interviews, because I find it fascinating and encouraging as an as-yet-unpublished novelist. How long did it take you to write your first book? Do you have drawer novels?

I’ve written so many novels and partial novels that I can’t remember neither how long it took, nor how many I have. Some are just a few chapters and there’s a full-blown book somewhere that I finished and I never sold. (Which is a good thing. It’s not very good.) I just cannibalize a lot of stuff. Some things simply don’t work out and there’s no shame in going back and stealing from yourself. Certain Dark Things, my vampire novel, grew out of a short story that I wasn’t quite happy with. It’s hard to accept when you’re starting out, but you’re not always ready for publication right off the bat. It can take time to find what you want to write and discover who you are as a writer. Which I guess ties in with the idea of allowing women time to discover themselves.]

Sara Farmer lives in Austin, TX, with her husband, three kids, and two cats. When she’s not chasing kids and cats, she reads and writes mysteries. You can find her at www.kittymomma.com and on Twitter @avonlea79.

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