LibraryThing is pleased to sit down this month with screenwriter, playwright and novelist Blair Fell, two-time winner of the Doris Lippman Prize in Creative Writing from the City University of New York for his novels, The Sign for Home (2022) and the brand new Disco Witches of Fire Island (2025). The Sign for Home, his debut, was both an Indies Next and Indies Introduce book, as well as being selected for library community reads, and long-listed for the Center For Fiction’s First Book Prize. Fell has written for television and theater, winning the Shine Award for his work on the television program Queer As Folk, and a Golden Mic award for his segment on the public television series California Connected. He is the author of dozens of plays, and has won the HX Camp comedy award, seven Dramalogue awards, and The Robbie Award. His essays have appeared in magazines and on websites such as Huffington Post, Out Magazine, New York Daily News, and Fiction Southeast. In addition to his career as a writer, actor and director, he has been an ASL interpreter for the Deaf since 1993. His second novel, Disco Witches of Fire Island, an LGBTQ+ fantasy romance featuring a coven of witches on Fire Island, is due out from Alcove Press in early May. Fell sat down with Abigail to answer some questions about his new book.

Disco Witches of Fire Island opens in 1989, and features a young hero who has recently lost his boyfriend to the HIV/AIDs epidemic, and who goes to spend the summer on New York’s Fire Island. How did the story first come to you? Did the character of Joe appear first, was it the idea of a young man who had recently lost his boyfriend, or was it something else?

Oddly enough, the character of Joe came to me last, since he is the one that mirrors me, but isn’t really me. He was definitely the most difficult character to create. It’s hard to fully see oneself, so I created a character that experiences much of what I had experienced at that age but probably is a bit more likable than me and slightly taller. (Haha)

As far as the rest of the characters, so many of them are amalgams of people I met during the height of the AIDS Crisis. My first partner died from complications due to the HIV virus while we were both still in our twenties. To complicate matters he had broken up with me two years prior, and I was still very much in love with him. Needless to say this was an extremely difficult thing to get over. In its aftermath, there was a series of life-altering events, including getting fired from a job, and then a whirlwind last-minute trip to China where I decided to be a writer. It was just after that trip when I moved to Fire Island Pines and landed a job as a bartender, and moved into the attic of those quirky “old” gay men (just as Joe, the main character, does). They were a hoot, and there was lots of drama. They’d play old disco all day, cook illicit substances on the stove, and (one of them) would make huge ornate hats to go out dancing in the wee hours. These men became like witches in my mind. So really the witches, and some other characters came to me first, because I had people to model them after.

Your book unfolds during a period of historic significance for the LGBTQ+ community. How did this inform the way you told the story, and what do you think readers of today can learn from these events?

I moved to NYC around 1988, and was trying to figure out my life, and get over that broken heart. It felt like everyone was dying or sick at the time (and a huge percentage of them were), and I had a sense of absolute helplessness. At that point I attended my first gay pride parade and saw ACT UP (The AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) marching. I couldn’t believe there were people trying to fight the disease and government inaction. I left the sidelines of the parade and joined. (It was also at that parade I coincidentally saw my first lover for the last time – he is the person who would become “Elliot” in the novel.) Getting involved in activism completely changed my life.

I wanted to capture that shift from victim to actor in the fight. I also wanted younger people to know what it was like at that moment of history, when looking for love could be so fraught. Sadly, we are at another terrible moment in our history, and the book, despite being an historical romance of sorts, very much speaks to what we as a nation – and more specifically – what we as members of the queer community are facing now. It names the Great Darkness of hatred, and suggests that when a malevolent force like our current government is working against you, sitting in the despair of the oppression is not the solution… action is, whether that means protesting, donating, volunteering, making art and most importantly banding together. As several of the manifesto quotes in the book suggest, when confronted with the Great Darkness, the only solution is collective action… and to keep dancing.

Did you always know your story was going to feature witches? What does magic allow you to do, from a storytelling perspective, that couldn’t be accomplished otherwise?

One of the first inspirations for the book were those older roommates of mine on Fire Island, and how they suggested these lovable, quirky witches — cooking mysterious things on the stove, dressing in outlandish costumes, whimsical and sometimes mysterious references to things I didn’t understand. The other reason for the magic is to underline all those magical beings we lost due to the AIDS crisis and government inaction.

The world was very dark – and it feels that way again. The book is about getting one’s magic back in the face of that darkness. The magic in the book isn’t the wave-a-wand-and-go-poof sort of magic. It’s a type of magic rooted in the connection between lovers and friends – it’s a collective magic, that only comes from group effort. The use of magic allowed me to emphasize the other worldly quality of connection and put a button on the “otherness” of being queer.

Another inspiration for the book was from a late friend, Stephen Gendin, whom I met in ACT UP. He had once told me that he had a hope to create a “religion” based on the transcendence he experienced on the dance floors of gay dance clubs. This always stuck with me. So, yes, the witches in the book do have some limited magical abilities – especially when they are in unity with their fellows – but their practice is more of a spiritual nature and comes with its own “bible” of sorts, The Disco Witch Manifesto, which is quoted at the beginning of every chapter.

What made you choose Fire Island as the setting for your story? Have you spent time there yourself?

Like I mentioned, I had spent that one summer working in Fire Island Pines as a bartender in the early 1990s. I also did visit for several summers after that. Though I tend to be much more of a Ptown sort of guy these days – I like biking and the ability to leave without the benefit of a boat. Though P-Town has become more and more unaffordable. We need NEW gay meccas where the queer artists, writers and witches can afford to go.

You write in a number of different genres, from essays to plays. What distinguishes the process of writing novels? Are there particular challenges or rewards?

I never even dreamed of writing a novel when I first started writing. That was way too big for me. But now looking back, I probably should have started much earlier. My first go at a full-length play was a serialized story where the audience would have to come back to the theater twelve times to see the whole thing. You read that right – twelve times. I think I always wanted to take my time with a story. I also thought I needed actors to make my writing good. With novels I arrived very, very late to the game and sort of accidentally found my way to my first novel. What happened was, I had an idea for a play and sat down to write it, but it just didn’t want to be a play. It wanted to be a novel. I was at a point in my life where I had nothing to lose, and I just faked it, one chapter after the next. I’d bring it into my writing group, and then after a few years, finished it, sent it to an agent, and then after a few revisions, he took it and sold it. It appeared I was able to write novels, and now I don’t want to do much else. I love the long journey of them, the surprises, the creation of worlds, and multiple characters.

A play or a TV show is inherently a collaborative process, and you also need to wait around for others to bring the project to fruition. With a novel, I get to say when and where the important work happens, and that’s a more comfortable place for me – especially since I’m not at all patient.

What is next for you? Are you working on more novels, or more plays? Do you think Disco Witches of Fire Island will ever be adapted in film?

Well, I certainly would love to see Disco Witches of Fire Island get adapted. I think it would be a great limited series as well. I do love writing essays and memoir, but I still have the novel-writing bug, so I’m probably sticking with that for the time being. We shall see. I don’t think there will be more plays or TV anytime soon, but I’ll never say never.

As far as books go, I’m currently working on two new novels, one of which, a pansexual Elizabethan romance, is out there being read by editors as we speak, while the fourth is just starting to make an appearance in my Scrivner software, but I’m torn about which of two ideas I want to live with for the next few years. Starting something new is never easy, especially with the distractions of this messed up world in which we’re living, but I’m willing to knuckle down and do the grind. It’s all about throwing down words and separating the shit from the sparkles.

Tell us about your library. What’s on your own shelves?

Nearby on my shelves are books by some newer writers I love, like James Hannaham, Tim Murphy, David Ciminello, Sidney Karger, Daniel Meltz as well as some of the gay classics like Mary Renault’s The Persian Boy, James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room, everything Isherwood wrote, and Holleran’s Dancer From the Dance. I also have non-gay classics like Salinger, Toni Morrison, John Irving.

What have you been reading lately, and what would you recommend to other readers?

I’m currently reading Sally Rooney’s Conversations With Friends, which I am really enjoying. I just finished reading Klara and The Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro and liked the heck out of it. I loved Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. Some other books that changed my life are The Grapes of Wrath by Steinbeck, George Saunders’ short stories, Annie Dillard’s The Writing Life, and Call Me By Your Name by Andre Aciman (I know he can be controversial since he isn’t gay, but I truly loved it. The sequel… ugh. Not so much. That seemed to be a book he was forced to write.) One last one is almost a cliché, but Letters To A Young Poet by Rilke holds an extra special place. I know I’m forgetting other authors that have changed my life, but they’ll all have to forgive me. I’ve been known to forget really important things.

LibraryThing is pleased to sit down this month with internationally bestselling novelist Tess Gerritsen, author of the popular Rizzoli & Isles crime series, subsequently adapted as a television show on TNT. Earning her medical degree at UC San Francisco, Gerritsen was a physician for a number of years, before making her book debut in 1987 with the romantic thriller, Call After Midnight. It was the first of thirty-one suspense novels—more romantic thrillers, as well as medical thrillers, police procedurals and historical thrillers—many of them bestsellers. Gerritsen’s work has been translated into forty languages, with more than forty million copies of her books sold worldwide. She won a Rita Award in the suspense category in 2002 for The Surgeon, and a Nero Wolfe Award in 2006 for Vanish. In 2023 she published The Spy Coast, the story of former spy Maggie Bird, whose attempts at a quiet life are disrupted by her past, and who successfully outwits the enemies who want her dead, with the help of her friends in the Martini Club. The Summer Guests, the second book in The Martini Club series, is due out from Thomas & Mercer in a few days. Gerritsen sat down with Abigail to answer some questions about her new book.

Although you have written many different kinds of suspense novel, your The Martini Club books are your first foray into espionage fiction. What prompted you to write The Spy Coast in the first place, and how did the character of Maggie Bird first come to you?

The Spy Coast was inspired by a peculiar feature of my small Maine town. I discovered that a large number of retired CIA employees live in this community. In fact, on the street where I once lived, there was an OSS retiree to the right of us, and a CIA retiree living a few doors down to the left of us. What drew former intelligence professionals to this part of Maine? I’ve heard a number of different explanations: That it’s far from any nuclear targets. Or it was a place for CIA safe houses. Or it’s a state where people mind their own business. I also wondered what life is like for an ex-spy. Do they get together with their former colleagues? Do they have book clubs? I’d see gray-haired people in the grocery store and post office, and I wondered about their past exploits. Surely they had stories to tell! Then one day, a character’s voice popped into my head. She said: “I’m not the woman I used to be.” And that’s how Maggie Bird was born, a woman whose voice was full of regret. A woman who’s now invisible to the world because she’s no longer young.

The Summer Guests is your second book about the Martini Club. Are there challenges in writing a sequel? How have your characters grown or changed?

The challenge is in keeping your characters moving forward emotionally. They can’t be static, or the series loses steam. What makes it easier, though, is the fact I know these people. I know how they’d react, what they’d say, how they’d rise to a new challenge. There are several new developments in The Summer Guests. Maggie is finally open to falling in love again, now that she realizes her oldest friend and fellow spy Declan has always pined for her. Another big change is in Jo Thibodeau, the local police chief, who is slowly starting to accept help from this circle of spies. In the first book, she had no idea who these people were; now she knows, and she acknowledges that they’re always going to be a few steps ahead of her. That budding partnership has been fun to write.

The books in your series are set in small-town Maine, a state where you yourself have lived for many years. How much of the town of Purity and the surrounding area is inspired by real locales?

Geographically, Purity is very much like my real town, with a stunning seacoast and lakes and ponds and the hordes of tourists that show up every summer. It’s also a town with a certain amount of conflict between native Mainers and those who’ve come “from away.” But fictional Purity is smaller, with a smaller police force, and I’ve made it just a bit more remote than my own town.

Your series has been compared to The Thursday Murder Club books, which also feature a cast of older sleuths (one a retired spy!) and their interaction with local law enforcement. What makes older sleuths and spies so interesting? Is it their experience? Their longer back stories, or potential wisdom? Are they more fun to write?

I hadn’t read The Thursday Murder Club books when I wrote The Spy Coast. The reason I was drawn to write about older people has more to do with growing older myself. I couldn’t have written these books thirty years ago; I needed to experience the phenomenon of becoming invisible and feeling as if society viewed me as less and less relevant because I’m older. I wanted to write about people my age, and how we still have valuable contributions to make, and yes— we’re still ready for adventure! The fun of writing about these characters is watching how my retired spies can outsmart Jo, who’s much younger, and how they’ve acquired not just wisdom with age, but also some well-earned cynicism.

Tell us a little bit about your writing process. Do you know the outcome of your story from the start? Is everything mapped out ahead of time, or are there surprises in the course of getting the story written?

I’m a seat-of-the-pants writer, which means my first drafts meander all over the place until I figure out where the story is going. The Summer Guests was inspired by a detail shared with me by the adult daughter of a former spy—that her family settled in this community because her father was working here on the CIA project called MKULTRA. That made me dive into MKULTRA, its history and ultimate scandals. I knew that would be one of the threads of the story. But the real heart of the story is about wealthy
summer people who come to Maine every year, bringing their secrets and their conflicts to our state. I knew it would start with a missing teenager. I knew the police would drag the local pond (thinking the girl had drowned) and instead find the skeleton of a long-dead woman. That’s all I knew about the plot, so I had to hang on tight as the twists and turns revealed themselves while I wrote.

What is next for you? Will there be more stories about The Martini Club? Are there other books in the works that you can share with us?

I’m writing the third in the Martini Club series. It’s called The Shadow Friends, and it focuses on Ingrid Slocum, one of the members of the Martini Club. She’s now living in Purity, happily married to her husband Lloyd (a former analyst). Then two people are murdered, with echoes of a long-ago operation in Ingrid’s past, and Ingrid’s ex-lover shows up in town. Suddenly Ingrid finds her marriage and her peaceful life under threat.

Tell us about your library. What’s on your own shelves?

In my reference area, I have shelves and shelves of textbooks on medicine and forensics, CIA memoirs and books about spycraft. I also have a pretty eclectic collection of other nonfiction, with a focus on anthropology, archaeology, and comparative religion. Finally, I have loads of novels by fellow writers—books that I admired and want to keep around as inspiration.

What have you been reading lately, and what would you recommend to other readers?

Since the current political situation is very much on my mind, I’m reading a truly eye-opening book by historian Colin Woodard called American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America. It explains the history behind why the United States continues to be so difficult to unite.