LibraryThing is pleased to sit down this month with author and attorney Lori B. Duff, who had a thirty-year career as a lawyer and municipal court judge before turning to writing. A blogger and columnist as well, she has served as president of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. Her humorous essays have appeared in newspapers, on blogs, and in published collections such as The Armadillo, the Pickaxe, and the Laundry Basket (2015), You Know I Love You Because You’re Still Alive: Confessions of a Middle Aged Working Mom (2016) and If You Did What I Asked in the First Place (2019). She has now turned to fiction writing, and her debut novel, the courtroom drama Devil’s Defense, was published last month by She Writes Press. Duff sat down with Abigail to answer some questions about this new book.

Devil’s Defense follows a small-town lawyer who finds herself drawn into a case representing a client she doesn’t particularly admire. How did the idea for the story first come to you? Were there specific social or legal themes you wanted to explore, or did they develop naturally?

I was watching the confirmation hearings of a politician who shall remain nameless. This guy was an arrogant, entitled guy with only a passing understanding of consent. Several thoughts struck me at once while I was watching this, including— 1) I was tired of arrogant, entitled guys like that getting positions of leadership and I wanted to understand why; 2) Probably this guy had handlers who had prepped him for this hearing and he was too egotistical to follow their advice. I pictured them watching this at home cussing him up and down and I thought of how many times I’d coached a client and they refused to listen to my advice to their own detriment; 3) What goes on in the head of these guys? What makes them tick? So the character of Coach stood in for this guy, and Jessica is the one trying to make heads or tails of him. In addition to exploring those issues, I wanted to portray what happens behind the scenes in these situations. How you can’t necessarily blame the lawyer for what they’re being paid to say, and how the system only works when everyone has adequate representation.

Your career in the law must have been an influence when writing the story. Were there any incidents or aspects of the story taken from real life? Was there anything that was new to you, or that you had to research for the book?

If the adage “write what you know” is true, then that’s exactly what I did. My career was obviously an influence. I know what happens when clients and lawyers interact and clash. I know what happens in a courtroom. I did not use any of my clients’ stories in the book—I want everyone I’ve ever represented to know that I will always maintain their
confidentiality. That said, when you’ve been practicing law for 30+ years like I have, there are going to be things you say and hear all the time. I did have to research the back child support issue. I’ve never had a legitimation case where the child was that old, so I didn’t know how the law would handle it. The cases Jessica cites are real cases. I also looked up some things like the weather on particular dates, and what songs were in the top 40 at a particular moment in time.

Your heroine lives in a small Georgia town, just as you do. What realities about small-town life in Georgia does your story reflect? Do you feel the story would be the same, if set in a different part of the country?

Absolutely not. The fictional Ashton, Georgia is just as much a character in the book as any of the people. There’s a particular way that southerners talk and view the world, there are southern foods and places. I had to argue a lot of it with my editors, who weren’t southern. For example, a number of scenes take place in a Waffle House, which has its own culture. Apparently, the dictionary and style manuals say that fried shredded potatoes are written “hash browns”. But the Waffle House menu has it at one word—hashbrowns. So I insisted that we spell it the southern, Waffle House way. But there’s more to it than spelling. The weather affects the way people act. The expectations that you will speak kindly to people you can’t stand. The way a majority of the population looks at everything through a religious lens.

Devil’s Defense was your first novel, but not your first book. Were there differences between writing a novel, when compared to writing essays or other shorter works? Were there specific challenges, or things you particularly enjoyed about it?

I enjoy a good challenge, so there’s a good bit of overlap between the challenges and what I enjoyed about the process. I can dash off an 800 word essay and be done with it. But a novel requires not only more time but keeping more balls in the air. You’ve got to remember everyone’s height and eye color. You’ve got to remember how many days pass between one event and another. And who knows what and when and how they figured it out. In writing dialogue, you have to keep everyone’s voice and vocal quirks straight. This one cusses a blue streak, this one never would—he always uses slang, her language is more formal. The best thing about it, though, is that you really get to explore a topic. I started out wanting to know what made this kind of arrogant, entitled guy tick, and by the end I understood him. I had to understand him in order to make him three-dimensional. One of Jessica’s big faults is that she sees the world the way she wants to see it instead of the way it is, and it was fun to watch her open her eyes a little.

Tell us a little bit about your writing process. Do you write in a particular place, or at certain times? Do you map out your story ahead of time, or let it develop organically?

The first productive half hour of every day is spent writing. Usually that’s at my desk in my home office (formerly known as my son’s room) or my law office. Sometimes that’s the only writing I get done, and sometimes I manage to sneak in a little more. I type 100 words a minute, so I can get a lot done in a half hour. I ‘write’ a lot while driving or in the shower or standing on line, so by the time I get to my laptop I’m simply transcribing what’s already in my head. I don’t outline. I generally have a broad idea of where I want to go, but the details get filled in as I go. I’ve been a trial attorney for thirty some-odd years, and I think there’s a huge link between the way you tell a story in a courtroom for a jury and the way you tell a story in a novel. I’ve learned in trial work that if I write out my questions, inevitably the witness will answer one in a way I didn’t/couldn’t predict and then the next question on my list makes no sense. So I have a general idea of what I want to get out of a particular witness, but if they make a left turn, I follow them and try to nudge them in the direction I want them to go a different way than I’d planned. A good trial attorney has to be able to think on her feet. Writing is similar. I start out thinking, I want this character in this scene to do X. But if I’ve done a good job in creating the character, they are a person unto themselves and I can hear their voice in my head. When it comes to actually writing the scene, something may happen or someone may say something that provokes them to answer or respond in a way I wouldn’t have planned. So I have to adjust accordingly. Sometimes writing feels like I’m simply transcribing what the voices in my head say.

What can we look forward to next from you? Devil’s Defense is described on the cover as a “Fischer at Law” novel—will there be sequels?

Yes, there will be sequels. The second, Devil’s Hand, is slated for release on October 7, 2025. In it, Jessica represents the abused wife of a county commissioner. She has to deal with the backlash from representing someone who is accusing a muckety-muck of wrongdoing, and also try to understand the values of the religious community around her, which are in great contrast to her own. In the meantime, her estranged father comes for a visit and she has to deal with her own domestic issues.

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

What isn’t on my shelves? I think that’s a shorter list. Nothing is more attractive to me than a well- organized bookshelf, and I have them all over my house, organized by genre, then author, then chronologically. I know there’s a trend now to organize books by color, and while that looks nice, I don’t know how you’d ever find a book again. I am a voracious reader. I keep track of what I read, and I just finished my 111th book of the year (I’m writing this on November 19th). I refuse to be pigeonholed by genre. I’ll read anything that is interesting and well-written. Fiction, non-fiction, biography/memoir, science fiction, fantasy, romance, literary fiction, horror, young adult, you name it. I also try to make sure I read authors who fit into categories I don’t fit into, whether that’s race or religion or culture or sexual orientation or neurodiversity or anything else. One of the greatest things about reading is that it can help you understand the world around you. If I’m only reading things by people who have the same perspective I do, then I haven’t learned much. I also love a good series. There’s nothing better than falling in love with a character and/or a world and then being able to visit them again.

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

I just started reading Eleanore of Avignon by Elizabeth DeLozier. That’s my ‘bedtime book’ that I keep on my nightstand. I’ve got an advance reader’s copy of What is Wrong with You by Paul Rudnick open on my Kindle. And my audiobook du jour belongs to a series I’m re-reading—the Sookie Stackhouse series by Charlaine Harris, which is one of my favorite pieces of mind candy, and I’m going through it this time for craft purposes, because I’m learning how she picks up story lines from past books without being tedious. The book I’m up to is Dead Reckoning which I think is the 11th in the series. Anyway, all three of those books are great, which is nice. I don’t always get the trifecta. As for recommendations, lately I’ve been recommending The Light Pirate by Lily Brooks-Dalton and the Emily Wilde series by Heather Fawcett to everyone. Love those books.

LibraryThing is pleased to sit down this month with author Andrea Jo DeWerd, who, in addition to her career in publishing and as an independent book marketer, recently saw her debut novel, What We Sacrifice for Magic, released by Alcove Press. DeWerd worked for more than a decade in the marketing and publicity departments of a number of Big 5 publishers, including Crown, Random House, Simon & Schuster, and most recently, the Harvest imprint of HarperCollins. In 2022 she launched her own marketing and publishing consulting agency, the future of agency LLC. Her authorial debut, published in late September, is a fantastical coming-of-age story following three generations of Minnesota witches during the 1960s. DeWerd sat down with Abigail to answer some questions about this new book.

How did the idea for What We Sacrifice for Magic first come to you, and how did the story develop? Did your heroine Elisabeth come first? Was it always a multi-generational family story in your mind, always a witchy tale?

I was trying to write a very different book about the American Dream, and my own family’s experience with it. My grandfather’s family were Dutch immigrants in Minnesota. My great-grandfather and his cousin operated several feed mills and fish hatcheries. The next generation, my grandfather and his brothers, all became doctors. I was fascinated by this story, and by what happens after the American Dream is achieved—what happens to the next generation? But it was too close to home for me to write in the years after my grandfather passed away.

What We Sacrifice for Magic grew out of the question: what were the women doing while the men were building their empire? I started to imagine a world in which the men ostensibly held the power, but beneath the surface, it was really the women pulling the strings; a world in which the women could be running a full-on witchcraft operation out of the side door of the kitchen while the men were off fighting their wars and building their supposed influence.

Elisabeth’s voice came to me first. I started to hear her voice, and the first thing I knew about her was that she was ruled by water. From there, I explored how she would’ve come to be that way, who would’ve taught her about her power, and Magda, her grandmother, her teacher, emerged pretty quickly.

Your book addresses themes of familial history, obligation and conflict, and the individual’s struggle to both belong to and be independent of the family circle. How does the witchy element in your story add to or complicate those themes? How different would your story be if the Watry-Ridder women weren’t witches?

In many books with magic, the magic acts as the deus ex machina that lifts the characters out of their unfortunate situations. Magic breaks oppressive forces in many ways. For Elisabeth, magic is what is holding her back, her burden. Aside from that magical burden, Elisabeth would still need her coming-of-age journey. I believe that even without magic, Elisabeth would’ve always felt separate from her family. She needed to learn who she is on her own, away from the reputation of her family and the name she was born to.

Without magic, this story becomes a much more familiar one. Anyone who has ever dealt with the pressures of a family business knows what it feels like to be torn between wanting to forge your own path and getting pulled back into the family responsibility. Adult children who take care of their aging parents know that tug-of-war as well. I think we all feel family pressure in some way or another in our lives, and beneath the magic, that is what I wanted to explore in this book.

What We Sacrifice for Magic is set in your own home state of Minnesota, and opens in 1968. What significance do the setting and time period have to your story?

The setting came to me first. Elisabeth, ruled by water, was always going to be from a small lakeside town in Minnesota. The town of Friedrich was inspired by my own beloved Spicer, Minnesota, where my family has had a cabin on Green Lake since 1938. The lake felt so integral to this story and this community that the Watry-Ridder family serves.

Moreso, this family had to come from a place that was rural enough for them to fly under the radar, a pastoral community that just accepted their local eccentrics, and even came to depend on them. I was also fascinated by the sort of gossip that happens in a small town. In a closeknit community, it’s impossible to walk down the street without everybody knowing everything about you, who you’re dating, etc. I wanted to see Elisabeth and her younger sister, Mary, engage with that gossip, and it certainly shapes them as they’re growing up in Friedrich with the sometimes unwanted attention.

More broadly, 1968 was a time when many young women were starting to have more choices in their education and the opportunity for careers outside of the home, in many parts due to contraception. Those choices were not available to Elisabeth—she is stuck in this small town, tied to her community, as she watches her high school classmates going off to their next chapters.

What influence has your career in publishing and book marketing had on your storytelling? Have you been inspired by any of the authors whose books you have promoted?

I started writing this book when I was working full-time as a book marketer at Random House. I had been a creative writing minor in college, but I wasn’t really writing in my first 8 years in New York while I was in grad school and volunteering and focused on other things. I was inspired to start writing again in earnest when I would be in meetings with these amazing authors like Catherine Banner and Emma Cline, who were both a few years younger than me. I thought if they found time to do it, why couldn’t I? On the flip side, I was working with Helen Simonson at the time, who said that she didn’t really get to start writing until her kids were grown and out of the house, and I thought, “I’m single, I don’t have kids, what am I waiting for?”

I was also greatly inspired by Laura Lynne Jackson’s books The Light Between Us and Signs. Her first-person account of how close we are to the spirits on the other side very much influenced my own personal spiritual beliefs, some of which are woven into Elisabeth’s outlook and her experiences with her guide from the other side, Great-Grandma Dorothy, and the energy healing work that the family does.

Tell us about your writing process. Do you have a particular place you prefer to write, a specific way of mapping out your story? Did you know from the beginning what the conclusion would be?

I wrote at least 50% of this book long-hand in a journal. I write in the morning in bed before the rest of the world comes crashing in, i.e. before I look at my phone or email. My phone stays in the kitchen until after I’m done writing for the day. Once I got further into the story, though, I switched to drafting on my laptop when I was really building momentum.

I don’t believe you have to write every day. I have a day job! I write maybe a few days a week, and this book came together 100 words at a time. I would write a single paragraph in the morning before hopping in the shower and heading into Random House. My writing group talks often about setting realistic goals because the minute you set a lofty goal and miss that first day of “write every day,” it makes it that much harder to get back on track.

I barely outlined this book. This was very much a discovery writing project, but when I got into revision, I reverse-outlined what had happened so far in the book so that I could confidently write my way through to the end. I didn’t know the exact ending of the book until I was about ⅓ of the way through. I remember emailing my writing group one day to say, “I think I just wrote the last line of my book.”

For revision, the book Dreyer’s English by friend and former Random House colleague Benjamin Dreyer was essential to me. It was very helpful to read books like his as I was enmeshed in the revision process.

What can we look forward to next from you? Do you have other writing projects in the offing?

I am working on something completely different next! I am finishing a first draft this fall of my second novel, a contemporary Christmas rom-com set in southern Minnesota. There’s Christmas cookies, a local hottie, and a girl home from the big city. I’m approaching this book a little differently—starting with an outline!

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

I am very much a mood reader and I read just about every genre out there. I love sci fi and fantasy or romance for a quick vacation read. I try to keep up with the new, big literary novels. I have my section of craft books, like Big Magic and Bird by Bird. I have sections of series that I’m hoping to finish one day, like Outlander. I’m always reading our clients’ books for work. I have a celebrity chef’s memoir and a performance and productivity expert to read next for work. But truthfully, my shelves are full of books I haven’t read that have come with me from job to job. I have classics, I have the hot releases dating back to 2010, I have signed copies of books I’ve worked on, like Educated and Born a Crime. I also have an amazing cookbook collection from my time working in lifestyle books, lots of Mark Bittman and Jacques Pépin and Dominique Ansel.

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

I just finished the new Louise Erdrich novel, The Mighty Red. She’s my favorite author and as a contemporary Minnesotan author, she has had a huge impact on me as a reader and a writer. I think Erdrich most accurately captures contemporary women—and the myriad ways the world disappoints us—like no one else I’ve ever read. I make a point to buy the new books by Louise Erdrich and William Kent Krueger, another Minnesotan author, in hardcover from indie bookstores when I’m back in MN. If you haven’t read Louise Erdrich before, one of my favorite books is The Round House. I recommend that book to everyone.

LibraryThing is pleased to sit down this month with bestselling author Danielle Trussoni, who made her debut in 2006 with Falling Through the Earth, a memoir chronicling her relationship with her father that was chosen as one of the Ten Best Books of the Year by The New York Times Book Review. Trussoni’s first novel, Angelology, was published four years later, going on to become a New York Times and international bestseller. It was translated into over thirty languages, and was followed in 2013 by a sequel, Angelopolis, which was also a bestseller. Trussoni has also published a second memoir, The Fortress: A Love Story (2016), and a stand-alone novel, The Ancestor (2020), and writes a monthly horror column for the New York Times Book Review. The Puzzle Master, a thriller involving a brilliant puzzle maker and an ancient mystery, was published in 2023, and a sequel, The Puzzle Box, is due out shortly from Random House. Trussoni sat down with Abigail to answer some questions about this new book.

The Puzzle Box continues the story of puzzle maker Mike Brink, a savant who came to his abilities through a traumatic brain injury. How did the idea for this character and his adventures first come to you? Did you always know you wanted to write more about Mike, or did you find that you had more to tell, after finishing The Puzzle Master

The idea for this character didn’t arrive in a lightning flash. Mike Brink developed through slowly working backward from the puzzle that I wanted to be at the center of this novel. I had developed a puzzle that the character of Jesse Price, a woman who is in prison for 30 years for killing her boyfriend, draws. She hasn’t spoken to anyone for five years but creates a cipher. Mike Brink arrives to solve it. At first, Mike was just a regular puzzle solver. And then I began to research real people with extraordinary abilities and stumbled upon Savant Syndrome. He seemed like the perfect vehicle for solving complex and fun mysteries.

I always knew that I wanted to write more about Mike Brink. I feel that this character has an almost endless supply of fascinating angles to write about. I could see writing about him for a long time!

Your hero has Sudden Acquired Savant Syndrome. What does this mean, and what significance does it have, to the story you wish to tell?

Savant Syndrome is an actual disorder that has occurred only a handful of times (there are between 50-75 documented cases). It occurs when there is damage to the brain, and a kind of hyper plasticity occurs, allowing the person to develop startling mental abilities. Some people become incredibly good at playing music, for example. Other people develop an ability with languages. But Mike Brink develops an ability to see patterns, solve puzzles, and make order out of chaos. Once I began to read about this skill—it’s really a kind of superpower!—I knew that this ability would be perfect for a hero of a mystery novel.

The Puzzle Box involves the Japanese royal family, a puzzle created by Emperor Meiji, and a notable samurai family. What kind of research did you need to do to tell this story, and what were some of the most interesting things you learned, in the process?

First of all, I lived in Japan for over two years. That experience was in the back of my mind as I developed the characters and the story of this book. That said, as I wrote The Puzzle Box, I found I wanted to see the places that appear in the novel: the Imperial Palace in Tokyo, the puzzle box museum in Hakone, and the many locations in Kyoto. So, I went to Japan for two weeks in 2023 to do on the ground research at these locations.

The historical elements of the book, especially the storyline about the Emperor Meiji and the Empresses of Japan, were a different story. I read a lot about the Imperial family, their origins, the discussions and controversies surrounding succession. A big part of my process is to read as much as I can find about something in my work and then carve out the most striking details.

How do you come up with the central puzzles in your books? Are they wholly original creations, or are they taken from or inspired by known puzzles?

The ideas for the puzzles are completely original, and necessarily have to do with the story I’m trying to tell. Each of the puzzles in The Puzzle Master and The Puzzle Box act as gateways to information that helps move the story forward. So I start with story. Then, I speak with the REAL puzzle geniuses, who help me imagine what kind of puzzles are possible. I work with two constructors, Brendan Emmett Quigley and Wei-Hwa Huang, who have worked for The New York Times Games Page (Wei-Hwa is a four-time World Puzzle Champion). They are incredibly smart and really understand what I’m trying to accomplish with my storytelling. Because the puzzles are not just gimmicks or diversions: they are essential to the plot of the novel.

What is different about writing a sequel, when compared to the first book in a series? Were there particular writing or storytelling challenges, or aspects that you enjoyed?

The Puzzle Box is designed as a stand-alone novel and can be read without reading The Puzzle Master. Still, Mike Brink is the hero of both novels, and there are other characters and storylines that show up in both books. I loved being able to go back to characters that I’d already spent time with, and found that because they were familiar, I could go deeper into their minds and feelings. The complications of Mike Brink’s superpower are a challenge for him. How he lives with his gift—and how he can continue to solve puzzles and find happiness—is the primary question of this series.

What can we expect next from you? Do you think you’ll write more about Mike? Are there any other writing projects you are working on?

I hope to write more books in this series, and of course Mike would be returning. I always have three or four novels on the back burner, and sometimes it’s hard for me to know which one will be the next to be written. Sometimes I need to wait and see.

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

I am a lover of hardcover books, and so my shelves are packed with contemporary fiction in hardcover. I live in San Miguel de Allende Mexico, and it isn’t easy to get new books, but I’ve managed to find a way!

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

I used to write a book column for The New York Times Book Review, and a lot of my reading was for the column. But since I stopped writing it last year, I have been reading for pleasure. I’m revisiting books I loved in my twenties—And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie, for example—and I’m reading contemporary thrillers such as The Winner by Teddy Wayne and Look in the Mirror by Catherine Steadman. I have Richard Price’s Lazarus Man, which is out in a few months, on my most anticipated list. There is never enough time to read everything I want, but what I’m reading is exactly what I love most in fiction: sharp, evocative prose that carries me through an engrossing, surprising story. Give me those two things and I’m hooked.

LibraryThing is pleased to present our interview with novelist and poet Andrew K. Clark, whose work has been published in The American Journal of Poetry, UCLA’s Out of Anonymity, Appalachian Review, Rappahannock Review, and The Wrath Bearing Tree. Deeply influenced by his upbringing and family history in western North Carolina, Clark received his MFA from Converse College, and made his book debut in 2019, with the poetry collection Jesus in the Trailer. His first novel, Where Dark Things Grow, a work of magical realism set in the Southern Appalachian Mountains in the 1930s, is due out this month from Cowboy Jamboree Press, and is available in our current monthly batch of Early Reviewer giveaways. Clark sat down with Abigail to answer some questions about his new book.

Where Dark Things Grow follows the story of a teenage boy with a troubled home life, who finds something magical and uses it to embark on a course of revenge. How did the story idea first come to you? Did it start with the character of Leo, with the theme of revenge, or with something else?

The novel came from a short story I wrote about my grandfather’s childhood growing up in Southern Appalachia and grew from there. I’ve always been drawn to magical realism and supernatural stories, so I was interested in mixing a sort of hardscrabble Appalachian setting with those more fantastical elements. Initially the story started with Leo, but as I got into the difficulties he faced, I realized he, like all of us, have a choice: to respond to adversity with anger or with resilience. His story is finding his way to resilience after a dark turn toward revenge and violence borne out of his family’s struggles, what he sees happening to missing young women, and a lack of empathy from the community.

Tell us more about wulvers. What are they, where do they come from, and what kinds of stories and traditions are associated with them?

One of the decisions I made early on in writing the novel was that I would use folklore elements from my own cultural heritage, as much as possible. So wulvers come from Scottish folklore. I use them quite differently than they appear in the lore, mixing in elements of horror and even the notion of direwolves from the Game of Thrones books. In Scottish tradition, wulvers are benevolent, and there are stories of them doing things like placing fish in the window sill of families that were struggling, that sort of thing. So in my novel there is a benevolent wulver, but there is also a dark, sinister one causing mischief. In the folklore, one thing that stuck with me is the wulvers can walk on their hind legs, much like a human, so mine do this when they want to seem imposing.

What made you decide to set Where Dark Things Grow during the 1930s, at the height of the Great Depression? Is there something significant about that period, in terms of the story you wanted to tell?

My grandparents grew up during the Great Depression in Southern Appalachia, and that period of time has always fascinated me. My grandfather was a story teller in the Appalachian tradition (my people came to Western NC in 1739), so I grew up hearing a lot of stories, including what it was like to grow up in the 1930s. One thing that always interested me is that Asheville is seen as this wealthy Gilded Age kind of place in literature and popular culture, but for my grandparents, the Great Depression brought almost no change to their lives – they were very poor before it started and so they didn’t feel the pain that some did. As a matter of fact, my grandfather would say their lives got better because of the Great Depression because my great grandfather got a job with the TVA. I always knew I wanted to write a story about a teenager growing up in this time period, and that story grew into Where Dark Things Grow.

You have described yourself as deeply rooted in the region of western North Carolina, where your ancestors have lived since before the American Revolution. In what ways has this geographic and cultural background influenced your storytelling? Which parts of your story are universal, and which parts could only happen in Southern Appalachia?

What’s often said about Appalachian writers is that the landscape is often a central character to story. That’s true for Where Dark Things Grow and so I don’t think it could happen anyplace else, in the same way. The major themes of the novel: revenge, the corrupting influence of power, criminal behavior (human trafficking), the struggle between good and evil, friendship and family, are universal and could be present in any setting. I think at the heart of every story is this sense of conflict, and so in that way, even if my reader doesn’t have reference points for Southern Appalachia, they can connect to the story and see themselves in the characters.

Your first book was a collection of poetry, and you have published individual poems in numerous publications. What was it like to write a novel instead? Does your writing process differ, when approaching different genres? Are there things that are the same?

I think one thing I carry to my prose is a focus on the structure and sound of the individual sentence. I always admire a well crafted sentence in a book I’m reading. So in that focus on language, there doesn’t feel to be as much of a difference as one might think. What’s different is that a single poem captures a more singular feeling or scene in the case of a narrative poem. In fiction, scenes build on each other and excavate themes more deeply over time. What I do find is that I feel comfortable with the novel form and the poem form; I am not as comfortable with the in between, short stories, if that makes sense. If I have that little to say, it feels more natural to distill it down into a poem. That said, I love short fiction, and read a lot of short story collections. In some ways a poetry collection or short story collection is a perfect vehicle for our modern attention challenged brains. But I love to get immersed in a world, in the lives of characters, the way I can with a novel. I think I’ll always write both.

What’s next for you? Are you working on more poetry, do you intend to write more novels, or branch out still further?

One thing I am happy about for readers is that my second novel, Where Dark Things Rise, is coming next fall from Quill and Crow Publishing House. It is a loose sequel to Where Dark Things Grow, which was published by Cowboy Jamboree Press. These two novels took about seven to eight years to write, and while the first book is set in the 1930s, the second is set in the 1980s, both in the Asheville / Western North Carolina area. I have started a third novel, which is quite different but also in the horror / magical realism genre. I have some poems assembled for a second poetry collection as well.

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

My taste is pretty eclectic. You’ll find a lot of southern fiction by writers like William Gay, Ron Rash, Taylor Brown, Daniel Woodrell, S.A. Cosby, etc. You’ll also find a lot of magical realism novels: Murakami, Marquez, Toni Morrison, Jesmyn Ward, Robert Gwaltney, etc. And of course horror novels by Andy Davidson, Paul Tremblay, Stephen King, Stephen Graham Jones, Nathan Ballingrud, etc. I also have a couple of shelves dedicated to poetry books. Some favorites: Ilya Kaminsky, Kim Addonizio, Jessica Jacobs, Tyree Daye, bell hooks, Anne Sexton, W.S. Merwin, Ada Limón – I could go on and on.

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

One of my favorites this year is Taylor Brown’s Rednecks, about the West Virginia mine wars of the 1910s and 1920s. It’s a rich narrative; one of the most compelling historical fiction novels I’ve read. I’d also recommend The Hollow Kind by Andy Davidson, which mixes historical fiction elements, horror, and folklore in a delightful way. The Red Grove by Tessa Fontaine is a 2024 favorite, and definitely has elements of magical realism. For poetry, I’m really digging Bruce Beasley’s Prayershreds right now.

LibraryThing is pleased to present our interview with novelist and screenwriter Emily Layden, who made her book debut in 2021 with her novel All Girls, a critically acclaimed coming-of-age story set at a New England prep school which was described by reviewers as “assured and tender” (New York Times Book Review), and “incisive, astute” (Publishers Weekly). A former high school English teacher, Layden has had pieces published in the New York Times, Marie Claire, Runner’s World, and Town & Country. Her second novel, Once More from the Top, is due out from Mariner Books in September, and tells the story of a mega pop-star who is drawn back to her small hometown by the secrets of her past. Layden sat down recently with Abigail to answer some questions about her new book.

Once More from the Top follows the story of a global celebrity, a character who has been described as akin to Taylor Swift in some reviews. How did the idea for the story first come to you? Was there a real-world celebrity (or celebrities) who served as an inspiration for Dylan Read?

I wonder a lot about contemporary fame—particularly the experiences of famous women, and the expectation that they somehow be both aspirational and relatable. It seems to me like an incredibly difficult high wire act—especially, I think, if the famous person in question is a perfectionist, or a people-pleaser, or a chronic “good girl.” I wanted to write about the gymnastics required in navigating a shifting public opinion, and the tension between meeting those changeable demands while also being true to oneself and one’s art.

The theme of fame is obviously very important to your story, but so too is the pull of the past and of the secrets people keep. Tell us a little bit about the tension between Dylan’s public-facing role and her private world back home. What commentary, if any, is your story offering on celebrity culture, and on the conflict between the public and private self?

Whether you’re Taylor Swift or, well, a sophomore novelist, any artist working today is going to find themselves confronted with a distinctly modern and social media-bred set of expectations around access: There is an assumption that the artist will share not just their art but also themselves. Dylan Read is a master at this: a prodigiously talented singer-songwriter, she’s defined by both her confessional lyricism and her best-friend energy; it’s a combination that’s kept her fans close, the label happy, and the media fed. But Dylan has a secret—one thing she’s never explicitly written about before—and a question that runs through the novel is to whom she owes that truth. It’s really an attempt to take those ideas about intimacy and—although the term is overused—parasocial feelings and put them under the most extreme microscope I could imagine.

The adolescent experience of a group of young girls was central to your first novel, All Girls, and plays an important role here, too. What role does your experience as a high school teacher play in how you understand and depict young people?

The truth is that teenage girls drive our discourse and shape our culture—they tell us what’s cool, what to wear, what music to listen to (just look at the Eras tour!)—but are rarely given credit for their full personhood. Teaching helped me to see that young women deserve to be seen and taken more seriously; teenage girls are emphatic, wise, and so, so smart—and while I never set out to prove something in my writing, I would be happy if that’s something readers take away from my novels.

Music is another key component of your story. If you had to create a playlist for Once More from the Top, what would be on it? Who are some of your favorite contemporary musicians?

I’m so glad you asked! You can check out the Once More from the Top playlist here:

This playlist is one-part thematic tour through the novel, another part fictional context: If Dylan Read were making music today, these are some of the artists I imagine she’d find herself in conversation with, from millennial icons like Beyoncé and Lana to next-gen breakouts like Olivia and Gracie. I listened to so much music while I was writing Once More from the Top, from Joni and Dolly’s back catalogues to Gen Z bedroom pop, and so this playlist is by no means meant to be comprehensive; the hardest part about it was limiting it to just 17 tracks!

Tell us a little bit about your writing process. How do you begin—with a character, a scene, a story idea?—and how do you carry on? Were there challenges specific to writing your second novel, or things you particularly enjoyed about it?

I try not to hold any process too tightly, but I think two things tend to be true about my writing: First, I’m a big believer in the vomit draft—I get the whole thing down, start to finish, only ever moving forward. To paraphrase Joan Didion, I write to figure out what I’m thinking—and a messy draft helps me figure out what novel I’m really trying to write.

And second: I am an athlete, and I write the way I train, which is to say that I try to do it every day, and I have a daily word or page count much the same way I track miles or minutes. It helps me feel productive in a process that can (for me) feel aimless and meandering, and feeling productive—like I am working toward something in a measurable way—helps me feel like I have a real job, despite the fact that I am often doing it from my couch in sweatpants.

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

In my head, my library is, of course, the library in Beauty and the Beast. In reality, my books are mostly in boxes, as of this interview we’ve just moved! But I made sure to quickly find the one book I need to have on my desk at all times: The Complete Emily Dickinson.

Emily’s poems are like little puzzles to me: full of surprises and in-jokes; they have all the delightful cleverness of a very good riddle. She is surprising and—still, after all these years—challenging to me, and I like flipping through her collection when I am stuck or otherwise looking for a distraction. Maybe Emily Dickinson is my Wordle? (I also love Wordle.)

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

I’m usually reading a few things at once: One or two novels that everyone else is reading; something that falls into the category of research for a current project; and a book of poetry. Lately, in the last, I loved my friend Leigh Lucas’s new chapbook, Landsickness. It’s intimate and surprising; Leigh is at once your best friend whispering in your ear and an artist reaching for the most evocative metaphor, and I marveled at the tightrope she spun on every page.