How long have you been writing? I wanted to be a writer since the 3rd grade. As life is prone to do—it happened, distracting me from the call to write. After I moved from Tallahassee, Florida to Atlanta, Georgia in 2000, I dug in and began to take my dream seriously.
What inspired the book you’re currently promoting? My debut novel, THE CICADA TREE, began as an entirely different book. It took place in the 1970s, and the protagonist was a little boy. I was so intrigued with his mother that I began to wonder what she must have been like as a girl. It was those imaginings that gave birth to the novel.
Who are the authors who most influenced your work? Aside from sense of place, my writing is influenced and inspired by the literary work of others. As a boy, it was with great obsession, I turned the well-worn pages of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. Wuthering Heights? Yes, another source of adoration. And Truman Capote’s debut novel, Other Voices, Other Rooms, I admire with equal reverence along with everything ever written by Tennessee Williams.
Where do you write, i.e. an office, outdoors, a coffee shop? Though I once wrote in coffee shops, now I am most comfortable writing at home in my office. I keep the light dim, and I burn candles and play classical music.
If you could visit one place to research a book where would it be? My work in progress takes place on a fictitious Georgia coastal barrier island. I was fortunate to visit the marsh in Beaufort, South Carolina last year to begin work. I would very much love to visit Cumberland Island next to round out my research.
Southern Sisters Book Club 