Wednesday, July 9, 2025

Q&A with Virginia Evans

 


 

 

Virginia Evans is the author of the new novel The Correspondent. She lives in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

 

Q: What inspired you to write The Correspondent, and how did you create your character Sybil Van Antwerp?

 

A: First, I read the book 84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff, and was inspired by the letter format. I wanted to try to write a book that way. Then it was a matter of what type of person would write enough letters to make a story?

 

I’d made the acquaintance of a woman whose house I was interested in purchasing. When I went to see the house and meet her, we spent a brief hour chatting. She was very interesting, lived alone, had been married, her children were grown.

 

She had stunning, interesting art on the walls, music playing, lovely little things collected over a life, and as we chatted she dropped little things, like breadcrumbs, little details from her life. I thought she was fascinating, lovely, classic. She planted the little seeds in the ground that became Sybil, and eventually this book.

 

Q: Can you say more about why you decided to write an epistolary novel?

 

A: I found the letter format to be very digestible when I read it myself—Guernsey, Dear Committee Members, even Gilead. So much can be said with directness. I liked that, and I wanted to try it myself, but I wanted the specific kind of book I was wanting to read. Something warm, expansive, total.

 

Q: The writer Ann Patchett said of the book, "Subtly told and finely made, The Correspondent is a portrait of a small life expanding." What do you think of that description?

 

A: When I first read Ann's blurb of the book I was floored. I felt she was able to capture it perfectly and succinctly. I think she was right that the book is a portrait of a life. 

 

Q: Did you know how the novel would end before you started writing it, or did you make many changes along the way?

 

A: The ending was really my starting point. I knew the way I wanted it to end, so the rest was kind of writing toward that. I didn't know much of the middle, other than a few pieces of Sybil's life history. I definitely made changes from draft to draft, but the ending never changed. 

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: Now I'm at work on a contemporary novel set between England, Scotland, and Los Angeles! Hoping to have the first draft finished in a few months. 

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: I've just finished rereading The Summer Book by Tove Jansson, which to me is a meditation on summer and life, and one I like to return to. I think I ought to read it every summer!

 

Other books like this for me are A Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh and Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan around Christmas. I like the idea of returning to books yearly, seasonally, almost like liturgies.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb 

Q&A with Shulamit Reinharz

 


 

 

Shulamit Reinharz is the author of the book Hiding in Holland: A Resistance Memoir. The book incorporates material from a memoir written by her late father Max Rothschild, a Holocaust survivor. Reinharz's other books include 100 Jewish Brides. She is the Brandeis University Jacob Potofsky Professor Emerita of Sociology. 

 

Q: Why did you decide to write this memoir?

 

A: I was a professor at Brandeis for 35 years. I did a lot of writing and publishing, so it was natural for me to think of topics I’d like to write about.

 

The other thing is that my husband and I discovered a treasure trove of documents my father had kept since he was a baby. He was sort of a sloppy guy—I was not surprised to see that it was not in great shape, wasn’t indexed, but there was a lot of it. I said, I have to read this!

 

Another factor was that in 2017 I had planned to retire, which meant I wouldn’t have any obligations, I was sort of free. We attacked a bucket list of places we’d like to go, and wherever I went, I was trying to find things to help me understand people who survived the Holocaust. And then one day I sat down and said I’d write a book.

 

People ask when I started the book—it was when I was born. My father talked about the Holocaust all the time. It took a long time to write it—everything was interesting.

 

Q: How did you balance your father’s writing and your own writing in the book?

 

A: I didn’t think in terms of balance, it would have been artificial—but I didn’t want it to be completely imbalanced. My father had written a memoir. I started the book talking about how I wrote the book…I thought the closest I could have my words and his words to each other would be good.

 

There were things my father didn’t talk about, and I provided information—what Eichmann did in the Netherlands, for example. My father wrote about his experiences. I let the differentiation stay in  place—he writes about what he saw and did, and I write about the situation they were in. He also had experiences he called “miracles.”

 

Q: As you worked on the book, did you find anything surprising, given that he had talked about his experiences with you?

 

A: One-third was stuff I knew. Two-thirds were surprises. For example, I didn’t realize the extent to which he believed he was resisting. He had the attitude of “resist” the whole time. It was very useful for me to understand.

 

My father and his friend did a kind of dry run of hiding—they didn’t know how to hide, and they decided to hide in a Jewish psychiatric hospital. I didn’t know that. I’ve spent various time periods in Holland, and I visited that hospital.

 

Q: What impact did it have on you as a child to hear your father’s memories of the Holocaust?

 

A: I have a sister who is three years younger, and she hated it. My father became a rabbi. He officiated at her wedding, and she was so afraid he’d talk about the Holocaust. My brother identified with my father.

 

I found it very interesting. When I was a little girl, I had some fears that might have come from his stories—that policemen would come and take me away. When I was in first grade, I believed there was a room in the building called the Punishment Room, and children who misbehaved were taken there.

 

I went to Michigan in 1972—I was born in 1946—and that was the first time I heard the Holocaust talked about [outside the home]. I felt I was getting a very unusual home education. Even in Hebrew school, I don’t remember any discussion of the Holocaust.

 

Q: Many second-generation writers have told me their parents didn’t talk about their experiences in the Holocaust, unlike your father.

 

A: That was another motive for me. If one survivor reads it, or a second-generation person reads it and asks questions, I would be so happy.

 

It could have been the shame that if you survived, you let somebody else down. But my father came out of it a very active and proud person. The Holocaust needed to be talked about.

 

Q: What impact did it have on you to write the book?

 

A: I found that I’m not finished. I’m now writing a book about my mother. They were together from age 16 to age 92; her experiences were the same in some ways but different. I’m interested in gender differences. My mother became a courier [in the war]. My father didn’t leave the house—he was circumcised.

 

They were both Zionists as teenagers. My mother was completely taken with it—she was always sorry not to make aliyah. My father didn’t feel that way. He felt some things were wrong with the Zionism of the time…They never moved to Israel, but they went there a lot.

 

Q: Did your mother tell stories about the Holocaust?

 

A: No. My mother adored her parents, yet she never had pictures of them in the house. She couldn’t bear to think of what had happened to them. My father had a picture of his mother—he wanted to remember her.

 

She did talk about the good people, the Righteous Gentiles. But she didn’t talk about the bad things, or she would talk about them briefly. My mother’s mother was killed—she never knew if it was on the train to Auschwitz or in Auschwitz. She was always torn by that.

 

Q: What do you hope readers take away from the book, especially given the increased antisemitism in the world today?

 

A: In a sense antisemitism is worse today. There are no killing camps for Jews, but it’s worldwide. The way the intifada is globalized, there’s no place to go.

 

The takeaways are, first, when you’re oppressed, you should find a way to resist. My father was called to do something by the Nazi government in Holland. He ripped [the order] up and sent it back. If we obey, there’s no way things will get better.

 

Second, I asked my father what he wanted me to remember about the Holocaust—he knew I was writing this book. He said, there are some good people in this world. It was the opposite of what Anne Frank said, there’s some good in everybody. That is not true.

 

When he said there are some good people in this world, he was implying that if you need them, you can go look for them, and be one of them yourself. Their relationship with the people in Holland who saved them—they were friends until they all died at the same time.

 

Also, Jews were resisting all along. They didn’t go like sheep to the slaughter. They were always trying to find a way out. It’s a wonderful story to know—I don’t think a lot of Jews think of the Holocaust that way.

 

I’m in favor of roots trips—go before it becomes impossible.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb 

Q&A with Irma Venter

 


 

 

Irma Venter is the author of the new novel Red Tide, now available in an English translation from the Afrikaans by Karin Schimke. Venter's other books include Hard Rain. Also a journalist, she is based in South Africa.

 

Q: What inspired you to write Red Tide, and how did you create your character Jaap Reyneke?

 

A: I attended the Aardklop Arts Festival (in South Africa) some years ago, and one of our great export products, landscape artist Strijdom van der Merwe, had various installations scattered across the campus of the Northwest University. I don’t want to give the game away, but one piece involved a map, a red pencil on a string, and the power of the spring breeze.

 

This image marinated in my mind a while, until an idea emerged. When the time came to tackle the next manuscript, I put up a map of Southern Africa where I could see it every day and starting writing Red Tide.

 

As for Jaap Reyneke, I’ve come to suspect that he is an amalgamation of all the retired male detectives who have so generously assisted me with their knowledge over the course of my writing career. I owe them and every other source a great debt as they have managed to infuse my text with an authority I wouldn’t have been able to muster on my own.

 

Q: Cape Town Etc. said of the book that your “female characters are as richly rounded as male characters in thrillers usually are.” What do you think of that assessment?

 

A: I regard that particular one-liner as one of the great triumphs of my writing career. Since I started writing so many years ago, my single-minded focus has been on attempting to create the female equivalent of some the great male characters we’ve seen in male noir/thrillers.

 

I’ve never wanted to write about the nice girl everyone loves doing the right thing. I wanted to create real, rounded, complex female characters with the power to propel the narrative towards its natural conclusion – women who stay on the page till the last sentence.

 

Q: Did you know how the novel would end before you started writing it, or did you make many changes along the way?

 

A: With this particular text I had a clear idea where my characters would go in terms of geography, as that required some meticulous planning.

 

As for the end? No, that came as a surprise. Throughout the writing process I had hoped that this particular cocktail of characters and settings would finally deliver some kind of ending that didn’t feel forced or unnatural in any way.

 

Q: How would you describe the dynamic between Jaap and your character Sarah Fourie?

 

A: They are complete opposites in many ways – age, background, education, career, gender (to state the obvious) – but they do share a moral compass and an innate stubbornness to find/see the truth.

 

Yes, Sarah is a convicted hacker, but she shares Jaap’s conviction to do the right thing, even though they may take different routes to the same destination. Also, Jaap does emerge as a father figure at the end.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: My 11th Afrikaans book: Die Drie Weduwees. The Three Widows. This is the fourth book in a new series I started once I’d wrapped up the S-series, which included Red Tide.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb 

Q&A with Jennifer Mason-Black

 


 

Jennifer Mason-Black is the author of the new young adult novel Sometimes the Girl. She also has written the YA novel Devil and the Bluebird. She lives in Massachusetts. 

 

Q: What inspired you to write Sometimes the Girl, and how did you create your character Holiday?

 

A: Let me preface this by saying I’ve never read Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman, so what follows has nothing to do with its literary merits. What interested me about its publication was the reader response.

 

The connection so many people have to To Kill a Mockingbird is deeply personal. To be confronted with an apparent earlier draft in which beloved Atticus Finch is openly racist felt to many like a betrayal.

 

Very quickly, the majority narrative became that publication of Go Set a Watchman was purely an exploitation of Harper Lee, now in her late 80s and likely misled into signing the contract. Surely she would never have chosen to let the world see her early work, surely To Kill a Mockingbird was the book she’d meant to write and deserved be her sole legacy.

 

For me, that presented several questions.

 

First, what role does ageism plays in such a situation? Second, what occurs in the space between an earlier work, like Go Set a Watchman, and a published version rebuilt from the ground up? Third, in a situation in which a writer subjugates their creativity to their editor’s desire, how might that affect their future art? And fourth, who should determine an artist’s legacy?

 

Of course, that’s not the origin of Holiday and her part of the story. Some of Holi is autobiographical. For example, the town she grew up in—Amherst—is my hometown, and the love she feels for it is my own, though less complicated. I also was a young writer who quit writing due to a mentor’s opinions, in my case for a very long time.   

 

But Holi is her own person. I wish I could say that there’s a method to how I develop characters. The reality is that I stumble across a piece of life—a hat left behind, an awkward interaction, a passing cloud—that provides me entry into who they are. Then I just write and write until they come clear to me.

 

This time I had a head start because Sometimes the Girl is actually connected with two other books of mine, one published, one not. I already had a description of her and a sense of mystery. These made it easier to begin.

 

Q: How would you describe the dynamic between Holi and your character Elsie, an older writer?

 

A: I think Elsie is very conflicted about how to relate to this young woman writer, clearly wounded in some way, that shows up on her doorstep.

 

Elsie’s bitterness about writing is so deep that it cannot help but drive her to discourage Holi from following the same path. At the same time, Holi’s presence resuscitates some of Elsie’s feelings about writing—that passionate space in which nothing else matters—and what she’d lost.

 

The truth, though, is that most of the time they are communicating on different levels. Elsie’s need for privacy comes from her fame, but also from the suffering through which that fame came to be.

 

When she tells Holi that writing is no job for a woman, it originates from a place of history and experience and loss. When Holi hears it, she understands it as the words of an old woman who parrots outdated beliefs about women’s work being less than men’s.

 

In the end, what Holi longs to hear is that she is a writer, that she should continue to write. What Elsie wants, I think, is to covertly communicate her own pain and save Holi the same, while also to believe the world has changed enough that Holi might succeed with her writer’s heart intact.

 

Q: How was the novel’s title chosen, and what does it signify for you?

 

A: Excellent, an easy question! Sometimes the Girl comes from a conversation I wrote very early on.

 

In it, Blue Riley, the singer/songwriter protagonist from my first book, Devil and the Bluebird, says that in books sometimes the girl gets the boy and sometimes she gets the girl, but sometimes the girl gets herself, and that’s what she—Blue—wants in a story.

 

There are so many great books that center romance, but Holi’s story isn’t meant to be one of them. She’s been so tied up in the lives and needs of the people she loves and her own fears about the future; the central question here isn’t whether she gets the girl but whether she gets herself. Whether she finds her own compass, whether she reclaims herself as an artist.

 

I agree with Blue: sometimes these stories are exactly the ones we need.

 

Q: The writer Mary McCoy said of the book, “Mason-Black never shies away from the hard questions and harder answers in this devastating, engrossing puzzle of a story.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: Something I knew from the beginning of my drafting process was that I had to face a question that I, as author, didn’t want to answer.

 

There were plenty of other questions along the way: how to allow close relationships to evolve, is it possible to move honestly into the future without healing the past, how do we trust ourselves in a world where so many benefit from our self-doubt.

 

We all grapple with those at some point, and the answers we find, as obvious as they can seem from the outside, are often hard won.

 

But this one question…I agonized over it as much as the characters involved did. Finally, though, I remembered that Holi’s grandfather is right: the hard thing isn’t knowing the answer, it’s following through on it. I knew the solution, both within the context of the story and in my own personal beliefs. I was just afraid to commit to it.

 

So, I think Mary McCoy gives a fairly accurate description. Life is full of hard questions and answers—without them we would experience static existences, exiting the world more or less the same as we entered it—and I wanted the book to be full of life.

 

And on a personal level, I also confronted a hard question, and it did force me to grow, and for that I am thankful.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: In life, sending my youngest child off to college!

 

In writing, I’m returning to where I began, working on an adult novel with some magic, some apocalypse, and a bit more reality than I’d like.

 

It revolves around a magical healer, who grows from a child surviving by bartering her talent, to a teen living a pampered existence built on her complicity in the violent theft of magic from children, to a woman on a quest to return what she stole while being hunted by a private army intent on seeing she doesn’t succeed.

 

It contains environmental collapse and sailboats crossing drought-stricken plains and a dog named Jack and a circus and the power of community.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: This is a dangerously broad question. A few years ago, my husband was diagnosed with cancer. I wrote lots of Caring Bridge updates, which were read mostly by colleagues of his that I’d never met.

 

One of them responded to every post. I was exhausted and terrified, and the kids and I felt adrift and alone, and he replied each time with encouragement. Not false cheer—support arising from intimate knowledge of the struggle we faced.

 

He told me his wife kept us in their church’s prayer circle, he complimented my writing, he told me he was so happy about our good reports. And he told me that he knew he tended to overshare.

 

So, perhaps that story contains the two important things I’d like you to know.

 

One, that I believe humanity is in a dire place, one where despair is easy and emotional shutdown is the choice so many people make.

 

At the same time, I think connecting to one another on a human level, with stories, with compassion, with genuine love, makes a difference in our ability to survive and to take action toward not just survival, but profound, sustained, positive change.

 

And two, I overshare. On that note: coming up on three years cancer free!

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb 

Q&A with Kahlila Robinson and Sarah Gerstenzang

 

Kahlila Robinson

 

 

Kahlila Robinson and Sarah Gerstenzang are the authors of the new book The Self-Regulation Workbook for Children Ages 5 to 8: A Parent-Child Resource for Engaging in Healthy Coping Skills and Building Connection. Robinson is a psychologist and Gerstenzang is a social worker. 

 

Q: What inspired you to write The Self-Regulation Workbook?  

SG: It was actually our publisher's idea (Ulysses Press) but the content is something we think about everyday as parents and therapists!

KR: The inspiration for this book came from the experience of being a child and family therapist and a parent, and the desire to create a comprehensive resource for parents and kids on how to self-regulate and how to connect.

 

Both Sarah and I longed for a practical guide that parents could easily engage with and apply, so we decided to create one ourselves! We wanted to combine the concepts, strategies and tools that we have found most effective as child and family therapists and that have supported our own families.

Sarah Gerstenzang

 

Q: Why did you focus on ages 5 through 8? What differentiates this age group from older or younger kids?  

 

SG: There seemed to be a need for support for these children and their parents.  Children ages 5 to 8 are both capable of beginning to manage their own emotions (much more so than younger children) and yet, they still need more support from their parents than tweens and teens. 

 

It was a fun challenge to create a workbook that celebrates this dance between parents and children.


KR: Agree with all of the above! It's a challenging stage for parents where they have to learn when and how to lean in with supporting kids and lean out to help them develop emotional resilience!


Q: How did the two of you collaborate on the book?


SG: We agreed on the general content and structure and then Kahlila took the lead with the writing with Sarah filling in and making suggestions.

 

Q: What do you hope readers take away from the book?

A: We hope parents learn simple concepts that make them feel more confident as parents and closer to their children. We hope children feel empowered to manage their emotions and make choices.


Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: We have been doing a lot of podcasts and Kahlila has been on TV - all to promote the workbook. Sarah is considering writing a book about complex developmental trauma.


Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: This book is full of insights and practical tools for parents and kids, and it is also fun! It includes some fabulous anecdotes from real kids, ages 5-8, on how they self-regulate.

 

It is a unique book in that there is a section just for parents, one for parents and kids to use together, and one section that is just for kids.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb 

Q&A with Caroline McAlister

 


 

 

Caroline McAlister is the author of the new children's picture book A Line Can Go Anywhere: The Brilliant, Resilient Life of Artist Ruth Asawa. McAlister's other books include Finding Narnia. She lives in Greensboro, North Carolina. 

 

Q: What inspired you to write a picture book biography of the artist Ruth Asawa (1926-2013)?

 

A: After writing about J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, I wanted to write about a woman. I tried writing about Alice Paul, the Quaker suffragette, but it just didn't work. She was not a warm and fuzzy person and she tried to exclude African-American women from her big march. 

 

I cut out Ruth Asawa's obituary from The New York Times and pinned it on my bulletin board. Growing up in Sacramento, California, I had seen her mermaid fountain at Ghirardelli Square.

 

I also taught units on the incarceration of Japanese-Americans in my writing classes at Guilford College. During the war, Guilford had welcomed Japanese American students released from the camps to attend college on a program sponsored by the American Friends Service Committee so this was history that was near and dear. 

 

I fell in love with Ruth the more I read about her, and I was fascinated by Black Mountain College, which was about two and a half hours away from my house. 

 

Finally, Ruth's story about the origin of her sculptures settled in my imagination; how she sat on the farm leveller and dragged her feet in the dirt making undulating patterns. I knew it would make a beautiful image for the opening of a picture book.

 

Q: How did you research Ruth Asawa’s life, and what did you learn that especially surprised you?

 

A: When I began, the excellent biography Everything She Touched, by Marilyn Chase, was not yet published. These picture books come out so long after you have written them that it is hard to remember the process, but I think I began by reading the chapter about Ruth in Leap Before You Look by Helen Molesworth. 

 

I read every interview I could find so I had primary resources and a sense of Ruth's voice. I dug through the archives of her papers at Stanford. I went to the exhibit of her sculptures at the David Zwirner Gallery in New York City. I visited the grounds of the now defunct Black Mountain College and attended a "re-happening" there. I read primary and secondary sources about the prison camps. 

 

Q: What do you think Jamie Green’s illustrations add to the book?

 

A: Jamie Green is of Japanese-American descent so she lends an authentic cultural perspective. She also did a beautiful job carrying out my metaphors with lines in a visual way. I love what she did with framing scenes with lines in the shapes of Ruth's sculptures. I also love the spread where she captures the two worlds Ruth moved between as a child. 

 

Finally, I love the end pages which are a kind of visual pun blending the image of Ruth's wire sculptures and the wire surrounding the prison camps. The blue and brown palette she chose is very beautiful.

 

Q: The Booklist review of the book says, “This unblinking and timely look at racism is also an inspiring, thought-provoking story.” What do you think of that description?

 

A: I don't think I set out to write a book about racism or a book that was timely. I was just interested in everything about Ruth and in her creativity. Sometimes a project takes on a life of its own and moves in directions you don't anticipate. 

 

I was moved by Ruth's descriptions of her father and the day he was arrested, how they ironed his shirt and fed him a piece of pie before saying goodbye and the fact that he had to leave his strawberry crop in the fields unpicked. It was just so stark.

 

I began my research long before Trump began rounding people up in unmarked vans and building a prison in the everglades. But it is my hope that people will feel the similarities between what happened then and what is happening now and will take action by writing or calling their legislators.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I am working on two projects: a book about Quaker artist James Turrell, and a book about Lebanese American artist Etel Adnan. I am also always working on fictional picture books, which I have not been as successful at but enjoy trying to write.

 

Q: Anything else we should know? 

 

A: I'm available for teaching at writing workshops or for talks at schools. 

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb. Here's a previous Q&A with Caroline McAlister. 

Q&A with Colleen Paeff

 


 

 

 

Colleen Paeff is the author of the new children's picture book Firefly Song: Lynn Frierson Faust and the Great Smoky Mountain Discovery. Her other books include The Great Stink.  

 

Q: You’ve said that you first learned about naturalist Lynn Frierson Faust from a 2014 Mental Floss article--can you say more about that, and about why you decided to write about her?

 

A: The Mental Floss article I read (way back in 2014!) told the story of how Lynn had grown up watching fireflies during childhood summers in the Smoky Mountains. Right away, I could imagine that scene illustrated in a picture book.

 

The author went on to describe how Lynn grew up to become a self-taught naturalist. As a big fan of self-directed learning, that caught my interest.

 

And lastly, Lynn's story featured fireflies and they've got to be one of the most magical creatures on the planet!

 

At any given moment, there are a million different things I want to write about, but Lynn's story stood out from the rest because it had four key ingredients: 

 

1. Strong kid appeal - Lynn watched the fireflies as a child. 

2. A compelling story - Lynn, an outsider, persisted in her attempt to prove to the scientific community that the Elkmont, Tennessee, fireflies were synchronous – and she was right.

3. A universal hook - everyone loves fireflies.

4. Illustration potential - the story is set in the Smoky Mountains. 

 

That's how I knew the idea was right. But, in 2014, I was an unpublished author and I was afraid Lynn wouldn't take me seriously. So, I held onto that magazine article and worked hard, with the aim of getting traditionally published, for seven years.

 

A few months before The Great Stink came out, I sent Lynn an email asking if I could tell her story. Thankfully, she said yes!

 

Q: How did you research her life, and what did you learn that especially surprised you?

 

A: Lynn's book, Fireflies, Glow-worms, and Lightning Bugs, is a field guide for identifying fireflies, but it also has a lot of personal stories about her work in the field. So I devoured her book in the early stages of research.

 

In fact, there were many, many scenes from her book that I wish I could have included in Firefly Song. She's studied fireflies in caves, by canoes, and by horseback, and she's nearly been eaten by an alligator and hit by a car! All in the name of firefly research. 

 

So, her book was my first step. Then I searched for magazine articles about her (or that quoted her), podcasts she'd been interviewed on, and scholarly research papers she'd written.

 

And then I spoke to Lynn (a lot!), her family members, and some of the scientists she worked with back in the early ‘90s. The interviews were probably the most helpful part of my research – especially the interviews with Lynn.

 

I was surprised by the number of firefly species on our planet (over 2,000!). But the thing that surprised me most was how warm and welcoming Lynn was (and is!), right from the beginning.

 

My husband and I went out to Elkmont to see the fireflies one summer, for research, and Lynn took us all over and told us some wonderful stories about her summers there. She's a gifted storyteller and a warm and generous person.

 

Q: What do you think Ji-Hyuk Kim’s illustrations add to the book?

 

A: Beauty. Magic. Atmosphere. His illustrations practically glow! And he perfectly captured Lynn's fierce determination.

 

When I wrote the text I tried to make it feel like Lynn had come full-circle. As a child she roamed the forest looking for bugs and exploring nature for fun and as an adult, she does the same thing, but for work, you know? And Ji really picked up on that. It made me so happy!

 

Q: What do you hope kids take away from the book?

 

A: I hope kids will pick up on Lynn's persistence and her growth mindset. I want them to know that they can learn about anything that interests them, at any time. School isn't the only place where learning can happen.

 

And I hope they'll read the information at the back of the book and share it with their parents because there are tips on how to make your outdoor space more firefly-friendly. Firefly populations are in decline, but there are simple things we can all do to help them rebound.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I'm deep in the research phase for a couple new picture book ideas and am writing a proposal for a middle grade nonfiction book (my first!). And, of course, I'm trying to get the word out about Firefly Song, especially since the fireflies are flashing at this time of year!

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: Yes! Three things:

 

1. I'm doing a giveaway! Anyone who subscribes to my newsletter by July 15 will be entered to win a book bundle featuring a signed copy of Firefly Song along with Lynn's truly fabulous field guide, Fireflies, Glow-worms, and Lightning Bugs. Only people in North America are eligible, though, because the scope of her book is limited to North America. 

 

2. On August 1, 2025, I'll be a guest on Kirsten W. Larson's podcast "Nonfiction Kidlit Craft Conversation," discussing the line between nonfiction and informational fiction.

 

3. I have two books coming out next year. Be on the lookout for Rainbow Truck (co-authored with Hina Abidi and illustrated by Saffa Khan) in April and Pufflings Fly Free (illustrated by Linda Ólafsdóttir) in June.

 

Thanks for inviting me to join you here, Deborah!

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb