Last month, I participated in a twitter interview on #LitChat. I've attended these author chats before, but this was my first time being the interviewee. We talked about publishing and a bit about my latest novel, Blood & Water. Mary Vensel White conducted the interview and it was so fun I decided to post the content below:
MVW: Today we’re chatting with @katieorourke78. We’ll chat about her latest novel, Blood & Water, for the first half of #LitChat, and for the second half, we’ll discuss her experiences as a hybrid author.
Welcome, Katie! Can you give us a short summary of Blood & Water?
KO: when her life in NH falls apart, delilah takes off, driving across the country to her brother’s house in tucson, though she hasn’t seen him in years. the people she finds there, many of them strangers, become unwitting casualties of her early mid-life crisis, and end up helping her through it anyway.
MVW: What was your initial inspiration for the novel?
KO: i think the first scene i wrote is delilah beating a car with a baseball bat. the idea of an otherwise rational person being pushed into such an uncharacteristic extreme was interesting to me- how she got there and how she'd manage to right herself. the story grew from there.
MVW: I found it very interesting how Delilah and David came from the same parents but because of the age difference and other factors, it was almost like they grew up in two different families. Do you think siblings often have differing childhoods?
KO: i think when there's a big age span, you end up with parents who have different skill sets. parenting in your twenties is different than parenting in your forties, and that doesn't even take into account issues of alcoholism and recovery. there's an 18 year difference between david and delilah. in fundamental ways, they were raised by different people.
MVW: B & W is told in rotating POVs. How did you decide on this form? What benefits does it have?
KO: i always tell stories in multiple pov. it allows the reader to see the story from many angles and it means they end up knowing more than any of the characters. this story has 5 narrators who take turns in a sort of relay style. balancing five narratives so each character has their own arc and resolution while also contributing to the arc and resolution of the main story was probably the most complicated story construction i've taken on so far. by the time i realized how hard it was going to be, i was too far in!
MVW: B&W is your fourth novel—in your own words, a “family saga” with characters that overlap with your other books. Can you talk about this relationship between your novels?
KO: all of my books take place in the same fictional world, making it possible for characters from different books to meet each other, for a peripheral character from one book to have a leading role in the next. i don't write sequels, per se, and these books can be read in any order, but because all of the characters live in the same world, there’s an opportunity to revisit the past.
MVW: What was your writing process like for this novel, especially considering the existing links with your other books? Did you outline or just let it flow?
KO: i never know where a story is going. before i sit down to write, i spend a lot of time in my head just getting to know the characters, but i never know what the story will be or how it ends until i write it.
MVW: Your website calls your books “Contemporary Women’s Fiction.” You and I have been critique partners for years and I’d say B&W is your most literary work to date. Especially because this book was self-published, how difficult is it to settle on a genre when a book straddles two or more?
KO: i try not to think of genre while i'm writing. i do think this is more literary than my others, but i think the biggest difference is that my characters are older. because i'm older. it's about more serious things because i care about more serious things. since i'm the publisher, i don't have to let myself be pigeon-holed or told to write for a specific market.
Tomorrow, I'll post part two of the interview, where we discuss publishing. Keep an eye out!
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