Indies Introduce Interview

James Scott is the author of The Kept, a debut novel about family and retribution, which he hopes will leave readers with a deeper understanding of the characters and empathy for the things they’ve done and had to do.

In his debut title, the memoir Badluck Way: A Year on the Ragged Edge of the West, Bryce Andrews recounts his experience of living and working on a cattle ranch in remote, windswept southwest Montana, where there’s a fragile balance between the tame and the wild.

Cristin Terrill, author of the debut YA novel All Our Yesterdays, believes that it is important for everyone to be able to see themselves and their experiences reflected back at them through art and entertainment, “and that probably goes double for teenagers,” she said.

Katy Butler was inspired to write her debut title, Knocking on Heaven’s Door, after seeing her father suffer through a medically prolonged death, and then seeing her mother defy her doctors, refuse open heart surgery, and face death head-on.

Tone Almhjell’s debut novel for middle-graders is The Twistrose Key. Here, she talks about being inspired by her Norwegian homeland, favorite authors, and more.

Mitchell S. Jackson is the author of the autobiographical novel The Residue Years, about coming of age in a black family in Portland, Oregon, in the ’90s and dealing with issues of poverty, drugs, and race.

Tracy Guzeman talks about the inspiration for her debut  novel, The Gravity of Birds, spine poetry, and more.

“I wanted to write a book that I thought my students would like, one that was structured and formatted in a way that would entice struggling readers, and one that was as true to their lives as I could make it,” says Patrick Flores-Scott, author of the debut Young Adult novel Jumped In.

YA literature is important, said Amy Christine Parker, author of the debut novel Gated, because if it’s done well, “it depicts teens as they really are ... and makes teens feel known in a way that adult books don’t.”

Kenneth Bonert hopes that readers of his debut novel, The Lion Seeker, will become lost in a world that absorbs them — and that afterwards they will want to return to it again to discover more meaning with each rereading.

Graeme Simsion talks about his inspiration for The Rosie Project, what he’s working on now, and more.

Sara Farizan hopes readers will see her debut YA novel, If You Could Be Mine, as both a love story and a story about finding yourself and being true to who you are, even when that seems really terrifying.

Fiona McFarlane offers tips for handselling her debut novel, The Night Guest, and explains how she came to write about a woman who believes there is a tiger in her house every night.

Elizabeth Kiem talks about the inspiration for her debut novel, Dancer, Daughter, Traitor, Spy; her fascination with Russia; the importance of YA fiction; and more.

P.S. Duffy reveals what inspired her to set her debut novel, The Cartographer of No Man's Land, during WWI and the Battle of Vimy Ridge; what she hopes readers will take away from the journeys and internal struggles of Angus MacGrath and his family; and more.