I’m interviewed today at Independent Publisher magazine, the people who gave me my IPPY gold medal. This is the first interview where I was asked more detailed questions about how autobiographical the psychosomatic disorder aspect of Swallow was, and so I talked a bit about that. It’s funny because when the writer, Nina L. Diamond, was asking me questions about my own experiences with the disorder and how closely they paralleled Sophie’s experiences with it, I really had to think back. I think when you really get into a novel and you start creating your own characters and filling out the details of their lives and creating situations for them that will increase the conflict and the dramatic tension of the novel and will lead to a fuller arc for both the characters and the overall plot, then you really distance yourself from what actually happened. And then, when asked, you have trouble remembering what actually happened! So, I kind of stuttered a bit on that.
Also in the same issue, Diamond interviews the writer known as Evil Wylie (and also Emperor Franzen). Fun to be in the same issue as he!
