#4 Cindy

and

#6 Amy

Just a reminder to those of you who are in the Seattle area: you’re welcome to join Helen for her book launch this Wednesday (December 14) at 7 p.m. at The Secret Garden Bookshop.

Whether you come to the launch or not, I hope you’ll support a local author and pick up a copy of the book.

I met Helen just as she was getting ready to give up on her novel, but a few months later, she took her courage in hand and sent it to one more agent.

He offered her representation. He found her a publisher. And now, her book is hot off the presses.

Flyaway is the story of one summer in the life of 15-year-old Stevie Calhoun. When her mom disappears for several days, her annoying Aunt Mindy insists that Stevie come stay with her. She also insists on a tutor and chores and other conventional things that Stevie’s mom never gave a rat’s hind end for. And Stevie doesn’t care about them, either.

She just wants her mom back. But her mom’s been hanging out with Drake, and Drake gives Stevie the creeps. Then she learns why – he’s a meth-dealer – and her stay at Aunt Mindy’s just got a whole lot longer.

She kills the time working at an urban bird rehab center and daydreaming about the house she and her mom are going to get just as soon as Mom gets out of rehab.

But nothing this particular summer is going according to plan.

Flyaway deals with some pretty gritty issues, and though it’s hard, even heartbreaking, it’s ultimately hopeful.

But enough about what I think about it. Let’s hear from Helen.

*****

KCI: Where did the inspiration for this novel come from?

HL: There were a couple of inspirations for this novel. The first was a conversation I had with a teen-and-family therapist long before I started writing the book. He remarked to me that he’d seen many cases where kids who had been neglected, abandoned, and even abused remained fiercely loyal to their parents and made excuses for their behavior. His comment really stuck with me, and that kind of unconditional loyalty to a parent became the core of Stevie’s character.

The second inspiration came from seeing my next-door neighbor, a single woman in her forties, take in her teenaged niece. When I asked my neighbor why her niece had come to live with her, she said, “My sister can’t take care of her any more.” I didn’t delve further, but I began to play “what if?”, imagining what situations might require a mom to give up her child to her sister. The combination of these two inspirations were the seed for the main plot of Flyaway.

KCI: Stevie has such a strong clear voice, and yet her character changes a great deal from beginning to end. How did you capture her voice? And how did you maintain its integrity through the whole book, especially through her character’s growth?

HL: Right from the beginning, Stevie spoke to me. I heard her voice in my head as I wrote, to the point that sometimes I felt as if I were taking dictation. In my first drafts, Stevie’s voice was very direct: she told the reader exactly what she was feeling and what was happening.

It was my agent who encouraged me to make her more of an unreliable narrator, to have her hide her vulnerability at the beginning of the book and reveal it bit by bit as she learned and grew. He also guided me in showing Aunt Mindy through Stevie’s eyes and trusting that the reader would be able to see beyond Stevie’s resentment and recognize the love and caring that Aunt Mindy was offering her niece.

KCI: My favorite part of the book is the subplot in which Stevie learns to care for injured birds. What prompted you to include that as part of your story?

HL: One day, shortly after I had started writing the novel, I was walking along and saw a baby bird that had fallen from its nest. It looked so vulnerable and helpless that I was immediately struck by the parallel between the bird’s situation and Stevie’s. I knew right away that bird rescue would have to be an element in my book.

KCI: I watched you revise this book several times. Can you tell us how the final version is different from your original vision for the book?

HL: I revised this novel (which, by the way, was originally titled Broken Wings), six times before I submitted it to an agent. Then I did two major revisions with my agent and a lighter one with my editor. So all in all, the book has been revised nine times!

Many things about the book are different from my original vision. I had initially visualized Alan as a much more damaged character, a young man with fetal alcohol syndrome. Stevie’s drug-using friend, Tonya, was originally an upper-class girl named Darla, and The Professor wasn’t part of the story.

KCI: How is the story the same one you envisioned when you first started writing it?

HL: Through all the revisions, the core of the book has remained the same. It has always been about Stevie’s struggle to reconcile her idealized vision of her mom with the reality of who her mom is – and isn’t – and to recognize the real sources of love in her life.

KCI: Last but never least, in the movie version of your book, who plays Stevie and why? Any other characters you’d like to cast?

HL: For the movie version of Flyaway (wouldn’t that be cool!), I’d cast Ellen Page, the actress who starred in “Juno,” as Stevie. She projects that dry, sarcastic sense of humor that is part of who Stevie is, and I think she could pull off the vulnerability-masked-by-hardness that the character demands.

I’m not sure about the other characters, but I definitely see Rick as a young Denzel Washington!

 ****

Flyaway‘s launch party is next Wednesday (at 7 p.m. at The Secret Garden, if any Seattle readers want to come). In honor of the occasion, I’m hosting a book giveaway – of two books. Just leave a comment by Sunday at midnight, and my random number generators (aka Jack and Jane) will each choose a lucky reader. I’ll announce the winners on Monday.

But you want to know what I’m most in awe of? His acknowledgments page. It reads like a who’s who of Christian writers: Robert Clark, John Wilson, Luci Shaw, Walter Wangerin, Jr., Eugene Peterson, Gina Oschner, among others. And he calls Sara Zarr, one of my favorite YA novelists, his “sister.” Anyone else turning green?

So, with all these awesome connections, what’s he doing moonlighting on yours truly’s blog? Well, dear readers, I asked him to.

Okay, so it’s a little more complicated than that. One of his editors, who has become a good acquaintance of mine over the past nine months, offered to put me in touch with him. Jeffrey lives near Seattle, so back in December I emailed him and asked if he’d meet me for coffee. He very kindly said yes. And when his new book came out last month I asked him if he’d do a blog interview with me. Again, he very kindly said yes.

So, clearly, in addition to being a great writer, he’s also a really nice guy. But enough from me. Let’s hear from him.

KCI: The focus of the first book in the series, Auralia’s Colors, is on the colorless kingdom of Abascar. Where did the idea for this drab country come from?

JO: Blame it on Montana. Anne and I were hiking near Flathead Lake, during the summer of 1996. We were talking about our mutual love of fairy tales. Anne asked, “Why is it that so many people reach an age when they’re finished with make-believe? It seems like most people just stop being creative and imaginative. They fold up their imaginations and put them in a closet.”

That triggered a “What if?” moment for me. What if a whole society folded up their colorful and creative work and put it away? I imagined a colorless city set in the middle of this beautiful landscape.

A few moments later, I was imagining a character—a young artist—who would come out of the forest and bring a gift of forbidden color to that place. That character became Auralia.

KCI: In the second book, Cyndere’s Midnight, you turn your attention more toward the fallen kingdom of the Cent Regus. What inspired your vision of the beastmen?

JO: When I wrote Auralia’s Colors, I became curious about the beastly creatures lurking in the forest where she lived. I wanted to know where these monsters came from.

Ever since I was old enough to read Where the Wild Things Are or fairy tales like “Beauty and the Beast,” I’ve been interested in monsters. As a kid, I loved the movie Gremlins. But I was quite interested in the idea of a monster with a soul. Like Gollum, Darth Vader, or the Replicants in Blade Runner.

Perhaps that comes from reading Bible stories about monstrous men who are considered “heroes of faith.” Re-reading the Old Testament lately, I’ve been amazed at the depravity—the violence, the sexual misbehavior, the dishonesty—of the men I used to admire in my Sunday school lessons. There are important matters to discuss and explore when we realize that God is in the business of guiding and working through monsters like them… and like me.

KCI: Throughout both books, color—and thus beauty—is central to the ongoing transformation of individuals and, sometimes, whole groups of people. Why is this?

JO: I believe that our minds are like musical instruments all out of tune, or glass that’s blurry. When we encounter beauty—either in nature or in art—our minds are “tuned” again, to some extent. Things are out of balance there, and we don’t even realize it, but art helps repair that damage. It polishes our lenses, so to speak. That’s why a walk along Richmond Beach near my house, or listening to good music, can raise my spirits after a difficult day at work. Poetry sharpens my senses and my intellect.

I’ve read so many fantasy stories that were primarily about religion or political oppression or sex. I’d never read a fantasy series that was about the revelatory and dangerous power of art before, and the idea inspired me.

KCI: Would you give my blog readers a little teaser trailer for Raven’s Ladder?

JO: Wow. I’ve never been asked to do this before. Sounds like fun.

Okay, first…

Imagine whatever studio logo you’d like, and then the music starts.

Arrows! Someone is hunting Cal-raven, the new king of the survivors of House Abascar, through the caves where they have endured a hard winter. He and his hunting dog, Hagah, run for their lives. Then, he’s outside looking for a place to hide among the wild brambles. It’s midnight.

Suddenly, two enormous spider-like creatures appear on either side of him, and they pounce!

Bring up the title credit: Raven’s Ladder!

We see Cal-raven, tied up and bloodied in the back of a wagon, being hauled away by mercenaries.

We descend into the earth, where we join some of the Abascar survivors who are laboring as slaves to the beastmen. The ale boy has found them there, and he’s trying to revive their hopes by telling them the story of Auralia’s colors. To demonstrate her revelation, he lights himself on fire and the cave fills with light.

We fly to House Bel Amica, a city built on a rock above the ocean. We see Cal-raven climbing out the window of his room in a moonlit Bel Amican tower at night. He steps onto the top of a ladder the he finds there, and then he pushes off, riding the top of the ladder across the avenue far below… until he crashes against the wall of another tower. There, he takes hold of the stones and begins to climb toward somebody’s window.

We see Cyndere, daughter of the queen of House Bel Amica, standing very close to Cal-raven in an empty outdoor marketplace at night, far above the stormy waters of the Rushtide Inlet. It looks like it may be a romantic moment.

Then, in a rush of images:

The Keeper spreads its wings and descends into an abyss, fire flowing from its jaws.

Cal-raven sealing himself inside the hollow of a stone statue sculpted to look like his father.

A parade of glowing phantoms—Northchildren—sneaking through the forest.

One of the devious Seers plants the Queen of Bel Amica’s face in a pan of bubbling lotion, and then pulls her out. The potion has made her seem younger than her own daughter! (Cut to a shot of Cyndere looking disgusted with her mother.)

We see Jordam the beastman charging alone against a troop of spear-wielding beastmen in red armor.

We see Cal-raven, surrounded by noisy ravens, climbing up the incline of a leaning tree. The camera pulls back to reveal that the tree is so massive, Cal-raven’s as small as an ant climbing up its bark.

We see a massive, serpentine tentacle come up out of the water of a harbor and smash in the hull of a ship. Then we see the ship leaning, burning, sinking.

Finally, we see Cal-raven standing on a high place and looking northward through a large, round, blurry pane of glass, and suddenly the swirling light of Auralia’s colors flowers into the air all around him.

And then we see a young girl holding two glass discs up to her eyes, which enlarge them to cartoonish proportions, and she laughs mischievously.

Boom! The title Raven’s Ladder appears.

And then a message appears: “Visit LookingCloser.org for more details.”

How’s that?

KCI: Awesome. Now we just need some cinematic music with an ever-increasing drumbeat, ending with a cymbal crash.

Your writing is lyrical and lush, and you weave together many different story strands in each novel. What writers do you read to keep your own well of creativity full?

JO: In the last couple of years, I’ve been so busy working at the day-job and writing in the evenings, I’ve had very little time to read.

I do, however, find Patricia McKillip to be a very inspiring fantasy writer. Her novels The Book of Atrix Wolfe and Alphabet of Thorn are some of the best fantasy books I’ve read in the last 20 years. I also love the style of Guy Gavriel Kay’s complicated fantasy novels, which are a lot like historical tapestries. Mervyn Peake should be as famous as any fantasy author; his Gormenghast stories are pure joy to read, especially to read aloud.

But mostly I’m inspired by non-fiction. I think the nonfiction written by Annie Dillard, Madeleine L’Engle, Eugene Peterson, Philip Yancey, and Thomas Merton has had as much influence on The Auralia Thread as any other text. In fact, the meaning of the name of Cal-raven’s dog comes from Eugene Peterson’s Eat This Book.

KCI: Hagah. That’s Hebrew for “meditate,” though Peterson points out that it also can also mean to “growl” or “chew” or “worry” as in a dog worrying a bone. Clever. (And aren’t I clever, too, for knowing all that? No, don’t answer that.)

Finally, if the series were to be turned into a cadre of movies, who would play the title role of each?

JO: I just hosted a book giveaway on my Facebook page where I asked people that same question. I saw some great ideas there. It’s hard to decide. I really don’t know who should play Cal-raven; he’d have to look about 22 years old.

I think Benicio Del Toro could make a great Jordam. It would take some amazing makeup, but he did that for The Wolfman.

Somebody suggested either Embeth Davidtz or Rosamund Pike for Jaralaine, and those are both brilliant.

I’d pick Summer Glau to play Cyndere, and I’d love to see the rock singer Annie Clark (better known as St. Vincent) play Emeriene. The young actor from The Road would make an excellent ale boy.

I haven’t come up with a better actor for Scharr ben Fray than Derek Jacobi, but I’m still pondering.

Well, friends, as you can see, the man is smart, creative, and savvy. He’s also written a beautiful trio of books (the last one comes out next year). If you’d like a copy of Raven’s Ladder, just leave a comment. Jack the random number generator will choose a number and if he picks yours, you get a free book! I’ll be out of town and completely offline by the time you read this, so Jack will choose his number when we return at the end of the month and I’ll let you know then who the lucky winner is.

The book is Lost Mission by Athol Dickson, which weaves together the story of the 18th century founding of a Spanish mission in what is now southern California with the lives of half a dozen people living on or near the decimated mission site in the early 21st century. Their stories intertwine, and the past both haunts and redeems the present.

The book sometimes reads like high literature, lovely in its prose. Other times it reads like a Michael Crichton novel, fast-paced and suspenseful. I suppose this juxtaposition could be jarring, but I mostly just found it fascinating the way Dickson wove together not just elements of the different stories he was telling but also aspects of multiple genres to be able to tell those stories: mystery, suspense, devotional literature, historical fiction, literary fiction.

And I was impressed with Mr. Dickson’s courage in telling this story. The heroine is a devout Christian – and an illegal immigrant from Mexico who sneaks across the border to preach the gospel to the lost souls living in America. Several of the other characters are illegals as well. Given the right-leaning politics of the target audience for this book (it was published by Howard, a Christian book imprint of Simon and Schuster), I expect Mr. Dickson will get some flack for his compassionate portrayal of illegal immigrants and his indicting portrayal of moneyed Southern Californian Christians. Having said that, I fear you will think the book’s characters are simply loved-by-liberals stereotypes. They’re not. They’re flesh-and-blood people with gifts and strengths and some crazy-scary blind spots.

Have I piqued your interest? If so, all you need to do to enter to win a copy of Lost Mission is leave a comment on this post. On Christmas Eve, I’ll have Jack-the-random-number-generator choose a number between one and however many comments there are, and I’ll announce his choice on my blog on Christmas Day.

One of you will get an extra present for Christmas! Woot!

*****

Taproot Theatre Blogathon Update: Thanks to the generosity of Adam Bailey, Scott Cummins, and Tiffany Werner, each comment will raise $4 for Taproot’s reconstruction efforts after the fire. We need 18 more comments to reach our goal, so if you haven’t yet, please go leave a comment on the blogathon post.

Most of you go to Bethany, and I will give you your books next time I see you. For the rest of you, here’s what I need:

Sarah Webber: nothing. My bibliophilic friend, your book is already in the mail.

Susan Forshey: ditto. While your copy is not yet in the mail, I hope to have it there by the end of the day.

Kim Hagler: I’ll drop your copy off in the UEFC office. You can pick it up next time you’re there.

Jennifer Perrow: please send me an email (k at kimberleeconwayireton dot net) with your mailing address, so I can mail it to you. Or let me know when and where to meet you for coffee, and I’ll bring it with me!

Margaret Feinberg was just visiting; she already has a copy of Rest, so she’s paying her copy forward to… Anyone? If you want it, just let me know!

(By the way, friends, Margaret is the author of The Organic God and one of the “40 Under 40″ most influential players in Christian publishing. And she visited my blog! She was at Bethany on Sunday, visiting her aunt, who is our church organist, and heard me preach. Then she was kind enough to come introduce herself. It’s delightful to meet well-known writers who are down to earth and approachable. I’m not sure why I expect them to be otherwise, but I do, so I was especially gratified by Margaret’s thoughtfulness on Sunday.)

Thanks so much to all of you who stopped by: it was so fun to see your comments pile up! Now go enjoy some Rest.

Now, I am highly J on the Myers-Briggs. I do NOT like lots of options. Just tell me what to do, and I’ll do it. If you tell me how to do it, that’s even better. Telling me to preach on Sabbath is like giving me a 500-page menu and expecting me to order dinner – for 300 other people. Aaaaaaack!

Luckily, I’ve known about this sermon since July, so I had plenty of time to read good books about Sabbath and still write a sermon that covered a hair’s breadth of the subject. And since my sermon truly will only scratch the surface of Sabbath, I feel it incumbent upon me to point people to other resources. Here, then, are some very good books on Sabbath:

Sabbath Keeping: Finding Freedom in the Rhythms of Rest by Lynne M. Baab. Lynne is a friend of mine and my writing mentor. She writes clear, lucid prose, and hers is the most practical Sabbath book I’ve read.

Sabbath: Finding Rest, Renewal, and Delight in Our Busy Lives by Wayne Muller. This book is written in the slow, restful pace of Sabbath, which is part of its appeal. It has short chapters and lovely Sabbath keeping ideas at the end of each chapter.

Rest: Living in Sabbath Simplicity by Keri Wyatt Kent. Keri spoke at a retreat here in the Northwest last May and gave up her Saturday afternoon to hang out with me, tell me bits of her story, and give me some fabulous writerly advice. She’s lived Sabbath keeping with little kids and now she’s navigating it with teenagers, so her book is especially helpful for parents.

As part of the Adult Christian Education (ACE) team at my church, I get to plan events like our upcoming weekend with Jerry Sittser. We’re trying to build grassroots support for Keri Wyatt Kent right now, so we can have a good turnout when we bring her to Seattle to speak for a weekend. As part of that effort, I have 10 copies of Rest to give away to 10 lucky blog readers. (I figure most of you go to Bethany anyway. But even if you don’t, you’re welcome to enter.)

All you have to do to enter is comment on this post. The first five commenters will get a copy. After that, I’ll have my random number generator (his name is Jack) choose five numbers between six and however many people comment.

Jack will choose the winner next Thursday evening, so be sure you comment before 6 p.m. on October 22. I’ll announce the winners in next Friday’s blog, so check back for instructions on how to claim your book.

Lucky for me, I didn’t have to slog through The Girl in the Orange Dress, Margot Starbuck’s debut memoir. Easily one of the best books I’ve read so far this summer, I ate it up in just a few days–and I wasn’t even on vacation.

Funny, self-mocking, self-aware, poignant, and painful, The Girl in the Orange Dress chronicles Margot’s sense of being abandoned and rejected by the men in her life—her biological father who gave her up for adoption, her adoptive father who divorced her adoptive mother and moved away, her new stepfather, and then her biological father again when he refused to meet with her—and by God the Father, whom she suspected was more like her earthly fathers than she would like. For all the pain of Margot’s story, though, it is ultimately a story of hope and healing, as she searches for—and finds—a father who will not fail.

Margot is a Facebook friend of mine and fellow Likewise author (the imprint under which our books are published), which is how I got lucky enough to interview her. That, and she’s super nice.

***

KCI: The story you tell is often heartbreaking, but somehow you manage to keep it from overwhelming the reader. Partly this is because of your sense of humor—you’re often laughing at yourself, even in the darkest moments. How did you manage to find humor in so much trauma?

MS: Good question. During some the events I describe in the book—such as unrequited love, and alternative fashion choices—I was able to stand outside of myself, at the time, and realize that what was happening was a little funny. It was only in looking back a decade or so later that I was able to recognize the thread of struggle or loss or redemption inherent in the event which was truly meaningful. Other moments and seasons, such as living under the weight of depression, were anything but humorous. I think I narrated these with some humor in the book because they would be so heavy to slog through as a reader.

I had no idea that I used humor in communicating until just two years ago, when a man in an audience to which I was speaking mentioned it to me afterwards. “Hmmm,” I thought, “I guess he’s right.” Weirdly, my birthmother has a good sense of humor, too. I’m unclear whether these things are transmitted genetically, but I suspect that if I keep up with my subscription to Reader’s Digest I’ll run across a cover story on just this thing one day.

KCI: When did you start thinking about writing this memoir? How long till you actually started working on it? What (if anything) was the catalyst?

MS: I think I’ve always had it in my heart. Although it was my agent and his wife, Greg and Becky Johnson at Wordserve Literary, who suggested that I write a spiritual memoir two years ago, some part of me knew that it was coming.

Some folks have wondered how memoirists can even remember conversations they had which transpired decades ago. Though I can’t speak for the lot of us, I’ve always been a chronicler. The first chapter of The Girl in the Orange Dress includes my first memoir, at age seven. Who even keeps that stuff? Chroniclers do. At ages nine and ten I was keeping elaborate written records for the Spicy Business club with my girlfriends. In high school I was writing down the weekend mall and parking lot adventures of my group of friends. Later, prayer journals and other diaries quickened my memory of some of the harder periods I’d rather forget.

So when Greg and Becky suggested a memoir, there was no question that it was the right project. On top of the crates of journals and assorted club handbooks, I also had some essays and reflections I’d written for myself in the midst of some of the struggles I describe in the book. As a result, the gathering and ironing happened in just four or five months.

KCI: What was the hardest part of your story to write? Why?

MS: Hmmmm, another good one. I think the most difficult parts were the ones in which I felt I was exposing my parents, both the ones with whom I remain close and also the ones with whom I’m no longer, or never have been, in relationship. This goes for a few other folks in the book as well. I had no interest in hurting anyone, but of course I was very interested in telling a story which was true. So, to tell the truth, in love, was the hardest part.

I was delighted when the reactions of a few of the people closest to me were, “Phew! It could have been worse.” That let me know that although I’d told the truth, I’d also preserved their dignity and reserved the most intimate parts of their stories.

KCI: What was the most fun part?

MS: The most fun part was giving voice to some of the stories I’ve loved telling over the years. I’m thinking particularly of the stories of goofy crushes. Although I changed a lot of people’s names in the book to pseudonyms, wanting to preserve their privacy, one of the names I chose to keep was the guy in college whom I fell in love with at first sight: B-O-B. After behaving like such a dork, I was able to track him down after twenty years and tell him the story from my weird little perspective and ask for his permission to use his name. Being able to act adultish in that exchange felt particularly gratifying.

KCI: Writing is often a process of discovery. Were there any memories or interpretations of past events that took you by surprise when you were writing your story?

MS: Because I’d decided, in my deepest places, that I wasn’t worth loving, a lot of love through the years which had fallen on the rocky soil of my heart had not taken root. The process of returning to those places, sweeping up that scattered love, and receiving it once again felt like a particular privilege.

It was just amazing to recognize how impenetrable my defenses had been as a girl and young woman. We defend ourselves against being hurt, and some of those strategies are just brilliant. I don’t think, in the book, that I mentioned I was a collector of shiny rubber superballs that kids get from vending machines and birthday party goodie bags. At one point my collection exceeded one thousand little spheres. What a perfectly appropriate representation of the shiny rubber façade I’d chosen to protect myself from life’s sharp edges. Other folks choose other defenses, but mine was acting shiny, happy, and resilient. It worked for me. And, of course, eventually it didn’t.

KCI: Your book focuses on your life as the search for a father, for reasons that you make pretty obvious. Did you ever think of writing your life through a different lens? What would that have been?

MS: Actually, the book we’d proposed to InterVarsity Press had been subtitled, “Searching for a Face Which Does Not Fail,” rather than father. When IVP suggested tailoring the story to deal with fatherhood, it was clearly not a stretch. It made a lot of sense, both theologically and personally, so I agreed.

I think each one of us has been born to experience a face which satisfies. We search for it from our earliest moments. The fact is, though, that human faces fail. They just do. We just do. We’re not able to be fully present to others in the ways that human hearts yearn to be seen, and heard, and known. As a mother, now, I wish it were otherwise. The best I can do is to point my own children toward the Face which is able to satisfy their deepest longings.

KCI: And most important, of course: in the movie version of your life, who plays you? Why?

MS: Ooh, this one’s fun! My kiddos are fans of the Disney Channel, so I could easily imagine smiley Miley Cyrus playing the teenage me. They don’t allow too much pain on the Disney Channel, and that’s a lot like the world I’d created for myself in childhood.

Maybe they’d find an unknown actress for adult me. I don’t think I would have concocted the spiritual memoir idea without the partnership of my agent, because in my mind I would have reserved memoir for folks who were already public figures. Apparently, that’s called “autobiography.” The thing that is causing TGITOD to resonate with readers isn’t that my story is particularly unique. Rather, I think readers are hearing chords of their own stories articulated in a way that makes sense to them. So I’d be fine with an as-yet unknown actress because I think the story itself works without the famous figure.

KCI: Any last words?

MS: I’d love to hear from anyone who’s reading the book!

KCI: If you’d like to get in touch with Margot, just click on the contact page of her website: margotstarbuck.com.

***

And as a final perk…
I’ve got a free copy of The Girl in the Orange Dress to give away to a lucky reader. All you have to do is respond to this blog by Thursday.

(“Pick me, pick me!” would be appropriate if you can’t think of anything else to say. “Kimberlee rocks” would work, too.)

On Thursday night, I’ll take the number of responses and use a random number generator (that would be either my husband or my son) to choose the lucky winner, whose name I’ll announce in Friday’s blog, along with instructions for how to collect your free book.