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Summer of 2023 ~~ Author Interview

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Editor’s Note: I started Writer Advice in 1997 because I wanted to learn the stories of other authors, and I needed a place to publish the interviews. Nice to have something in common with Logan Steiner. –B. Lynn Goodwin

Author Secrets

An interview with Logan Steiner, Author of After Anne

Logan Steiner’s After Anne is a fascinating story. Anne came alive in the narrator’s mind, and she filled some holes that existed in reader’s knowledge of her life. While she loved her character, her life was very different from the one she created on paper.

I chose to read about the author, hoping I’d learn more about writing. I discovered how Lucy Maud Montgomery’s writing fed her life and how journaling saved her—until it didn’t. The book didn’t discourage me from journaling though. On the contrary, it encouraged me to continue the practice.

In the interview below she shares informative, practical insights that will make you a better writer.  

BLG: Tell us how you decided to become a writer and did your background in law help you to become a better writer?

LS: I’ve wanted to write novels since I was ten, but the practical side of me dragged my dreamy English-major self to law school right out of college. Litigating is not a “day job,” especially in the early years—it tends to consume nights and weekends—and it took me a while to get back to writing creatively. When I did, I wrote mostly in 20-minute increments, usually at the end of my day after my law work was finished. I also wrote in long chunks on the weekends when I could.

I’ve increasingly taken law jobs that have provided more autonomy over my schedule, and I’ve come to appreciate how much law and novel writing complement one another. My legal career has fine-tuned my editing skills and helped me learn to set and complete goals each day. And writing a novel has helped me stretch into the more creative sides of brief-writing, which is where I now focus in my law practice as a brief-writing specialist and coach at a boutique law firm.

BLG: I’d delighted to find someone else who often writes in short segments. You touch on this in the Author’s Notes, but can you explain where the passion for telling Lucy Maud Montgomery’s story came from? How did you pick this author?

LS: I have always been drawn to learn the life stories of writers whose work means the most to me. I’ve found that the best way to feel less alone in the self-doubt that often accompanies creative work is to learn about the stories of other creators—not only their successes, but also their struggles.

Lucy Maud Montgomery has been a favorite author since I was young. I read her books cover to cover and watched the CBC series so many times with my grandma. Learning about Maud’s life story for the first time late one night in bed, I got chills. I felt like I had to know more.

BLG: Are there things you found in Maud’s journals that didn’t make it into the story? How did you decide what to include?

LS: Absolutely. There is so much that is fascinating in Maud’s journals. Two people in particular stand out who I originally hoped to include in the novel: Maud’s early loves Will Pritchard and Herman Leard. Both impacted Maud deeply, and she returned to memories of Herman Leard in particular throughout her life. But I got feedback from early readers that there were too many peripheral characters in the novel. Both of these men featured in Maud’s life before the part of her story in which I was most interested—what came after Anne and its tremendous, instant success. I decided what to include based on what most helped me understand and explore the after-the-fairy-tale part of Maud’s life.

BLG: The book is not written in chronological sequence. How did you decide what order to present the scenes in?

LS: I structured the novel around the idea of Maud burning papers at the end of her life—as we know she did—and having scenes from those papers replay in her mind. I’ve had a long-time fascination with what stands out at the end of a life, including which days and decisions matter the most. Memories don’t follow a chronological blueprint, and I wanted to show what it would have been like for Maud to reexperience her life out of sequence. So I alternated between scenes from immediately before and after the publication of Anne of Green Gables and scenes from a single weekend in Maud’s life when the novel was on the brink of publication, exploring the relationship between that joy-filled but foreboding weekend and what came after.

BLG: How did the story change as you wrote and edited it?

LS: I love to edit, and this novel has been edited many times. The biggest change was the addition of the birthday weekend scenes based on wonderful advice to interweave a more hopeful and finite storyline from my editor Tessa Woodward.

BLG: What suggestions can you make for those who want to write a story about another author?

LS: For me, it was such a meaningful undertaking that helped me understand my own creative whys at a deeper level. My biggest advice is not to rush the process. Taking on a real life subject—especially a creative life—can be intimidating. For me, it was important to take the time to research thoroughly and then to go through as many drafts as it took to allow Maud to be felt on the page.

BLG: What are some comp titles you used when querying agents?

LS: Loving Frank by Nancy Horan and The Paris Wife by Paula McLain—interestingly, both novels about the wives of male creators, which seem to be more prominent than novelizations of the lives of female creators.

BLG: How much did Maud write about loss and new perspective in her journals? 

LS: Quite a bit. She often delayed in writing about painful experiences until she had time to feel through them, and some of her most painful experiences are missing from her journals. But her journals are nonetheless a poignant account of both her joys and her sorrows, including the perspective she gained over time.

BLG: What else would you like readers to know about the book and about you?

LS: My writing focuses on the creative life, and my deepest hope in doing so is that people read and feel moved to create themselves. From Maud’s story in particular, I hope readers feel how it’s possible to be so well known and so unknown at the same time—to achieve tremendous external success and still feel alone. Her story has driven home for me the importance of creative outlets, as you mention above, and of sharing our deepest selves with our most trusted people, even through the hardest parts of life.

All information about upcoming events is on my website, www.logansteiner.com. I have upcoming events in Denver, Chicago, the Bay Area, Boston, and Prince Edward Island, and I’d love to see readers there. I also write a Substack newsletter called The Creative Sort, which explores the internal sort we go through when deciding whether and what to create—from becoming a parent, to writing a book, to a big work project.

You can find me here: