“This story that existed on my laptop that I typed on in my pajamas in my cabin in the North Georgia mountains a few years ago is suddenly a Proper Thing with folks making decisions about wardrobe and hair and emotions and perspective. . .” ~~Karin Slaughter
Karin Slaughter’s Pieces of Her on Netflix
I just watched the trailer for the first episode of Karin Slaughter’s Pieces of Her, which is now a series on Netflix. Andrea Oliver thinks she knows everything about her mother, a small town suburban single parent who makes her living as a speech therapist. One day, though, Andrea’s threatened and her mother leaps into action, showing an unrecognizable side of herself. Who is she and where did she get the skills needed to kill a male predator half her age
A hero to her community, she’s shot within 24 hours and lands in the hospital. Who is she? Why would someone attack her? And why does she tell her daughter to run without calling or texting anyone, including her step-father?
In the book the story is revealed in flashbacks mixed with current time scenes. It lends itself well to a series. Based on the trailer, I know I’ll love the story, and I’m eager to see how they combine past and present.
In the Q&A below, Karin Slaughter answers some questions about having her book turned in to a movie.
What was it like to find out that Toni Collette and Bella Heathcote were playing the leading roles in PIECES OF HER? Did they match your vision of the characters when you wrote the book?
KS: I was super excited and of course had to go back and watch Muriel’s Wedding and Unbelievable again for a Toni-appreciation night, then I had to re-watch the Man in the High Castle because Bella completely transformed herself in the Nicole Dormer role (as compared to her character in Strange Angel) and I wanted to see if I could figure out how she did it. As for what’s in my head when I write the characters, it’s hard to describe because I don’t really “cast” the person beyond a basic body type or height or whatever specific characteristic.
We heard that you have a cameo in the show. Do you know in which episode you cameo?
KS: Yes! I’ve been told I am in episode four, but I haven’t seen it. We were in downtown Atlanta in an area called Underground near Georgia State University (go Panthers!) and it was around 100 degrees that day. Everyone was very nice and I was terrified I would do something wrong and make them have to go again. I was supposed to carry a purse, and fortunately I had a friend with me to show me how because I’ve never carried one before. Everything is a learning experience!
What was it like being on set during the filming of PIECES OF HER?
KS: Surreal was the word that constantly came to mind. This story that existed on my laptop that I typed on in my pajamas in my cabin in the North Georgia mountains a few years ago is suddenly a Proper Thing with folks making decisions about wardrobe and hair and emotions and perspective, and then there were all the folks behind the scenes—hundreds of them—who make the magic happen and I couldn’t help thinking that it was one of the strangest things I had ever been a part of. What I have always felt from the beginning is that my book is my book and what appears on screen is not really an adaptation so much as an interpretation, because the writers, producers, the director and the actors are themselves creative people who bring their own experiences and ideas to the project, and that’s been lovely to see come together. They are amazingly talented people who really captured the tone and cadence of the story in a remarkable way.
We heard that a pilot episode has been ordered for your Grant County/Will Trent books. Can you tell us what you know about that?
KS: Probably as much as you do! The pilot script captures the shock of sudden violence alongside the sense of humor from the books. What I wanted most of all was for the stories to stay character-driven, and from what I’ve seen so far, the writers have managed to capture everything that my readers love about the stories. I’m very excited to see how it plays out.
You can see trailers for the episodes on Netflix and you don’t need a membership to take a look at the first two trailers. You can learn more about prolific author Karin Slaughter on her website.
Throw Away A Lot of Words
An interview with Louise Fein by B. Lynn Goodwin
Is everyone created equal? We aren’t all equally gifted or skilled, but many people believe we’re all here for a reason and no one should be treated as an inferior. Louise Fein explores equal rights, medical misunderstandings, and a host of other issues in her second novel, The Hidden Child.
In England during the 1920’s Edward and Eleanor Hamilton lead a charmed life until their beautiful four-year-old girl, Mabel, develops chronic seizures. Her husband, Edward, is a leading light in the burgeoning Eugenics movement, which is designing the very ideas that will soon be embraced by Hitler.
When Mabel’s health deteriorates and Eleanor discovers Edward has been keeping secrets about his past, Eleanor takes matters into her own hands in an attempt to save her daughter from doctors who have no idea how to care for her. Will her daughter and her marriage survive?
In her well-written and carefully researched novel, author Louise Fein explores treatment for epilepsy, righteousness, dishonesty, and its costs. The Q&A below gives insights into her thoughts and her writing processes.
BLG: What career did you have before you became a full-time writer and what convinced you to make the switch?
LF: I have actually switched careers a few times! I began my working life as a litigation lawyer, then moved into banking and finance, where I specialized in commodities and risk. I always dreamed of writing, but never saw this as a possible way to earn a living. It was a hobby I did in my spare time.
When my youngest daughter turned two, she developed a rare and serious seizure disorder. I actually carried on working part time on a consultancy basis for a while longer, but it was when the seizures finally came under control and she began to improve that I realised I needed to be around more for her, to aid her slow, step by step recovery.
It felt a wrench to give up work entirely, and so when I saw an advertisement for a new MA programme at St. Mary’s University in London, specializing in writing your first novel, I didn’t need convincing. It was on that course that I began writing what was to become my debut novel, Daughter of the Reich.
BLG: You’ve picked a unique angle for this story. What prompted you to write about these issues in this setting and era?
LF: The inspiration for my story is partly my own experiences of having a daughter with epilepsy and seeing first-hand how there are still many taboos surrounding the condition. My daughter is now a young teenager, seizure free, and is doing extremely well. Had she been born one hundred years earlier, however, her treatment and outcomes would have been very different.
It was clear to me how there are still undercurrents circulating now of the attitudes pertaining then, and I wanted to expose these. I also felt that this history has been rather shameful in both the UK and the US and for that reason little talked of. When I was researching for my debut novel, which is set in 1930’s Germany, I was rather shocked to discover that many of the Nazi attitudes towards race and ability are routed in the ideas and widely held beliefs, namely eugenics, which originated in the UK and the US in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.
The other reason I picked the 1920’s, leading up to the financial crash of 1929, is that it was a period of great social upheaval. The 1920’s are often portrayed as being a fun and exciting time after the great war, with jazz clubs and dancing and frivolity, but this was only a small part of the picture. There was also significant unrest in the UK due to economic decline and unemployment; in Western nations there were tensions with the changing role of women and political upheaval everywhere with fear of the rise of both communism and fascism.
Democracy was under threat and people of influence were looking for people to blame (the working classes and other races) and easy solutions (ways to get rid of the aforementioned!). It is a fascinating period to study and to set a story, with some resounding echoes of today’s world we should take care to heed.
BLG: Your characters are all complex and realistic. What tips do you have for writing believable characters?
LF: I think it takes time and several drafts to get to know your characters. My first drafts are always very messy and I would never show them to anyone! But they are essentially only intended to learn about my characters and to find their story. I have lots of false starts, go down some blind alleys, and my characters always surprise me. I throw away a lot of words!
Slowly, over the course of at least the first two or three drafts of the book, they begin to come to life. Some come easier than others, but I think you have to let them emerge rather than force them to. So, I suppose my main tip is, don’t be afraid to write something that isn’t perfect – perfection comes with rewrites and edits.
BLG: Was there a time when you got stuck as you wrote, and if so, how did you get out of it?
LF: In a little bit of an echo of the above, there are plenty of times when I feel things aren’t working in a book, but I try to push through and leave the ‘stuck’ part, knowing I can come back and fix it later. My first drafts are full of notes like, ‘something needs to happen here’, or ‘why is she behaving like that?’ or perhaps a little bit of backstory for a character which won’t end up in the book but is important to know why that person is as they are.
When writing The Hidden Child, I tried to have Mabel as a character in the book, but I simply couldn’t get her voice to work. So I scrapped her and instead, suddenly out of nowhere, the voice of epilepsy arrived and I thought, well let’s try that instead. I had no idea whether it would work, but sometimes you just have to try things. They can always be taken out. As I said, I throw away a lot of words!
BLG: How different is the published novel from your original draft?
LF: The nub of the story never really changes from my original idea, but in terms of the words on the pages of the final book vis a vis the original draft? I’d say, very different indeed!
BLG: You’ve written two excellent historical novels. Any idea why you prefer writing historical fiction rather than contemporary novels?
LF: I’m not sure I prefer writing historical fiction. It just so happens that my debut novel was historical and then the expectation is rather that you continue writing historical fiction!
That said, I love history and researching, so the combination works very well for me. I would say that my books are quite theme based, so I often start with a theme and then consider a suitable setting and era. So far this has been twentieth century. I am also always looking at themes and eras which have relevance and resonance for today’s world. I personally love reading books which make me think and take me to times and places I don’t know so much about, so I suppose that is also what I seek in my writing.
BLG: How did you find your agent? Any tips for writing a query that works?
LF: When I started writing, I knew nobody in the industry and so was a complete novice. Looking at the statistics of how many submissions agents receive and how many they actually take on made it feel like an impossible barrier to the publishing world. However, what I didn’t take into account in the early days of rejections (yes, I had several!) was that agents and publishers are always looking for great stories and well written books. I made submissions, got rejections, so went back to the manuscript, got editorial input, rewrote and rewrote.
My agent found me in her slush-pile. The day after she received my submission she wrote and told me how much she was enjoying reading my work. I loved her enthusiasm for it and so it was not a difficult decision to go with her. Things go very slowly in the publishing world, and much patience is required. But then other times things go very fast indeed and that is exciting!
My tips for queries are, once your book is polished to the very best condition it can be (never send out your first draft), keep your query letter straightforward and professional. Keep your synopsis to one page and do your research on agents before submitting. Target agents who are actively seeking new work and looking for the type of book you have written. A scattergun approach is unlikely to be successful. Follow agents on Twitter, they often do shout-outs for what they are looking for.
BLG: What have you learned about marketing literature as you’ve sold your books?
LF: It has been quite a steep learning curve about marketing and PR and what works and what doesn’t! As a traditionally published author, this side of things is usually handled by the publisher. However, I have a social media presence on all the main platforms, mainly to connect with other authors, readers, bloggers and industry people. This is not so much to ‘market’ my own work, but to share my love of books I’ve read, to deliver news and to be a part of what is a fantastic author community on-line.
I have found other authors to be tremendously supportive and have made some fantastic friends through being on book-related social media. It has also been one of the best things about being an author to have readers find me and send me messages about how much they have enjoyed reading my books. It was something I never expected and has been a pure joy.
BLG: What are you working on now and where can people find out ore about you?
LF: I have just sent my third novel to my agent, so waiting with bated breath to hear what she thinks of it! The book is set mainly in the early 1960’s, again a time of change, but has a thread going back to the 1940’s.
It is really a book about women, society’s unspoken expectations of what young women, older women and women in between should be, and what happens when they don’t comply! Hopefully more news on this soon. I have a website: https://www.louisefein.com and can be found on Twitter: https://twitter.com/FeinLouise, Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/louisefeinauthor and Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/louisefeinauthor/
“I was a writer at 12 years old when my parents bought me a Smith Corona typewriter and I wrote my first story.” ~~Sheryl J. Bize-Boutte
- BETRAYAL ON THE BAYOU
- Written by Sheryl J. Bize-Boutte and Reviewed by B. Lynn Goodwin
- ISBN #: 979-8642089934
- Independently published (June 3, 2020)
Let It All Out
Sheryl J. Bize-Boutte’s Betrayal on the Bayou is a fascinating novel that delves into some heartbreaking issues around race, justice, and the noir code in the fictitious Louisiana town of Tassin.
In the midst of the Louisiana Bayou in the 1800s, there was a three-tiered culture: slaves, free people of color, and whites. When a young, white widower from Paris arrives with his daughter he marries a Tassin woman, who has money and power, and then takes a Creole lover. After a while he builds his lover, Margot, a house identical to his wife, Marie’s, and sets them side by side. He encourages feuds, discord, and his personal superiority. As the story unfolds we learn about the injustices a white man could perpetrate without consequences in the 1800s. Readers will be left wondering how much has changed today in this fast-paced debut novel.
Bize-Boutte is an award-winning writer, poet, and Pushcart Nominee. In this interview she talks about her experiences.
BLG: Tell us when you knew you were a writer. Who encouraged you to tell your stories?
SJBB: I am from a family of storytellers and voracious readers, so writing was a natural addition to that portfolio. I knew I was a writer at 12 years old when my parents bought me a Smith Corona typewriter and I wrote my first story. I had imagined stories before then and wrote a few things down in pencil, but my passion was not solidified and off to the races until I was gifted that typewriter. Incidentally, my first story was about pencils.
BLG: Are there real experiences you’ve observed or heard about woven into your novel? Can you give us a couple of examples?
SJBB: As you know, fiction is always informed by lived reality and for Betrayal on the Bayou that is an embedded fact. I tell people my imagination has always been my best friend and so, the combination and sometimes hybrid presentation of fact and imagination are present in the novel.
As an example, one of the lead characters, Margot, is a mixture of the personalities, essences, physical attributes, occupations, and unfathomable heartbreak of several of the most important women in my life, the women who shaped me. In Margot, people who know me will see my mother who never completely overcame her tragedies and yet was a woman of incomparable substance and will, my aunt who made clothing, from the hats to the shoes, for Hollywood’s famous, my great-aunt who flourished in the Jim Crow south despite the restrictions on her very being, and me, a Black woman in America, and all that means. Those who don’t will discover my truths in this work of fiction.
Another example is the phrase, “the rain she come, the bisic pass on you,” from a story my father told us as children. I took that phrase and re-imagined it as connected to my novel and gave it a new and different life with a more expansive meaning within the Creole and code noir culture I was describing and a commentary on how a myriad of things may have been in the fictional Louisiana town I built. In other words, I did what I do when I write fiction. I took a speck of something, added a dose of imagination, and blew it up into a story all its own.
BLG: I’ve been fascinated by Creoles since I found a reference to them in a poem in my 7th grade reader. What inspired you to write about Creoles and their struggles in Louisiana?
SJBB: My father was a Creole from Louisiana. I did not want to write a biography; I have already done many published stories and articles on my parents. Yet, I was compelled to write something about the Creoles and one day, after ten years of procrastination, all the stories I had been told over the years, all the summer visits, all the food and the joy, and the deceptions, came together with imagination and boom, it was all just there, fully formed, the words hitting the pages like magic.
But the book is not just about the Creoles. Far from it. There are many human and structural characters woven into the novel. In addition to the people in the story, I explore aspects of colorism, elitism, gender bias, inequality, sexism, and what I consider other “betrayals” in the world I created inspired by a culture with which I am familiar. I put it all in. I let it all out.
BLG: Which characters and events were hardest to write about? Why?
SJBB: The hardest was Margot’s heartbreak. It is a horrifying cruelty born of racial hatred. It was the scene that took me 10 years to be able to write. It was extremely difficult and written through a torrent of tears. Once I knew I could write the passage, I knew the rest of the book would just fall out. And it did.
Another difficult character was Marie. Her torment was inspired by the life of a close relative, who floated on the surface to avoid destruction.
BLG: How did writing poetry influence your process?
SJBB: My penchant for the poetic often results in uniquely formed prose in my story writing. In poetry, I believe that every line is a poem, and my stories are heavily influenced by that. It also means that in my story writing, I do not always adhere to traditional grammatical and phraseology conventions, which can be misunderstood or unaccepted by some and cause “editors” to pull out the red pen and provide “corrections.” But it is my voice, and I will always be true to it. Because the ultimate gift to me as a writer is reaching those who can “see” my writing.
BLG: I admire your confidence. Has teaching improved your writing? How?
SJBB: I don’t think teaching has improved my writing, but I do feel strongly that sharing what I have learned with others is a part of the circle of writing. By that I mean, I am comfortable with the way I express myself with words and I teach to help others feel the same and to share what I know, what I have learned and what I am still discovering.
BLG: What do you hope readers will take from Betrayal on the Bayou?
SJBB: That there are many stories of people, particularly Black people, that some may not know. That we are complex beings. That colorism and racism are cruel and not always visible. That just because you don’t know about something, doesn’t mean it did not happen. That things that went on, pairings that occurred, are not new things, but existed long ago in different and sometimes, the same, settings. That there are some very bad people in this world. That there are angels. That we must save and nourish the angels among us.
BLG: Was it always your intention to publish the book independently or did you submit to agents first? What advice can you give readers about independent publishing?
SJBB: When an unplanned opportunity arose to “pitch” the story to a traditional publisher, I took advantage of it, but I knew there was no interest when their eyes glazed over and they said, “Well it sounds like a story worth telling.” Since I had always wanted to publish on my own to protect my “voice,” I took that route, and I am happy that I did. I feel I told the story I wanted to tell in the ways that I wanted to tell it, without interference or lack of understanding by an outside party.
My advice for independent publishing is twofold:
Make sure you carve out adequate time to market your work. People need to see you and your writing in as many venues as you can reach.
Invest in a good editor. I thought I had, but unfortunately, I had not. The bad thing is copies got out with mostly punctuation errors. The good thing is, since my independently published book is print on demand, I was able to get the mistakes corrected and have the book re-posted. But I also have to say that some of the strongest and best reviews I received were on the early uncorrected copies, proving that for some, even the worst editing job can’t get in the way of a solid story. Even now, I suspect we did not catch all the errors, but neither did Ernest Hemingway, Walter Mosley, or Sue Grafton, and many other famous, best-selling authors.
I consider myself to be in good company and am happy about the response to my book.
BLG: What are you working on now and where can people learn more about you?
SJBB: In a bit of a departure from Betrayal on the Bayou, which is, at times, dystopian, I am in the process of writing a sci-fi novel. The first chapter won an award in the 2021 San Francisco Writers Conference Writing Contest and is published in their 2021 anthology.
You can read more about me and what I am up to at: www.sheryljbize-boutte.com. Thank you again for this interview opportunity.
BLG: Thanks for taking the time to answer these questions. I agree that your voice comes through loudly and clearly. You’ve done a great job of sharing a part of the culture that many people would like to know more about.
Looking for a book that is both historical and timely? Looking for a fast-moving story that will grab and hold you? Get a copy of Sheryl J. Bize-Boutte’s Betrayal on the Bayou.
