1.  The Summer That Melted Everything is your debut novel.  Your writing is so lyrical, mature and confident.  How long have you been writing and what has the journey been like from beginning to published book?

First off, thank you for the kind compliments about my writing.  To answer your question, I’ve been writing since I was kid and was old enough to hold a crayon in my hand.  I didn’t know at that time when I was scribbling on the page that I was creating story.  I just knew I was putting down what was in my head.  I wouldn’t realize writing was a profession I could have until I was in middle school and the guidance counselor came to my class to talk to us about what we wanted to be when we got older.  Writing was just so wonderful to me I didn’t think you could get paid to do it.  My parents had jobs, very hard jobs that made them tired and not a lot of money.  So I thought that’s what I would have to do.  Have a job that I didn’t like and that didn’t make me happy.  Though it took me eleven long years to get a publishing contract, realizing I could have writing as a career was like being given wings and the sky to fly for eternity.  Though at that time I didn’t know how hard it is to become a published author.  To answer the second part of your question, the journey to publication for me has been long and difficult.  I wrote my first novel when I was eighteen.  I wouldn’t get a publishing contract until I was twenty-nine.  It was eleven years of rejection and fear I’d never be published.  Publishers don’t take a lot of risks on accepting literary fiction, especially darker literary fiction like what I write.  This struggle to get published is the narrative so many authors have.  The road to publication is discouraging and heart-breaking.  I feel for those still on the journey to publication.  To them I say, never give up.

2.  It’s now been a little over a week since the release of the novel.  What were your feelings leading up to the release, and what has life been like since The Summer That Melted Everything made its appearance in bookstores?

My feelings leading up to the release were a lot of nerves and fear.  It took me so long to get here.  Even with the book contract, I didn’t know that on average it takes two years to move a book through a traditional publishing house, so with all the years added up I’ve been waiting thirteen years to see a book on the shelf.  That’s a rather long time, so there’s that fear of what if The Summer that Melted Everything doesn’t do well enough that I get to have a second book.  As in the case of every author, sales determine an entire writing career.  Life since The Summer that Melted Everything made its appearance has continued to be a nervous time watching the book fall on the list, rise a little, and then fall back down.  Watching that can make an author go insane, so I’m trying not to focus too much on that and continue to do what I can as the author to get the book out there to readers.  Half the battle with a debut is just getting people aware the novel and the author even exists.  There are so many great books out there and so much competition, it’s hard to think the book will have any success and very easy to feel defeated by those thoughts.

3.  What was the genesis of The Summer That Melted Everything?  Was it a random thought or observation that inspired you, is the novel semi-autobiographical, or was it spurred on by something else entirely?

The Summer that Melted Everything started first as a title.  It was one of those Ohio summers that was so hot I just felt like I was melting.  All of me just dripping and dropping under the summer sun.  So that’s where it first started.  Just one hot summer.  I always start a new novel with two things.  The title and the first line.  These two things determine what the entire story is going to be about.  I never outline or plan the story beforehand.  It evolves with each new word and page.  There wasn’t a particular event or moment that made me write The Summer that Melted Everything.  It hard to say where the ideas come from exactly or what inspires them, just because creativity is hard to explain because even I don’t know where these ideas come from.  My answer to that is usually the ideas come from the elements that make me.  From some sort of chaotic spiraling shape twisting through the universe of my soul.  Rather dramatic of an answer, but I think the dramatics of creativity is what spurs us all on.

4.  Fielding Bliss narrates the story of the devil come to town in the form of a young black boy named Sal.  Fielding and Sal are the two main characters and driving forces of the novel.  Who are your favorite characters?  Who is your least favorite?

It’s hard to say my favorite character because I love them all.  One of my favorite characters to write was Sal.  He’s the one come to answer the invitation, so he presents himself as the devil.  This type of mysterious character is always interesting to write because it’s not often an author gets to write dialogue for the so-called fallen angel.  More than that, Sal is an old soul in a young body.  That sort of poetics and wisdom is always a joy to write.  My least favorite character is perhaps Ryker.  I won’t say why he’s my least favorite character because I don’t want to spoil the novel for anyone.  But once readers read the book, they’ll understand what I mean when I say Ryker is such a jerk.

5.  While I loved Fielding and Sal, I was most taken with Grand, Fielding’s brother.  I also thought Aunt Fedelia was a hoot!  Were there real-life inspirations for either of these characters or were they born straight from your imagination?

I love Grand.  He’s one of the characters that is so easy to fall in love with because he’s…well….Grand.  And Aunt Fedelia was really fun to write too, especially her foul language.  There weren’t real-life inspirations for either of them, or any of the characters for that matter.  For me, my characters have flesh and bone and are as real as any of us.  They are truly their own people.

6.  Besides the ever present heat imagery throughout, snakes also seem to be a recurring theme.  I happen to like snakes and have had a couple as pets in the past, so I loved the line, “You can tell a lot about a man by what he does with a snake.”  So true in many, many ways and symbolic of actions taken by man out of ignorance.  Any particular reason snakes play a role in your novel?

I like snakes too.  They catch me off-guard sometimes in the garden when a garden snake goes slithering by, but they don’t bother me and I don’t bother them.  I remember a neighbor talking once about how her and her husband will kill a snake if they see one.  Their hatred of snakes is due to the biblical story we all know so well of Adam and Eve.  A negative association has been bestowed upon snakes since that Garden of Eden moment and unfortunately snakes have been given a bad rap.  Because of their religious associations, snakes naturally found their way into the novel.  I hope their role in the novel reminds us all that we have to worry more about the man whose hands hold the snake, than we have to worry about the snake itself.

7.  Having lived through the ‘80s as a teenager and 20-something, I was astounded at how well you evoked the decade as the timeframe for the novel.  Bananarama, Aqua Net, Van Halen, the AIDS epidemic, Rambo, even a Delorean makes an appearance in small Ohio mountain town of Breathed.  What made you choose that decade?

When I was thinking of the time-frame in which to set the novel, the 1980s came to mind almost immediately.  When I think of the ‘80s, I think of neon colors, big hair, and sun-tans by the boom-box.  It almost seems like a decade-long summer, so of course I felt it was a natural fit for the summer in the novel.  I was born in 1985, so I don’t know how the 1980s really were, but for those of us who didn’t experience the decade we can get a sense of the atmosphere from shows filmed in that decade and the photographs taken.  Furthermore the year 1984 fit with George Orwell’s masterpiece, 1984, which is referenced in the novel.  I don’t want to give any spoilers away, but having his book and the year of the summer line up was important to the core of the story.

8.  If you could pick one thing, what do you wish readers would take away from The Summer That Melted Everything?

I suppose I hope readers take away the thing that most of us are taught from an early age, but that which we seem to forget as we get older, and that is to love each other a little more and remember that the only thing hate will get us, is a lot of regret.

9.  What’s next in store from you for future readers and those of us who have already become huge fans?

I have eight completed novels and am working on my ninth.  The novel I’m hoping to follow The Summer that Melted Everything up with is titled, When Lions Stood as Men.  It’s the story of a Jewish brother and sister who escape Nazi Germany, cross the Atlantic Ocean, and end up in my land of Ohio.  Struggling with the guilt of surviving the Holocaust, they create their own camp of judgment.  Being both the guards and the prisoners, they punish themselves not only for surviving, but for the sins they know they cannot help but commit.