While the world might seemingly be spinning out of control, one consolation is the increased time many people have for reading. The pandemic has also highlighted the need for outlets of creativity in all its forms. A fascinating window into the creative process, as it relates to writing books, is provided by Deborah Kalb in her daily Book Q&As.
I generally tweet once a week about one particular Q&A, with a brief quote from it. Sometimes the quotes I choose are focused on the research process, and how authors have benefited from the use of libraries and archives. In this post I’ve curated my quotes from tweets about Deborah’s Q&As, going back to the beginning of December of last year, with a link to the relevant Q&A:
Date of tweet: 4-15-20
https://deborahkalbbooks.blogspot.com/2020/04/q-with-ida-abbott.html
Author: Ida O. Abbott
Book: Retirement by Design: A Guided Workbook for Creating a Happy and Purposeful Future
Author quote: “Retirement involves a very difficult adjustment. Even if you are prepared and have a plan, it can be tough emotionally. It’s important to have some support from others along the way.”
Date of tweet: 4-8-20
https://deborahkalbbooks.blogspot.com/2020/04/q-with-mary-ohara.html
Author: Mary O’Hara
Book: The Shame Game: Overturning the Toxic Poverty Narrative.
Author quote: “On poverty – I think it is absolutely vital that we elevate the voices of people with lived experience. Without empathy and understanding we won’t be able to build support to challenge the policies that keep people poor.”
Date of tweet: 4-1-20
https://deborahkalbbooks.blogspot.com/2020/03/q-with-carrie-callaghan.html
Author: Carrie Callaghan
Book: Salt the Snow
Author quote: “I’ve been carrying Milly Bennett around in my head for probably 15 years now, though I can’t remember exactly when I first stumbled across her name in the course of research I was doing for a different novel.”
Date of tweet: 3-25-20
https://deborahkalbbooks.blogspot.com/2020/03/q-with-gaia-vince.html
Author: Gaia Vince
Book: Transcendence: How Humans Evolved through Fire, Language, Beauty, and Time
Author quote: “Ultimately, I wanted to focus on what I believe are our four key human evolutionary drivers: energy; information-transfer; subjective meaning; and objective truths.”
Date of tweet: 3-18-20
https://deborahkalbbooks.blogspot.com/2020/03/q-with-joshua-hammer.html
Author: Joshua Hammer
Book: The Falcon Thief: A True Tale of Adventure, Treachery, and the Hunt for the Perfect Bird
Author quote: “I also spent many hours in the British Library, digging into ornithological studies and historical accounts of falconry to ground myself in the nitty-gritty details about birds of prey. Then I sat down to write.”
Date of tweet: 3-11-20
https://deborahkalbbooks.blogspot.com/2020/03/q-with-ben-katchor.html
Author: Ben Katchor
Book: The Dairy Restaurant
Author quote: “I spent a lot of time in libraries and online archives looking for information in unlikely places. I was surprised by the infinite variety of Jews and their interests.”
Date of tweet: 3-4-20
https://deborahkalbbooks.blogspot.com/2020/02/q-with-susan-elia-macneal.html
Author: Susan Elia MacNeal
Book: The King’s Justice: A Maggie Hope Mystery
Author quote: “I sometimes describe Maggie as “Nancy Drew meets James Bond” but I really do want to show how her character’s been evolving.”
Date of tweet: 2-26-20
https://deborahkalbbooks.blogspot.com/2020/02/q-with-elleke-boehmer.html
Author: Elleke Boehmer
Book: To the Volcano, And Other Stories
Author quote: “All of the characters in To the Volcano stepped forward for me in really strong and compelling ways as I wrote the stories. They had voice, vision, a definite shape.”
Date of tweet: 2-19-20
https://deborahkalbbooks.blogspot.com/2020/02/q-with-barbara-j-ostfeld.html
Author: Barbara J. Ostfeld
Book: Catbird: The Ballad of Barbi Prim
Author quote: “I worked with a couple of developmental editors. It’s the best of my journals edited and put into a form with an arc.”
Date of tweet: 2-12-20
https://deborahkalbbooks.blogspot.com/2020/01/q-with-robert-l-dilenschneider.html
Author: Robert L. Dilenschneider
Book: Decisions: Practical Advice from 23 Men and Women Who Shaped the World
Author quote: “I made a list of about 300 people who have made decisions that were really powerful and which helped shape society and the world. Then, I drilled down and got 50 that I felt really comfortable with.”
Date of tweet: 2-5-20
https://deborahkalbbooks.blogspot.com/2020/01/q-with-paul-kent.html
Author: Paul Kent
Book: Pelham Grenville Wodehouse: Volume 1: “This is jolly old Fame”
Author quote: “What surprised me was quite how much the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. There’s something about Wodehouse, which, when read in quantity, provides you with a philosophy for life.”
Date of tweet: 1-29-20
https://deborahkalbbooks.blogspot.com/2020/01/q-with-lydia-denworth.html
Author: Lydia Denworth
Book: Friendship: The Evolution, Biology, and Extraordinary Power of Life’s Fundamental Bond
Author quote: “I also went to a lot of relevant scientific conferences. I find it really helpful to listen in when scientists talk to each other. It’s a great way to figure out what they think is interesting and important, and it’s how I got the idea for the book in the first place.”
Date of tweet: 1-22-20
https://deborahkalbbooks.blogspot.com/2020/01/q-with-tishani-doshi.html
Author: Tishani Doshi
Book: Small Days and Nights: A Novel
Author quote: “I think of my novel as rather quiet and claustrophobic, a story that draws you into a specific landscape and inner world, but I certainly was thinking about the question of belonging.”
Date of tweet: 1-15-20
https://deborahkalbbooks.blogspot.com/2020/01/q-with-megan-angelo.html
Author: Megan Angelo
Book: Followers: A Novel
Author quote: “I’m so happy with it as a title because I think it communicates to the reader, immediately, that we’re going to get into this weird, of-the-moment phenomenon of caring how many strangers on the Internet listen to us.”
Date of tweet: 1-8-20
https://deborahkalbbooks.blogspot.com/2020/01/q-with-lara-tupper.html
Author: Lara Tupper
Book: Off Island, a Novel
Author quote: “I researched for years. I really enjoyed this part of the process, reading and thinking and note-taking. I was teaching full-time at Rutgers when I began and scribbled notes during my train commute.”
Date of tweet: 12-26-19
https://deborahkalbbooks.blogspot.com/2019/12/q-with-andrew-blauner.html
Author: Andrew Blauner
Book: The Peanuts Papers: Writers and Cartoonists on Charlie Brown, Snoopy & the Gang, and the Meaning of Life
Author quote: “Among its core beliefs are that life can be hard, perseverance is required, joy is fleeting but attainable, and imagination is essential.”
Date of tweet: 12-18-19
https://deborahkalbbooks.blogspot.com/2019/12/q-with-tracy-chevalier.html
Author: Tracy Chevalier
Book: A Single Thread: A Novel
Author quote: “There were few career opportunities for women then, and they were paid much less than men so that it was hard to live independent of their families. I decided to create a heroine who is dealt that hand and decides to turn it and create an independent life for herself.”
Date of tweet: 12-11-19
https://deborahkalbbooks.blogspot.com/2019/12/q-with-nancy-kriplen.html
Author: Nancy Kriplen
Book: J. Irwin Miller: The Shaping of an American Town
Author quote: “Irwin Miller’s corporate leadership (Cummins Engine Company) brought good jobs to thousands, encouraged civil rights, and was the spark behind his hometown’s development into a gem of midcentury modern architecture.”
Date of tweet: 12-4-19
https://deborahkalbbooks.blogspot.com/2019/12/q-with-janet-todd.html
Author: Janet Todd
Book: Jane Austen’s Sanditon: With an Essay by Janet Todd
Author quote: “It resembles the juvenile parodies and burlesques more than the finished psychologically subtle novels.”
The interviews range from fiction to nonfiction on a wide variety of subjects. The above quotes do not include the many interviews Deborah conducts with children’s books/YA authors. In fact, she is an accomplished author of children’s books, and was recently interviewed by the site Authors Answer about her work on the books and related topics. She is also a freelance writer and editor, and co-author, with her father, Marvin Kalb, of Haunting Legacy: Vietnam and the American Presidency from Ford to Obama. I interviewed Deborah for my blog in 2013, and she interviewed me about my books in 2014 and 2012.
Conducting so many insightful interviews; concise yet information-packed, on such a frequent basis borders on the heroic. The outpouring of creativity on the part of so many authors is something to give us hope in our troubled times.