Inspiration is a funny thing. It can come to us like a lightning bolt, through the lyrics of a song, or in the fog of a dream. Ask any writer where their stories come from and you’ll get a myriad of answers, and in that vein I created the WHAT (What the Hell Are you Thinking?) interview. Always including in the WHAT is one random question to really dig down into the interviewees mind, and probably supply some illumination into my own as well.
Today's guest for the WHAT is Joanne O'Sullivan author of BETWEEN TWO SKIES. Joanne is a journalist for the Asheville Citizen-Times. She lived in New Orleans for several years and returns to southern Louisiana frequently. Between Two Skies is her debut novel. She lives in Asheville, North Carolina, with her husband and children.
Ideas for our books can come from just about anywhere, and sometimes even we can’t pinpoint exactly how or why. Did you have a specific origin point for your book?
I tend to pick up threads for several places and weave them together. When Hurricane Katrina hit, I tried to understand the full impact it had had on the people in an area I love. I started to draw a parallel between the people displaced by Katrina and the characters in one of Louisiana’s most iconic stories “Evangeline:” an epic poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Longfellow’s “Evangeline” starts in Acadia (what’s now Nova Scotia) at the time when the French-speaking population is being driven out by the British, becoming refugees and eventually settling in Louisiana. It struck me that there was a new exodus of people leaving Louisiana. They were called “Katrina refugees” and like the Acadians (the original Cajuns), many ended up far from home. My mom is an Irish immigrant, and I grew up listening to old Irish ballads filled with heartache and longing for a home you could never return to. I think those songs subconsciously supplied a melody for my story in a way, while “Evangeline” supplied a bit of the lyrics. Read more here.