In her own fictional world,
Rebecca Burrell is a secret Vatican spy, a flight nurse swooping over the frozen
battlefields of Korea, or a journalist en-route to cover the latest world
crisis. In real life, she’s a scientist in the medical field. She lives in Massachusetts with her family, two seriously weird cats, and a dog
who’s convinced they’re taunting him.
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In the click of a shutter,
#Resistance becomes more than just a hashtag.
Pass the bar exam. Convince
someone—anyone—in the Egyptian government to admit they’ve imprisoned your
husband. Don’t lose your mind. For fledgling human rights attorney Leah Cahill,
the
Leah, the daughter of a civil
rights icon, grew up wanting to change the world; Matty was the one who showed
her she could. Though frustrated by the US government’s new fondness for dictators, she persists,
until a leaked email reveals a crumbling democracy far closer to home.
Risking her own freedom, she
gains proof Matty’s being detained at a U.S. ‘black site’, stemming from his work covering the refugee
crisis in Syria. Armed with his photo archives, Leah plunges into their
past together, a love story spanning three continents. She uncovers secrets
involving Matty’s missionary childhood, her own refugee caseload, and the only
story the deeply principled reporter ever agreed to bury. It’s what got him
captured—and what might still get him killed. With Leah’s last chance to save
him slipping away, Matty’s biggest secret may be one he’s willing to die to
protect.
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We welcome you to My Bookish
Pleasures! Can you tell us how you got started writing fiction?
For better or worse, I wasn’t
one of those kids who grew up wanting to be a writer. I came to writing
somewhere in my late twenties through fan fiction. I was an avid watcher of the
TV show Alias, and active in an online fan community for the show. As with many
fandoms, discussion could get heated, but I learned so much about character and
story development, and soon, I found myself wanting to explore the characters
more. It was probably a year or two later that I started getting the urge to
right my own original pieces, something I found both exciting and vaguely
terrifying.
Describe your writing process.
Do you plot or write by the seat of your pants? When and where do you write?
While a lot of writers consider
themselves strictly plotters or strictly pantsters, I’m more of a hybrid. I’ll
plan broad arcs and turning points, and write out character sketches (there’s
this ridiculous 50 question worksheet I have a love-hate relationship with)
Once I’m done with those things, I tend to just write from one turning point to
the next. Depending on how the story has evolved, I either keep going or
re-evaluate. There’s an old Army joke that no battle plan survives past first
contact with the enemy – for me, it’s applies to my writing, as I find that I
can’t really plan anything detailed more than one turning point in advance. Too
much changes once the characters take the wheel.
For when and where, I tend to
write in the early mornings or evenings, usually sitting by a fire in the
living room if it’s winter, or in warmer months, I will take my laptop and a
coffee out to the sunny back deck.
Can you tell us about your most
recent release?
At
Shutter Speed, my first published novel, is the story about a
fresh-out-of-law-school human rights attorney who gets a trial by fire when her
husband, a respected, but troubled conflict photographer, goes missing after a
crackdown in Cairo. The
story is set in Africa and
the Middle East over a
fifteen year period, spanning from the beginning of the Iraq War to the present
day. It’s part portrait of a marriage, part the story of the ways in which war
affects not just those who fight it, but those caught up in it, those in the
humanitarian community who try to help, and those who feel compelled to
document it all.
How did you get the idea for
the book?
Bits and pieces of At Shutter Speed have existed on my hard
drive for an embarrassingly long time, so it’s hard to be sure (though it
probably involved my tendency to fangirl journalists instead of movie stars and
a lifelong obsession with current events) While I’ve always loved this story,
it was never really the right time for it. Then the election happened, and
suddenly the America around
me no longer made sense. Both my husband and our children were born elsewhere
and came to this country as immigrants. Especially to my older son, it all felt
very personal and scary. For me, writing has always been my way of figuring out
things that on the surface, I can’t. When I started reading back through what
I’d written, it became clear that now, this was the story I needed to tell.
Of all your characters, which
one is your favorite? Why?
Dale, my heroine’s father,
who’s an aging Civil Rights hero. She’s his only living child, from a
late-in-life second marriage, and seen through her eyes, he’s equal parts
inspiration, anachronism, and though he loves her fiercely, he’s a bit of a
mystery she’ll never quite figure out. Much of the inspiration for him came
from my own grandfather, including a story he shared with me towards the end of
his life about his time as a young soldier in France and Germany. My
grandfather wasn’t the most emotionally demonstrative guy in the world, but
there was one moment for him towards the end of the war that resulted in a
complete and total loss of his religious faith. He described it in such a
powerful, personal way that I’ll never forget it, and though I’ve never
experienced war myself, it made an permanent impression on me of the ways in
which it profoundly affects those who have.
What was the most challenging
aspect of writing your book?
My novel follows the lives of a
married American couple over the past fifteen years, most which they spent
living in Africa and
the Middle East. The
logistics of writing a story built around recent history can be tricky,
especially when our interpretation of those events is still evolving. As a
country, we’re still feeling the effects of the Iraq War (especially those who
fought in or covered it). The Syrian Refugee Crisis is simultaneously both
intractable and rapidly changing. It was a real challenge trying to make the
events and situations in the book reflective of the current state of affairs
not just in those places, but also with the rapidly changing political
situation at home in America as well.
What projects are you currently
working on?
I’m working on two different
books right now, both in the same fictional world as At Shutter Speed. The
first, titled Resurrecting Micah, is set in Jerusalem and
the West Bank, about
an interfaith couple involved in the peace movement, and the second is about a
pair of millennials who’ve been caught up in an episode of gun violence and
decide to leave the US for
life as ex-pat humanitarians.
What advice would you offer to
new or aspiring fiction authors?
Make friends. Writing has
traditionally been considered a solitary profession, but first, that’s a recipe
for all sorts of unhealthy things, and second, publishing these days is driven
by social media to such a large degree that going it alone just doesn’t fly. As
the saying goes, I get by with a little help from my friends, and thanks to the
amazing writers I’ve met, I wouldn’t want it any other way.
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