1. What
inspired you to write this book? Oh, abject
disappointment! I had just failed to get my dream job that I had prepped
and prepped for like a madwoman—reading all the work of the people on the
search committee, and practicing my “job talk” over and over like some fanatic
until I’d practically memorized it; I’d traveled at my own expense all the way
to San Francisco from Philly for the preliminary interview at an academic
conference, and then I had to travel again to the interview at the university
itself, and I was so upset when I didn’t get it after all that work. So
not only was I feeling TIRED, but poor, and then just intellectually wrung
out—It was almost a year since I’d defended my dissertation and I was
questioning all seven years of graduate school and worrying it was all a
waste. So I figured my only other skill set was the ability to string
sentences together and tell a story. So I sat down to do it. But I
was very deliberate about naming my characters after orientalist scholars in my
field—completely incongruously, of course, and I mixed and matched sometimes.
But an Islamic Studies grad student reading it might understand I was getting
my revenge on the brilliant John Wansbrough, may he rest in peace, for
producing scholarship that made me bang my head against the wall while trying
to decipher it. So now he’s a wisecracking crime-fighter. I
win.
2. What
is it about? I wanted a heroine that no one had
ever met. Nora Khalil was born here to Egyptian parents and lived a very
sheltered life. But certain events only possible in post-9/11 America (no
spoilers!) made her enter law enforcement. She’s also a fierce runner who
could probably have been an Olympian if she’d had the right support at
home. She is working on a joint task force with the FBI when she gets
pulled into a sex trafficking case. To sort out the crime, she uses her
fluent Arabic and cultural skills to work with part of the community that might
otherwise have been inaccessible.
3. Why
should someone read it vs competing titles? Because
people reading it will learn a little about immigrant culture in the United
States, about alternative worldviews, about human trafficking, and about Nora
who is a genuinely good and ethical person who, like so many other Americans,
copes with racism outside the home and traditional expectations inside the home
but still manages to flourish.
4. What
challenges did you overcome to write it? Time.
I was working full time as a research associate for an Islamic Studies scholar
and raising two girls and applying for academic jobs—and also doing random work
like writing book reviews for works in my field. So, time is and always
has been my biggest problem. I still fantasize about “time” the way other
people fantasize about Channing Tatum.
5. What
do you enjoy about writing and bring s published author? Oh, I love getting words to work together. English
is so incredible; its possibilities still feel infinite to me. So getting
to play with combinations of words and coaxing them into meaning is just, I
don’t know, my nerdy high I guess. Being a published author is most fun
when someone comes up to me and tells me that something I’ve written has caused
her to see things a different way or consider something in a new light or worry
about something. I think part of the human project is to help each other
reflect and adjust and recalibrate, and I’m always so grateful when someone
does that for me.
6. Any
advice to struggling writers? It’s doable. My
first book really didn’t sell, you know, so I was pretty down about that.
For this second book, I decided to be really methodical and just humble about
it. It’s a craft as much as anything. I bought a book on plot and
structure and one on conflict and suspense—I’d never studied creative writing,
so I thought I needed to play catch up on that. I read these things, I
applied them, and I made just a little time to write every single day.
Every day. No excuses. I mapped where I was going and let myself
deviate (and rewrite over and over and over and over) but I had pretty clear
end goals and I tried to honor them.
7. Where
do you see book publishing to be heading? I think
as long as there are people who like to hold books in their hands it will
survive as an industry. As long as we keep reading to our kids and making
that special, safe, no-screen time, books will survive.
For
more information, please consult: http://www.amazon.com/Quicksand-Nora-Khalil-Novel-Detective/dp/0765375605
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