Q&A with Alice C. Early

From my Q&A with Alice Early, author of The Moon Always Rising:

How much work does your title do to take readers into the story?

I hope it’s title is intriguing and gives the reader a sense that The Moon Always Rising will be uplifting in some way, but it doesn’t say anything about the story. Choosing a title that captures the novel’s essence was wrenchingly difficult. As it straddles literary and women’s literature and bends genre (a love story but not a romance with elements of mystery and magical realism), the hundreds of titles I considered felt narrow or misleading. My editor and I eventually chose a title inspired by a line in “Fern Hill,” a Dylan Thomas poem that triggers a cathartic exchange between Els and Jack’s jumbie near the end of the book. In that scene, the book’s central theme of the healing power of forgiveness—of oneself and others—comes to the fore and signals that...[read on]

Visit Alice C. Early's website.

The Page 69 Test: The Moon Always Rising.

Q&A with Alice C. Early.

--Marshal Zeringue