Q&A with Emily Carpenter

From my Q&A with Emily Carpenter, author of Reviving the Hawthorn Sisters:

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

I love my title so much! I was on a writing retreat with a couple of writing friends and they actually came up with the title for me. Because this novel is a follow-up, I wanted it to echo the title of the first book Burying the Honeysuckle Girls. And I love the word "reviving" - it conjures up miracles and also death. It's so dramatic.

What's in a name?

Dove, the main character in the 1930s timeline and Eve's grandmother, has many names. Her birth name is Ruth Lurie, a simple name given to a little girl born in a state hospital or asylum for the insane in the 1920s. When she runs away and joins up with a gang of street children, she decides to call herself Annie, after Little Orphan Annie from the radio show because she's plucky and has red hair. Then when she takes a job she calls herself Ruth Davidson, using the last name of...[read on]

Visit Emily Carpenter's website.

My Book, The Movie: Reviving the Hawthorn Sisters.

The Page 69 Test: Reviving the Hawthorn Sisters.

Q&A with Emily Carpenter.

--Marshal Zeringue