Every month, I interview an author I admire on her literary firsts.
What comes first, the setting or the plot? I thought this was a good question for Anne-Marie Kinney, who with Sara Finnerty puts together the fantastic Griffith Park Storytelling Series. These readings are held in various beautiful settings in the park ranging from the bat caves to the shade of pretty trees — and getting to, enjoying, and departing from each of them always makes for a fun plot to recount to friends —
Anne-Marie’s new book, Coldwater Canyon, comes out this Thursday, Oct. 4. Read on to hear Anne-Marie’s thoughts on book trailers, indie presses, and the valley.
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Siel: Why Coldwater Canyon? Did the setting come before the story – or the story determine the setting?
Anne-Marie: The setting came first. The San Fernando Valley of this book is a composite of different valley neighborhoods I’ve lived and hung out in. I was inspired by the valley’s quirks and how it’s a place that feels like a secret right under the nose of Los Angeles. I paid a lot of attention to strip malls and parked vans. The valley is teeming with mystery.
I inserted Coldwater Canyon into the book because I used to walk my dog down it, alongside a section of the L.A. River where you’d really have to lean over the fence to see if there was any water down there at all. It’s a long street that runs from Sun Valley all the way through Beverly Hills, so to me it kind of represented the gamut of Shep’s L.A. experience.
I love how you’re able to capture the voice of Shep, a Gulf War veteran suffering from PTSD. Was writing from a male viewpoint a challenge for you – or something that came pretty naturally?
Characters always start from the outside in for me. An image of someone will pop into my head and I’ll feel compelled to think them into fully realized person. I imagined a sort of grizzled guy walking a little dog down the street on a windy day, and that became the opening scene of the book. Once more details about him started to gel in my mind, I started reading books about Gulf War Syndrome so I’d have some knowledge to base him on.
Writing a male protagonist didn’t feel unusual. It felt natural to inhabit him. My favorite moments in writing are when I can feel a character in my body. It’s a kind of high, where the borders between my self and another self blur.
I really enjoyed the book trailer for your first book, Radio Iris (above). Do you think you’ll create one for Coldwater Canyon? And what advice do you have for writers who are wondering whether or not to make a book trailer?
I wanted to make a book trailer for Radio Iris (conceived and directed by Pete Larsen with a score by Nathan Budde) because it seemed like the thing to do in 2012 and I had talented friends who could make it happen. It was my first book, and it seemed like every other book coming out then had a trailer, so I thought I should have one too.
I liked how it turned out and it was fun, but I don’t plan on doing one for Coldwater Canyon. Are people still doing book trailers? I can’t remember the last time I saw one. I feel like they were in vogue for a while but are no longer considered essential. I think an author should only make one if it’s purely for fun.
You’ve published two novels with two different indie presses, Two Dollar Radio and Civil Coping Mechanisms. Have the experiences been largely similar or largely different?
The experience has been fairly similar. In both cases I was only working with one or two people, who really got the book and seemed to care about it as much as I did. There’s definitely a comfort in having just a couple of people to talk about everything with, from edits all the way to promotion.
What are you working on next?
I’m working on another novel, tentatively titled Sinking Feeling, about a long estranged mother and daughter reunited by a series of catastrophes. It’s a little too messy at this point to go further into what it’s “about,” but I’ve been researching climate change, brain tumors, buried treasure and doomsday preppers.
Photo by Rachael Warecki