Q & A Session with Ms. Harris
April 3rd. 4-5 PM Ingram Library Nook
Ms. Harris will be taking questions about One Summer in Savannah. She has requested the list of questions in advance of her visit. To submit a question, email Dr. Beth Sheppard.
The question list so far:
- Did you always want to be an author?
- The narration is first person for each main character (3rd person omniscient? ). Did you consider telling the story as a straight third person? Right now characters speaking in first person seems to be the trend (I haven't picked found a book written in 3rd person for quite some time -- I read YA fiction).
- What was your imagined backstory for the character "Birdie"? She seems fairly unpleasant.
- Why does Hosea always speak in poems?
- Was it hard to find poems for him? Why doesn't he engage in Haiku?
- Can you tell us a bit about the theme of "lost time" in the book? There is Alana's notebook, the fact that Jacob too causes watches fritz, the timeline of Hosea's death, the time served by Daniel in prison and so forth.
- Is there a reason you decided on the theme of forgiveness? How do you define forgiveness?
- Was it hard to come up with names for the characters? Is it significant that many of them are Old Testament names -- Daniel, David, Jacob, Naomi, Sara, Hosea, Tom.,..? Why is Alana a break from that pattern? Is there some meaning in that? What about Sylvia, Birdie (Bernadette), and Marsha?
- Have you ever been to Savannah?
- Why did you pick Savannah for the setting?
- Sexual assault is a hard subject to cover. Why did you decide to write a book that swirls around that?
- Have you ever visited a prison?
- How did you research the book? Did you use secondary sources? Interview people?
- Why did you pick twins? In psychology we've learned about Nature vs Nurture. But with twins that should all be the same. So, why does one end up in jail and one does not?
- Why are family traditions important in the book? There were Friday pizza nights, the beach house on the island, and special greeting poems for each person from Hosea. Do you think there is a difference between families that have traditions and those that don't in real life? What makes a tradition?
- A lot of the characters in the book were really, really smart. Would the book have been the same if the characters were all just normal?
- Do you think the best couples are well-matched in terms of intellectual talent?
- It seemed like a lot of the characters in this book had mental health issues. What was the reason for that?
