Mairead Small Staid is the author of the novel THE TRACES: AN ESSAY.

TBF: Why did you write your new book? What was your inspiration? Where did the idea start?

MSS: I spent the fall of 2008 in Florence on a study abroad program. I was 20 years old and an aspiring writer, and my time in Italy was astonishingly rich in many ways: in inspiration and productivity, in offering the possibility of connection between my academic work and the creative life I hoped to lead, in friendships and romances, in newness, in pleasure, in literature, in art. (Rich in just about every way, then, except literally! As I was pretty broke.) I was incredibly happy, in other words, and this felt like a remarkable thing, as I had begun suffering from manic depression a few years earlier and had endured long depressive episodes in the year leading up to my trip. I was drawn at the time, as I think many would-be writers are, to the idea that suffering was useful and perhaps even necessary in making art—that my depression was inextricable from whatever talent I hoped I might have, whatever might be best, most interesting and most creative, about my work and myself.

But when, years later, I started trying to write an essay about my time in Italy through the lens of depression, the work refused to take shape. Over the course of many months and many false starts, I realized that happiness had become the more intriguing question to me, and I wondered if it might be possible to take happiness as a wholly serious literary subject, to consider its role in the creation of art as consistently as I (and others) had considered the roles of suffering, sorrow, and pain. I realized, however slowly, that I wanted to explore the possibility of making a different myth.

I also realized that the essay I was writing might actually be a book, a terrifying prospect. Desperate for some guiding structure, I thought I might borrow the form of a classic travel narrative, a kind of playful update on the Grand Tour of the eighteenth century. But I couldn’t get excited about such a straightforward narrative, however referential, and instead found myself (I wish I could remember how!) rereading a book I had loved long ago, Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities. A travel guide to places that might not exist, Calvino’s book provided not only a structuring mechanism but a sounding board for many of the themes that had begun to orbit my central subject of happiness: place and time, memory and desire. It’s impossible, now, to imagine my work without his; the meeting feels inevitable.

TBF: What’s the last book you read, loved, and can’t stop recommending? Why is it so good?

MSS: Letters to Gwen John by the artist Celia Paul, which I recommend along with her earlier memoir, Self-Portrait. I went into great detail about the evocative qualities of both books in a review for the Los Angeles Review of Books, but what makes them so good, in a nutshell, is the way they make room for the reader between the lines. I don’t really know how to describe (or create!) this effect, but I find that many of my favorite reading moments occur when my eyes drift from the page, my own thoughts unspooling alongside the author’s. A great book, I think, is one that makes you want to talk back to it.

TBF: What’s the first book you remember reading? Who gave it to you?

MSS: I’m sure I read many sweeter and more wholesome picture books, but the earliest one I remember is Heckedy Peg by Audrey and Don Wood. It’s the frankly nightmarish tale of seven children turned into items of food (a loaf of bread, a wheel of cheese) by the eponymous witch and the horrors endured by their mother in the course of rescuing them. I’m sure the beautiful, painfully realistic illustrations—the lavish table arrayed with the children-turned-food is like a Dutch still life—were part of the reason it scared me so much, a nice lesson in the virtues of verisimilitude. It was absolutely terrifying and apparently unforgettable. I have no idea who gave it to me, but bless them.

Catch Mairead Small Staid on Saturday, November 5 at the State Capitol E2.010 from 11:00 – 11:45 at the 2022 Texas Book Festival!

Kali Fajardo-Anstine is the author of the novel WOMAN OF LIGHT.

TBF: Why did you write your new book? What was your inspiration? Where did the idea start?

KFA: I wrote Woman of Light because my Indigenous, Mexican, and Filipino ancestors lived enormous lives, but they were never the stars of novels, movies or TV shows. My elders loved movies and storytelling, but all the classic Western films we watched portrayed the lives of white men and women in the American West. I wanted to honor my ancestor’s wildly entertaining lives. I wanted them to be the stars.

Woman of Light began with the larger-than-life stories of my elders. My great grandma Esther (Picuris Pueblo descendant) talked incessantly about walking north to Denver from the mining camps of Southern Colorado in the 1920s after she and her siblings were abandoned by their Belgian father. I heard stories of my snake charming uncle, my proudly butch auntie who provided for her siblings, and my Auntie Lucy who at seven-years-old sold hash to flappers on Denver’s streets. I heard tales of their lives in the sugar beet fields, their dance halls and beautiful handmade gowns, and the ugliness of the prejudice they faced once coming to the city.

TBF: How would you describe your book?

KFA: Woman of Light is my heart song to my ancestors. An epic novel inspired by classic Westerns and old Hollywood, this character-driven book is a tribute to my American homeland and the culturally diverse people who created me. It’s also my attempt to provide greater historical context for the lives of Latinx people of Indigenous descent in the American Southwest, as so much of our history has been ripped from us. It is a story of love, fate, desire, and what it means to be human, to make mistakes, and to learn about who we are.

TBF: How long have you been at work on this book? Did the book involve special research?

KFA: As a teenager, I dreamed of writing a family saga based on my people. I started Woman of Light in 2010, and I began heavily researching in 2015 when I taught at Fort Lewis College, a former Indian Boarding School in Durango, Colorado. I was deeply saddened teaching on that mesa of historic trauma, but it was in that place that I began to distinctly feel connected to the older generations of my family. In the past decade, my research has taken me throughout the American West, from New Mexico to Wyoming and into the archives and homes of my elders. There is a magnitude of research in this novel, but there are also moments of divine luck and awe-inspiring coincidences. I feel this is the book I was born to write.

TBF: How is this book similar or different from your previous work?

KFA: Woman of Light is an extension of the fictional universe in Sabrina & Corina. The women of my first book are the great grandchildren of characters like Luz and Diego in Woman of Light. Denver is featured prominently in both books, and my fictional town, Saguarita, makes an appearance. My writing is guided by the need to feel culturally seen and acknowledged as a vital part of the American identity. For much of my life, I felt invisible and as if the hardships of my ancestors were forgotten. This is a novel that grapples with our space in American history in a way that has never been seen before. This is my life’s work, and I will continue to write novels and short stories that illuminate the lives of my people in the American West for as long as I am capable.

TBF: Can you talk about some of the real life history behind the book?

KFA: I grew up seeped in myths of the American West. I am drawn to figures like Annie Oakley who acquired her sharpshooting skills as a child out of necessity to hunt for her siblings and widowed mother. My mother would tell stories of the Apache woman-warrior, Lozen, who could feel the direction of the enemy on her palm. My own Auntie Lucy spoke of hiding against the floorboards of their Denver tenement as the Ku Klux Klan marched by outside their windows.

And like the characters in Woman of Light, my own ancestors and many elders in my community have stories of being beaten for speaking Spanish and their indigenous languages in school or public.

TBF: Who do you see as fans of your book? What are the three things you most hope they will take away after reading it?

KFA: This book is for fans of Elena Ferrante, Isabel Allende, Anthony Doerr, Michael Ondaatje, Kazuo Ishiguro, Cormac McCarthy, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and television fans of Breaking Bad and Boardwalk Empire. But it’s also for the many lovely and loyal fans of Sabrina & Corina.

I want readers to have a greater sense of Indigenous and Chicana subjectivity and a stronger understanding of the true history of the American West.

I hope readers finish this book feeling that we are all capable of strength and love despite the hatred of our world. But most of all, I hope my readers feel less lonely and inspired to learn more about their own family history.

Catch Kali Fajardo-Anstine on Saturday, November 5 at the State Capitol E2.028 from 1:15 – 2:00 at the 2022 Texas Book Festival!

Maya P. Smart is the author of the novel READING FOR OUR LIVES: A LITERACY ACTION PLACE FROM BIRTH TO SIX. 

TBF: Why did you write your new book? What was your inspiration? Where did the idea start?

MPS: When I was a new mom, I was dismayed by news reports of cripplingly low reading achievement among black students. Coverage described vast numbers of children who were labeled “behind” from the moment they arrived in school and considered beyond help by the end of elementary school. That didn’t sit well with me, so I got curious about what exactly needed to happen to help parents set kids up for success. What I learned made me realize how badly this message needs to get out to all parents.

TBF: What’s the last book you read, loved, and can’t stop recommending? Why is it so good?

MPS: I love and recommend Parent Nation by Dana Suskind because resolving America’s reading crisis will require transformation at the personal and policy levels. In my book, I explore how individual parents must grow their knowledge, patience, and consistency to impart the early skills and experiences kids need to thrive. In Parent Nation, Suskind digs into how the government, in turn, can bolster investment in families in the pivotal early years of kids’ life and learning. It’s a both/and scenario. Parent action and public investment are required.

TBF: What’s the first book you remember reading? Who gave it to you?

MPS: ​​I have fond memories of checking out Bringing the Rain to Kapiti Plain from the Ayres Branch Library in Akron, Ohio. My mom and I always parted ways just inside the front doors of the library, where I hung a sharp right into the colorful juvenile section. The library, previously a residence, was small enough and the librarians familiar enough (one lived on my block) that kids roamed freely. I remember the intimacy of that space, those shelves and the comfort of returning again and again to the same books.

Catch Maya P. Smart on Saturday, November 5 at the State Capitol E2.030 from 12:30 – 1:15 at the 2022 Texas Book Festival!

Destiny O. Birdsong is the author of the novel NOBODY’S MAGIC.

TBF: Why did you write your new book? What was your inspiration? Where did the idea start?

DOB: I wrote my book about Black women with albinism because I wanted to see myself depicted in literature as a fully-fleshed out human being. Not as a punchline, or a warning, or the result of taboo behavior, but as a person with goals, dreams, and challenges that extend beyond my condition. The idea for a book began with a conversation with a friend about African American romance novelists who often create characters that fit very traditional standards of Black beauty: fair skin, long hair, thin bodies — bodies that often differ from those of the authors themselves. I remember telling her that I’d never want to live through a female character whose body doesn’t look like mine because, for me, the stakes are much higher. Denying my own body on the page potentially means confirming the notion that my body is not good enough to be written about. At that moment, my first fictional character was born.

TBF: What’s the last book you read, loved, and can’t stop recommending? Why is it so good?

DOB: The last book I’ve read that I keep talking about is a collection of essays called Like Love by Michele Morano. It’s such a smart premise: an exploration of love relationships that are not romantic. And the chapters are so fascinating: discussing relationships with passing strangers, neighbors, and her mother. It’s a really good book.

TBF: What’s the first book you remember reading? Who gave it to you?

DOB: The first one I remember reading was my illustrated children’s Bible, which was probably given to me by my mother. My favorite story was about Joshua making the sun stand still long enough to win a battle, which probably speaks to my lifelong struggle with procrastination.

Catch Destiny O. Birdsong on Saturday, November 5 at the State Capitol E2.014 from 11:00 – 11:45 at the 2022 Texas Book Festival!

Celia C. Pérez is the author of the novel TUMBLE.

TBF: Why did you write your new book? What was your inspiration? Where did the idea start?

CCP: It started with my junior high obsession with professional wrestling! Tumble is a story about wrestling, about family, about identity, about learning to make big decisions and about having the ability to choose. Like all of my books, it is a collage of things I love and am intrigued by. In this case: mythology, small towns, telenovelas, wrestling families, history, archives, traditions, mysteries, and family secrets. What makes a family? How does family influence who you are and how you see yourself? It’s about how family can lift us up, but also about how family can hurt us, and how we deal with that hurt. These are the things that were tumbling (see how I did that?) around in my brain when I was thinking about this story.

TBF: What’s the last book you read, loved, and can’t stop recommending? Why is it so good?

CCP: For adults: We Ride Upon Sticks by Quan Barry. It has so many things I love: 1980s pop culture references (I am a child of the 80s), witches, history, teen girls harnessing their power and finding their way in this world, mystery, and humor. The colors for both the hardback and the paperback scream 80s, and I love it.

For kids: Octopus Stew by Eric Velasquez. Eric was at the Texas Book Festival in 2019, and I caught the end of his reading of this book. He was fantastic. I got the chance to read this in Spanish and in English to a group of elementary school students and everyone loved it. It’s funny, suspenseful, and a great tribute to storytelling, and the illustrations are gorgeous.

TBF: What’s the first book you remember reading? Who gave it to you?

CCP: The earliest memory I have of reading a book, memorable in that it was a book that was mine — of my choosing and that I loved — was Phyllis Reynolds Naylor’s Witch’s Sister. It was the first book I remember owning. I was in Ms. Flanagan’s 3rd grade class at Comstock Elementary in Miami, Florida, and I purchased it from a Troll book order form. Forty years later, I still have this book in my possession. The original cover is missing, the pages are yellowed and smudged with years of handling and moving around with me, and there’s a literal book worm hole that goes from the beginning to the end of the book. I have read it many times in those forty years, and it still holds up.

Catch Celia C. Pérez on Saturday, November 5 at the Next Chapter Tent from 2:45 – 3:30 at the 2022 Texas Book Festival!

Sergio Troncoso is the author of the novel NOBODY’S PILGRIMS.

TBF: Why did you write your new book? What was your inspiration? Where did the idea start?

ST: I wrote Nobody’s Pilgrims to bring outsiders together and to tell an adventure story about becoming part of the United States when you don’t belong. I thought about the idea when editing my anthology, Nepantla Familias. There I wrote about how the greatest problem was that we are not a ‘we’ in this country, and so I thought about how a group, whether it’s a family or a threesome of strangers like Turi, Molly, and Arnulfo, become a ‘we.’ Trials, adventures, and fear bring people together. Also, young people (for better or for worse) trust each other more quickly than older adults. That initial trust is always the start of a potential community.

TBF: What’s the last book you read, loved, and can’t stop recommending? Why is it so good?

ST: The last book I read that I loved was Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders. I thought it was so inventive as a narrative form, yet also so deeply kind to the reader in search of the human soul. As a writer I was marveling at the voices and what seemed to me like a play into the metaphysical, yet it was also funny and generous and in a way philosophical. I want to read it again as I write these words. A book like Lincoln in the Bardo is meant to be read many times. Those are my kind of books.

TBF: What’s the first book you remember reading? Who gave it to you?

ST: The first book I remember reading was The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton. I’m sure I read other books before that one, but that’s the one that never left my memory years later. I think I stole it from one of the classrooms at Ysleta High School, and I think I also stole That was Then This is Now. I wanted to read and reread those books, because they somewhat mirrored my life in Ysleta. It’s possible Mrs. Newman or another English teacher gave me the book, or ‘left’ the classroom open so that I could steal it. They knew I loved to read, and they also knew I was poor. I had a few great teachers who knew me better than I sometimes knew myself.

Catch Sergio Troncoso on Saturday, November 5 at the State Capitol E2.016 from 2:15 – 3:00 at the 2022 Texas Book Festival!