with Marisa de los Santos

Starting with a poetry background as you did, was it difficult to convince your agent and the publishing world you had a novel in you?
Like most poets, I didn’t have an agent (since I think that most agents would find 15% of nothing pretty un-tempting), so that by the time Jen Carlson and I found each other, I was about 65 pages into the first novel. She wanted to represent me on the strength of just those pages, a show of faith that was really moving to me. Jen ended up being one of my closest friends, and her faith in my work and in me never wavered for a second (and still hasn’t!). When she sent the finished book out to editors, it ended up going to auction, and again, I lucked into a fantastic ally and friend in my editor Laurie Chittenden.

What did you do to celebrate the publishing of Love Walked In?
We had all kinds of celebrations, big and small, public and private. The biggest was a cocktail party and dinner at a terrific Pan-Asian restaurant here in Wilmington for about twenty good friends.

What is the best advice you can offer a writer that is not yet published?
Stay true to your characters and to your story. As you write, don’t think about anything else, not getting published, not pleasing an audience or an editor or an agent. Don’t worry about filling a niche or selling film rights. Listen hard to your characters, follow their lead, trust your instincts, and write the best book you can write.

Were you surprised by the success of Love Walked In? What’s surprised me the most is its longevity. It was more a slow-build book than a big-splash book, and the fact that it’s still selling steadily after all this time just feels like a gift. I get sweet, generous emails every day from readers who have only recently come to the book, and that’s just immensely gratifying.

Will we see any of your work on the big or small screen?
Paramount optioned Love Walked In ages ago, with Sarah Jessica Parker and the producer Michael London attached, but I sort of think that’s not going to come to fruition. Hollywood seems to be quite an unpredictable place, though, so who knows what the future holds?

Did it feel any different from the first time as your second novel was released?
The first go-round, I was giddy and flying high just to have the book out in the world. With Belong to Me, there was some anxiety there, as well, since I really, really wanted the readers who’d been so kind in telling me how much they loved Love Walked In to love the second book, too. I’d managed to put aside this desire to please them while I wrote the book because for me, thinking about pleasing an audience or about anything other than the demands of the story and characters hurts the writing. But as soon as the book launched, the anxiety began to niggle at me. However, even before Belong to Me hit stores, we’d been getting lovely feedback from early readers, librarians, and booksellers, which helped, and everyone at HarperCollins was so exuberant and supportive that their enthusiasm completely rubbed off on me!

Was it challenging to write multiple story lines concurrently in Belong to Me?
The biggest challenge was shifting gears between characters. Cornelia, Piper, and Dev are so different from each other. Every time I ended a chapter, I had to take a few days to shake off the old voice and to re-achieve the voice and personality of the character whose turn it was next, sort of the way I imagine an actor has to get into character for a new role.

The book I’m writing now is told from a single perspective, which I think I thought would be easier, but I’m finding that sustaining a single storytelling voice brings its own kinds of challenges!

There are so many changes in the story, physical, spiritual, and mental, (the moving from city to suburbs, losing friends, friends’ family personality changes etc.) What do you think is the main quality that helps someone through all the natural changes that we go through in life?
As clichéd as it might sound, I’d say that knowing who you are makes all the difference. There’s a point in Belong to Me in which Dev has just met Clare. He’s watching her play chess, and he’s considering the term “self-possession.” He thinks, “The same way Teo and Cornelia belonged to Clare, Clare belonged to herself. Clare liked being Clare, the same way that Dev had always (even when he was friendless and invisible) liked being Dev.”

I think belonging to yourself is much, much more difficult than it sounds, but I think it’s essential to weathering change.

Now that you have attained both poetry and fiction successes, are there other literary genres you are going to take on?
I’ve written a few literary essays, and I wouldn’t mind doing a bit more of that. But as a writer, I’m not a great multi-tasker, and I’m very focused on novel-writing at the moment. I love the full-body immersion of it and love being in the company of characters; it’s hard to imagine my loving any other writing process quite so much.

Are you working on a new book or project? Can you share any details with us?
I’m working on a third novel. I’m early with it, so a lot will no doubt change. For now, what I know is that it’s about two women and a man who meet in college and become incredibly close. Their friendship continues for years, and then, abruptly, for complicated reasons, it ends. When the book opens, they haven’t seen each other in six years. The man and one of the women reunite in order to look for the other woman, who has walked out on her life. It’s not so much a quest narrative or a mystery as it is about these intricate, difficult people and their relationships. The main character’s name is Pen. She’s unmarried, has a five-year old daughter, and lives in a Philadelphia apartment with her child and her older brother James.