when they speak English. Additionally, there is a very different intonation between a native English speaker’s English and a native Spanish speaker’s English. I tried to reflect these differences in my characters’ conversations in these books. I strived to write what my ear heard. 4) What are you reading right now? Just finished the novel News of the World by Paulette Jiles. I loved it! The protagonist Capt. Kidd reminded me of Gus in Lonesome Dove, and, well, I have always been a bit smitten with Gus. 5) What question have you been asked so many times it makes you nauseous to think you’ll have to entertain it again? People are curious about political zealots I may have encountered on book tour because my books involve the politically hot topic of border crossings. The truth is, once folks read these books they see, I hope, that the novels are not so much about the border as they are about familial love. I am much more interested in the human condition than I am in politics and dogma. I enjoy human stories much more than politics. So when people prod me for tales of political kerfuffle I’ve experienced on book tour, I have to say I have none to share, and that is the truth. I’ll leave the fights to talking heads on Fox News and CNN. 6) What question have you never been asked that you’re aching to answer? (What is the answer?) What is the best writing advice you’ve ever received? In 2006 in a fit of exasperation regarding my seemingly eternal inability to get my fiction published, I wrote an obnoxious letter to the editor of the Southern Review, a man named Bret Lott, begging him for an answer to the secret of success with writing and publishing. I wrote a whiney, sarcastic letter asking this editor, whom I’d never met, if I was foolish to keep writing fiction even as my rejection letter stack grew thick. I actually began my letter like this, “Dear Mr. Lott, if this is even you reading this letter and not some overworked, underpaid, graduate student doing your dirty work for you...” I am not proud of that letter. I mailed it, knowing the only reply I’d receive, if I received one at all, would be yet another form rejection letter, undoubtedly beginning, Dear Writer. But Bret Lott didn’t send me a form rejection slip. He wrote back to me and, in part, said: “Dear Ms. Stone: I would advise you simply to write and write and write... You are a writer. Now just don't give up... What worked for me were the words put in the order only I could put in that order. That's what has worked for every good writer I have ever met. Don't believe there is some secret path, or some handshake we all know that we're not talking about. Just write, and don't give up. Sincerely yours, Bret Lott." His words affected me. I did not give up, and that has made all the difference. 7) What is your next project, or one you’re currently on, and where can we buy your first two books? I’m currently working on a novel that took me on a research trip to the village of Aqua Azul, Honduras. It also took me to my birthplace of Charleston, South Carolina. That’s about all I can say about it right now. I encourage folks to buy my books (and all their books) at their local independent bookstore. If not there, they can order them online from most places.
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