Mayra Calvani's Blog - Posts Tagged "ghost"

Set against the backdrop of Puerto Rico, Belgium, Turkey, and the US, these seven stories range from the mysterious to the paranormal to the bizarre.

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Joan Schweighardt is a former indie publisher who now works as a freelance writer, ghostwriter, and editor. The Accidental Art Thief is her fifth novel.

Q: What’s inside the mind of a fiction author?

A: I think we all get obsessed with certain ideas, things we hear about or read. When that happens to me, I spin the idea around for a while and sometimes it becomes fodder for fiction. With The Accidental Art Thief, I was thinking about, among other things, money. I had been to a conference for fundraisers with the amazing Lynne Twist. I am not a fundraiser and probably didn’t belong at the conference, but Lynne Twist is also the co founder of an organization that advocates for indigenous people in the Amazon rainforest. I knew her work, had been to the Amazon, and wanted to meet her. So I went to a fundraising conference at a Buddhist Zen centre and listened to Lynne and others talk about money for three days. It was fun and I learned a lot and I added much of what I learned into the book.

While there are other more prominent themes in my book, it was money that got the book going. One of the characters pretty much ruins her life because she is blinded by anger having to do with money that had been withheld from her. She’s not the main character, but her anger ignites the plot.

Q: Tell us why readers should buy The Accidental Art Thief.

A:The Accidental Art Thief is fun, sometimes zany, and thought-provoking. I would never in a million years compare any aspect of my writing to Shakespeare, but I have to say that The Accidental Art Thief has some of the features that you might find in a Shakespearean comedy. First of all, there’s a thread of tragedy that runs through the backstory. Next, the lovers in the story express themselves through a lot of (contemporary-style) word play as they attempt to reveal their affection while simultaneously concealing their secrets. Also, there is definitely a theme of mistaken identities going on. And like a lot of Shakespearean comedies, all the issues of concern get cleared up at a grand event at the end of the book. I didn’t set out to emulate Shakespeare, but I couldn’t help but notice that there were some structural similarities. The bottom line is that the book is fun and, with its element of magical realism, I think it should appeal to people who like Alice Hoffman and Sue Monk Kidd and Gabrielle Zevin and other authors who mix a little magic (and, in the case of Zevin, humor) into their plots.

Q: What makes a good novel?

A: That’s the sixty-four thousand dollar question. Of course a good novel has to be well structured and well written, but there’s always something else too, some je ne sais quoi that makes the story sing. It might be a fabulously-drawn character, like the husband in Carolyn Parkhurst’s Dogs of Babel. Or it could be a really clever plot, like in Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl. Or great dialogue, like just about everything by Tana French, especially her first novel, In The Woods. I could have listened to her characters talk forever, even if the book had no plot, which of course it did.

Q: What is a regular writing day like for you?

A: I am a pen for hire and I write and edit for a living, for various clients. Sometimes months go by and I don’t have a minute to work on my own stuff. Other times the freelance famine sets in and I have lots of time. Either way, whether I am writing for clients or writing for myself, I write five days a week, for at least a few hours a day.

Q: What do you find most rewarding about being an author?

A: The process is its own reward. I never feel more myself than when I become passionate about a project I’m working on. You have to be pretty lucky to make a fortune writing fiction in these times, so it’s a good thing that writing has other merits.