Interview Questions Nobody Actually Asked Me...

but I’m answering anyway.

The characters in Pivot and Slip are athletes. Are you athletic?

I’ll start my answer to this with a story: When I was a kid in Florida we had a house with a nice flat yard all around it. Probably infested with fire ants and mosquitos too because Florida, but this is not about that. My older sister liked to race me through this yard, around this house. My sister is decidedly not athletic. I could run faster than her; she knew it and I knew it, yet every single time she’d somehow pull through at the very last lap and win. One final burst of adrenaline? Strength and speed she never even knew she had until she saw fame and glory slipping through her tiny grasp?

Nah. I let her win.

Why did I always let her win? It meant more to her. She’d get upset when she lost, but it never really bothered me. Or whatever the five-year-old version of that is. Probably something like, meh.

So am I athletic? I could be. If I cared. Which I don’t. But I played softball and soccer and neighborhood basketball and I was even on a swim team. I just always seemed to apply the same sort of anti-competitiveness to every athletic endeavor. Too mellow for my own good.

Then why would I write about athletes?

I guess I was intrigued by the sort of person who does have that drive. What is that like, to put so much of yourself into a sport that demands everything of you, physically and mentally?

I was asked in a live Q&A if I’m a sports fan, and the answer to that is also no. But in the South college sports are a huge deal, and I often find myself watching these games and thinking about the tremendous amount of pressure these kids are under. So for Felix and Jack in particular, I started with these young men who are at the top of their game one minute, under all this pressure to achieve and to win, and then the next minute boom everything they worked so hard for is gone. Their entire identity is gone.

What happens after that? Who are they now? Where do they go from there?

Then I weaved a romance story around those questions, and a theme about finding new dreams and what that might look like. A story that is, I think, ultimately about hope.

When I threw those races around the house with my sister, maybe it was because I honestly didn’t care, but I like to think it had a little do with being happy that she was happy. It doesn’t take an athlete to understand what triumph and winning are really about. (Not having to listen to your sister whine for half an hour about losing a dumb race, that’s what.)

And hope. That too.