In Next Stop, Boston, a young woman finds herself in the care of a temperamental rock-and-roller following her sister’s tragic death. Where did the idea for this novel come from?

The story is very loosely inspired by the old Fellini film classic La Strada. I wrote it for fun during one of the COVID surges. It encapsulates all my guilty pleasures–rock music, scandal-ridden rock star bios/memoirs, Hollywood gossip, fanfiction, and soap operas.

In addition to La Strada, the story is also inspired by other favorites, Janet Fitch’s White Oleander, Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles (my favorite novel as a teen), and the film Captain Fantastic.

The inspiration for the novel has its genesis to when I was a struggling theater actress in New York City in the early 1990s. I was called in by an off-off-Broadway theater company to participate in a play reading of a script about a young girl and a musician. I read the part of the young girl. The script was very well received, and I remember everyone commenting on how much it reminded them of La Strada. At the time, I didn’t see the movie, but later I did–several times. So, the germ of the idea began there. However, I put my own feminist spin on it because what was acceptable when the film came out in the early 1950s, doesn’t work in this modern post-MeToo era.

Was there anything from your own life that you put into the characters in your novel?

Other than my love of rock music, there is very little from my own life that I incorporated into Next Stop, Boston. I certainly don’t have any personal traits that are similar to Dez’s–that’s for sure. At least, I hope not. (I did stay one week at the Chelsea Hotel years ago, but that was in between apartments, and it wasn’t to score heroin). But I did enjoy writing him very much. It’s so much fun, even cathartic, to create a character most readers would consider to be the “villain” of the story. The thing about villains or morally ambiguous characters is they never consider themselves in that light. Not at all. They always think they’re in the right and everyone else is wrong! It’s very important to humanize them and invest them with a lot of nuance and dimension because if you don’t, you’re just going to create caricatures or stock villains with no depth or insight into their motivations.

I did base Val, the drummer who tries to help Geri, on a charming, cute drummer I briefly dated way back when. He was a sweetie, very similar to Val’s temperament and physicality. Sadly, I went on a few dates with him right before his band went on the road to promote an album and a video on MTV. Though we talked about picking up where we left off after the tour ended, I never saw him again. HA-HA. Musicians!

The only points of similarity I have with any of the characters in Next Stop, Boston would be with Geri in terms of her vulnerability, keen curiosity about the world, her sincere desire to improve herself, and her frustration at being misunderstood and dismissed by the adults around her considering her youth and neurodivergence. I’m not neurodivergent, but I was badly bullied when I was a young teen and still carry those wounds around with me as an older adult. That type of trauma can either strengthen, harden, or weaken you. I did incorporate some of that inner turmoil into Geri when I was working on her POV chapters.

What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?

If there is any message I wanted to convey with this story is how important self-reliance is in the end. Never depend on anyone for the validation of your self-worth. Depend on yourself and draw upon your inner strength to grow and move on.

What is the next book you are working on, and when will it be available?

For my next novel, I am toying with an idea of a story that will take place in 1986. The story will draw a little on my crazy youth in New York City and those nutty survival jobs I took to pay the rent and buy food.

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