The Long Haul follows a woman trying to stop a domineering corporation that is controlling essential resources such as food and water from the population. I think this original idea is intriguing. How did you come up with this idea and develop it into a story?

The worries about resources, including necessities like food and water aren’t new. As the population continues to increase, there will be more pressure to control food and water. Some of the mega-corporations that already exist could become like GreenCorps if the world/country was faced with the collapse of civilization and a war for resources. One of the stories I often read to my fifth-grade class is Among the Hidden by Margaret Peterson Haddix. The society in that book was changed by famines caused by the climate crisis and a government that took advantage of that fear to restrict people and access to food. At some point, I also read an article about the real-life seed vaults that exist to protect the genetic diversity of plant species…these ideas must have connected in my mind.

Were you able to relate to your characters while writing them?

As I write characters, I get to know them and relate to them more as the story goes on. As I relate to them more, I go backward and add details to hopefully flesh them out as individuals. As I write, the characters speak in my mind and hopefully, I do them justice on the pages.

I felt that there were a lot of great twists and turns throughout the novel. Did you plan this before writing the novel, or did the twists develop organically writing?

I make a bare-bones plan or outline before I write, but I change a lot as the story progresses. For example, I didn’t plan Mason being in love with Caitlyn. Learning that about him changed a lot of the story from the point of its discovery. Much of the plot development comes as I write and the characters become more real to me. While I write forward, I also write backward as inspiration strikes. I am constantly moving in both directions in my manuscript.

Can you tell us where the book goes and where we’ll see the characters in the next book?

The characters have not finished their fight and will return to GreenCorps-controlled lands in the third book in the trilogy, Rebels and Saints: Catching Freedom, which will be published on April 19th, 2025 by Black Rose Writing.

I am also in the planning stages for a potential spin-off story about Tatsuda and Ginger and what the future holds for them in the new world they help to create.

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