Silence follows a young girl who loses her tongue and is now trying to survive in a world that values perfection over everything else. What inspired the setup of your story?

Silence was born from my own insecurities. I always felt inferior to other people, and felt that I had to work triple time in order to keep up. One of my flaws is that if what I do and what I am is not perfect, then I’m not good enough (that’s why I’m in therapy). The concept of a tongueless protagonist came to me one rainy day in a cafe. My friend and I were sitting around a table and having coffee–and the conversation was deep and riveting. At that moment, I realized I had nothing to contribute and felt bad about it, and the image of me cutting out my own tongue suddenly shot into my mind. The rest just kind of followed.

What are some things that you find interesting about the human condition that you think make for great fiction?

Great fiction, for me at least, is when a book is able to connect to its reader. Like, “Oh, I felt like that once,” or “I get this character because I was more or less in the same shoes emotionally.” So human flaws, or how we deal with things, or our thought processes are very interesting to me. I’m so fascinated with the journey behind the reason why or how a person settled on a particular decision.

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

Without giving away much of the book, a very important theme to explore for me was “isolation.” I wanted to recreate or at least simulate what isolation felt for the reader–because I’m hoping people who had never felt it before would be given a chance to see what it feels like to some degree and encourage them to be kinder. Another reason is that if someone who feels isolated picks up this book, hopefully, they’ll feel a little less alone because someone was able to put what they feel into words. Another theme was the difference between “silence” and “silencing.” “Silence” can be good, powerful, and beautiful. But the act of “silencing” is usually debilitating, and gives way to isolation and loneliness.

Will there be a follow-up novel to this story? If so, what aspects of the story will the next book cover?

I wouldn’t say that it will be a sequel, but the second book will take place in the same universe, after the first book. I plan to write a trilogy of standalone novels so that people can enjoy each book without having to read the others. Of course, characters from the other books will appear and play a role, so I’m very excited for that! For the next novel, I plan to explore the intricacies of “belief” and the “power of voice.”

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