The Metamorphosis of Marna Love is a coming-of-age novel centered around a sixteen-year-old girl in Iowa with a love for existentialism who has a growing suspicion that her mother is keeping a dark secret. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?

The image of a strange man protecting a little girl popped into my head one day for no particular reason. I had no idea where this was heading, but I fleshed out possibilities and explored potential plots to see where they would take me. I knew if I was going to write about a sixteen-year-old girl, I needed something to make her distinct and original to avoid cliches and stereotypes. I thought back to when I was sixteen and remembered a modern lit class my sophomore year in high school that blew my mind as I discovered existential writers such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus. It struck me that a similar fascination is what could make Marna stand out as an interesting three-dimensional character.

Did you begin with Marna’s inner life, or did the story’s central mystery come first?

I felt Marna’s inner life needed to be developed first. If she was going to remember something, she would need to have first forgotten something that would more fully display what was at stake. People have asked if this story was a mystery, but I see it more as a revelation, a discovery. There are elements of mystery, but I think the real story is what – and how – Marna learns about herself.

The relationship between Marna and her mother, Barbara, feels especially layered and tender—how did you build that dynamic?

I stumbled upon a Girlmore Girls re-run shortly after completing the novel and I thought that’s them! Marna and Barbara were Rory and Lorelai. Maybe they lacked the rapid-fire dialogue and parallel storylines that were a hallmark of the Gilmore Girls, but in this story, there is something in the dynamics between the mother-at-sixteen and her now sixteen-year-old daughter that shone through.

What do you hope readers carry with them after finishing Marna’s story?

As I was writing the story, I saw Marna blossom into an interesting three-dimensional character who began to fascinate me as a distinctly interesting character. With her at times daring, at times endearing approach to life, I see this as more of a coming into consciousness story with qualities that charm readers, leaving them thinking about her.

Author Links: GoodReads | Website | Amazon