Give Me Shelter follows a group of people living through the Cuban missile crisis and a number of other personal struggles who must rely on each other to get through. What was the inspiration for the setup to your story?

I was thinking about the pandemic at the time and assumed lots of writers would be writing about it. So, I decided to write about a parallel experience, a time when something that seemed beyond our control posed a significant risk to millions of people. I grew up in the 1960s and remember the Cuban Missile Crisis very well. I was almost 12 and, much like Willie, I experienced high anxiety as the crisis unfolded. That is where I got the idea for the story. In fact, the first chapter, where Willie is hiding behind a couch with his dog during an air raid drill is something that I actually did at the time.

What was the inspiration for the relationship that developed between the characters?

This was more of an evolution than an inspiration. When I started, I had the title, Give Me Shelter, Willie and nothing else. Since my novels are character driven, I started thinking about who would be important people in his life. I gave him an older brother who was leaving home for college. I gave him a grandfather who took the boys in after an awful tragedy. I also wanted Willie to have friends that he was close to, Lucy and Pres (who then had their own stories). That helped me develop the coming-of-age aspects of the story. While I am writing a novel, other characters appear, for lack of a better explanation. I didn’t plan on Lucy’s mother, Trish, being a character, but then I got interested in what her life story was about, so I broadened her characterization. I created Robert, the neighbor, because I wanted to have a character that represented that segment of the population that was so convinced nuclear war was coming that they built bomb shelters in their basements or backyards. I assumed that Denny, because of the tragedies in his life, would be sheltered, inexperienced when he went to college. As a consequence, he might have trouble meeting people. Then he runs into Becky, who is lively and unique. I wanted her to have her own story and not just be an appendage to Denny, so I thought of a disability that she would be addressing throughout the story.

Usually, when I am creating characters, I want to do two things. First, I want them to be connected in some way to the central plot of the book. Second, I want them to have a story of their own, a rich subplot. This novel had two main stories—the missile crisis and the mystery about what happened to Wille and Denny’s parents. All the subplots had to have a life of their own, but still be connected in some way to the two main stories. I think this process gives my characters believability and makes for a richer story.

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

The key themes in the Give Me Shelter are loss, coming-of-age, friendship, uncertainty, danger, second chances, and the need for some form of safety or shelter.

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

I have recently started writing a novel entitled Until It Was Gone. I am only about 50 pages in, but I am enjoying the characters I’ve created so far. In the opening scene a husband and wife are at a restaurant celebrating their fortieth anniversary when the wife announces “I’m leaving. Forty years is enough.” That scene gave me a lot of options for what could come next. My books usually come out every two years, so I anticipate this one coming out in 2024.

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