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What inspired you to write DRAGONFLIES AT NIGHT?

Well, I have to say that I didn’t set out to write this particular book! In 2014, I was just beginning to play around with the idea of writing fiction again, and I thought it would be fun to write a romance. The characters of Ben and Savannah sprouted up in my imagination and I gave them a meet-cute at a yoga retreat center. But the more I got to know each of them, the more I realized that their story was much bigger than a love story. When Savannah’s mother, Deirdre Rose, began sharing her own story with me (in my imagination, of course), things shifted a bit. Deirdre died from breast cancer when Savannah was just fifteen, but the more I wrote, the more Deirdre had to say. I could see that the mother-daughter relationship was hugely important.

The novel went through a couple of title changes. At first I was just calling it: Ben and Savannah: A Love Story. Then I changed it to Her Splendid Life based on Deirdre’s last words to Savannah. When the dragonfly appeared to Deirdre in the darkness as she lay dying, I fell in love with title Dragonflies at Night. Dragonflies appear several times throughout the love story as a symbol of how those we love and lose are never really gone.

If you could sum the book up in one sentence, what would you say?

I can’t do it in one, but here are three short sentences instead! Dragonflies at Night is a gentle, contemporary love story. Woven through it is the belief that those who love us and leave this world are never really gone. It is full of celebrities, celebrations, and one very important cemetery.

What challenged you about writing this story?

The scenes that were the most challenging were the ones with Savannah’s Auntie Zan who, when the story opens, is semi-conscious in a nursing home, having suffered a series of strokes. My mom had a stroke when she was 81, so I was remembering the three days that my brothers and I attended to her at her bedside before she quietly passed. It was a difficult time, and I always wondered how much she understood of what we said to her, and how much she was able to hear of her favorite music that we played for her.

Which character do you most relate to and why?

Even though I didn’t lose my parents until my adult years, I relate the most to Savannah because I totally understand her fear of receiving a cancer diagnosis. I went through surgeries and treatments for breast cancer in 2002 and again in 2011, so I can tell you that her fear is very real.

Savannah is also an introvert who loves solitude, the theatre, and her two cats (among other things!). Needless to say, those are also parts of me! Also, I just love her attitude about celebrating life, and all of her party ideas for her Life Celebrations business. She is creative, and I can definitely identify with that part of her as well. It’s funny… at one point, Ben points out to her that she is an introvert who loves giving parties. And that he is an extrovert who is a terrible host. Just one more way that these two are a perfect match!

What do you hope readers will take with them after they’ve read it?

I really hope that readers will be touched by the fact that there is a greater Love at work in our earthly romances, and that relationships aren’t separated by death, as proven in my novel by the relationship between Savannah and Deirdre Rose.

There’s a lovely quote from St. John of Chrysostom: Those whom we love and lose are no longer where they were before. They are now wherever we are. I will feel satisfied if even one reader is comforted by this after reading this novel.

What is something about you that is unique or we may not know?

Here are two things… please use what you like:

Since the time I could hold a pencil, one of my greatest passions has been Writing (note the capital W). My childhood found me scribbling pages and pages of stories and novels on lined notebook paper that I kept piling into bulky three-ring binders. In sixth grade, our English teacher asked us to write a short story, and I produced a 40-page handwritten novel about a beautiful fantasy world where cats could talk! He was so impressed that he sent it off to a publisher, and even though we never heard any more from that publisher, I tucked that whole experience away in my heart like a tender secret- I had written a book, a whole book, and my teacher had thought it worthy of publishing! That is when I first felt a longing to be a “real” Writer, and when it first became an actual possibility.

and

The main characters of Dragonflies at Night, Ben and Savannah, fall fast and hard for each other. While some people think that falling love at first sight (or almost first sight) isn’t a “thing,” I experienced it firsthand in 1991 when I met a handsome guy named Jeff on a blind date. We didn’t say “I love you” for a few weeks, but both of us said later that we felt an instant familiarity and sense of “home” with each other on that first meeting. It was four years until we married, but this relationship that began almost thirty years ago is still thriving and going strong, through rough seas as well as smooth. I wish the same for Ben and Savannah, as well as each of you who are reading this right now.