In Conversation with Award Winning Author, Karla M. Jay

The air is crisp and cold and you are looking forward to a respite from the stresses of life as you hurry along the snow covered sidewalk. You climb the granite stairs to the library entrance where once through the doors you are free to go wherever your curiosity and imagination will take you. Suddenly you are unable to see where you are going and stop to remove your glasses to wipe away the steam clouding your lenses warming them with the heat from your fingers.

The ancient wide plank hardwood floor creaks and groans with each step as you cross the foyer. You climb the grand oak staircase to second floor making your way to the Reading Room. The room is softly lit, the walls lined with deep rich mahogany shelves filled with books and you notice there are still a few empty seats. A low murmur of amiable voices gently greets your ears and immediately you sense you are among friends. Someone hands you a steaming cup of coffee and wrapping your cold hands around it you sink down into the arms of a luxuriously padded wing back chair savoring the feel and scent of its buttery soft leather as all your cares drift away.

A hush falls over the room as a well modulated baritone voice begins, “Welcome to the Reading Room, my friends. We’re glad you could join our conversation. Please help me welcome, our new friend and award winning author, Karla M. Jay.

Good morning Karla and welcome to The Reading Room where you’re among friends. We’re very glad you joined our conversation, for the love of books.

James: When did you first realize you wanted to be a writer?

Karla: When I read the Boxcar Children. I was probably 7 or 8.

James: What do you like to do when you're not writing?

Karla: Read, research new ideas, garden when the weather permits, and travel.

James: What tactics do you employ when writing? (For example: outline first or just write)

Karla: I usually try to write to a general outline in my head and I make a few pages of notes so I remember the characters and what I’ve said about them, but I tend to push toward an ending without too much previous structure.

James: Tell us three things about yourself that might surprise your readers.

Karla: My favorite food is Concord grapes, I hiked the Inca Trail without a guide when I was 24, and I took fifth place in a half Iron Man because the other women quit along the route.

James: I’m impressed, Karla. The Inca Trail is a 26 mile or 43 kilometre trek to Machu Picchu, the mysterious “lost city of the Incas” and is rated by many to be in the top 5 treks in the world. That must have been an incredible experience.

Why did you choose to write in your particular field or genre?

Karla: I love learning about events I’ve never heard of and making them into compelling stories. I also read historical fiction books 70% of the time.

James: What was the source of your inspiration for It Happened in Silence?

Karla: I’ve wanted to write an Appalachia story for decades. When I learned about women in the KKK, and baby farms, that gave me the information to wrap a setting around.

James: You were very gutsy to take on such disturbingly poignant subject matter.

How would you describe It Happened in Silence to someone who has not read any of your previous novels?

Karla: A gritty story set in the beauty of nature that delves into injustice, loyalty and survival in 1920 America.

James: The ominous implications of this melancholy saga of greed, cruelty and hate are not only timeless but timely.

Which part of researching It Happened in Silence was the most personally interesting to you? Were there any facts, symbols, or themes that you would have liked to include, but they just didn't make it into the story?

Karla: I read three books on hobos, including women who rode the rails. I never used any of that and very little about hobos in general. The baby farming information was astounding (and depressing) when I learned how much it happened. The women of the KKK and all of their justifications for “righteousness” were equally shocking

James: It is hard to wrap one’s mind around the evil that lurks in the hearts of the human race.

Out of your protagonists, Willow Stewart, Briar Stewart or Ardith Dobbs which one do you feel you relate to the most?

Karla: I relate to Willow the most since I was raised in rural New York and spent a lot of time in the woods growing up. As a Speech Therapist, I wanted to have a mute character reveal that she is a smart, profound thinker and not handicapped at all. Ardith was the most fun to write with all of her vile ideas and secrets.

James: What advice would you give to a writer whose manuscript has been rejected several times and told he or she will never make it as a writer?

Karla: NEVER listen to that. Keep writing and trying to improve. I was rejected for 20 years before I found my “writer’s voice.” In my first historical fiction last year, When We Were Brave, I had a NY agent who quit pitching it when she was told there were too many WWII books out there. I believed in my story and that it was unique enough to have interested readers. I was right. It won 7 awards that year and has done well in sales.

James: Congratulations on your well deserved accolades, Karla. Thank you for your motivation to keep trying.

What is the most important tip you can share with other writers?

Karla: Read as much as you can and study what makes a book good. Hugh Howey, the author of Wool, says, “Write a book that you would want to read.” He did that and made hundreds of thousands as a self-published author when writers were told it was a shameful way to go.

James: What was one challenge you had to overcome to become an author? How did you overcome that challenge?

Karla: I had to sue my first agent because she quit paying me. Eleven months and $46,000 in legal fees later, I got my rights back but could have quit. I switched from writing humor to historical fiction and I guess I was angry enough to look at telling a WWII story in order to vent that!

James: That was a severe life lesson, Karla. Thank you for sharing it with us.

Pick an excerpt from It Happened in Silence you would like to share with readers.

Karla: “The sharpest image I hold from that day is the shiny nail heads in the wood, where someone overdone the hammering to shut the wood-slat crate they sent my brother home in. A note came attached, stiff with condolences from Mr. Mercer, the Estelle Mining owner. Other scrawled words said the company believed they’d recovered most of my brother from the explosion but warned us not to open the lid and check.

After he was buried in the family cemetery on a high knob, the neighbor men left their handmade leather boots outside the cabin, covered with fresh earth from Luther Junior’s grave. I studied that dark dirt, stuck on the notion that it unfairly exchanged places with my brother. The black soil was free to watch the sunshine poke daggers of light through the morning fog while my brother was destined to darkness. I was only fourteen but learned an oak-size life lesson that day. In order to pack down the pain of losing a loved one, adults turn their talk to everyday concerns, such as how months of foggy mornings could rot through a birch outhouse faster than one bad winter.”