Thursday, May 7, 2015

Sarah McCoy

Sarah McCoy is the New York Times, USA Today, and international bestselling author of The Baker’s Daughter, a 2012 Goodreads Choice Award Best Historical Fiction nominee; the novella “The Branch of Hazel” in Grand Central; The Time It Snowed in Puerto Rico; and The Mapmaker’s Children (Crown, 2015).

Her work has been featured in Real Simple, The Millions, Your Health Monthly, Huffington Post and other publications. McCoy has taught English writing at Old Dominion University and at the University of Texas at El Paso. She calls Virginia home but presently lives with her husband, an Army physician, and their dog, Gilly, in El Paso, Texas.

Recently I asked McCoy about what she was reading. Her reply:
In my hands currently is Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life. Yes, I may be the last person on the planet to pick up this wondrously inventive and profound novel. I’ll never read “Snow” without feeling full-body chills again. That’s some writing power—to craft a novel that makes a single word resonate like a sonic boom. I can’t say enough about Atkinson’s writing. It is… rapturous.

Reading this book is also in preparation for Atkinson’s sequel/companion novel A God in Ruins, which tells the story of Teddy, the younger brother of Life After Life’s main character Ursula. While I’ve never written sequential novels, I grew up gobbling novels that formed series. If I fall in love with a fictional landscape and a set of characters, I crave to return to see their adventures continue.

Some of my standby re-readings are L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables series, Lisa See’s Shanghai Girls and Dreams of Joy, Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind and Alexandra Ripley’s Scarlett, to name a few perpetual goodies.
Visit Sarah McCoy’s website, Facebook page, and Twitter perch.

The Page 69 Test: The Time It Snowed in Puerto Rico.

The Page 69 Test: The Baker's Daughter.

Coffee with a Canine: Sarah McCoy and Gilbert.

The Page 69 Test: The Mapmaker's Children.

My Book, The Movie: The Mapmaker’s Children.

--Marshal Zeringue