Featured Interview With Sarah P. Blanchard
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I’m a New England farmer at heart, raised on a dairy-and-horse farm in Connecticut. I’ve also lived on the Big Island of Hawaii and in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, where several of my short stories and my debut novel, Drawn from Life, is set.
I earned a B.A. in English from the University of Connecticut and an M.B.A. from Nichols College, before working for many years in communications and marketing. On side journeys, I’ve also been a volunteer firefighter, radio news anchor, talk show host, magazine editor, website developer, horse trainer, grantwriter, and facilities supervisor for a large astronomy observatory. I also taught English and communications for five years at the University of Hawaii-Hilo.
I’m now dividing my time between western North Carolina and northeastern Connecticut, where my husband and I have family. I have a horse named Cody and a (very) small dog, a poodle-shitzu mix named Mitzi.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I can’t remember how old I was when I began reading, but I clearly remember devouring my mother’s collection of Reader’s Digest condensed books the summer I was ten, while tending my vegetable stand in the front yard. I began writing stories around the same time. My first writing award came in seventh grade, when I won a statewide prize for nonfiction prose and decided I was hot stuff. After many years in the corporate world, I began writing (serious) fiction and realized I needed to work a lot harder on my craft. Several of my poems and stories have been published, and the story “Playing Chess with Bulls” was a finalist for the 2021 Doris Betts Fiction Prize. I’m active in several writers’ groups and workshops.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
Rural life and the natural world have strongly influenced my writing, as have the works of Southern writers Barbara Kingsolver, Charles Frazier, and Ron Rash. I also love the British mysteries of Ann Cleeves and Elizabeth George. Joyce Carol Oates and Margaret Atwood are my inspirations for the darker aspects of human nature.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
After reading a 2017 article in The New Yorker (“The Shame and Sorrow of the Accidental Killer” by Alice Gregory), I became intrigued by the various ways people deal with moral injury. I began writing a story about two young women who are also cousins, one haunted by guilt and the other seemingly unencumbered by a conscience. The story became the novel Drawn from Life, set in the Blue Ridge Mountains. It also explores themes of bullying, family loyalty, secrets and betrayals. Begun during the pandemic, it took me almost four years to write–mostly because it turned from a mostly literary exploration of moral injury into a high-stakes psychological mystery.
Here’s the back-cover blurb:
Life-changing tragedy. Conflicting memories. Is she a killer or a victim?
Emma Gillen is haunted by guilt. Almost a decade after surviving a deadly car crash, she’s held hostage by long-term damage to her body and no recollection of that tragic event. Then her volatile cousin Lucy returns, needing money and bringing chaos. Emma must decide if she should bargain with the beautiful, untrustworthy Lucy—a possible witness to the crash—to uncover their shared past.
All bargains carry risk. As Lucy grows more desperate and greedy, Emma suspects there’s more at stake than just money. Struggling with shame, night terrors, and her own unreliable memory, Emma accepts help from a compassionate detective. But the choice remains hers alone: Can she find the strength to free herself from the danger of her cousin’s destructive power, or will Lucy bring everything crashing down?
Kirkus Reviews calls Drawn from Life a “skillfully executed story of suspense with compellingly complex characters….A well-crafted thriller about memories regained.”
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