Lindsay Starck, author of Monsters We Have Made
Genre Fiction Category, sponsored by Macalester College
Each week leading up to the 37th annual Minnesota Book Awards, we are featuring exclusive interviews with our finalists. You can also watch the authors in conversation with their fellow category finalists here.
What inspired you to write this book – or inspired you while writing it?
I was initially inspired by a true crime – the Slender Man stabbing – that took place in 2014 just outside my hometown of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. But the story soon moved away from the crime itself into an exploration of love and grief and magic and family. As I continued writing and revising, I found myself inspired by places (such as my own South Minneapolis neighborhood or the shores of the Great Lakes) and by other stories (the Grimm Brothers’ fairy tales, for instance, or the ending to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein).
What is one detail you wanted to include in this book, but couldn’t find a place for?
In a beautiful illustrated book called North Shore: A Natural History of Minnesota’s Superior Coast (by Chel Anderson and Adelheid Fischer), I learned that aspens in the northern forests are sometimes so full of forest tent caterpillars “that the forest crackles with the sounds of their munching as they feed on leaves.” I wish I could have put that in the book – the deafening sound of caterpillars feasting in the forests on the North Shore!
Tell us about someone (whose name isn’t on the cover!) who proved instrumental to the creation of this book.
My parents, certainly. The book is shaped by the protagonist’s deep, abiding love for her daughter – the kind of love that I have always felt from them. Also, my mother reads all my drafts and is the person who cheered me on most enthusiastically when I decided that I had to rewrite the whole ending a week before my final deadline.
Please tell us something about yourself that is not widely known. (It doesn’t have to be about the book in question – or even about your writing at all!)
My love of language is tied to my love of foreign language: I studied French and Italian in school, and I’m currently studying Egyptian Arabic. The more I learn about other languages, the more I notice and understand about English. And it’s this passion for words, this delight in the rhythm and sound of sentences, that drives all of my writing, not matter the topic.
Share your thoughts about the role and value of libraries.
My mother was a librarian, so I grew up in the Milwaukee Public Library. It’s where I learned to read, where I found my favorite authors, where I collected stickers during summer reading contests, and where – when I finally became an author myself – I celebrated the launch of my first book. It meant a lot to spend my childhood in a place where anyone could come to enjoy stories and pursue ideas. And I am forever grateful to the librarians who were always pressing books into my hands, telling me with quiet fervor: “I think you’re going to love this one.”
Lindsay Starck was born in Wisconsin and raised in the Milwaukee Public Library. She is the author of the novel Noah’s Wife, and her short fiction has appeared widely.