Wendy Webb, author of The Witches of Santo Stefano
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 spent a month in Italy – the trip of a lifetime. Before I went, I mentioned to my agent that I would probably set a book there. She mentioned it to my publisher, who called wanting to know what this new Italy book was going to be about. I had no idea! But out of thin air, I said: “It’s going to be about a woman who finds out she comes from a long line of Italian witches.”
What is one detail you wanted to include in this book, but couldn’t find a place for?
I was writing on a tight deadline. If I had had more time, this story could’ve been twice as long.
Tell us about someone (whose name isn’t on the cover!) who proved instrumental to the creation of this book.
My friend Rod Raymond, who happens to own my favorite restaurant in Duluth, the Brewhouse, bought a home in a 900-year-old, perfectly preserved hill town in Italy. He thought it would be a great setting for a book. As it turned out, it was!
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!)
I write really quickly. I wrote this book in six weeks.
Share your thoughts about the role and value of libraries.
I grew up believing libraries were magical places. When I was in school, the best day was always library day, when we could pick out a new book to read. A librarian put A Wrinkle in Time in my hands, and my life changed forever.
Wendy Webb is the bestselling, award-winning author of eight novels of gothic suspense, including The Tale of Halcyon Crane, The Fate of Mercy Alban, The Vanishing, The End of Temperance Dare, Daughters of the Lake, and The Haunting of Brynn Wilder. She is a two-time Minnesota Book Award winner.