A Conversation With Jenny Milchman

Jenny Milchman gets around, and I mean that in the most flattering sense. She spent eleven months in her car taking her debut novel Cover of Snow—as well as her husband and kids—to 400 bookstores. The book went on to win the Mary Higgins Clark award, was praised by the New York Times, and chosen as an Indie Next and Target Pick. Subsequent books—Ruin Falls and As Night Falls—also earned outsized acclaim. Her newest, Wicked River, drops May 1 from Sourcebooks.

Jenny speaks nationwide about the publishing industry and the importance of sticking to a dream. She is Vice President of Author Programming for International Thriller Writers, and the founder of Take Your Child to a Bookstore Day. Jenny led the literary series Writing Matters, which covered the publishing industry during the upheaval of 2009, attracted guests coast-to-coast, and received national media attention. She teaches writing and publishing for New York Writers Workshop.

She’s here today to talk about her involvement with the New collection from Down & Out Books, The Night of the Flood.

One Bite at a Time: I have to start with the obvious question. You have a sizable footprint in the industry. You’re a talented writer, come across as intelligent and you have your whole life ahead of you. What got you involved with Ed Aymar?

Jenny Milchman: Oh, well, you know what they say about appearances. In all seriousness, meeting Ed Aymar made everything in my life easier. Well, not everything. I still have to do the dishes. But given my role as ITW board member, Ed has been one heckuva connection for me because he is just as devoted to helping other writers, doing what he can to further their careers, as I am. This anthology being just one example. A couple of years ago, Ed became Managing Editor of ITW’s debut authors blog, The Thrill Begins, completely revamping it. And it’s grown into one of the best, most lively and interesting resources for writers on the web. (Do people still say “web” when referring to the internet? See, this is why I need Ed.)

OBAAT: Ed and Sara Chen were here a couple of weeks ago to talk about the anthology in general. Tell us a little about your contribution.

JM: Small. That’s what I have to say about my contribution to The Night of the Flood. When Ed described the project to me, I happened to be in a particularly frenetic phase of my career—losing my first editor, on submission for what would turn out to be the dream publishing team, only I didn’t know that then—and still, his idea completely swept me away. A novel in stories—told by writers whose talent I knew firsthand from reading their debuts, and in many cases, their follow-ups. I didn’t think I could add much, but when Ed mentioned that there’d be a sort of forward—an open letter to the townspeople of Everton—two things happened. One, I thought I could handle writing such a piece, and two, the voice of the character came to me, fully formed. She just began dictating words in my head, and I wrote them down. So that’s why I say my contribution was pretty small. And easy.

OBAAT: You’re able to write short stories and novels equally effectively. Is it as effortless as you make it seem? Short stories kill me. I write them, but to me they’re much harder than novels.

JM: Oh no, I completely agree with you. (See above). Writing a short story is like trying to swallow a whole lasagna in one bite. (I don’t know why I came up with lasagna. Could’ve been a casserole. Or a chocolate cake.) You know, the fullness and grandness of a novel loses something when I try to trim it down to 5000 or so words. I’ve written a handful of short stories I’m really proud of; two of them were published in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, and the best in my opinion is called “The Closet”, about a young girl who takes revenge—hey, shades of The Night of the Flood—but every short story takes me months and months of whittling, shaping, trying to find the core. It’s novels that have my heart.

OBAAT: Let’s talk about your novels. I write two series, mainly because once I get a universe down my ideas tended to come in that form. You’ve written three well-received standalones with a fourth to come. Are there any connective threads? Similarities in protagonist or location or themes?

JM: Actually, the dirty little secret behind my books is that they are a series that can be read as standalones. That secret isn’t so dirty actually. If it were, it’d probably get a lot more press. OK, rewrite! The secret behind my books is that they are a series that can be read as standalones.

Here’s how: They all take place in the same fictional town. It’s called Wedeskyull, and the town becomes a character in the books. A mountain village, largely lost to time, and riven by a cultural chasm between the old-timers and the newcomers, the locals and the expats. When those two groups share a land and their lives, it makes for a great deal of drama. Even though my forthcoming novel, Wicked River, is set in the back-country, the town still plays a role. The local police chief is first on scene when my honeymooning couple fails to arrive back home. People who read all four of my books will see small characters from one tale play bigger roles in another, and vice versa. It’s one of the joys of writing for me—to see this town come alive in layers and ripples.

OBAAT: In 2013 you and your family traveled to 400 bookstores over nearly a year. You’ve repeated the tour for each book since. What gave you the idea and how did you keep up with the rest of your life while you were living out of suitcases for so long?

JM: In 2013, after a thirteen year odyssey to see my “first” novel published (it was actually the eighth one I had written), my husband and I rented out our house, traded in two cars for an SUV that could handle Denver in February, and pulled the kids out of first and third grades to “car-school” them on a 35,000 mile drive around the country. I did a book event nearly every day, sometimes two. And my publisher thought I was nuts. They actually convened a call to tell me I was nuts. And here’s the thing—I was nuts. The whole idea was crazy. Who goes to one book event for an unknown novelist, traveling far from home, where she doesn’t know anyone—let alone 250 of them? Then my debut novel went into six printings in hardcover, and all of a sudden, well, I was still nutty, but the nuttiness had somehow worked. I think that may be because in this virtual world, we still crave the face-to-face. The handshake, the smile, the words exchanged in person. I was introducing my book to the world, but really I was introducing myself—and meeting people in return. Much as I appreciate all the riches on offer online, truly great was to see Facebook friends become friends IRL. As for keeping up with regular life—we didn’t for the most part. Book tour was like a step out of time for us, and we all really embraced it, and enjoyed the 24/7 aspect of being together. The humorous or ironic (or wonderful) punch line to all this is that I’m now with a publisher that believes in relationships and word of mouth and bookstores and libraries just as much as I do, and for my fourth novel, they’re sending me out on a mega tour again!  

OBAAT: You’re a board member and Vice President of the International Thriller Writers and run the Author Programs operation. How did you get involved in that?

JM: A long, long time ago—actually it was five years, a blip in publishing terms, which is roughly the scale of geological time—I was a newbie author, and ITW’s Debut Authors Program helped introduce my book to the world, and teach me about the biz. Being a writer is one thing, and usually by the time we’re published, we know a thing or two about craft. But becoming a professional in a very high stakes, major media industry is a whole other ball of wax, kettle of fish, pick your cliché, and ITW guided me as I began. I wanted to do as much as I could for the next wave of authors. First I served as Chair of the Debut Authors Program, then I joined the board as Vice President of Author Programs. This includes overseeing the Debut Program committee, a podcast featuring ITW members as guests called the Inside Thrill, a yearly program in Palm Beach that showcases debuts alongside one headliner—this year it’s R.L. Stine—our newly expanded YA/MG arm, and of course, all of Ed Aymar’s brainstorms.

OBAAT: Clearly we’re talking about two different Ed Aymars, but that’s a discussion for another time. What are you working on now?

JM: Well, it’s a story about this guy named Ed who’s sort of a Jekyll and Hyde figure…OK, actually, right now I am at the delicious, rubbing-my-hands-together-in anticipation stage of being about to begin a new novel. I call this the sprinkle-frosted cupcake stage. Nothing I enjoy more—about writing and the biz anyway—than a first draft. Now, this is because I suffer from a perseverative delusion that I am writing the world’s first perfect first draft, and I get my comeuppance come editing time, so don’t hate me. But right now, I am a happy, happy writer. The new book is called Mercy Island, and that’s all I can say, except that it’s a stranger-comes-to-town story, written from the perspective of the stranger.

A Conversation With E.A. Aymar and Sarah M. Chen, Editors of The Night of the Flood

The Night of the Flood is one of the more eagerly anticipated anthologies to come out in some time, dropping early next month from Down & Out Books. With contributors including E.A. Aymar, Rob Brunet, Sarah M. Chen, Angel Luis Colón, Hilary Davidson, Mark Edwards, Gwen Florio, Elizabeth Heiter, J.J. Hensley, Jennifer Hillier, Shannon Kirk, Jenny Milchman, Alan Orloff, and Wendy Tyson, it’s a…well, let’s just have the two driving forces behind it tell you about it: the editors, Sarah M. Chen and E.A. Aymar

One Bite at a Time: Tell us about The Night of the Flood.

Sarah M. Chen: It’s a novel-in-stories told from fourteen different perspectives that centers around one night of chaos in Everton, a small fictional Pennsylvania town. It all begins when the first female in modern times is executed in Pennsylvania. This sets off a group of passionate female activists to blow up the town’s dam in protest. What follows is an opportunity for crooks and killers to wreak havoc on the town while with some folks, it’s all about survival.

E.A. Aymar: Sarah couldn’t be more wrong. < Reviews her answer> Oh no, that’s right. She’s right.

And that, my friends, was a live example of how Sarah and I work together as editors. Ta-da.

OBAAT: As a Pennsylvania native myself, I have to ask: Why Pennsylvania? And what part of Pennsylvania is Everton in?

SMC: I was brought in after Pennsylvania was decided upon so had no say in it (because I would have definitely championed SoCal!). Then when I was trying to plan my character's route as she drives from New Jersey to Indiana (she's a reluctant truck driver), I needed more of an exact location so I could name specific highways and interstates. This was central to my story. We settled on a small town south of Pittsburgh near the Monongahela River. I wrote New Eagle in my notes after Ed and I had our first phone pow wow so that must be the town. I never argue with my notes.

EAA: We picked Pennsylvania because we needed the worst state we could think of and Ohio was taken. Ha ha, just kidding; obviously, Arizona is the worst state. On a serious note, Pennsylvania made sense both logistically and artistically – J.J. Hensley and Wendy Tyson both lived in PA (as does Tom Sweterlitsch, who was originally going to be involved), and the state is close to a number of the other contributors. That was important for local familiarity and if we wanted to do some sort of launch event in PA. And Pennsylvania is one of those states like New York or Virginia, where you have that discordant mix of urban and rural, and that environment gave us the freedom to draw from any number of approaches for our characters.

But SoCal was never an option.

OBAAT: How did you two get together on The Night of the Flood? Who had the idea first?

EAA: Actually, JJ. Hensley had the idea first. J.J. works with a bunch of us on ITW’s The Thrill Begins, and he had the idea of everyone putting together a shared-theme anthology. We screwed around with the concept and it eventually turned into The Night of the Flood. Then we needed to make the project a bit longer, so we brought in some friends.

SMC: I was brought in later by Ed. Thanks, Ed!

OBAAT: “We screwed around with the concept and it eventually turned into The Night of the Flood” is kind of vague. What sort of iterations did it go through?

SMC: Dana is totally looking right at you, Ed.

EAA: J.J.'s original suggestion incorporated characters from each writer's work, sort of similar in concept to the Match Up anthology that ITW published. But there were contractual concerns with that, as well as issues like not every writer has a series (in the end, I think J.J. and Angel Luis Colon were the only writers to incorporate characters who have appeared in their other work). I liked the idea of a cataclysmic event that every writer has to respond to and, when this book was discussed, Trumpism was on the rise and anger in the country was palpable. We ended up tapping into that anger, specifically in the town's riots and, conversely, (although this was well ahead of the Women's March and the #MeToo movement) in the sense that a group of women have simply been pushed too far. We had a firm sense of the novel's conflict, and an intentionally soft approach to how each writer was going to address it. We didn't dictate how the flood and riots would play out – that happened organically. And Jennifer Hillier's epilogue does a fantastic job of wrapping the story up.

OBAAT: That’s an impressive roster of contributors. How did you decide who to ask?

EAA: We had nine from The Thrill Begins, and when we decided to ask more, we just

E.A. Aymar (Photo courtesy of E.A. Aymar)

tossed some names around. Sarah was the first person we asked – everyone in TTB knows her and likes her personally, and respects her writing tons. And the four others (Alan Orloff, Hilary Davidson, Angel Luis Colon and Mark Edwards) each has something unique in their voice and varied in their style. Not everyone knew everyone, but we got a good sense of each other through collaboration.

SMC: It was a collaborative effort amongst all of us. <> Awww, OK, Ed’s answer is way better. Mine sucks. Get rid of it.

OBAAT: Given the caliber of writers involved in The Night of the Flood, how did you decide who got which part of the night? Was there any pushback from writers who wanted a different slot? How much direction did each writer receive about their slot?

SMC: There was a Google doc we all shared and worked off of. Each writer chose an hour on the timeline and sketched in their story idea. There were a few of us who couldn’t make up their mind between 4am and 11pm. (OK, maybe that was just me.)

E.A. Aymar arriving at interview site.

EAA: And, to be honest, a lot of it was luck. Nobody’s story was problematic. Everyone did what they wanted, and it ended up working perfectly. People played off each other really well. For me and Sarah, that made our job a lot easier.

OBAAT: So what exactly was your job? Fourteen talented writers write fourteen stories around a common theme. I’m sure discerning readers want to know, what does an editor do in a situation like this?

SMC: Ed and I talked at length over the phone after reading all the stories. This was our first round of edits. We wanted to be sure all the stories were consistent across the board in terms of landmarks, business names, how high the water had risen at what time, whether it was a full moon or half moon, and character names / descriptions if they appeared in more than one story. Stuff like that. We also went over things like confusing plot points or if something needed more development which wasn't really as much of an issue. Mostly, we needed to ensure that we were all on the same page with setting and story concept set-up. And of course, my favorite: proofreading! Seriously, I love proofreading.

EAA: I'd just add that Sarah has a ferocious memory for detail and that was so important when it came to things like street names, landmarks, and characters. I think Sarah and I did a good job of catching things the other might have missed, which is really the necessity of a good editor for an integrated anthology. Chris Rhatigan, who edited the book for Down and Out, was also a tremendous help and we're all indebted to him. But, truthfully, the benefit of working with good writers is that they're hard on themselves and catch a lot of their own errors. We lucked out with this group.

On the way out, Sarah pulled away to make the following comment:

I really enjoyed working with Ed. I think we make a good team. The same goes for everyone involved in this anthology. I feel so lucky and grateful that this talented group of writers brought me on board. They're awesome to work with and I've had a blast. Also, the Down & Out crew has been fantastic as well. They do so much for us.

I guess that was three things I added. Thanks, Dana!

And then Ed returned her dog unharmed.