Photo credit: Molly Hawkey

You grew up in South Africa during apartheid.  Do you think this changed they way you looked at life? At people? How did it affect your writing, specifically what you wrote about?

When I moved to California in 1994 after marrying my husband (an American), the big news was then-First Lady, Hilary Clinton, had said a bad word.  I thought, “Wait.  What?  This is a big deal on this side of the word?”  In South Africa, we’d just been through the first free election without any assassinations.  Many still feared the kind of bloodbath that had happened in other African countries.  A new constitution was being hammered out, and the Truth And Reconciliation Commission was about to be established, a system seeking justice for victims and perpetrators of atrocities through repentance and forgiveness.

Growing up in South Africa meant being immersed in complexities, and so it’s really no surprise that I’m drawn to stories and characters that are complex.  The abiding themes of suffering, forgiveness, and redemption have made their way from my childhood memories to the pages of my manuscript.

You’ve lived all over the world, including Johannesburg, London and Honolulu, and now Los Angeles. All of these locations have vastly different cultures.  Which location was your favorite, and why?

I like places where there’s a diversity of cultures.  Honolulu was probably my favorite, but not for the typical reasons.  It was there that I made friends with three amazing women, each from a different part of the world – Singapore, Tonga and the Seychelles.  They’re all different colors, too, and for a white girl who grew up in a segregated society, these friends represent a power no government can corral.

You literally left behind everything you had when you chose to leave South Africa and move to the US.  How did this change/effect you?

I left my country with two suitcases and enough naiveté to fill a hundred Harlequin novels.  I had no idea how hard being a foreigner was going to be.  To my husband’s congregation, I was Mrs. Reverend Morley, to the IRS I was ‘Resident Alien.’  It was as though I’d been stripped of my identity, but everyone kept smiling and saying, “Gee, what a pretty accent you have.  Are you from Australia?”  Amid the daily stresses of driving on the wrong side of the road, deciphering recipes that called for ingredients in ounces and pounds instead of milliliters and grams, and decoding cultural in-jokes like Seinfeld, I built up a big reservoir of empathy for those who are considered “outsiders.”

Abbe Deighton, the main character in Come Sunday has lost her bearings after moving from Africa to Hawaii.  Were aspects of Abbe’s life taken from your own?  Did you lose your bearings after leaving your home? What did you do to overcome this?

Losing one’s bearings, whether by choice or by circumstance, is probably something each of us should go through at least once.  It gives you a chance to examine what’s really important.  It’s easy to become defined by stuff.  But when you’re lost, physically and spiritually, when you’re emotionally disoriented, you’re in the best position to latch on to what is real and lasting.  Love, of course, but also friendship, loyalty, hope, God.  Finding out your bearings have nothing to do with compass coordinates is a liberating experience.

Abbe experiences a pretty traumatic loss in Come Sunday. How difficult was this to write, being a mother of a daughter yourself?

It was hard to imagine myself in Abbe’s situation.  I used to avoid movies and books where children get hurt, because that’s a deep scary cave.  But this was a story that wanted telling, and it was as if I was the sucker who showed up on the day that particular assignment was handed out.  Soon after I started writing the story, though, I knew it wasn’t going to be all about grief but more about the redemptive power of forgiveness.  It was going to be about the nature of marriage and motherhood and interracial friendships.

Before making the leap to fiction, you were a journalist.  How did the two roles differ? Did your role as a journalist help/hinder your role as a fiction writer?

When I wrote for the magazine, it was challenging and demanding, but ultimately soulless.  After I quit my job, I pledged never to write again.  Ten years later, after Abbe materialized at my bedside one night, I encountered something entirely different.  When I sat down to write, it felt as if there was a great invisible river running above me and I was sticking my finger in it, and the undercurrent coursed through me and spilled out onto the page.  It was immensely fulfilling and life-changing.

Your work has been compared to authors like Barbara Kingsolver, Bohjalian, Sue Miller, and Anita Shreve. I say I have to agree! Who are some of your favorite authors?

Thank you.  It’s very humbling, those comparisons, and I’m sure they’d stop if people were to see me hacking away at the weedy undergrowth of my latest story.

Among my favorite authors are Cormac McCarthy, Tim O’Brien, Anne Lamott, Bill Bryson, Roxana Robinson, Doris Lessing, Jon Krakauer and Alan Paton.

Who/what is your inspiration as you write? Is it always the same, or does it change depending on what you write about?

The inspiration for a story tends to come from a particular character, rather than an event or place.  And whatever inspired the character – who can say?  I tend to believe it’s the great Creative Spirit who is the author of all stories.

I’m anxiously awaiting another book from you. Can you give us a hint on what you are working on now?

The reason why I wrote secretly in a closet (literally) for two years was because I needed to write and write with permission to fail.  I didn’t want to disappoint anyone.  For this reason, it’s hard to talk about what’s next.  But I can tell you it will tackle deep themes and include events that challenge and change lives.

I’m nosey…I like to see where people work.  Can you share with readers  a picture of your desk, office, etc?
Here’s where I’ve been doing my writing lately… I have an office, but it’s out on the deck with the view of the San Gabriel Mountains that I spend much of my day.  I’ve also traded my computer for old-fashioned notebooks and a ballpoint pen.  There’s always a pot of tea and the sound of the mockingbird and grand thoughts drifting along on the morning breeze.

What a breathtaking view! Ahh…and do I spot post-it notes? A woman after my own heart!

Check back later today & enter to win a copy of COME SUNDAY by Isla Morley!

Inteview with Isla Morley, Author of Come Sunday is a post from: Jenn's Bookshelves. Reproduction of this content is forbidden unless approved through prior written consent.

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I was reading your biography and learned that you took a backpacking trip through Asia when you were in your twenties.  What inspired this trek?

After graduating from Colorado College, I flew to Japan, where I taught English for two years. I loved this experience, and wanted to see more of Asia. Fortunately, I was able to save up enough money in Japan to then go on a year-long backpacking trip around Asia. I visited about ten countries, and had a life-changing adventure. I was profoundly influenced by my experiences with foreign people and cultures. Suddenly the world seemed like a smaller and better place.
 

The characters in Dragon House are very complex and multi-dimensional.  When writing, did you already have the characters created in your mind, or did they evolve as you wrote?

At the outset of a book, I always have certain characters in mind, and I write from their perspectives. However, it’s not until late in a project, say when I’m working on my tenth draft, that I really begin to feel a rapport, an intimacy, with my characters. At that point, they begin speaking on their own behalf. That’s when writing, at least for me, is really fun, because the words seem to flow so well.

Were any of the characters in Dragon House inspired by actual people?

I’ve been lucky enough to travel to Vietnam three times (in 1993, 1999, and 2007). During those trips, I spent a lot of time speaking and interacting with street children, who are so common in areas populated by tourists. I found these children to be remarkable in so many ways. They were bright, articulate, hopeful, and resilient. And they definitely inspired the characters in Dragon House. For instance, over the course of a month in northern Thailand, I played Connect Four every night with a seven- or eight-year-old boy. He played tourists in Connect Four, betting a dollar a game, and this is how he survived. He was a brilliant boy, and he inspired the character, Minh, in Dragon House.
 

The children of Hanoi are obviously very important to you.  How did you become involved with Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation?

Well, I wanted Dragon House to not only benefit me and my family, but the children who I drew such inspiration from. So I went looking for a group that supported such children. Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation is a wonderful group that helps educate and shelter hundreds of street children in Vietnam. I feel so blessed to be able to draw attention to the work that BDCF is doing. It’s been gratifying to help try and raise money for BDCF, and what’s really neat is that after finishing Dragon House, a number of readers have emailed me, asking how they could make direct donations to BDCF.
 
Do you have any idea of much money Dragon House has generated for Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation?

At this point Dragon House has generated around $5,000 for BDCF. That’s in the three months since the publication of Dragon House. And while that’s not a vast amount of money, the money does go a long way in Vietnam. In fact, it was used to buy complete sets of school books for 500 street children. I’m still trying to raise a lot more money for BDCF, and hope to do so.
 
Can you tell us more about your next novel, The Wishing Trees? Can we expect something similar to Dragon House?

Funny you should ask, as my editor and I have been working on the back-cover copy for The Wishing Trees. It will read something like this: Almost a year after the death of his wife, Kate, former high-tech executive, Ian, finds a letter that will change his life. It contains Kate’s final wish—a plea for him to take their ten-year-old daughter, Mattie, on a trip across Asia, through all the countries they had planned to visit to celebrate their tenth anniversary.
 
Driven to honor the wife and mother they still deeply mourn, Ian and Mattie embark on an exotic journey that retraces the early days of Ian’s relationship with Kate. Along the way, they leave paper “wishes” in ancient trees, symbols of their connection to Kate. Through incredible landscapes and inspiring people, Ian and Mattie are greeted with miracles large and small. And as they grieve over what they’ve lost, they begin to find their way back to each other, discovering that healing is possible and that love endures—lessons that Kate hoped to show them all along…

Thank you, John, for taking the time to answer my questions.  Remember, you still have time to enter to win a copy of John Shor’s Dragon House.  To read more about the author, please visit his web site.

Interview with John Shors, Author of The Dragon House is a post from: Jenn's Bookshelves. Reproduction of this content is forbidden unless approved through prior written consent.