Author: Sara Marchant

Sara Marchant received her MFA in Creative Writing and Writing for the Performing Arts from the University of California, Riverside/Palm Desert. Her work has been published by The Manifest Station, Every Writer’s Resource, Full Grown People, Brilliant Flash Fiction, The Coachella Review, Writers Resist, East Jasmine Review, ROAR, and Desert Magazine. Her nonfiction is forthcoming in the WOC anthology All the Women in My Family Sing, and her novella Let Me Go was anthologized by Running Wild Press.
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THE AMBER WAVES OF AUTUMN

The Amber Waves of Autumn is the third installment in Kelp Journal’s bestselling and award-winning beach noir series. In each collection we include some of the biggest heavyweights in the game with the brightest emerging writers to provide our readers with deft, thrilling, and satisfying noir storytelling.

 

In this installment we include National Book Award winners, Edgar and Shamus Award winners, and NYT Bestsellers to craft an unforgettable fall reading experience that can’t be missed. Blending styles from literary, to sci-fi, to fantasy, to hard-boiled, this collection will thrill the savviest palates and most discerning connoisseurs. Buckle up and enjoy the ride.

 

Contributors include: Joyce Carol Oates, Lawrence Block, Francesca Lia Block, Bev Vincent, Nik Xandir Wolf, Craig Clevenger, Hoda Mallone, Michael Newirth, Ioannis Argiris, Megan Eccles, David Zimmerle, Kathryn E. McGee, Leanne Phillips, Sara Marchant, Curtis Ippolito, Jeff Kronenfeld, and Ruthie Marlenee.

Buy here

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Merri Ubraincik’s Jewish Book Month features an interview with Sara

#JewishBookMonth may be over, but I’m excited to announce that these mini-interviews with Jewish authors will continue.
Meet Sara Marchant, the author of the books *The Driveway Has Two Sides*, *Proof of Loss*, and most recently, *Becoming Delilah.* She is also the founding editor of the literary magazine *Writers Resist*. Her latest work is the *Essential Planner for My Mother’s Huge Cult Following*.
1. Tell me about your writing journey.
I wrote my first short story in first grade, I believe. It was about the family of birds nesting in the window outside our living room. But I became serious about writing when I got too old to play with Barbies and the elaborate storylines I enjoyed creating needed an outlet.
2. Do you ever return to a story to explore it from a new angle?
*Becoming Delilah* grew from the novella *The Driveway Has Two Sides*. The publisher, Fairlight Books, asked me to develop it into a longer work – which meant writing a B story. And the B story was all about Delilah’s childhood with Abuela.
3. How has your own family’s Jewish story influenced your storytelling?
4. What autobiographical traces appear in *Becoming Delilah*, your latest novel?
I’m going to answer #3 and #4 together.
My mother died a month ago, so I am now able to admit that Abuela is an ode to my mother and my mother’s family’s origins as conversos, or hidden Jews, in New Mexico. An interviewer mentioned that there was no Jewish content in *Becoming Delilah* and I was like, (shrug) okay? Because to me, Abuela’s attitude towards child-rearing, housekeeping, womanhood, not to mention her values, especially her drive towards survival and frankly, revenge, are all extremely Jewish-coded.
Abuela raised Delilah to be a weapon of survival, and I don’t know how autobiographical that is, but I find it inspirational. And what could be more Jewish than survival?
5. What’s your favorite reading environment? Do you have a favorite book?
I can read anywhere, truly. There’s a famous family photograph of me reading on my bed, oblivious to my little niece riding my back like a horse.
My favorite book changes with my emotional needs. While my mother was dying, I read only Betty Neels because her wholesome romances guaranteed a happy ending, which was the perfect escape.

Here’s the link

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ESSENTIAL PLANNER FOR MY MOTHER’S HUGE CULT FOLLOWING

“When I first got and began reading Essential Planner for My Mother’s Huge Cult Following, I delighted in the hilarity of it all, made it a daily laugh ritual. Now I’m following through on my plan to write in it daily, as a way to re-ignite a regular writing practice, no matter what comes out of my brain (I told my inner editor and critic to fuck off so I could write for the sake of writing). My assignment for myself: Just. Get. Some. Damn. Words. On. Paper.
So thank you for this book, on so many levels.”
—Debbie Hall, friend, writer, cult member

 

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BECOMING DELILAH

On a windswept island off Cape Cod, Delilah moves into a cottage by the shore. The neighbors watch the newcomer and wonder about her. They don’t like it when she plants a wild and colorful garden in the front yard – very unusual, they whisper. The local gossip intensifies with every visit from Alan, the married man paying for Delilah’s keep. Delilah hasn’t always been Delilah. Once, she was Dolores, a young Latina girl growing up with her Abuela, both of them hiding a terrible secret. After years of living precariously, all she wants now is a place of her own to make beautiful. But life is about to get complicated again. Her new cottage shares a driveway with the reclusive Anton, who has a secret of his own. When the two meet, sparks fly – but will the past catch up with them?

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