Q&A with Seraphina Nova Glass

Q: Please give the elevator pitch for Someone’s Listening.

A: Faith Finley has survived a lot of trauma in her own past, so in her current profession, she helps victims of abuse. Her career is just starting to take off when a very public sex scandal stops it in its tracks. She hopes her husband, Liam, believes her when she says she says the accusations against her are lies, but when he disappears and she becomes a suspect, her world falls apart.

She doesn’t handle the crisis well. It’s easy to give advice to others, but as things escalate, she leans on alcohol and pills to cope with her anxiety and her worst fears. She decides to take matters into her own hands and search for the real reason behind Liam’s disappearance. The closer she gets to the truth, the more she is putting herself in danger.

 Q: What’s the “story behind the story”?

A: In October of 2018, I was directing the Fall play at the university where I teach. It’s a bit of a commute, and since I was to be there every evening for rehearsal, I decided to listen to audiobooks. A Ruth Ware novel was the first thriller I had ever read/listened to. I like thriller movies, but never meandered outside literary fiction much as a reader. I was immediately in love and said, “that’s what I am going to do. I’m gonna write a thriller.” The play closed mid- October, and I started writing immediately afterward. I finished Someone’s Listening ten weeks later.

I was annoyed that it was Christmas time because I had to wait until after the new year to send it out and try to get an agent. Yes, it was completely crazy that I thought I’d just send out a first draft and get anywhere. I really didn’t expect to, but I didn’t know how to revise it. I’d written the story I wanted to write and would put it out there and see. A few weeks later I signed with Folio Literary Management, and my agent quickly sold it to Harper Collins, Graydon House imprint.

It’s still surreal. I had been writing screenplays and had a bunch of Hallmark scripts under option, and I was getting nowhere, really. It was just a lot of waiting and disappointment, but I found that writing thrillers is exactly where I want to be. My second book will come out next summer, and I’m about halfway through writing my third book now.

Q: Which came first: the characters or plot line?

A: I always start with plot. Well, I start with atmosphere first which is not intentional, forming the idea for the book just seems to always begin with a feel–winter in Chicago or summer in rural Louisiana. I really think about the world the characters are in–the sensory details and how that will feel to a reader. Then plot because I’m an outliner. I have to know exactly where the plot is going, how it will end, what chapter each twist and turn will be in and how that will lead to the next. I cannot imagine winging any of that. I think the characters sort of materialize in my peripheral while I am plotting, and I know who they are by the time I am familiar with the plot.

 Q: Why do you love Faith and why should readers root for her?

A: Faith is suffering an unthinkable loss. I think everyone knows what loss feels like, and we all handle it differently. Simply because Faith is a psychologist doesn’t mean she has the coping skills to handle the love of her life missing on top of the scandal and suspicion surrounding her. Her occupation also doesn’t mean she doesnt struggle with addiction and might turn to sleeping aids or booze when her life is falling apart the way many people might do to numb some of the pain.

She’s carved out a great career for herself and enjoyed some local fame, but ultimately, she is going through the darkest time of her life. When someone critiques her as “not likable” I think, would you be very likable in the midst of this much loss and uncertainty?” I don’t think she needs to be a protagonist who does and says the right things to be the hero of the story. I think we root for her because she screws up and makes desperate and flawed decisions because she is desperate and flawed. We root for her because she’s out there risking quite a lot to uncover the truth about her husband despite the danger, and who wouldn’t want that kind of love –someone who would go to any length for their partner no matter what the cost?

 Q: Which character is most like you and why?

A: Writing in first person gives me a pretty strong bond with all of my protagonists. I think, inevitably, there is a lot of me in all of them, so I have to say I’m most like Faith. The way she sees the world and navigates her insecurity with her professional drive and ambitions is a constant balancing act. She’s a natural introvert trying to live outside of her comfort zone in order to meet success which makes managing her anxiety an ever present struggle.

 Q: What was your last 5 star read?

A: I really enjoyed the Sundown Motel by Simone St. James, and I recently started reading Lisa Jewell. It’s like Christmas discovering an author you really like and you’re late to the party, so they have several other books you still get to read. I just finished The Family Upstairs, and loved it.

 Q: What is one thing about publishing you wish someone would have told you?

A: It’s really, really slow. I finished writing this book a year and a half ago, and finally it’s getting released. It will be another year’s wait for the second book. If you write fast, this is sort of torture.

Also, as a private person who only just signed up for Twitter and Instagram recently and find it hard to remember to even check, all of a sudden having your work out here for public opinion is tough. No matter how many good reviews, you can’t obsess over the readers who don’t like your work. Not everyone will, of course, but you have to get quickly comfortable with being out there and try not to obsess over every comment.

 Q: Do you have any specific writing rituals?

A: Not really. I don’t write every day or keep a journal or anything. I don’t have multiple projects or ideas going at once. I guess the only thing consistent, is that when I am working on an idea, I keep really fixated on developing it, and I have to write it quickly. I feel like too much time away and I’ll lose my understanding of the world and the characters and I need to stay totally engaged and invested in the story until it’s all out on paper. I can’t spend months doing that. I have to dedicate large chunks of time and get it done in a handful of weeks. Revise later.

 Q: What can you tell us about your next project?

A: My next book comes out summer 2021. It was titled The Seduction, so you’ll notice an excerpt in the back of Someone’s Listening with that title, but that will be changing. Another unexpected part of publishing, but I trust the marketing team knows more than me about that!

It’s another mystery revolving around a woman in small town Louisiana who had dreams of being a scholar, and having a career as a writer, but she puts that on hold when she and her husband have their second child and he has special needs. She finds herself a stay-at-home mom which she loves on one hand because she adores her family, but she also finds it hard to see herself in this role she never expected. When she meets a semi-famous romance writer, she feels guilty at how taken she is with him–jealous of his jet-setting life and freedom. She gets too close to him and makes a string of bad decisions that put her marriage and family in danger, and someone ends up dead. The lengths she goes to distance herself from this suspicious death shocks even herself.

Seraphina Nova Glass is a professor and Playwright-in-Residence at the University of Texas-Arlington, where she teaches Film Studies and Playwriting. She holds an MFA in playwriting from Smith College, and has optioned multiple screenplays to Hallmark and Lifetime. Someone’s Listening is her first novel.

Social Links:
Author Website
Twitter: @SeraphinaNova
Instagram: @SeraphinaNovaGlass
Facebook: @SeraphinaNovaGlass
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