Are there any books or authors that inspired you to become a writer?
From the time in grade school when my mother helped me to overcome my dyslexia enough for me to read, I began devouring the school library. Classic writers of children’s books, such as Louisa May Alcott and Mark Twain occupied me; some will find resemblance to The Secret Garden in my first Book, The Missing Girl. I have always been an avid reader (although slow) and I embraced Southern writers such as William Faulkner and Eudora Welty and Russian writers like Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. I love the voices of Native Americans such as Robin Wall Kimmerer Sherman Alexie and Louise Erdrich, and writers such as Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I also read non-fiction…
How do you come up with character names for your stories?
Character names were easy – I just ripped off family names and names I felt some affection for – nobody should read my books with the idea that the character called Fran is meant to be the same person as my own mother who bore that name, and the fact that I gave a niece’s name to a dog should not be seen as an insult (It’s a very fine dog.)
How do you develop your plot and characters?
It was the mystery of plot that kept me from writing earlier in my life. I grew up with a mother who wrote children’s books, and it was a mystery to me where the plot came from – her books had a beginning, a middle, and an end – and the end struck me as the hard part. I guess that I experienced a break-through with regard to plot, when a solution came to me of how to get my main character back to civilization after she had fled to the forest. It was only when I had that inspiration that I allowed myself to begin to write down my day-dream-world version of The Missing Girl. Once I began writing, the characters pulled the story forward, and I got to know and appreciate all the people who wanted to be in the books.
How long did it take you to write this book?
It is hard to separate the writing time from the time spent pursuing agents, getting feedback from my wonderful collection of beta readers and doing revisions. I did a lot of cutting and reframed the books in different formats before finally settling on the two-book series. It was almost ten years from first handwritten notebooks to the published books.
How many hours a day do you write?
That varies all over the place, but if you include letter-writing and responding to e-mails, I must write a couple of hours a day, but it can go up a lot when I am in the heat of creation.
What advice would you give to a writer working on their first book?
My advice is just to lose yourself in the writing, without any concern for whether people or publishers will like what you are writing – just write to please yourself. The time will come later when you can benefit from advice, and you will find that you have to throw out lots of what you are fond of in your writing, slashing here and there, and in the end bringing the manuscript to a place you can be proud of. It is a long and challenging task, to bring a book into being, and through all the arduous work of it, there is a joy in the creation that will sustain you. Through it all, you must believe in yourself!
What characters in your book are most similar to you or to people you know?
The main character, a white girl growing up in the segregated South, is a very stubborn person like myself, and her family is very like mine, but then all the characters are drawn from bits and pieces of people I have known, and I pulled from family stories, too. I think it is true that every writer of fiction rips off his or her family and friends, because that is the most authentic way to represent reality as you know it. The people in my books are very alive to me, and go with me everywhere, even when I am not in a position to let them speak.
What do you do to get inside your character’s heads?
How do they get inside my head? I love many of the characters and because they are so familiar, I know just what they will say and how they will say it. Jessa, the main character, talks a lot to her dog, and I am familiar with that line of communication and what it could mean to a lonely, runaway girl.
What has helped or hindered you most when writing a book?
I had the whole-hearted support of my husband, who brought me cups of tea and started dinner when I was absorbed in the writing. Without his encouragement, I doubt that there would ever have been any books. Friends also encouraged me by reading segments and giving me feedback.
As for hindrances, the current movement to ban books had me very worried, especially since I felt that I needed to present the American South in all its tarnished depravity, which meant letting the bigots use language that is (rightly) banned from general usage. These books, particularly the second book in the series, Jessa is Back, reveal to the reader the wrongfulness of the social system that segregated and intimidated Black members of the community. That is a part of our history that we need to face squarely, rather than idealizing the 1950’s as “The Good Old Days.” It is the message of the books that society must support equality of treatment and the opportunity for inter-racial friendships to flourish.
What is the most valuable piece of advice you’ve been given about writing?
This is easy, as I had heard if from my mother: write about what you know! In my case, I was writing about an era that I could recall from personal experience, and that made it easier, but the “what you know” is often insights into interpersonal relationships, and that can underlie a story that can be set on the moon or Cloud 9. The point is, you draw from personal experience and put yourself into a story, and it will grow for you.
Stacia Moffett, author of the two-book series “Lost and Found in Tennessee,” which includes the titles “The Missing Girl” and “Jessa is Back,” was born into a family of educators in Nashville, Tennessee. Her father, an artist, but also a farmer at heart, moved the family to a small farm where Stacia and her brother, Carl, grew up surrounded by the natural beauty and challenges of rural life. This upbringing fostered her lifelong love for growing things and her affinity for dogs, books, music, art, and the warmth of her loving grandparents.
Moffett’s academic journey took her to Mississippi in the early 1960s, a time and place that deeply influenced her understanding of the South. She pursued graduate studies in the fascinating field of invertebrate behavior and neural control, which led her to work with a wide array of creatures, including millipedes, crabs, insects, and spiders. Accompanied by her husband, David, Stacia earned her Ph.D. at the University of Miami and completed postdoctoral training at Duke University. The couple eventually settled in Washington, where they both taught and conducted research at Washington State University while raising their three children: an immunologist, a vintner, and a poet.
Now retired, Moffett and her husband reside in a wild canyon of the Snake River, where they built their home, planted fruit trees and a garden, and established a commercial vineyard. With retirement came the call to write, which took Stacia back to her Southern roots. Through her writing, Stacia Moffett aims to share her experiences as a white girl in a bygone era, offering readers insights into the forces that continue to shape lives in the South. Her work captures the essence of a time gone by, inviting those who did not live through it to understand its enduring impact.
For more about Stacia Moffett and her work, visit www.lostandfoundintennessee.com.