JeanBookNerd: Ashley Herring Blake Interview

Photo Credit: Craig Pope

Ashley Herring Blake is an award-winning author. She loves coffee, cats, melancholy songs, and happy books. She is the author of the young adult novels Suffer Love, How to Make a Wish, and Girl Made of Stars (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), and the middle grade novels Ivy Aberdeen’s Letter to the World and The Mighty Heart of Sunny St. James. Ivy Aberdeen’s Letter to the World was a Stonewall Honor Book, as well as a Kirkus, School Library Journal, NYPL, and NPR Best Book of 2018. Her YA novel Girl Made of Stars was a Lambda Literary Award finalist. She’s also the author of the adult romance novel Delilah Green Doesn’t Care, Astrid Parker Doesn’t Fail, Iris Kelly Doesn’t Date, and Make the Season Bright. and a co-editor on the young adult romance anthology Fools in Love.

When/how did you realize you had a creative dream or calling to fulfill?

I’ve always been a creative person. From an early age, I wrote poems and little stories, and I’ve always been drawn to music. I actually started college as a vocal major! I played music in a group for several years after college, but nothing quite fit until I was a little older and realized I really wanted to write fiction. I just love creating worlds (even those grounded in our own) and complicated characters readers can relate to.

Tell us your most rewarding experience since being published.

The most rewarding thing about being published is definitely the readers. I love interacting with them, either online or in person, and hearing their excitement. I’ve written across a few age categories, and it’s been so incredible to see how young readers to old readers need stories that help them see who they are, that they are loved, that they are okay. It’s such a great experience and I’m honored to be part of it.

What advice would you give to someone who wanted to have a life in writing?

I’d say write! To be a writer, that is the only qualification—write. Honing one’s craft is a combination of a few different things, of course, but first and foremost, one must write. Write often, write bad, write, write, write. The other thing I think is important is to have a community of writers around you. I have found all of my writing friends online, and they are invaluable to me as a person in general, but also as a writer. Creatives need other creatives around them who understand the process, can listen, and who they can also offer thoughts and support.

Has reading a book ever changed your life? Which one and why, if yes?

Oh absolutely. I would say the one that sticks out most in my head is FAR FROM YOU by Tess Sharpe. It’s YA thriller I read years and years ago, but it was the first book I ever read with a bisexual main character. Or any bisexual character, really. Reading about that experience really jumpstarted my own queer journey.

Why is storytelling so important for all of us?

Storytelling is vital to humanity. Full stop. It is how we share our triumphs, our pain, our fears, our hopes. More than that, it is how we learn empathy. I fully believe reading broadly and diversely is a key to truly feeling what other humans experience, to learn compassion and empathy, without which, we’ll never change the world.

What were your inspirations for the character development?

In MAKE THE SEASON BRIGHT, and honestly, any book I write, I love creating very messy characters. I want disasters. I want to read about someone who has absolutely no clue what they’re doing with their life—even if they think they do—and watch them fall in love, fall apart, and figure out how to love themselves. That is definitely true with Brighton and Charlotte in this book.

TEN RANDOM FACTS ABOUT MAKE THE SEASON BRIGHT

1) Charlotte’s gray hair is one hundred percent based on my own.
2) Brighton’s singer/songwriter experience in Nashville is about fifty percent based on my own. I never had a band kick me out and then go viral, but I did give being a musician in Nashville a go once upon a time, and I also play guitar.
3) There’s a scene that includes Brighton’s fear of horses, which is also based on my own. Never been on a horse, never will.
4) I wanted everyone in this book to be queer—and they are!
5) As I created scenes, I really thought of my favorite holiday activities, and then worked the cast into those activities.
6) There are original song lyrics in the book, but I only included a few lyrics here and there, as I always feel like it sounds so strange when I try to put a whole song in a book that should be set to music. So I take shortcuts lol.
7) I made up the town name, as I always do—Winter River. But apparently, that is also the name of the town in Beetlejuice. Oops!
8) I set Brighton and Charlotte’s hometown in Grand Haven, MI right on Lake Michigan, because I have a writer friend whose mom has a house there and we’ve gone there for writing retreats. Very inspirational!
9) Two Turtledoves is the name of a series of holiday-themed singles events that take place in the book, and I think that name might be one of my greatest literary achievements lol.
10) Initially, my publisher wanted to change up the artist for the cover to set this book apart from my Bright Falls series, but in the end, decided to stay with the brilliant Leni Kauffman—best decision ever!

What is the first job you have had?

I was a hostess in a local restaurant when I was fifteen.

What was your favorite subject when you were in school and why?

English/writing. I loved reading and writing. Go figure!

If you could go back in time to one point in your life, where would you go?

I’d go back to college. I had a good experience, but looking back, if I knew then what I know now, as the saying goes, I’d do a lot differently.

What event in your life would make a good movie?

Honestly, the last few years probably. I’ve gone through a lot of personal changes, all of them good, and had some adventures I think would make a fabulous biopic lol.

It's been five years since Charlotte Donovan was ditched at the altar by her ex-fiancée, and she’s doing more than okay. Sure, her single mother never checks in, but she has her strings ensemble, the Rosalind Quartet, and her life in New York is a dream come true. As the holidays draw near, her ensemble mate Sloane persuades Charlotte and the rest of the quartet to spend Christmas with her family in Colorado—it is much cozier and quieter than Manhattan, and it would guarantee more practice time for the quartet’s upcoming tour. But when Charlotte arrives, she discovers that Sloane’s sister Adele also brought a friend home—and that friend is none other than her ex, Brighton.

All Brighton Fairbrook wanted was to have the holliest, jolliest Christmas—and try to forget that her band kicked her out. But instead, she’s stuck pretending like she and her ex are strangers—which proves to be difficult when Sloane and Adele’s mom signs them all up for a series of Christmas dating events. Charlotte and Brighton are soon entrenched in horseback riding and cookie decorating, but Charlotte still won’t talk to her. Brighton can hardly blame her after what she did.

After a few days, however, things start to slip through. Memories. Music. The way they used to play together—Brighton on guitar, Charlotte on her violin—and it all feels painfully familiar. But it’s all in the past and nothing can melt the ice in their hearts...right?

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