Interview With Author Anne McClard
Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I retired from the tech industry about six years ago, and during the pandemic, I started a non-profit publishing company called Aristata Press with a friend who was a founding member of the Women’s Press in Toronto. We started it because we were trying to help my mother publish her memoir, Leavings: Memoir of a 1920s Hollywood Love Child, at the age of 93. One agent told us that nobody was likely to take her on because she was too old to build a brand around, and we had already faced a number of rejections. Shortly after we published that book, other people asked us if we could help them too.
We decided we needed to be selective about what we published and developed a mission and a vetting process for our publishing company. In the meantime, I decided to dust off a manuscript that I had completed twenty years earlier—Butterfly Dreams, a novel inspired by my travels and research in the Azores islands of Portugal.
After a complete rewrite and updating, I submitted it to our volunteer selection committee, and it was chosen as one of four books we would publish in 2023.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
My second book, Margaux and the Vicious Circle, will be released on September 30, 2024. It tells the story of Margaux, a young writer in 1985 Manhattan, who has penned a semi-autobiographical novel that includes the unresolved disappearance of a childhood friend. She faces the usual impediments that all authors do—difficulties finding an agent, and pushback from family members who feel that her book reveals too many secrets they have worked hard to hide.
The story is really two complete novels that interweave details of Margaux’s childhood with her current life. Thematically, I was inspired to write the book because my mother kept fretting about how dangerous the world had become. I argued that the world has always been dangerous, recounting the dangers she faced in her childhood, and the dangers my siblings and I faced in ours. Childhood might actually be safer now—at least in the United States! Another important theme, present in both of my novels, is the power of magical thinking and imagination for overcoming adversity.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
That’s an interesting question. I don’t really know how unusual my writing habits are, but I do it every day. If I write something down on the page and think to myself that it is the dumbest thing I have ever thought, I keep going! Ninety-nine percent of the time, a spark will fly, and I will end up with something I can use. I try not to judge myself and just let the ideas flow—don’t edit much while in the throes of writing. I love editing, though, and go over my manuscript again and again, even after it has been professionally edited.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
So many! One of the first books I read as a girl was Little House in the Big Woods by Laura Ingalls Wilder. She is the first author who made me want to write too. Then I was touched with magical thinking by C.S. Lewis’s ‘The Chronicles of Narnia’ and Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time. As an adult, I have been most influenced by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Barbara Kingsolver, and mystery writers like Tana French and Donna Tartt. I also have a Ph.D. in anthropology and have an appreciation for good ethnographic fiction.
What are you working on now?
Mostly on marketing the two books I have written. That said, I have begun building the scaffolding for the sequel to Margaux and the Vicious Circle. I have a few very defined ideas, but there are some huge open questions still.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
I am a member of Independent Book Publishers Association through Aristata Press, and have found their resources to be outstanding.  Reedsy also has useful guidance, and I use the IngramSpark publishing platform. I advertise on Facebook, Instagram, Amazon, and through Google Search. I was delighted to discover Kindlepreneur, which is what pointed me to your site as a resource. It has been frustrating as a new independent author to find people to do editorial reviews. I don’t have the resources to pay for reviews, so have been trying to get there more organically. I can see things growing slowly.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Be patient. Don’t rush your book if you are self-publishing. Get your book professionally edited by a reputable editor, even if you are an editor yourself! If you are going through the traditional route, you also need to be patient for obvious reasons, like the ones that led me to start Aristata Press. There is so much more to publishing than writing a good book, and it can be expensive, which leads me to my last bit of advice. Don’t get pulled in by all the scammers out there trying to make a buck off your desperation.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
Buckle up—this ride ain’t for sissies. More seriously, be ready for the long haul and don’t expect overnight success.
What are you reading now?
I just finished reading the Midnight Library by Matt Haig. I liked it. He has a good way with words, but the storyline got stale for me at about the halfway point. Right now, I am listening to an audiobook—My First Murder, a book by a Finnish author, Leena Lehtolainen. Nothing has captivated me lately, but that doesn’t keep me from reading.
What’s next for you as a writer?
I plan to write another cross-cultural mystery set on the Blackfeet Reservation in Montana. I am very drawn to the landscape and mystery of Glacier National Park. And Grace McGuiver, the protagonist from my first novel, Butterfly Dreams, is from there, so it will give me an opportunity to explore a new location. Places are very important in my writing.
If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
Bob Dylan’s The Lyrics (1961-2012) to inspire my songwriting, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson, The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot, and a journal of my own! I love poetry because no matter how many times you re-read a poem, you glean something new every time!
Link to original: Awesome Gang Author Interview with Anne McClardÂ
