You are a human animal.

You are a very special breed, for you are the only animal.

Who can think, who can reason, who can read.

Hello and welcome to Bookworm.

Today my guest is Kay Gibbons, the author most recently of Sites Unseen.

She's written five novels in reverse order, charms for the easy life, a cure for dreams,

a virtuous woman, and her first novel, Ellen Foster.

The new book is published by Putnam.

I'm Michael Silverblatt. I wanted to begin by asking you,

I've read that this book took you eight drafts, and I'm very curious about what that process is like.

It was murder. I was so happy to finish this book. It took two years, eight drafts, and a lot of heartache, a lot of tears, and I was very

happy to be through with it.

I think with each draft, I developed a character, a different character, so the book

evolved through the characters.

And I hope never to do that again.

I'm hoping with the next book I can just sit down and write it.

But my editor did have to drag this book out of me.

It was not a pretty sight.

Do you have any idea of why that was?

No, I think perhaps I was fatigued from writing charms for the easy life, and that did come completely sprung forth out of my head

onto the paper, and that was fatiguing. And I think for a while maybe I thought I had nothing else to say, and I had to struggle to write it.

Ellen Foster has the feel of a book that just sprang forth.

...