We chat to author Andrea Portes about her new novel This Is Not A Ghost Story, book recommendations, writing advice, and more!
Hi, Andrea! Tell us a bit about yourself!
Welp, let’s see. I’m a homebody. If the rest of my life could be spent watching weird documentaries and histories of random empires, I would be fine with that. I like making people I don’t know laugh, especially if they’re working a dumb job they probably hate. I wrote a novel, HICK, which was turned into a film. I write in four different ways: adult fiction, young adult, middle reader and screenplay. I’m hopeless when it comes to doing paperwork. Anything that involves taxes, signing, sending… forget it. I’m just weirdly allergic to it, almost to the point of it being a kind of phobia.
With the current state of the world, what are you doing to cope with the changes we’ve had to make with our day-to-day?
I just stay inside and stare a lot. Sometimes, that staring leads to an idea, a story, a character, a premise or a line. Other times it is just expert-level daydreaming.
When did you first discover your love for writing?
I’ve always been writing… as long as I can remember. As a kid, writing poems about how we were all going to die, that was my 5-12-year-old phase. Really, that’s not an exaggeration. I’ve always been a bit focused on the macabre. My brother used to call me, “dark toddler.”
But the concept of having to write things down, for no apparent reason, has been something I’ve been doing since I first learned how to write. An urge to tell on the world.
Your new novel, This Is Not A Ghost Story, is out November 17th 2020! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
Spooky funny romantic weird thrilling
Now tell us a little more! What can readers expect?
They can expect, I hope, to be drawn into the strange, sinister world of our protagonist, Daffodil, and to be hood-winked a bit. They can expect to be creeped out, to be intrigued and to laugh, in moments of strange recognition of themselves, somehow, through Daffodil.
What was the inspiration behind this novel?
I stayed the summer between my junior and senior year, of Bryn Mawr college, at an old house in Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania that was one hundred percent haunted. (Before that, I didn’t really believe in ghosts.) I never forgot it and knew, someday, I was going to have to write about it.
Is there a character or scene that you really enjoyed writing?
I always enjoy writing romantic, flirty scenes with boys. It gives me the opportunity to live those magic moments, to somehow be drawn in a time-warp.
What challenges did you face while writing and how did you overcome them?
Luckily, I was mostly finished with this novel before the pandemic hit. So, that was a good thing. My next book, the one I’m editing now, had a four-month hiatus while I just sat there wondering what to do with all this panic, death, sadness, fear and loathing.
What’s the best and the worst writing advice you have received?
Best advice: Never care.
Worst advice: Don’t read books.
Not caring about the outcome is what makes for amazing writing, not even knowing really where it is going to go. I like to keep things loose before beginning… like I know the general strokes, the hook, the ending… but I know that if I want to keep the writing buoyant, there has to be some mystery while I’m actually doing the writing.
What’s next for you?
Let’s see… I don’t like to talk about things too much before they happen, as I like to keep them a bit magical. So, I’ll just say: A fantasy YA series, an epic adult novel, and the film version of one of my books. Again, very vague but it has to keep that way. This is a superstition of mine.
Lastly, are you currently reading anything and do you have any book recommendations for our readers?
Yes. Always! Everyone should always be reading something, no matter what. The world is too mundane to force everyone to just live in it.
Now reading: The Yellow House by Sarah Broome, My Life as a Rat by Joyce Carol Oates.
In terms of book recs, everyone should read: BLONDE by Joyce Carol Oates and HAMLET by Shakespeare.
I keep these two books by my bedside table. I’ve read them both profusely but I like to have them there… if I’m ever uninspired, I just pick one of them up, page through it and find a word, a passage, a thought, that inspires me.
