We chat with author John Cochran about Breaking Into Sunlight, which is a powerful and compassionate book follows a family’s journey through the turbulence of parental addiction—and the moments of connection and healing that break through the dark days.
Hi, John! Can you tell our readers a bit about yourself?
I was born just outside Philadelphia, but grew up mainly in Kansas City, Misouri. I was a journalist in my previous life, covering everything from crime to state and local government for daily newspapers in Missouri, Virginia, Tennessee and North Carolina before moving to Washington, D.C., to cover Congress and national politics for Congressional Quarterly. At CQ, I won the National Press Foundation’s Everett McKinley Dirksen Award for Distinguised Report of Congress. When my kids were small, I left journalism to become a stay-at-home dad. That’s also when I started writing fiction, which was a long-deferred dream. I live on Capitol Hill in D.C., not far from Eastern Market, in a 111-year-old row house with my wife and our two kids.
When did you first discover your love for writing and stories?
As a student at Bishop Miege High School in Roeland Park, Kansas, a suburb of Kansas City. The school had terrific English and journalism programs, and the teachers there inspired me and encouraged me to write. I owe a lot to four teachers there in particular: Judy Bromberg, Craig Ewing, Sue Waters, and Sherry Unruh.
Quick lightning round! Tell us:
- The first book you ever remember reading: One of Beverly Cleary’s books, probably Henry Huggins. I loved all her books.
- The one that made you want to become an author: The book that first got me thinking about writing fiction for kids, after years as a journalist, was Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo. I read it as an adult, when I had kids of my own, and I was blown away by two things: It’s a powerful and profound story that speaks to both kids and adults, and it’s written with so much grace and compassion. I thought, “I want to do that, too.”
- The one that you can’t stop thinking about: Jim the Boy by Tony Earley. It’s a beautiful story, and the writing is luminous. Earley’s writing style is a big inspiration for me.
Your debut novel, Breaking into Sunlight, is out June 18th! If you could only describe it in five words, what would they be?
The healing power of friendship.
What can readers expect?
The book is honest and forthright about addiction and its effects on families, because kids who are facing this reality in their lives need to feel seen to know they’re not alone. I also want people around them – their classmates, teachers and neighbors – to really understand the dynamic of addiction in families. These kids need the understanding and support of their friends and community.
There’s fun and summertime adventure in the book, too, as Reese explores a wild blackwater river that runs by the farm of his two new friends, Meg and Charlie, who need his friendship as much as he needs theirs. And that’s ultimately what the book is about: the power of friendship and connection to heal us and help us find our way to the good and joyful lives we deserve.
Where did the inspiration for Breaking into Sunlight come from?
It was inspired in part by my own family experiences with addiction. Like Reese, I’ve watched people I love struggle with addiction, and I wanted to make them better but didn’t know how.
Were there any moments or characters you really enjoyed writing or exploring?
I loved writing the scenes on the river, when Reese swims and canoes with Meg and Charlie. Those scenes were inspired by canoe trips I took on rivers in North Carolina, particularly the Lumber, and trips over the years on the backroads of eastern North Carolina. Of the characters, I enjoyed writing Meg best. She’s hurting and lonely, and also strong, smart, caring and perceptive. I added her to the cast early on at the suggestion of my daughter, Maren, who was not much older than Meg when she read a first draft of the story. Maren wisely told me the book needed more kids and more scenes with only kids figuring this stuff out together. At that point the story was too dominated by Reese’s interactions with adults. There is more than a little of my daughter in Meg.
With Breaking into Sunlight exploring parental addiction, how did you approach tackling this topic for a young audience? Why should children be aware of this?
This story in the end is very hopeful, and in a way that I think is real, not Pollyanna-ish or simplistic. That’s the key, I think. It points to hope and new strength through friendship and connection. None of us is alone. We can open our hearts to each other and share our burdens and pain. Kids need to hear that. We all need to hear that.
Children need to be aware of this problem because millions of young people, almost certainly including kids in their schools and neighborhoods, are facing it. The most recent national study of addiction in families estimated that one in every eight young people was living with a parent with a drug or alcohol problem. That means that in any given classroom, chances are good that not just one but two or even three kids are dealing with this.
This is your debut published novel! What was the road to becoming a published author like for you?
My one regret is I worked in isolation for too long. Because I had been a professional writer, as a journalist, I felt I ought to be able to do it on my own and that a manuscript needed to be complete and just about perfect before I showed it to anyone. But writing a novel is a whole other challenge, and I had a great deal more to learn than I understood going in. It was when I finally began sharing rough drafts with fellow writers that I really began that learning process and the manuscript started coming together more quickly. That’s also when I felt connected again to a supportive writing community, something I missed from journalism. I can’t overstate the value of that community, both for my work and my mental health: No one really understands what you’re going through except other writers.
What’s next for you?
I’m writing a middle-grade novel, also with a boy at the center, that takes on another tough issue, homelessness. It’s set in the Pittsburgh area, where my mother’s family is from and where I lived for a time as a boy.
Lastly, what books have you enjoyed so far this year and are there any that you can’t wait to get your hands on?
Four books that stand out to me are by writers who, like me, moved from journalism to fiction.
One book I enjoyed a great deal this year is Medusa: The Myth of Monsters, the latest middle-grade novel from Katherine Marsh. It’s a fun and also thought-provoking feminist twist on the Medusa myth. The story is fast-paced and action-packed, and it will hook kids, even reluctant readers. At the same time, Marsh taps into a deep tradition of Medusa as a symbol of female power and protection. Kids and adults will find a lot to think about and talk about here, even while they enjoy the ride of the story. I admire all of Marsh’s writing. Her previous book, The Lost Year, was a finalist for the National Book Award. A mutual friend, another journalist, connected us when I was struggling with Breaking into Sunlight, and she critiqued an early draft. It was a master class for me in writing for kids.
Another book I loved is Kurtz, an adult novel by John Lawson III, a friend who I worked with at the News & Record in Greensboro, North Carolina. Kurtz is a love story and a thriller with two remarkable characters at the center: Annie Kurtz, who follows her own path to the Marines and then deployment to Afghanistan, and journalist Nick Willard, who loves her and faces a wrenching dilemma when he uncovers the horrifying reason Afghanistan has changed Annie. It’s set against the Global War on Terror, and it draws inspiration from Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now and their critiques of imperialism. But it’s totally original, beginning with its portrayal of Annie, a smart, strong woman fighting to make a place for herself in a male-dominated world while remaining true to herself.
For forthcoming books: One is Upon the Corner of the Moon, historical fiction coming next March from novelist, poet and short-story writer Valerie Nieman, another friend from the Greensboro newspaper. This is the first of two planned novels about the historical Macbeths based on original research by Nieman into the family that inspired Shakespeare’s play. I’ve loved all of Nieman’s writing, which is lyrical and often dark and twisty. Her work defies easy categorization by genre, which makes her books all the more interesting. Her novel To the Bones, for example, is part horror, part mystery, and part contemporary story of environmental justice in the West Virginia coalfields. Another, In the Lonely Backwater, is a haunting YA mystery and coming-of-age story that adults will also love, with an absolute shocker of an ending.
Another book I’m looking forward to Truth, Lies, and the Questions in Between, a young-adult novel by L.M. Elliott, coming next January. Elliott, who I got to know originally because of our mutual connection to Algonquin Young Readers, is a master of historical fiction, and this book focues on one pivotal and tumultuous year in American history, 1973. It’s incredibly timely: 1973 was the year of Roe v Wade, as well as the Equal Rights Amendment, and Watergate. Elliott’s main character, a young woman working in Washington as one of the Senate’s first female Congressional pages, is caught in the middle of this explosive time, with very personal reasons for wanting to get at the truth. I love Elliott’s historical fiction and always learn something new about the periods she’s writing about. Walls, her young-adult novel set in Berlin in the days when the Berlin Wall was raised, is terrific. So is her latest, Bea the New Deal Horse, a middle-grade novel set on a struggling horse farm in rural Virginia during the Great Depression.
