I’m so excited to welcome author Kathleen Basi to the blog today.
Kathleen’s novel Song for the Road is available now. Let’s dive into the interview!
What inspired your latest story?
I woke up early one morning from a vivid, emotional dream in which I was standing in a beautiful place at the end of a long journey, looking at the place where my family had died. But it wasn’t a nightmare—in fact, it was a breathtakingly beautiful moment. How was that possible? I knew I had the kernel of an incredible story, but it took several years and many iterations before I was able to draw Miriam’s story out of that single, poignant image.
Describe your decision to become a writer.
I can’t imagine “deciding” to write! I just… do. The first stories I wrote were fanfic about Annie, written in the back of the bus after school when I was in the second or third grade. I literally cannot remember a time when I wasn’t writing. I didn’t realize I was writing novels until I was in college and finally took the time to find out how long a novel is—and it wasn’t until I was married that I got serious about learning to craft stories. Obviously, I was kind of late in deciding to do this seriously!
What are some of your favorite novels (or your favorite novelists) and why?
Station Eleven—who would have guessed you could use the words “lyrical” and “hopeful” to describe dystopian sci-fi?
Jane Austen—because, of course.
Harry Potter—magical (pun sort of intended), and a wonder of multi-book plotting. I’m in awe every time I read them.
Susanna Kearsley—I can’t put her books down!
Louise Miller (The City Baker’s Guide to Country Living)—Love, love, love these quirky characters and small towns!
Scott Wilbanks (The Lemoncholy Life of Annie Aster)—just enchanting.
What the hardest thing about being a writer?
The uncertainty. Everything is so subjective. What one person loves, another person hates, and sometimes the same person will react differently from one day to the next. It’s like sharpshooting in an earthquake! (Like my analogy?) This is not a business for the faint of heart!
How do you balance writing and the rest of life?
I am a mother of four, and one of those is a daughter with Down syndrome. I also write music for Catholic worship, and I’m deeply involved in the community of pastoral musicians at the national level. What I’ve learned over the past 15 years of balancing parenthood, disability advocacy, marriage, and writing is that balance is not static. Balance means you’re constantly tottering this way or that, nearly falling off the tightrope on side and then the other. Dropping one thing, then grabbing it and setting down something else. My life is a stream of logistics and detailed plans that usually get tossed out the window within five minutes of setting them into motion. (Miriam and I have that in common!) But you have to make the plans, because that’s how you keep all the important things in mind. If you have everything in mind, then you be more adroit at adjusting on the go.
So for instance: when schools shut down in spring 2020, I basically quit writing for several weeks, because I had to be teacher and paraprofessional to my daughter, as well as the anchor for the mental health of the entire household. (I took advantage of free telecounseling through my husband’s work for my own anxieties.) But then it came time to prepare presentations for the national music convention, and I had to email all the teachers and say, “Sorry: now I have to work. School’s out for the year.” It’s not ideal, but we did what we had to do.
About Song for the Road
It’s one year after the death of her husband and twin teenagers. Miriam Tedesco has lost faith in humanity and herself. When a bouquet of flowers that her husband usually sends her on their anniversary shows up
at her work place, she completely unravels. With the help of her best friend, she realizes that it’s time to move past these deaths. Step one is not even cleaning out her family’s possessions, but just to take inventory starting with her daughter’s room. But when she opens up her daughter’s computer, she stumbles across a program written by her daughter to embark on an automated cross country road trip, for her and her husband to take when they would have begun their empty-nesting in a few more months.
Seeing and hearing the video clips of her kids embedded in the program, Miriam is determined to take this trip for her children. Armed with her husband’s guitar, her daughter’s cello, and her son’s unfinished
piano sonata, she embarks on a musical pilgrimage to grieve the family she fears she never loved enough. Along the way she meets a young, pregnant hitchhiker Dicey whose boisterous and spunky attitude reminds Miriam of her own daughter and forces her to look harder at what she had rather than what she’s lost.
Tornadoes, impromptu concerts, and an unlikely friendship… whether she’s prepared for it or not, Miriam’s world is coming back to life. But as she struggles to keep her focus on the reason she initially set out on this journey, she has to confront the possibility that the best way to honor her family may be to accept the truths she never wanted to face.
Hopeful, honest, and tender, A Song for the Road is about courage, vulnerability, and forgiveness, even of yourself, when it really matters.
Advance Praise for A Song for the Road:
“An emotionally complex story about reconciling love with loss, and the healing power of music…I loved every scene from the first to the last.”
—Barbara Claypole White, bestselling author of The Perfect Son and The Promise Between Us
About Kathleen Basi
Kathleen M. Basi is the quintessential jack-of-all trades writer: musical composer and songwriter, feature writer, essayist, nonfiction author, and of course, storyteller. Basi spent her childhood drawing inspiration for stories from the fields and trees on her family’s farm…when she wasn’t climbing on tractors and jumping off hay bales. Now, as mother to three rambunctious boys and one chromosomally-gifted
daughter, she doesn’t have to look any farther than her kitchen table.
Find her at her website, on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest.
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