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Drunk on Ink Q & A with Colleen Oakley and ‘Before I Go’

Drunk on Ink is a blast interview series by Soniah Kamal author of  the novel Unmarriageable a parallel retelling of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice and set in contemporary Pakistan 

Colleen Oakley is an Atlanta-based writer and author of the novel Before I Go. Her articles, essays, and interviews have been featured in The New York Times, Ladies’ Home Journal, Marie Claire, Women’s Health, Redbook, Parade, and Martha Stewart Weddings. Before she was a freelance writer, Colleen was editor in chief of Women’s Health & Fitness and senior editor at Marie ClaireClose Enough to Touch is her second novel.

About Before I Go

Twenty-seven-year-old Daisy already beat breast cancer four years ago. How can this be happening to her again? On the eve of what was supposed to be a triumphant “Cancerversary” with her husband Jack to celebrate four years of being cancer-free, Daisy suffers a devastating blow: her doctor tells her that the cancer is back, but this time it’s an aggressive stage four diagnosis. She may have as few as four months left to live. Death is a frightening prospect—but not because she’s afraid for herself. She’s terrified of what will happen to her brilliant but otherwise charmingly helpless husband when she’s no longer there to take care of him. It’s this fear that keeps her up at night, until she stumbles on the solution: she has to find him another wife.

With a singular determination, Daisy scouts local parks and coffee shops and online dating sites looking for Jack’s perfect match, as there are dating sites and services like Skip the games albuquerque where men can find company. However if you’re in a relationship and you want to give your partner a perfect romantic date, then it’s best for you to see these first date ideas in toronto here! There are tons of fun date ideas the two of you will surely enjoy! But the further she gets on her quest, the more she questions the sanity of her plan. As the thought of her husband with another woman becomes all too real, Daisy’s forced to decide what’s more important in the short amount of time she has left: her husband’s happiness—or her own?

SONIAH KAMAL: First author/book you read/fell in love with?

COLLEEN OAKLEY: A Birthday for Frances by Russell Hoban

To unwind: chai, coffee, water, wine?

Wine!

A novel, short story, poem, essay, anything you believe should be mandatory reading?

Too many to list!

Book: White Fragility by Robin Diangelo

Essay: The Case for Reparations by Ta-Nehisi Coates (published in The Atlantic)

Poem: Good Bones by Maggie Smith

Any classic you wished you’d pushed through in your teens?

No, I was a nerd and read everything required of me. However, I didn’t come to love Their Eyes Were Watching God until I re-read it as an adult. It’s now one of my favorite books of all time, which I think is an interesting, beautiful thing: how books don’t change, but the experience of reading them can vary wildly based on a reader’s perspective.

Favorite quote from your book 

“I suppose all couples feel this way at some point—that their bond is the most special, the strongest, the Greatest Love of All. Not all the time, just in those few and far between moments where you look at the person you’re with and think: Yes. It’s you.”

Favorite book to film?

Atonement. It perfectly evoked the very same emotions I had while reading the book. Which is to say, I cried buckets.

 Favorite Indie Book Store/s?

All of them! But I especially love Annell Gerson at The Book Miser in Roswell and all the foxy foxes at FoxTale in Woodstock.

The one think you wish you’d known about the writing life?

That the quicker you grow a thick skin the better— I’m still waiting for mine to come in.

Does writing/publishing/marketing get any easier with each story/novel published?

No.

Dog, Cat, Or?

Dogs!

Ideal vacation?

Somewhere picturesque, quiet, off the beaten path with perfectly crafted cocktails and endless books to read.

Favorite book cover?

The Immortalists  by Chloe Benjamin

Favorite song?

For Good, from Wicked the Musical

Recommend a Small Press and/or Literary Journal?

A Public Space Journal

Last impulse book buy and why?

Becoming, by Michelle Obama. How can anyone resist? She is everything.  My TBR pile is already unwieldy and impossible yet there were $2 Kindle sales for ROSEWATER by Tade Thompson and THE CALCULATING STARS by Mary Robinette Kowal and I could not resist.

 

Soniah Kamal is an award winning novelist, essayist and public speaker.  Soniah’s novel Unmarriageable is a Financial Times Readers’ Best Book of 2019, a People’s Magazine Pick, a Library Reads Pick, an NPR Code Switch Summer Read Pick, a 2019 Book All Georgians Should Read, a 2020 Georgia Author of the Year for Literary Fiction nominee and more. Her novel An Isolated Incident was shortlisted for the Townsend Prize for Fiction and the KLF French Fiction Prize. Soniah’s TEDx talk is about second chances and she has delivered numerous keynotes addreses. ‘We are the Ink’, her address at a U.S. Citizenship Oath Ceremony, talks about immigrants and the real American Dreams, her keynote at the Jane Austen Festival is about universality across time and cultures and she’s given keynotes at Writers Conferences. Soniah’s work has appeared in critically acclaimed anthologies and publications including The New York Times, The Guardian, The Georgia Review, The Bitter Southerner, Catapult, The Normal School, Apartment Therapy and more. www.soniahkamal.com
She’s on twitter and instagram @soniahkamal

More Drunk on Ink Interviews:

Mike Chen: Here and Now and Then, a novel

Ruth Franklin: Shirley Jackson A Rather Haunted Life, biography

Colleen Oakley: Before I Go, a novel

Emily Midorikawa: A Secret Sisterhood: The literary friendships of Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, George Eliot, and Virginia Woolf, biography

Shabnam Samuel: A Fractured Life, memoir

Elise Hooper: The Other Alcott, a novel

Anne Boyd Rioux: Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy: The Story of Little Women and Why It Still Matters, non fiction

Devoney Looser: The Making of Jane Austen, non fiction

Kristen Miller ZohnThe Currency of Taste- Gibbons Georgian Silver, coffee table book

Vanessa HuaA River of Stars, novel

Chaitli SenThe Pathless Sky, novel

Sonya HuberPain Woman Take Your Keys, memoir

Kathy Wilson FlorenceThree of Cups, a novel

Sara Luce LookCharis Books and More, independent book store

S J SinduMarriage of a Thousand Lies, a novel

Rosalie Morales KearnsKingdom of Men, a novel

Saadia FaruqiMeet Yasmin, children’s literature

Rene DenfeldThe Child Finder, a novel

Jamie BrennerThe Husband Hour, a novel

Sara MarchantThe Driveway has Two Sides, memoir

Kirsten Imani KasaiThe House of Erzulie, a novel

Thrity UmrigarThe Secrets Between Us, novel

John Kessel, Pride and Prometheus, novel

Lisa Romeo, Starting with Goodbye: A Daughter’s Memoir of Love After Loss

Rachel May, An American Quilt: Unfolding a Story of Family and Slavery

Rebecca Entel, Fingerprints of Previous Owners, novel

Jamie Sumner, Unbound: Finding from Unrealistic Expectations of Motherhood

Falguni Kothari, My Last Love Story, novel

Tanaz BathenaA Girl Like That, YA novel

 

 

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