We have a new release! And it's a great one!
Overeducated
and underemployed, Ivy League graduate Agnes Larch spends every day steeped in
failure and sleeps every night without dreaming...that is, until the unexpected
death of Ian Millbrook, the boy she's silently loved her whole life. Grieving
and forced to confront her long-buried feelings for Ian, Agnes undergoes an
arduous physical and spiritual journey to unearth her past and untangle her
future. She walks in two worlds, the waking and the dreaming, each world filled
with secrets, mysteries, and maybe, if she believes enough, miracles.
We are so excited about Eden Barber's debut novel, Sleepers, Awake. It's a beautiful moving story that we know our readers will fall in love with.
We were lucky enough to have Eden take a few minutes and answer some of our crazy questions
Omnific: Sleepers Awake is your first
novel, tell us about what inspired you to write and write this book in general.
Eden: It
was an extremely personal exercise in coping with a friend’s unexpected death.
Writing Sleepers was my way of
grieving. Writing has always been appealing to me because it’s a way to
transform pain and trauma into something useful. And if someone else reads what
I’ve fashioned from my hurt and feels something or finds some solace, then that
is a kind of miracle of being human, to be able to take something bad and make
it beautiful, to change it into something that gives comfort. It kind of blows
my mind, really, that writing and catharsis exist, and that mortals are capable
of it. I remember a writing professor telling me that the more specifically one
writes, the more it is only of one’s own experience, the more universal it
becomes. So by writing for yourself, you end up writing for everyone.
Omnific: Can you share a little of your writing
process with us? Are you a plotter or do you write as a scene hits?
Eden : I
write in super productive bursts, and then I go fallow for about … a decade.
I’m probably a one-hit wonder. I am Flock of Seagulls.
As for
my actual process, I outline on post-its or scrap paper, and then write tidbits
on my laptop. I edit as I go, moving things around, letting things sit, moving
them some more, trying to find the rhythm or breath of a phrase.
Omnific: With summer upon us are you
planning to escape somewhere? If you could go anywhere, where
would you LOVE to go on a vacation? And if you went, would you truly be on
vacation or would you have a notebook with you to write when an idea strikes?
Eden: I
would love to be somewhere quiet and air-conditioned, all by myself, maybe with
a beach nearby. And wi-fi. My needs are pretty simple. I just want to sleep
uninterrupted for about six hours, like, maybe once or twice in the next year.
Since I’ve become a mom of a child who is not a fan, shall we say, of the
sleep, all I think about is when, if ever, I’ll get a good night’s sleep again.
If I had no other obligations but to sleep and write and eat, I’d be pretty
happy.
Omnific: Since Omnific is all about the romance...what is your favorite
romance scene in a book?
Eden: It’s not a romance
scene, but for the mind games and intensity, nothing really beats that scene in
Crime and Punishment when Raskolnikov
forces Sonya to read the story of Lazarus to him.
Omnific: Now, if they made that into a movie who would you want cast
opposite you? (Or if they have already made a movie, would you recast it?)
Eden: I
don’t think of Raskolnikov as traditionally hot. I … have no idea. I’d like to
be in a different movie, perhaps a rom-com with Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Yes. I
WISH FOR UNLIMITED WISHES!
Omnific: And the dreaded question after months of editing…do you have
anything that you are working on next?
Eden: I have just scraps of a novel, remnants, really,
that I’m hoping to find time to put together. I don’t have time to floss these
days though, so I’m not sure when I will have time to write again. It’s not a
romance, though. And I have an idea brewing for a YA novel, but again … it may
end up existing only in my brain.
I know you want to know how to win a copy of Sleepers, Awake, right? Well there are two giveaways going on right now. First we have one at Goodreads, so go sign up for that one.
10 eBooks and a $25 gift card (B&N or Amazon, winner's choice) are up for grabs, too! Rafflecopter allows for multiple entries every day for the duration of the promotion. ENTER TO WIN!!
http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/2181971/
Thanks for taking the time to share with us, Eden. We know that the readers will all love Sleepers, Awake as much as we all did. Eden would love to hear from all of you! Here's where you can find her -
Still not convinced? Check out the book trailer for Sleepers, Awake below...
