Wrecks and Ruins will be my sixth published book, and my third consecutive book published by Loyola University’s Apprentice House Press.
The short novel was inspired, in part, by the Brood X. Or, more specifically, the return of the cicadas after writing a story with their songs as backdrop the last time they emerged.
About 17 years ago, I was inspired to write “Cicadas” shortly after Brood X burrowed back into the ground. “Cicadas” was a short story, and one of my first to be both published in an anthology and featured on the radio. You can listen to an abridged version of the story as it aired on Baltimore’s NPR station, WYPR, at the link below—complete with Cicada sound effects as background music.
I recently revisited the characters from my story, “Cicadas,” at my writing desk. I had a few pages of basic notes for a sort of anti-love story that corrects itself, and as I hashed out the details, I realized the characters from “Cicadas” as older people would fit the roles well. I also realized that Brood X was inching its way back toward another emergence and that it could take place seventeen years later, when the Cicadas were back in full force.
The result: my forthcoming novel, Wrecks and Ruins.
Get a taste by listening to the original “Cicadas” at the link.
https://yourlisten.com/edgewriter/cicadas
Labels: #Cicadas #BroodX #NPR #WYPR #Fiction #Romance #Love #RomanticLove #InsectHoard #AH #ApprenticeHouse #WrecksAndRuins #Wrecks #Ruins