I grew up in a small town in the Northeastern lower peninsula of Michigan. It's practically an additional character in Trying the Knot. My goal was to create the feeling of an actual small town. Everybody knows everybody else's business, and everyone is interconnected in some way or other.

As a teenager I would watch nighttime Soap Operas and religiously plagiarize all the most dramatic scenes and characters in reams of spiral notebooks following my favorite episodes. This was done all at the expense of making friends or having a normal childhood. I started writing Trying the Knot as a senior in college, and I've worked on it periodically through the years.

The story of Trying the Knot was inspired by a friend of mine who suggested, You should write a book about a group of 20-somethings who gather together for a funeral of a friend who commits suicide. A sort of Little Chill, in the fashion of the movie, The Big Chill. My response was, Wouldn't twenty-somethings naturally be gathering for a wedding or similarly celebratory occasion? But my thought was, how much more interesting it would be if someone tried to kill herself on the eve of the festivities, putting a damper on the big celebration.

I had an idea for a cover, and a friend of mine helped photograph it. His input was invaluable. As teen-agers we used to create murals for The Huron Shores Summer Writing Institute. But back then, all we had was paint and plywood.