Grace Sammon is an entrepreneur, educator, speaker, and storyteller. She has started and managed two for-profits and two not-for-profit companies. For nearly 30 years, Grace and her team worked in the United States toughest institutions, the American High School. She has worked in 32 states and with Tribal Nations, with small businesses and with large Federal Agencies. Having written three books and numerous articles in the area of education, she is utilizing skills built up over decades as she re-invents herself with her debut novel, The Eves. The Eves is an intergenerational story about lives lived well and lives in transition. It is a novel that challenges each of us to ask who we want to be in the world, regardless of our age. Grace grew up on Long Island, NY and spent most of her life in the Washington, DC area. She currently lives on Florida’s west coast with her husband and a small herd of imaginary llamas.
Her website: gracesammon.net
Me: Tell us about The Eves.
Grace: The Eves is a multi-generational novel about lives lived well and lives in transition. With characters ranging from 15 to 94, and a plot that carries you from Washington, DC to the Chesapeake Bay and to Africa and Norway, the story is centered on the psychologically complex Jessica Barnet. Jessica has been torn from the foundation of her existence, her relationship with her children. She has given up on her career and her looks, but not her vodka or her sense of loss and guilt. When she encounters a group of diverse, determined, and sometimes ditzy old women committed to leaving their mark on the land, she decides to tell their stories. When their stories are told, everything changes.
Me: Which scene was the most difficult to write and why?
Grace: There were two scenes that were particularly hard, and for two very different reasons. The first is the love scene between Jessica and Roy. I wanted it to be both tender and intense. I didn’t want specific erotic details. I also wanted it to be reflective of the emotions a woman near 60 would have around her body image. I put off writing it and kept prolonging it from actually happening in the plot.
The other scene is when Jessica walks down the hall and slides her back down the small wall that separates the doorways of her children’s rooms. They would be in their 30s now, if they were still in her life. Vodka in hand, she slides to the floor, sits, and begins talking to their childhood selves as if they are tucked in bed, just ready to fall asleep. I love this scene and this image. However, as the parent of adult children myself, it was hard to write about the emotion of the forever loss of that period of time with two small beds filled with two small children.
Me: What inspired you to write this particular novel?
Grace: I wanted to capture a range of women and the issues they face at different ages. In many ways the book is a “coming of age” novel about growing and becoming at every age. In particular, I wanted to write a book that would spark conversations between friends and family members about what it means to leave your mark on the world.
Me: What has surprised you the most about this process?
Grace: The biggest surprise is both the amount of work it takes, as an author, to give legs and wings to your work. The connections that have to be built, the involvement of time, energy and effort is intense, as you well know. The other piece about the process is the impact The Eves seems to have on readers. I love being told it’s the perfect book club book. I love it when readers ask if they can “take their place alongside ‘The Eves’.” There’s a line in the book about a story being “delicious.” When I get responses from readers or fellow authors like that it is food for the soul and motivation for more writing.
Me: Who has been your greatest influence in becoming a writer?
Grace: I think that it’s the people who believed in me – my parents who encouraged my storytelling as a child; my two high school drama teachers who encouraged me in writing, acting and directing; a man I was dating 25 years ago who said that my writing articles wasn’t enough; he told me I had a book in me; and now, my husband who knows there is at least one more book waiting to find its legs and wings. Each of these people have left their mark on the world as they help me leave mine.
