An Interview With Author Rachel Stolzman

I was lucky enough to have had the chance to read and review Rachel Stolzman's first novel, The Sign For Drowning, and also to interview her. I learned a lot of interesting things about her, so I hope you will enjoy our interview!

Tell us a little about yourself.
Hi Stephanie, thanks so much for reading and reviewing my novel, and for conducting this interview. I’m a fiction writer, living in Brooklyn, New York. The Sign for Drowning is my first novel. I also work in the HIV/AIDS field, in adolescent HIV prevention. I’m currently working on a second novel.

What inspired you to write The Sign For Drowning?
The novel began as a short story, which was virtually the prologue as it is now. So it was a story about the disappearance and search for a five year old girl in the ocean, told through the eyes of her eight-year-old sister who stood there helplessly watching.

This is loosely based on a true story from my family. When my older sister was three she was washed out of a small raft in the ocean and lost underwater for a few minutes. My parents’ friend felt my sister brush against her leg and reached down and pulled her out. In the short story, and then novel I wrote, the child is never found.

About a year after writing the story, I became curious about it again, about what would happen to the characters after that terrible event. In particular I was interested in how, or if, the tragedy would follow the surviving sister into adulthood. So as a grad student in creative writing, I began writing The Sign for Drowning, as a full-length novel.

What made you decide to write about Deaf culture? Do you sign at all?
While I was doing my MFA and working on The Sign for Drowning, I was simultaneously taking American Sign Language classes. The silent and fluid movements of ASL made me think of being underwater. I saw this connection and its potential in my story, and the novel moved in a new direction. I decided to have a young Anna discover sign language in the months after her sister’s death. She grows to believe, or she pretends, that she can communicate to Megan by signing to her. This became a way of comforting herself, and then led to her adult career as a teacher for deaf children, and ultimately led Anna to adopting Adrea.

I worked with the deaf for several years. I was around interpreters everyday. I also had a hearing co-worker with two deaf parents and a mostly deaf family, and a deaf co-worker, all who made sure my ASL skills kept growing. So, yes I do sign, although I’m forgetting a lot of vocabulary!

If the book was made into a movie, who would you want to play Anna and Adrea?

At the book launch reading I did at McNally Jackson Bookstore, my neighbor said he imagined me as Anna, while he was reading the book. I told him for his own enjoyment he should imagine Angelina Jolie.

I did have my mom bring Marlee Matlin a copy of the novel when she was giving a reading in Los Angeles. There is a deaf character in the book, who is Anna’s closest friend, who I hoped might entice Matlin to seek the movie rights. One can hope!

Any new writing projects we can look forward to?
The book I’m currently working on is about a pair of twins from NYC, one of whom is born a bodhisattva, with an enlightened soul. The book depicts his journey to find his purpose as a bodhisattva and the impact his calling has on his twin sister. The twins, David and Jamila, alternate narration in each chapter. At times, we see their lives two-fold from each of their perspectives. September 11th occurs in the course of the novel.

I’m finishing the second draft of the book now, so I hope you can look forward to reading it in the near future! And since you asked me about casting for The Sign for Drowning, I’ll throw out there that my fantasy is for Jake and Maggie Gyllenhaal to play the twins!

What is your favorite song?
I write about a number of songs in The Sign for Drowning. One way in which the family changed after Megan drowned is that they were previously a musical family and their enjoyment of music goes away after her death. My current favorite song is Iron and Wine’s, Innocent Bones- it’s a beautiful song! I listen to them when I write.


*Thank you so much to Rachel! Stop in at her website and say hi! You can also win a copy of The Sign For Drowning right here on my blog, so feel free to enter, or read my review of it.