Joy Castro
Author Interview - Joy Castro
Author of Flight Risk
A novel of secrets, 'Flight Risk' features Isabel Morales, a successful Chicago sculptor who's struggling to save her marriage and career when she learns of her estranged mother's death. Returning to her childhood home in Appalachia, she's forced to face the past--and the shadowy forces that want her mother's land.
Author Interview - Joy Castro
Author I draw inspiration from: Katherine Mansfield. Sandra Cisneros. Toni Morrison. Patricia Highsmith. Jean Rhys.
Author Interview - Joy Castro | Author I Draw Inspiration From
Favorite place to read a book: Next to my fireplace.
Book character I’d like to be stuck in an elevator with: I would never, ever want to be stuck in an elevator. And no book character would enjoy seeing me hyperventilate.
The moment I knew I wanted to become an author: I was six. Our first-grade teacher asked us each to stand and tell the class what we wanted to be when we grew up. I said, "A writer." I'd already been writing and illustrating little stories (mostly about animals) for a couple of years by then, and I've never stopped.
Hardback, paperback, ebook or audiobook: Paperback.
The last book I read: White Magic' by Elissa Washuta.
Author Interview - Joy Castro | The Last Book I Read
Pen & paper or computer: Pen & paper, always--all my books were drafted longhand.
Book character I think I’d be best friends with: Esperanza in Sandra Cisneros's 'The House on Mango Street.'
Author Interview - Joy Castro | Book Character I’d be Best Friends With
If I weren’t an author, I’d be a: Horse trainer. Married to a forest ranger, preferably.
Favorite decade in fashion history: The 1920s.
Place I’d most like to travel: Thailand, by train.
My signature drink: Negroni
Favorite artist: Remedios Varo
Number one on my bucket list: I'm afraid I've never had a bucket list! I'm too superstitious. (What if I did everything on it? Would I suddenly die?) You see my dilemma.
Anything else you'd like to add: I always wanted to be a visual artist, too. (I do paint.) So making the heroine of 'Flight Risk' a sculptor was wonderfully fun. She's a good deal more macabre than I'd probably be, but it was fascinating to dwell in that world for a while, even if only in my imagination.
Find more from the author:
@_JoyCastro
Author Bio: Joy Castro is the award-winning author of the novel 'Flight Risk,' the post-Katrina New Orleans literary thrillers 'Hell or High Water,' which received the Nebraska Book Award, and 'Nearer Home,' and the story collection 'How Winter Began,' as well as the memoir 'The Truth Book' and the essay collection 'Island of Bones,' which received the International Latino Book Award. She is also editor of the anthology 'Family Trouble' and served as the guest judge of CRAFT‘s first Creative Nonfiction Award. Her work has appeared in the 'New York Times Magazine,' 'Senses of Cinema,' 'Salon,' 'Ploughshares,' 'Gulf Coast,' 'Brevity,' 'Afro-Hispanic Review,' and elsewhere. A former Writer-in-Residence at Vanderbilt University, she is currently the Willa Cather Professor of English and Ethnic Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
