5 Fabulous Minutes With: Kristy Woodson Harvey
Talking about her latest novel The Summer of Songbirds.
One of the best parts about being an author is getting to meet other writers, especially ones you immediately click with. Kristy Woodson Harvey and I both launched books with the same publisher during May 2020 (just as bookstores shut down with the pandemic), and as her book shot onto the bestseller list, I remember wondering: How does she do it? But now that I’ve gotten to know Kristy a bit, I know. For one, she’s incredibly talented, churning out great books with great stories. Second, she’s an incredibly nice person. Unlike other industries, kindness gets you far in publishing.
I say this because I remember her taking the time to promote both of my books on her social media accounts before I even knew her. She always has something nice to say about everyone, and we got a chance to chat in a Friends & Fiction podcast, a book-centric interview program featuring Kristy and four of her best author pals, and she’s a charmer. If you haven’t seen F&F, find them on Instagram. Their programming is a delight.
Kristy stopped by to discuss her latest novel The Summer of Songbirds, which is out this week. Don’t you just love the cover?! In the book, four women come together to save the summer camp that changed their lives. A premise I adore, and I’m running out to get my hands on a copy straight away. (I have so many books on my TBR!)
Here’s an excerpt of my conversation with Kristy.
Last summer I was thinking how I'd love to set a book at a summer camp. Then I saw yours and thought: Bingo!! Yes!! I think it's a great setting for a novel. I'm curious though. What made you set your new book there and what types of fun/heartache did it lend itself to?
It’s such a PERFECT setting for a book because it’s so nostalgic! I decided to write this book at the beginning of the pandemic and I truly just wanted to set a book somewhere that was free and open and where I would barely have to write about indoor spaces at all! My family ended up going to a family camp in NC right around that time, and it was like the stories were just coming out of the walls! It was fun to write about camp for obvious reasons, but I also think that it’s a time and a place in life when we are experiencing first loves—and heartbreaks—making great friends and working through the realities of disagreements and arguments and the bonds that that creates if we can learn how to handle it.
Did you go to sleepaway camp or camp when you were younger and how did it impact who you are today?
I sure did! I think camp was my first taste of freedom. Even though you’re in a confined area, you do have a lot more autonomy over yourself even as a young child, and there is wild, beautiful freedom in that. I also made wonderful new friends and bonded with old ones in a totally different way. I’m still so close with a lot of my camp friends. One of my camp friends actually became my college roommate! Shoutout to Camp Hollymont, where I went. I loved every minute!
How are the characters in this novel different from other characters you've written, like the ones in The Wedding Veil? (My fave!) More challenging or more fun or how different?
This is going to surprise you I think… But this book was actually harder for me to write than The Wedding Veil, which is so absurd because The Wedding Veil involved so much research! I think I had so much story to tell that I probably could have made this a camp series. So it took a lot of refining to figure out exactly which stories I wanted to tell with these characters. This is definitely more of a friendship story than I’ve written before too, so that was fun, but it’s definitely different than, say, a sister relationship because, while I wanted to write friendships that fight and forgive, I do believe that friendships are more easily broken than sisterhoods, so I spent a lot of time thinking through the conflict resolution in this book.
Where do you get your ideas from? Any interesting stories about where ideas germinate for you?
I think everywhere, honestly… I bet you’d agree with that, once you start writing, it’s like turning on a faucet. Everything is a story! I am generally working on a few ideas at a time, and sometimes I think my most interesting novels come from putting a few of my ideas together. It makes for a richer reader experience, I think.
From Brooke: I completely agree. It’s like Hollywood tossing together two movies in a pitch meeting. It’s where Top Gun meets Thelma and Louise. When we toss two of our premises together, we tend to get a better tale.
What part of this book gave you the most challenges? How did you overcome it?
I sort of mentioned this, but I think it was just refining what I wanted to say and, really, cutting! I like my books to be around 400 pages and this one was much longer! I hate cutting, but it was necessary for this story, and I’m glad I did. I think it keeps the pages moving more quickly.
Lastly, is there a line or moment in the book that you're most proud of? (I always love to hear the lines that ring true or hit hard for an author....we all have them!)
Aw, I love this question! This might be sort of silly, but the traditional camp “see you later” is “fair winds and following seas” and you see that line throughout the story. I obviously didn’t make that up, but it comes to have such deep meaning throughout this story. I also love the first lines: “The first day of Camp Holly Springs is like shaking a bottle of soda and taking off the cap: an overflowing, effervescent explosion of sweet, delicious chaos.” It encapsulates the camp feeling for me!
Thank you SO much for having me, Brooke! You know how very much I love your books, and I’m so very grateful!
From Brooke: You’re so welcome!! xoxo