Five with Fisher - Anna Sortino
Tell me about a book you read that evoked strong emotion (ANY strong emotion!)
When I was in middle school, I read Ashes of Roses by Mary Jane Auch. It had such a grip on me. I was so upset and outraged about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire and the horror of it all. It’s the first book I remember fully crying at the ending.
I love when a book can make me shed a tear or two. But get me to bawl my eyes out? That certainly makes it memorable, even all these years later.
Tell me about naming things. Characters! Books! Where do you struggle, and what do you love?
I’m guilty of changing character names between drafts. Maybe during revisions they don’t seem like that name anymore. Or maybe I simply want to switch things up. But usually the second name is the one that sticks.
For book titles on the other hand… I can tell the date of my drafts based on what name is on the file. I’ll cycle through book titles as many times as I’m able until someone tells me we’ve landed on one that’s good enough to be the final. I really just have to try a bunch until I find the right fit!
Who’s your favorite side character (from any novel, yours or otherwise!) that you think deserves their own spinoff, and why?
In my upcoming debut, Give Me a Sign, Phoebe is a side character who already has so many fans. She’s got an excellent sense of dry humor and isn’t afraid to throw fun quips out into conversation. At one point, she mentions wanting to move to the city and get a guide dog, so I already imagine she’s thriving in her own spinoff universe.
Give me an unexpected or strange piece of writing advice.
Revise from a blank document! I swear by it. Obviously I reference what was originally written in a zero draft, but for developmental edits, especially focusing on individual scenes, there’s so much freedom to let a story evolve when you don’t feel constricted by the way the words originally made it onto the page.
Tell me a secret.
Aren’t there always publishing secrets waiting to be revealed? :)
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Anna’s book Give Me a Sign (pre-order now!) will be out from PRH in the summer of 2023. Anna is a young adult author who writes stories about disabled characters falling in love and living their lives. She's Deaf and passionate about diverse representation in media. Born and raised in the Chicagoland area, Anna has since lived coast to coast across the country, spending her free time exploring nature with her dog or reading on the couch with her cat. Give Me a Sign is her debut novel.