Mini-Interview with Julia Fine

Julia Fine is the author of three delightfully twisted novels about women: What Should Be Wild, The Upstairs House, and her latest, Maddalena and the Dark, which came out in June. I remember reading The Upstairs House only a year or so after my twins were born, a novel about postpartum anxiety and Margaret Wise Brown– and I couldn’t put it down. Such a strange pairing, but so totally compelling. Julia is an expert at drawing on folklore, and dives right into the weirdest possibilities for her story, without sacrificing structure and pacing. She’s crazy smart, and I’ve always admired her ability to just go for it in her books.

I haven’t started this one yet, but Maddalena and the Dark follows the story of Luisa, a fifteen-year-old violinist living in 1717 Venice. I can’t wait to get sucked into it. And if you want get hooked even further, Sara Cutaia asks such insightful questions in this fantastic interview.

We’re so happy Julia agreed to answer our questions!

Did you ever go through a period of doubt, thinking this book wouldn’t see the light of day? 

I had a lot of confidence in this particular book, partially because it came on the heels of some ideas that totally failed to launch. I'd pitched my agent a few different things and even started reading/researching, and they all were just DOA. When I hit on Vivaldi's Venice and the teen girls he worked with at the Ospedale della Pietà, I knew I'd found my subject--there was an ineffable sense of this being it. As long as I could find time to get the work in, I thought I'd probably be able to find an audience based on my past books.

Do you have any tricks or tips for staying motivated? 

My biggest trick is letting myself have fallow time. Some people write every day, and it works for both their schedules and their creative processes. I'm much more likely to take long periods of time off (weeks to months) to let myself relax and let ideas percolate. Then, when I do sit down to write, I feel refreshed. I'm sure there's something to be said for showing up even when the muse is gone, but in terms of my own motivation and available time, I'd rather cut out when there are clearly diminishing returns and then come back when the work is ready for me. 

Any reading recommendations? 

Always! There's a book coming out next year called The Night Parade that I'm absolutely obsessed with. It's a speculative memoir about mental health by Jami Nakamura Lin, and features the most gorgeous illustrations. I just reread Alasdair Gray's Poor Things in preparation for the film version, and it was as confounding and pleasurable as it had felt the first time through. And I am also going to plug Samantha Irby's essay collection, Quietly Hostile. She hits a home run every single book. 

Thank you, Julia! <3

And finally, Julia’s sweet little rec to your earbuds this morning: