LDS women’s fiction author Josi S. Kilpack took the world of fiction by storm with her first novel, “Earning Eternity.” With her gritty realism and her determination to show life as it is, and not as a fairy tale, she is a trendsetter in the market and is paving paths that have long needed it. I had the pleasure of interviewing Josi for families.com and would like to share that conversation with you.
Josi, you’ve written a lot of “issue-driven” books, meaning books that contain real problems for your characters to work through. Tell me how you came to write this particular genre.
I was on bed rest with a pregnancy, reading a lot of LDS fiction and watching a lot of Lifetime Television for Women. Watching these dark and dreary tales about women’s life on TV, and then reading these idealistic, rather fluffy stories, aggravated my already fragile emotional state. I haven’t had a perfect life, my family, friends and I are not perfect people. The characters in these books were, for the most part, very good people always doing the right thing and simply the victim of something bad. I wanted a story about people that screw up, that aren’t perfect, that have bad things happen but tend to make things worse for themselves. That was certainly something I could relate to, as I have a tendency to play to my own weaknesses and complicate already complicated things in my life. So, not having anything better to do then change the world, I started writing what I thought would be a short story. It became a book, and the response I eventually received was the very reason I had written it in the first place. I wanted reality, and person after person would say that the thing they loved about that book was that it was so real. I kept going, and they’ve kept reading.
I must say, you are quite the gutsy lady, the way you tackle these issues. When you started writing, did you know you were breaking a mold?
I knew I was writing something different than anything I’d read before, but I didn’t even consider getting published when I wrote my first book so there was no consideration of the mold, or market or anything like that. I just wrote what I wanted to read. Nowadays, I look back and I think there were a lot of writers doing the same thing, so that now, several years later, there is more creativity and reality in LDS fiction than ever before. I think the market needed to start out with the soft, happy ending, tread-lightly storylines of early years, but as the reader becomes more sophisticated they look for more. I’m thrilled to be one of the writers that appeals to them.
You seem to really know what you’re talking about when you discuss drug addiction, infertility, etc. How did you make it all seem so real in your books?
I find people fascinating, I find their stories gripping. As you learn of other people’s lives, you start seeing what shapes their decisions, what influences their insecurities. The choices they make in relation to the circumstances they face are what creates the person they become. It’s fascinating to me that one person can be handed a trial, square their shoulders and push on through, while someone else withers under the pressure and puts the blame of their failure on God or someone else. And yet, as Latter-day Saints we are all headed in the same direction, with the same goal, yet with very different roadblocks. I take those roadblocks and put them on a canvas, in a story, and take a deep look into them. I explore the motives of different people, show their weaknesses and ultimately their triumph. The circumstances rarely come out smelling rosy in my books, but my characters are made stronger through the battle. They reflect the goal all of us have, being better because of our trials, not defeated by them. I very much enjoy delving into the human character and finding the perseverance it takes to survive this mortal experience. I’m also heartbroken by the trials some people face, so I show those in hopes that people in similar circumstances can relate to them, and so that people not burdened with those things can learn empathy for those that are. Maybe that’s a lofty goal for a little novel, but it’s my hope. It’s what I gain through the writing, so I hope it’s also passed onto the writer as well.
Visit Media Reviews again tomorrow to continue our interview with author Josi S. Kilpack, as she talks about her future writing plans and how she reacts to negative criticism.
Previously reviewed books by this author: