Goodreads asked Kelly Flanagan:

Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?

Kelly Flanagan The simplest, most sincere answer is that I still have a little boy in me who has always wanted to write stories, and I finally believed in him enough to do so, thanks in part to a bunch of friends and guides and mentors who encouraged me along the way.

On top of that, my last book, TRUE COMPANIONS, concluded with an epilogue that pushed the boundary of nonfiction and fiction. In it, I imagined an “inner reunion” of all of my companions—past, present, and future. The scene played with the malleability of time and space in the realm of memory and soulfulness, and it experimented ever so briefly with a conversation between my grandfather and me. After publishing True Companions, the experiment didn’t end, as I continued to imagine inner conversations with the so-called “ghosts” of my loved ones.

Gradually, it became an imaginative method for reawakening to the voice of grace within me, and the conversations produced by this technique began to deliver new psychological and spiritual insights with direct relevance to the big midlife questions and decisions I—and so many other—are facing. Initially, I wanted to share this technique with readers in a nonfiction book, but ultimately decided the concept’s potential could only be fully explored within the creative freedom of a novel. Thus, Elijah Campbell was born. I can’t wait for you to meet him.

flag