Philly Dame

Kelly Simmons is a former journalist and advertising creative director who specializes in marketing to women.   She started writing fiction a decade ago, after studying at Temple University and the University of Pennsylvania.  Although she was born in Chicago and has lived everywhere from California to Washington, D.C., she makes her home outside of Philadelphia with her husband and three daughters.  Her first novel, Standing Still, was published by Simon & Schuster in February 2008, and was hailed by Publishers Weekly as “an exhilarating debut.” in their starred review.  Her next novel, The Bird House, comes out in 2010.

Your first novel, Standing Still, is about a woman, Claire, who takes the place of her daughter during a home invasion kidnapping. I’m wondering how you came up with the idea for this and what your process for writing it was like.

I had just come from a disastrous meeting in New York with my (now former) agent– who rejected a book I’d been slaving over, a book that she’d seen and approved along the way.   She chided me to write something “closer to my life experience” and I was furious at her for that simplistic advice.  I thought “I’ll show her, dammit . . .I’ll come up with a better plot, a more personal plot, before my train even arrives back in Philadelphia!”  So I basically forced myself, on that train ride, to think of a plot that had more personal resonance, and I decided on a character who, like me and my mom and my sister, suffered from panic disorder.  Then I put her in a situation where she is forced to be brave, to overcome her panic.   (And the fact that Tom Wolfe came and sat next to me in the Amtrak holding area was a sign of some kind.  He was all dressed in white, including spats, in the middle of a snow storm, so I think he was an angel!)

I wrote the first draft, quickly, in about five months, with a real fire and fury, the kind that comes from being truly pissed off, and a little too competitive for my own good.

Your descriptions of Claire’s panic disorder are extremely realistic. What sources did you use to create that realism in your novel?

I suffered from panic attacks for many years, as did my sister and my mother.  Claire’s reactions are based partly on my experiences and partly on those of my mother, who was truly paralyzed by the disorder, and became agoraphobic for many years because of it.  The cognitive therapy techniques Claire employs came from  my own therapy at The Beck Institute, which was life-changing.  I did a little bit of traditional research about the prevalence of panic disorder and the use of drug treatments.

You’re based here in the Philadelphia region. If you were trapped on SEPTA with only 5 books to tide you over for a major delay, what would they be and why?

Why, SEPTA is never delayed!  However, in the rare instance it would be — today, right this instant, I would grab The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitgerald, A Prayer for Owen Meany, by John Irving,  The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold,  The Time Traveler’s Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger,  and The Lovely Bones, by Jonathan Tropper.   Gatsby is one of my all-time favorites, and the others are my favorites from the last decade or so.  (If you’re going to be trapped, you may as well re-read a sure thing.)   And if anyone hasn’t heard of Tropper’s book — don’t delay.  It’s tender and almost unbearably hilarious.

You’re also a member of the Liar’s Club, a Philadelphia-based collective of authors who travel the region and support each other and independent booksellers. Can you tell me a little about your involvement in the group and where you’re going next?

We all pitch in to promote our books but also to support bookstores, libraries and reading at all levels.  For the last year, we’ve been throwing parties at independent bookstores on our own dime — free food, book giveaways, trivia games about the bookstore etc — to help shine a spotlight on the great work they do in their communities.  We’ll be at Wellington Square Books in Exton this Saturday the 5th from 12-2, and at Farley’s and Canterbury Tales in New Hope all day December 12th.   And autographed books make great gifts, hint hint.

What are you working on now?

I just finished The Bird House for Simon & Schuster, which is coming out either next fall or Spring the following year.  It’s about a grandmother and granddaughter who do a class project on the family history — and all the family secrets rise to the surface.

And lastly, you’re on a desert island with either Ben Franklin, Betsy Ross, Edgar Allan Poe, Walt Whitman or Thomas Jefferson. Which one would you pick and how would the two of you get off the island?

Wow . . . much as I’d enjoy the company of Whitman or Poe . . .and although Betsy Ross could certainly construct a large flag that could be seen by a plane . . . .I have a feeling Ben Franklin would be able to invent some getaway contraption with scraps of things lying around.  He’s more MacGyver-y.

Thank you so much Kelly!

You can purchase Kelly Simmons’ novel Standing Still online through your your local independent bookstore through Indiebound.com, Amazon, or Barnes & Noble.