Meet Delia Owens, whose debut novel—‘Where The Crawdads Sing’—is sitting pretty at the top of the New York Times best-sellers list and has even inspired Reese Witherspoon to create a film adaptation.
Cityline: What is the origin of the title, ‘Where the Crawdads Sing’?
Delia: When I was a young girl growing up in South Georgia, my mother used to encourage my friends and I to go as far into the forest as we could go. She wanted me to experience true nature, to see deer and foxes behaving the way they always have. She would say to me, ‘go way out and yonder where the crawdads sing’. I loved that expression all my life and I decided to use it for the book because the book has a lot of different parts but it also covers how much we learn about ourselves from nature.
Cityline: So it’s your first fiction novel and it’s the best selling novel of 2019, did you think it would be received this way?
Delia: No I was just hoping somebody would notice it but I’ve been thrilled. It’s been received very well and I’m so thankful, I’m so grateful to all the readers.
Cityline: How did you find out that Reese Witherspoon was interested in producing the film adaptation and what was your reaction to it?
Delia: My agent called me from New York to tell me that Reese Witherspoon wanted to option my book for a movie, I was thrilled, I was so excited. I can’t imagine anybody doing a better job with the movie. She’s done some really great adaptations from books to movies (including ‘Gone Girl’) and I’m just thrilled because she stays with the story.
Cityline: Is it scary to hand your story to someone else?
Delia: It’s very scary, it’s like handing your child over to someone else. A lot of authors worry about that, I worried it about it because I wanted the movie to stay with the story as I have it but I have a lot of confidence that Reese Witherspoon will do that.
Cityline: How long did it take you to write from the concept to the finished product?
Delia: It took my whole life really because I had the experiences that I had as a child. I researched but the actual writing took ten years I hate to admit it but it did. *laughs*
Cityline: So what is your advice for young novelist?
Delia: My advice for a young novelist is to not to give up, to keep writing, and to enjoy writing. It’s very important to enjoy the process so that it makes you happy and then you always want go back to it. That’s the secret.
Cityline: How do you break writers block?
Delia: I’m very lucky that I usually don’t get writers block and I think the reason is I never sit and just stare at a computer screen. If the words don’t come, I jump up right away and I walk in nature, I walk into the woods, I walk along a creek and the words just start flowing.
Cityline: What is your favorite setting to read or write in?
Delia: I love to read and write outside, I love to sit outside by a creek and hear the water, I love to sit at a picnic on a blanket looking at the mountains
Cityline: And finally what is your favorite book of all time
Delia: I would have to say “To Kill a Mockingbird”.