Get to Know Our Friend, Sonali Dev!
What would you be if you weren't a writer?
Either a dancer or a poker player.
What's the biggest misconception people have about you and your work?
That it’s too romantic for women's fiction and too literary for romance.
When did you first know you wanted to be a writer?
I think I was writing before I was reading. As a kid, when my dad tucked me in at night and tried to tell me a bedtime story, I insisted on telling him one instead. So I was making up stories since I could barely speak. My love for writing definitely precedes any kind of conscious decision about what I wanted to do with my life. I always knew that if I could be anything I wanted, I would be a writer.
Tell us about the first piece of fiction you ever wrote.
Growing up in India, at age eight, I wrote a play (I also directed and performed in it) about mistaken identities for our neighborhood Diwali festival. Basically? The plot involved this spoiled wealthy family with a servant named Narayan, which happens to be the name of an Indian god. They call out to the servant for every little thing, so much so that the god shows up to find out why he’s being invoked so very much in this home. It was a comedy of errors with social commentary I guess, not that I knew it then.
Do you have any writing rituals?
I do all my brainstorming, plotting, and note taking in pencil. The pencil has to be sharp enough for murder.
Is there a particular independent bookstore or library you'd like to shout-out?
Anderson’s Bookshop in Naperville is my favorite bookstore on earth. You can find signed copies of all my books. You can also find signed copies from all the very many amazing authors who do events with them.
The last book you raved about:
Tell us about your work-in-progress.
I just finished up the final edits for my next book. It’s a story about two friends who were each other's soulmates, but a surrogacy arrangement broke their friendship up twenty-seven years ago. Now the daughter who was carried by the friend has disappeared and the two women come face-to-face again to find her.
