📚 A Bookish Chat with 'The Ghost Marriage' Kirsten Mickelwait | Author Interview @kmickelwait @deborahbrosseau #audiobook #AuthorInterview #BlogTour #Interview
Kirsten Mickelwait is a professional copywriter and editor by day and a writer of fiction and creative nonfiction by night. She’s an alumna of the Squaw Valley Community of Writers, the Napa Valley Writers’ Conference, the Paris Writers’ Conference, and the San Francisco Writers’ Conference. Her short story, “Parting with Nina,” won first prize in The Ledge’s 2004 Fiction Awards Competition. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she’s working on a new novel.
Her latest book is the paranormal memoir, The Ghost Marriage.
TWL: Welcome to The Writer's Life! How did you come up with the idea to write your book?
Kirsten: My memoir, The Ghost Marriage, tells the story of the most painful decade of my life. It’s a story of divorce, death, debt, and deliverance. Initially I had absolutely no interest in revisiting this difficult period, but friends and family finally convinced me otherwise. I’m glad they did!
TWL: Can you give us a short excerpt?
Kirsten:
It was a fine day for a funeral. The January sky was clear, and the pale
winter sun warmed our heads as we stood around the tiny grave.
Who gets cremated and buried, anyway?
The family gathered under the awning facing the priest. I should
have joined them there because, technically, I was family—my nearly
adult daughter and son were the children of the deceased. But so
much had happened between their dad and me, I stood instead off
to the side by the small group of friends who had come to St. Helena
for the funeral.
“Into your hands, O Lord, we humbly entrust our brother Stephen,”
the priest said. “In this life you embraced him with your tender love;
deliver him now from every evil and bid him enter eternal rest.”
Bronte wept quietly. Amory stood ashen-faced and fought back
tears. He had been their father—of course they still loved him. But
my eyes were dry.
“The old order has passed away,” the priest said. “Welcome him,
then, into paradise, where there will be no sorrow, no weeping or
pain, but the fullness of peace and joy with your Son and the Holy
Spirit for ever and ever.”
The old order has passed away, I thought. Has it? How can I know
for sure? Steve Beckwith and I had shared twenty-six years together.
First there was the bliss of courtship, then the contentment of marriage
and the love of parenthood. Then anger, spite, unforgivable
damage. He had spent the last five years trying to destroy me. What
I didn’t yet know was that our relationship wasn’t over. He still had
things to say.
“In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,”
the priest intoned.
Everyone crossed themselves.
“Amen.”
I didn’t kill him. But he would have told you different.
TWL: What part of the book was the most fun to write?
Kirsten: In the final fourth of the book, I’m receiving messages from my deceased ex-husband, and visiting a medium to explain what I was experiencing. It’s when I’m able to piece together everything that Steve and I were meant to do together. In writing this book, I was finally able to create a shape of the story, and help myself make sense of everything that had happened.
TWL: What’s one fact about your book that would surprise people?
Kirsten: That I truly believe that Steve is pleased by it, wherever he is now. Although his character is incredibly unlikable throughout most of the book, the message of sacred contracts and forgiveness is one that I believe we were meant to tell together.
TWL: What other books are you working on and when will they be published?
Kirsten: I’m currently writing a historical novel about a couple who was part of the Lost Generation in France after WWI. I’m about 75,000 words into it, but have no idea when it will be finished. Sometime in 2023, if I’m lucky.
TWL: Finally, what message are you trying to get across with your book?
Kirsten: That life is much more than we give it credit for. Here on Earth, we can’t see the “big picture” of our lives. All kinds of things are at work, beyond what we see or experience as humans. Also, the power of forgiveness. I truly believe that forgiveness is the best revenge.
TWL: Do you have any final words?
Kirsten: When I was writing The
Ghost Marriage, I hoped that people would like it, of course, but I had no
idea how strongly readers would connect with it. So many have told me it was “unputdownable.”
That kind of response has really surprised me. I’m so grateful to all my
readers for their enthusiasm and support of my first book.
Title: THE GHOST MARRIAGE
Author: Kirsten Mickelwait
Publisher: She Writes Press
Pages: 344
Genre: Paranormal/Memoir
BOOK BLURB:
Kirsten, at age 31, meets and marries Steve Beckwith, a handsome and successful attorney. Twenty-two years later, Steve becomes unemployed and addicted to opioids, using money and their two children to emotionally blackmail Kirsten. What’s more, he’s been having an affair with their real estate agent, who is also her close friend. Soon after their divorce is finalized, Steve is diagnosed with colon cancer and dies within a year, leaving Kirsten with $1.5 million in debts she knew nothing about. As she fights toward recovery, Kirsten begins to receive communications from Steve in the afterlife―which lead her on an unexpected path to forgiveness.
“A skillfully written, thought-provoking account that positively reconsiders an antagonist as an important teacher.”
―Kirkus Reviews
“What if you accidentally married your worst enemy? With unflinching honesty and hard-earned grace, Kirsten Mickelwait peels the shiny façade off her catastrophic marriage to reveal how she not only survived the lies, betrayals, and lawsuits, but also found her way to compassion. If you don’t think on your ex fondly, The Ghost Marriage will teach you why you should.”
―Meredith May, author of The Honey Bus and Loving Edie
“The Ghost Marriage is an absorbing tale about what happens when you marry Prince Charming and the expected ‘Happily Ever After’ erodes into a kind of ‘Cursed Ever After.’ It’s a story of survival, of adjusted ambition, of how to be quick on your feet when your daily foundation crumbles in midlife.”
―Julia Scheeres, author of Jesusland and A Thousand Lives
“With The Ghost Marriage, Kirsten Mickelwait―in bracing, unsentimental prose― brings us in close to the disturbing history of her troubled marriage. It’s abundantly satisfying to watch her move through each crisis toward new compassion―for herself, but also for her deceased ex-husband.”
―Angela Pneuman, author of Lay It on My Heart and Home Remedies
“By turns hilarious, lyrical, suspenseful, and touching, Kirsten Mickelwait’s memoir pulls us into the whirlpool of her unique marriage―then spits us out into the dazzling light of what that marriage came to mean. Supremely well written, and with a captivating honesty.”
―Veronica Chater, author of Waiting for the Apocalypse
Book Information
Release Date: Audiobook releases April 12, 2022
Publisher: She Writes Press
Amazon: Paperback https://amzn.to/3tYLlcs
The Writer’s Life
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