2024 Finalist for Best Independently Published Book: Abilene

Shelf Media hosts the annual Shelf Unbound Indie Best Book Competition for best self-published or independently published book. You can find the winner, finalists, long-listed, and more than 100 notable books from the competition in the December/January 2024 issue of Shelf Unbound.

About The Author: Dare DeLano

Dare DeLano writes literary fiction for adults and middle grade fiction. Her debut novel, Abilene, was released on November 1, 2023, by Mint Hill Books. Her work has been a finalist for the Faulkner-Wisdom Creative Writing Competition and is represented by Jennifer Thompson of Nordlyset Literary Agency.

Her middle grade novel, Odus and the Long Way Home (The Odyssey), won the San Diego Book Award and Gold Moonbeam Children’s Book Award. Dare holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Fairfield University, with her work featured in the A Year in Ink Anthology and the San Diego Central Library’s Local Author Exhibition.

Interview with Dare DeLano

Interview with Dare DeLano.

Could you give us a glimpse into the heart of your book?

DD: Abilene is about three strong Southern women — twelve-year-old Len, her mother Cora, and her Aunt Jean — who are each searching for something in an effort to find themselves. Len yearns to find the father she has never known, and after a chance encounter with a country music star who she suspects is him, she embarks on a life-altering journey to find the truth about her past. Cora searches for her lost love, and in the process remembers who she was before she became a mother. Jean must find her sense of self again after landing in jail for shooting her husband and along the way she learns that her marriage was not what she thought it was. Abilene is part mystery and part coming of age story, but at its heart it’s a love story. Told in turns by these three women, the novel explores the boundaries of love and the transformative power of self-discovery.

What sparked the initial idea for your story?

DD: For every story idea that I’ve actually been able to build into a novel, I’ve had a similar experience – two completely separate things connect in my head at some point. It’s like a crash of lightning where I then have this story idea that I get really excited about. For Abilene, the character of Len came to me first, and I had actually written a story about her but then put it away in a desk drawer while I worked on some other things, because it didn’t have enough of a plot. I was really struggling with the rest of the story outside of Len as a character who was longing to find her father. Then, one night I went to a Tim McGraw concert. I don’t typically listen to country music to be honest, so it was a little outside of what I would usually do, but I went with a friend – and it turned out to be a great show, he is really an incredible performer. I was watching Tim McGraw put on this amazing show, and watching the fans go crazy, and all of a sudden, I just had this thought – what if Len’s father was someone like this? Once I had that character of Len’s father in my head I was able to flesh out her mother Cora’s story of long lost love as well, and the novel really fell into place at that point.

How did writing this book impact you personally?

DD: When I was writing from these three different perspectives, I needed to be in a different head space depending on which section I was writing. I think of it as very similar to the process an actor would go through to get into character for a role. I had to basically “get in character” when I sat down to write – I wanted to get the voice right, and to really be in that character’s head. Cora is an idealist at heart, and her story is one of lost love. The love of her life, Len’s father, left her before she even knew she was pregnant, and she never knew why. There is a secret that is revealed at the end of the novel – I’m not going to give it away here – but the lead up to revealing that secret was really important to me. I wanted to do that in a way that had an emotional impact. And to get that impact I had to really channel those feelings of first love – all the nostalgia, and the pain of that first heartbreak. Cora feels all those things throughout her search for Edison, and I needed the reader to come along with her in that journey so that the final chapters of the novel would have the emotional impact I wanted. To get myself in the head space to write the Jean sections, I had to go to a bit of a dark place. Jean is reeling from an abusive marriage, but in the beginning of the novel she thinks she’s crazy. Her journey is this sort of slow building to a realization that she has actually been manipulated and gaslit and subject to narcissistic abuse. To write from Jean’s point of view. I did a lot of research. I read books on emotional abuse, I visited online communities and read a number of first-hand accounts from women who were in emotionally abusive relationships. And I thought about and explored my own experiences in relationships. So many women who had been in emotionally abusive relationships talked about feeling like they were going crazy and feeling like they just couldn’t trust their own perspective or judgement anymore. The controlling, narcissistic abuser will do that in a relationship –they are masters at manipulation and will turn everything around their partner until the victim believes that they must be the one who is argumentative and controlling and forgetful and lazy and selfish. The relationship doesn’t start out with those abusive behaviors of course; it creeps in over time. So Jean feels as if she doesn’t even know herself anymore – she’s lost in many ways. And throughout the novel her story is really about her finding herself again after this really traumatic marriage.

Were there any unexpected insights or discoveries along the way?

DD: It took me a long time to write this novel, and then a long time to get it published. Along the way, I learned a lot about how to be a writer. I learned to make writing a priority – which was not easy at first. I often hear people say something like: “If I only had time, I’d love to write a book.” But no one is ever going to hand it to you. You have to make the time, carve it out and guard it carefully. While I was writing Abilene, I had kids to raise and a business to run, and I often found myself up in the early hours or staying up late at night to write. It felt selfish sometimes to focus on writing when there was so much else to do. But I truly believe that making art is important, and so I learned to fiercely carve out and protect my writing time. I also learned to redefine what “success” looked like for me. I had a long road to publication (including a previously completed novel that did not sell to a publisher even after I landed an agent), and it was hard not to become completely disheartened by all the rejection. I got to a point finally where I was able to toss out all the preconceived notions of what “success” would look like for me and just focus on the work I was doing. Because at the end of the day, all the rest – all the commercial things that we tend to call success – may happen, or they may not. So just you have to persevere in your goal to write a great story that you are proud of. That became my new definition of success.

What lasting message or experience do you hope readers will carry with them?

DD: This is a great question – because as an author, when I sit down to write a novel, I have a couple of goals. First and foremost, I just want to tell a story. If I ever get swept up in trying too hard to bring a theme into something I’m writing, or teach the reader a lesson, that is when I ultimately feel the fiction doesn’t work – it can come out as too didactic and that is not what I want to do as a writer. But I think as humans, the way we make sense of our world is through story. And hearing someone else’s story can teach us things about our own lives, and about big themes like love, loss, and family. So my other goal in writing fiction is always to move the reader emotionally – I want the reader to feel something. I want them to be invested in the characters. In Abilene, one thing I really wanted to do in writing Jean’s story was to pull back the curtain to reveal how narcissists work and the devastating effects of emotional abuse. I tried to write it so that anyone who has ever been in an emotionally abusive relationship could see themselves in the story. And so that those who haven’t could perhaps recognize patterns and warning signs they might not have been aware of otherwise. I also hope that readers will connect with the theme of resilience in the novel. Each of the three main characters is going through a rocky time in their life, and they each come through these times of difficulty with renewed strength and purpose. I hope that will speak to readers and that they will feel an emotional connection to the story.

Can you share a sneak peek of what you’re working on next?

DD: I’m actually working on two different projects at the moment. One is a novel about an heiress whose parents die, years apart, but both in mysterious circumstances. Like Abilene, it’s part love story and part mystery. And it will also be set in the south, probably in my home state of Virginia. The other thing I’m working on is middle grade book that combines my love of Tudor England with my love of portals and time travel. I can’t say much more about it at the moment because it is with my agent – so I am just hoping she thinks it is as fun as I do.