Kim asked Maggie Shipstead:

As a reader, I can get awfully wrapped up a book and its characters and sometimes find it difficult to let them go when the story ends. (That happened to me when I read Seating Arrangements.) As a writer, do you have this same difficulty? Some authors seem to explore a similar theme in a very different storyline but is it the theme or certain character traits the author wants to revisit?

Maggie Shipstead It's funny--once I'm done with a piece, either a novel or a story, I'm so DONE. I don't think about the characters anymore at all. I was surprised, when I first started doing readings for Seating Arrangements, when people would ask what happened to the characters afterward, and I had no idea! I remember one woman wanted to be assured that Livia is okay, and I realized I had the power to be like, "Oh, sorry, she got eaten by a shark." As a writer, I'm just so happy when something's done because that means I can move on to something different. But, of course, when I'm a reader, I get that feeling too, like the book is just one small window into a much vaster, complete whole.

You're so right about how authors have pet themes. I think, to a degree, you don't always see how you're repeating yourself in your fiction, although I do feel self-conscious about what I reveal about myself and my preoccupations, even inadvertently. I had someone ask what my deal was with May-December relationships in my books, and I didn't have an answer except that I think that particular power dynamic is interesting. (Much more so on the page than in life, btw.) I do like to attack a wide range of settings and subcultures in my work, though. Part of the fun, for me, is learning about new worlds.

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