Texas Native Author, Melanie Sweeney to Stop in Houston on Tuesday, July 9 with Debut Novel, TAKE ME HOME
Event will be held at Blue Willow Bookshop on Tuesday, July 9 at 7 PM
MEET MELANIE SWEENEY here to learn about her journey as an author.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Melanie Sweeney holds an MFA in fiction from New Mexico State University. Her work has appeared at Babble.com, as well as in several literary magazines. Take Me Home is her debut novel.
1. Please share how you got into writing fiction.
When I was very young, a toddler or preschooler, I received a Sony recorder that had a microphone, and you could play tapes on it as well as record yourself singing or talking onto a blank tape. I would carry it around and tell stories into it. That was probably the earliest evidence of my love of making up stories. I was about twelve when I set out to write my first chapter book, and from that point on, I was always working on at least one writing project – always some kind of novel. In college, I took one creative writing workshop – the only one I could get into as a non-major. I finally pursued writing more directly when I did my MA in English and then my MFA in fiction.
2. Are there particular types of storylines you like to follow for your work?
I love romance, first and foremost, but I am also very interested, as both a reader and a writer, in stories that explore emotionally hefty subjects like grief or redemption as well as family dynamics. I love siblings in stories. I’m fascinated by the phenomenon where, even as adults, when people go home, they can revert to childhood roles and behavior patterns. Before I was fully writing romance, I wrote about families as a way to explore many types of love, but I was also always sneaking romance conventions into my stories – a marriage in trouble, second chances, falling for a sibling’s best friend, etc.
My main goal now, as a romance writer, is to craft stories in which ordinary people fall in extraordinary love. I want a Melanie Sweeney romance to feel both special and possible for anyone reading it. So I stick to realistic, relatable tensions among a realistic, relatable cast of characters in places that feel real and then do my best to find whatever rare alchemy exists in those circumstances. I have always loved stories that make me feel like I, too, could grasp extraordinary magic in my own ordinary life.
3. Can you share details on previous published work?
Before my upcoming novel, I mostly published literary short fiction, essays, and poetry. Some of my work can still be found online, though much of it has been quietly lost over time as small journals have folded and outlets have been bought and rebranded. Birds as Leaves, my lyrical nonfiction chapbook on motherhood and the body, was published by The Lettered Streets Press in 2015. I’ve published very little in the decade since because I shifted my focus to writing novels. In 2019, I shelved a book that I worked on for a few years because it was quite depressing and never quite clicked for me. It was a family drama with a romantic subplot, and I realized during that project that I was missing fun in my writing. That was what ultimately led me to shift fully to romantic comedy as a genre, and it felt like a puzzle piece snapping into place. My story interests haven’t actually changed very much – Take Me Home explores family themes alongside a central romance – but the vehicle of the story, the rom-com, was the missing thing that finally unlocked everything for me.
4. What prompted you to do a novel, and is there any backstory to the inspiration for this story?
I believe writers tend to be naturally suited to certain forms, even though the MFA model for fiction still heavily skews toward short stories. As a student, I was always submitting stories at the upper page limit in my workshops. I wanted to write bigger conflicts and character arcs that simply took more page space. So, I think I was always a novelist at heart.
As for this specific book, yes, there was a clear inspiration behind it! I love the idea of holiday rom-com movies, but I’m often disappointed that there aren’t more of them with rich character development, meaty emotional stakes, and more financial investment in their film production. I realized a couple winters in a row, after watching so many Hallmark and Lifetime holiday movies and ending up disappointed, that what I really wanted was the expansiveness of a novel. (Which is not to say that there aren’t some great holiday movies – my favorites are The Family Stone and While You Were Sleeping, which were of course both bigger box office productions rather than made-for-TV films.) I had known for a while that I wanted to write a rom-com but didn’t have the right story yet, and a holiday romance suddenly felt like the perfect fit.
I set out to write the kind of holiday romance that I personally felt was missing – something with complex characters achieving significant growth by the end, something swoony and funny and sexy and realistic, something maybe even a little weird, with charming specificity rather than cookie-cutter characters and beats. Most of all, I wanted to write a story that captures both the magic of the holidays that many us have lost by adulthood as well as the melancholy that can underpin the season. Funnily enough, though it started as a holiday story, Take Me Home’s more timeless themes and family subplots ended up pushing against the boundaries of the holiday romance. I hope people will enjoy it just as much in July as they surely will in December – especially here in Houston when some of us are desperate to escape the summer heat!
5. What do you like about Take Me Home and how it turned out?
I like that it explores a difficult father-daughter relationship that I don’t see a lot in other books. I like that it centers a grumpy-yet-people-pleasing female main character and a male main character who is the better communicator and a natural caretaker. I like that I got to show glimpses of Texas in the book. And I like that I was able to organically fit so many of my favorite tropes and micro-tropes into this story – frenemies to lovers, second chance, a road trip, only one bed, small town romance, force proximity, and more! It was a total joy to write, and I think my delight is felt in its final form.
6. What’s next for you?
I’m currently at work editing my second book, which is a rom-com set in Houston and likely to come out next summer. It was inspired by true events in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, though the final story is heavily fictionalized. It’s a story about recovery in many forms, resilience, and community. It is also a love letter to librarians and those who protect access to green spaces.
In the meantime, people can come see me on my book tour July 9th through 17th. My launch is at Blue Willow Bookshop in Houston, and my last stop is in The Woodlands at Village Books. Details can be found on my website: www.melaniesweeney.com.
Photo courtesy of Melanie Sweeney