Q: How autobiographical is this story? I mean, you used to live in Portland (in a yellow house!), you've got two daughters, you once worked in a coffee shop...
A: I hold to the quote I once read that said "All the feelings are facts; it's just the facts that are fiction." Emotionally, this book is very autobiographical. Several years ago my family and I moved across country and sold our house in Portland. I really grieved over leaving Oregon, and the house, and felt crazy for feeling so bereft over it. The novel was a way for me to process that. That said, the girls in the novel are NOT based on my daughters, I've never been divorced or even separated, my best friend in Portland did not live next door, and I've never owned a coffee shop. And the coffee shop I did work for only sold coffee, no antiques.

Q: Are the places mentioned in the novel real?
A: Yes, most of them. If you go to Portland you can eat at Elephant's Deli, or get warm chocolate soufflé cake at Paley's Place, or buy delicious dark chocolate truffles at Moonstruck, or shop for fresh, local groceries at New Seasons. The Once Upon a Breeze Kite shop and Bruce's Candy Kitchen are both wonderful places to visit in Cannon Beach. I'm afraid that Hole in the Wall books, though, is completely a product of my imagination.

Q: Is your house decorated as nicely as Ellen's?
A: No. I have some lovely things that I treasure, and I try to make my house feel warm and welcoming, which means it's rarely perfectly decorated or perfectly clean. My family actually lives in our living room, which often has a basket of laundry waiting to be folded in the middle of the floor, and dines in our dining room, which is littered with an assortment of textbooks, shin guards, soccer balls, shoes, and, occasionally, a dead vole, if the cat runs in the back door before we can stop her. But I'm lucky enough to have a beautiful house that I consider an endless work in progress.

Q: How long have you been writing fiction?
A: For about four years. I started the book a few months after I moved in 2004. I'd always wanted to write a novel, I just never had a topic that I felt passionately enough about before. But I had some very strong emotions about leaving my house, and once the first paragraph came to me, the rest started to unfold.

Q: When do you write?
A: When I can! Usually in the morning, for two to three hours, or late at night.

Q: Are you working on another book?
A: Yes! I'm working on my second novel and hope to have it finished in the next few months. It's about a woman who gets so frustrated with what she views as the negative cultural influences affecting her kids that she moves the family to a remote island off the northwest coast of Washington to live without cell phones, cable TV, or the internet for a year. Writing it has been emotional (again!) and a great adventure.

Q: Who are your favorite authors?
A: It's an eclectic mix; don't think I'm too weird! In no particular order, I love Betty McDonald, Norman Maclean, Miss Read, Alice Hoffman, Sigrid Undset, Jan Karon, Mazo de la Roche, Nora Ephron, Anne Lamott, Joanna Scott, James Joyce, Mark Twain, E. Nesbit, J.R.R Tolkien, and Anne Tyler.

Q: What's your favorite book ever?
A: Obviously that's an almost impossible question but if I had to be stranded on a desert island with just one novel, I'd probably take Maclean's A River Runs Through It.

Q: Will you sign my book?
A: Yes! My good friend Leslie Zemsky designed gorgeous bookplates for me. E-mail me with your address and info on how you'd like the bookplate to read, and I'll inscribe one and send it off to you.

Q: Will you visit or call my book group?
A: I'm brand new to being an author, but I love my book group, am a big fan of book groups, and would be thrilled to talk to yours. If I can't arrange a visit to your town, I'm happy to do it over the phone. E-mail me at kam@kathleenmccleary.com.