Q: How do you say Go Look There? Is it Go Look There or Go Look There?
A: It’s Go Look There. A few years ago I purchased a bracelet whose links were pictures of books that had been banned in the past… Alice in Wonderland, Howl, How to Kill a Mocking Bird, the Color Purple, and Go Ask Alice. The picture for Go Ask Alice was a black book with white writing and it was slightly blurred so that for a few months I thought it read ‘Go Look There’. I was in love with this title and so disappointed that it was clearly already taken… except it wasn’t. I felt like the biggest idiot in the world when I realized it actually read ‘Go Ask Alice’, but at least I had my wonderful title. As I was putting together the collection of short stories I knew this was the right title for the book. Because of this experience, Go Look There has the emphasis on the last word, as if you are telling someone to ‘go look there if you want to find it’.

GLT seems pretty dark and disturbing. Just how disturbing is it?
A: GLT’s disturbing-ness is dependent on your tastes. Fans of Chuck Palahniuk, for example, will find they connect to it far more than will fans of light-hearted, happy-ending stories. GLT is a heavy read, not because of its language but because of its content. It deals with a lot of death and violence, but the essence of the story lies in attempting to capture the confusing, mystical age of childhood when we have a consciousness but not the wisdom to make sense of the world around us. Mixed in with this is just a touch of the supernatural, which heightens the blissful ignorance and confusion in this stage of life. Are there some gross things in this book? Oh, yes. Is there death? Tons of it. Is there beauty? I like to think the beauty is in the sadness, which, if it had a color, in this particular instance would be golden. Ephram’s nostalgia is nearly tangible at points. Not to mention most of these stories take place in summers in the American South, which provides us with gorgeous, heavy settings big enough to absorb everything I could throw at it. Go Look There is the only book of mine so far with what I would call a ‘happy ending’, which seems strange given the amount of so-called ‘negative’ stuff in it. Does this mean Ephram gets his wish and the butterflies return to Cryson County? I suppose you’ll just have to stomach the read and find out.

Q: What do the butterflies symbolize in GLT?
A: They could mean something different for you, but I side with Ephram on this one: the butterflies were victims, too. They were symptoms of the problem, not the cause. What was the cause? I don’t know. GLT doesn’t particularly focus on the cause so much as seeking the solution. Throughout the book the butterflies come to represent beauty and hope and love, and their absence symbolizes a terrible deficiency in the community. No one really seems to be happy anymore. The return of the butterflies would mean that everything has been healed, and that the deaths of the children have been absolved or forgiven, and the towns are full of life and hope and beauty again.

Q: Where can I get a copy of Go Look There?
A: You can’t. At least, not right now. Go Look There is currently unpublished and probably will be for a few years more as I work on publishing the Antebellum series.

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