Interview with women’s fiction author Allyson Rice

Today’s special guest is women’s fiction author Allyson Rice and we’re chatting about her new contemporary fiction, The Key to Circus-Mom Highway.

During her virtual book tour, Allyson will be giving away a $20 Amazon or Barnes and Noble (winner’s choice) gift card to a lucky randomly drawn winner. To be entered for a chance to win, use the form below. To increase your chances of winning, feel free to visit her other tour stops and enter there, too!

Bio:
Allyson Rice is the author of the novel The Key to Circus Mom Highway. (“Fans of family drama, road trips, and non-stop laughs will love this cross-country adventure.”–BookLife/Publisher’s Weekly). She’s an award-winning mixed media artist, and a producer with Atomic Focus Entertainment.

After spending many years as an actress on stage and on television, she left acting and spent the next decade running yoga/meditation retreats, women’s retreats, and creativity retreats around the country. After that, she pivoted to focus once again on her own creative work. In addition to her writing and art, she’s also a photographer (her work was most recently seen in an exhibition at the Soho Photo Gallery in NYC).

Some random bits of Allyson trivia: 1) She’s been skydiving, paragliding, bungee jumping, ziplining through a rainforest, and scuba diving with stingrays; 2) she has an extensive PEZ dispenser collection; 3) she played Connor Walsh on As the World Turns for seven years; 4) she’s been in the Oval Office at the White House after hours; 5) she’s related to the Hatfields of the infamous Hatfield/McCoy feud; and 6) her comedic rap music video “Fine, I’ll Write My Own Damn Song” won numerous awards in the film festival circuit and can now be seen on YouTube (https://youtu.be/7Xe3nuVDkC4).

Also available from Allyson Rice is her line of women’s coloring books (The Color of Joy, Dancing with Life, and Wonderland), and The Creative Prosperity PlayDeck, an inspirational card deck about unlocking and utilizing your creative energy in the world. She’s currently at work on her second novel and her fourth women’s coloring book. But she is most proud of being mom to musical artist @_zanetaylor.

Welcome, Allyson. Please tell us about your current release.
The Key to Circus-Mom Highway is a funny and touching story about family, forgiveness, connection/disconnection, finding common ground with people very different from you through shared experience, and second chances. It finds humor in the world, even during challenging times. Some serious themes are woven into the story, but it’s intended to be a fast, entertaining read that ends on a positive, hopeful note. I basically wrote a book that I would love to read myself!

This is the book synopsis:

In an attempt to secure an unexpected inheritance—and hopefully find a few answers—two estranged sisters and their newly discovered brother embark on a comically surreal trip through the Deep South to retrace the life of the mother who abandoned them as infants.

On a Tuesday afternoon, sisters Jesse Chasen and Jennifer McMahon receive a phone call notifying them that their birth mother has died, leaving behind a significant inheritance. But in order to obtain it, they must follow a detailed road trip she designed for them to get to know her—and that includes finding a brother they never knew existed.

For the next week, this ill-assorted trio treks across Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia to meet their mother’s old friends, from circus performers to a juke joint owner, each of whom delivers a shocking vignette into the life of a young mother traumatized by loss and abuse. Along the way, these three siblings—Jesse, whose fiery exterior disguises a wounded, drifting musician stuck in a rut; Jennifer, whose carefully curated family life is threatened by her husband’s infidelity; and Jack, whose enigmatic Jackie, Oh! persona in the New Orleans drag queen scene helps him escape the nightmares of Afghanistan that haunt him at night—must confront their own demons (and at least one alligator). But in chasing the truth about their real mother, they may all just find their second chance.

This uproarious debut novel is a reminder that sometimes, the family you’d never have chosen may turn out to be exactly what you need.

What inspired you to write this book?
I think the initial inspiration came when I re-watched the 90s movie After Hours with Griffin Dunne and Rosanna Arquette. But all I knew when I began writing this novel was that I wanted to write a story about someone trying to get somewhere, obstacles keep getting in the way, and the landscape is populated with funny, over-the-top supporting characters. I wanted it to be both laugh-out-loud funny and have very poignant moments woven in. Then it was about answering questions: Who is the main character? Why is she trying to go somewhere, and where is that? What part of the country would feel like another planet to someone who’s not from there? Then when an issue would pop up, like it might not be safe for a woman to travel alone on some back roads, who might she be traveling with? When I decided on the where and the why of the journey, this issue popped up: why wouldn’t they just ask the parents who raised them about the woman who was their birth mother? So the parents obviously couldn’t be in the picture anymore for the premise to work. Then I had to create a backstory about what had happened to them. If it’s not clear by this point, I write as I go without having more than a skeletal idea of some plot points. I find that to be a deliciously fun way to write because I’m often as surprised by what comes next as I hope my readers are!

 

Excerpt from The Key to Circus-Mom Highway:
(This is one of the supporting characters that the three siblings meet along the way.)

As far back as she could remember, Charlene had referred to herself as a “collector of strays.” As a child, it began with stray animals. Because she was the youngest of seven children, the parental supervision was a bit more, shall we say, lax by that point. So her family didn’t always notice the new additions until they were firmly ensconced in their new digs, namely Charlene’s basement bedroom.

By the time she was older and moved into her own place, she had expanded her family’s size over the years by a total of seven feral cats, a three-legged pig she found wandering behind the elementary school, a blind guinea pig that was probably brain-damaged from running into walls, and four dogs. They didn’t count the fifth dog because, as it turned out, it was actually a baby coyote who didn’t take kindly to young Charlene’s attempt to dress it in rain boots. He bit her, took off out the back door into a thunderstorm, and is probably, to this day, wandering the outskirts of Savannah proper wearing three booties made of Saran Wrap and duct tape.

Her strays eventually morphed from animals to humans, most notably her ex-husband Tom. She had met him while waiting in line at The Corn Dog, Cheese Fries, and Krispy Kreme Donut Burger Stand on the opening night of the Coastal Empire Fair. He proceeded to tell her his sad-sack story about losing his apartment after his roommate skipped out with the rent money. The next thing she knew, she had offered him her couch. Fast forward two years, and it was Tom skipping out this time, abandoning his wife Charlene in search of the next woman’s couch. Oh, well, easy come, easy go, she thought. Once a Tomcat, always a Tomcat.

 

What exciting story are you working on next?
I’m back at work on the novel I started writing before I paused it to write The Key to Circus-Mom Highway. It’s about a woman on the verge of turning 50, newly divorced, navigating the online dating scene, and trying to figure out what she wants to be when she grows up. It’s also about her friendships with two women she’s known since college, a new friendship with a funny older woman in her 80s that she meets by accident, and a handsome Australian paragliding instructor that she’s determined not to fall for. I don’t know how it ends yet! I can’t wait to find out! Lol.

I’m also at work on my fourth women’s coloring book. Yes, it’s mostly drawings, but there are also inspirational writings that accompany many of them. I like to pair writing with some of the drawings because I think it helps to take the coloring experience to a deeper level. The words roll around in your head as you deeply relax while coloring.

I’m also writing a screenplay, a period crime drama set in 1920. I recently finished a detailed outline with snippets of dialogue (so I do know how this one ends!) Now it’s a matter of fleshing out the scenes and writing the rest of the dialogue.

When did you first consider yourself a writer?
I considered myself a writer when I finished my first spec script, the pilot episode for a TV show called Harlem Blues. However, the Writer’s Guild doesn’t consider you a professional writer if you haven’t sold a script yet, unless… you’ve written a play and it’s been produced somewhere, or you’ve written and published a fiction novel. So I thought to myself, “Then I’m just going to have to write a novel in the meantime!” I considered myself a novelist as soon as I finished my first draft. There might not be anyone else on the planet who considers me one until it’s released on Jan 3^rd, but that day is sooooo close now!

Do you write full-time? If so, what’s your work day like? If not, what do you do other than write and how do you find time to write?
I don’t do anything “full-time” because I have so many projects in different creative fields in the works at any given time. I have a new art studio rental near where I live, so if I’m not writing, I might be at my art studio working on my mixed media art, or decorating Christmas balls (it’s a family tradition started by my late grandmother). Or I may be out somewhere doing photography. I try to follow whatever I’m inspired to work on that day. Though these days, more often than not, it’s writing I’ve been drawn to. For some people, remaining focused on one project at a time works best, but for me, being able to move from one to another keeps my creative juices flowing. I’m also in the process of setting up a home recording studio. I had so much fun recording the audiobook for The Key to Circus-Mom Highway that I decided to make myself available to narrate other people’s books as well. It brings the decades of past experience as an actress back into my life in a new way.

What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?
I’ve been collecting funny words for a while, so I’ll try to work one in here and there. Actually, when I was creating my new author website, I created a page listing “My Favorite 202 Funny words” with the challenge to anyone reading it to work one into their daily conversation. (http://allysonrice.com/nonsense/)

I also try to work in a mention of Northwestern University if possible. That’s where I went to college, and after I graduated, I started noticing Northwestern mentioned in SO MANY films and TV shows. It’s because there’s an army of NU graduates in the entertainment industry. So I’ve continued that fun little game in my work as well!

As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
When I was very young (3^rd or 4^th grade -ish), I remember thinking that I wanted to be either an archaeologist (I was fascinated by ancient Egypt), a horse trainer, or Secretary of State. Lol! Don’t ask me how I latched onto the idea of Secretary of State. I have absolutely no idea. I think I must’ve heard about it on the news, or heard adults mention it, and that the job takes you on travels around the world. That must’ve sounded fun to me. Fast forward to adulthood when I understood better what’s required in that position, and it didn’t sound fun to me at all.

Fortunately, however, I had moved on in my career planning by the time I was 12. I had a friend in elementary school who performed in dinner theatre musicals, and after I went to see her in The Sound of Music, I was completely sold on the idea of being a dancer/singer/actress. My supportive parents signed me up for classes, and that’s the path I stayed on until I was in my 30s. I was fortunate to work consistently in the theatre, in commercials, and after college, when I lived in LA and NYC, on television.

Anything additional you want to share with the readers?
First, I’d like to thank you for reading this interview to the end!

I’d also like to tell everyone that if you sign up for my author newsletter (it’s only sent out periodically – you won’t be spammed), you have a chance of winning a free copy of the book in every newsletter, and you’ll be entered into a drawing to potentially have one of the funny supporting characters in the novel I’m working on now named after you!

Also, to anyone who’s a member of a Book Club, for the first few months of 2023, I’m offering to do a Zoom Q&A with any Book Club that chooses to read The Key to Circus-Mom Highway.

Links:
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