What inspired you to start writing?
I’ve always written to make sense of what wasn’t said out loud — in my family, in history, in the places where women’s voices were softened, erased, or simply never recorded. Fiction became a way to reclaim those silences. Seeds of the Pomegranate began with my desire to imagine the inner lives of the women whose stories didn’t survive on paper but whose strength echoes through generations. Writing lets me give them shape, voice, and agency.
What was the hardest part about writing this book?
The story is rooted in a period where the historical record is rich in facts but poor in women’s firsthand accounts. That meant immersing myself in the textures of the era — the politics, the art, the migration patterns, the underground economies — and then carefully imagining what it would feel like to live through those forces as a young woman with a dangerous talent. The hardest part was honoring the history while letting the characters breathe, dream, and make their own decisions within the silences.
Does one of the main characters hold a special place in your heart? If so, why?
Mimi is the heart of the novel. She’s gifted, ambitious, uncertain, and yearning for a life that doesn’t yet exist for her. She isn’t rebellious for rebellion’s sake; she is trying to understand who she is allowed to be. Writing her meant writing into the tension between obligation and desire, safety and risk, silence and expression.
Stella Frauto also holds a special place, but in a different way. She’s a catalyst — a warning and an invitation. She challenges Mimi to see her own potential, and also the cost of using it. Stella is brilliant and dangerous, but the story belongs to Mimi. Stella’s presence sharpens the choices Mimi must make.
If your book was to be made into a movie, who are the celebrities that would star in it?
For Mimi, I imagine Hailee Steinfeld or Isabela Merced — actresses who can embody determination, vulnerability, and artistic fire. They have the emotional range to show Mimi’s journey from sheltered daughter to a young woman confronting the shadows around her.
For Stella Frauto, I picture Eva Longoria or Rosario Dawson — actresses who can embody charm, danger, intelligence, and moral ambiguity in a single glance.
For Baron Inglese, Mimi’s father, I imagine Oscar Isaac or Javier Bardem, actors who can convey elegance, pride, and the quiet unraveling of a man losing his footing in a world that’s changing faster than he can accept.
What do you hope your readers take away from this book?
I hope readers come away with a renewed sense that history is shaped not only by grand events, but by the decisions of women whose names never made the official record. Seeds of the Pomegranate is about survival, yes, but it’s also about claiming space, claiming voice, and daring to want more than the world says you can have. If readers feel more connected to the women in their own histories — or recognize something of themselves in Mimi’s longing — then the novel has done its work.
No comments:
Post a Comment