Episode 51: Kathleen Basi, author of A Song for the Road

Kathleen Basi, debut author of A Song for The Road

Key Topics:
Kathleen shares her inspiration her debut novel, A Song for The Road- which began as a dream that contained both grief and beauty. And she chats about the relationship between music and writing, which led to Kathleen writing such a novel with such breathtakingly lyrical language.

Interview Notes:

Kathleen shares her inspiration, and how the idea for her debut novel began as a dream that contained both grief and beauty. 

The novel is the story of Miriam, a church musician, who spectacularly self-destructs when asked to do a funeral on the one-year anniversary of her family’s death. When she discovers that her daughter wrote her a flip a coin road trip app, she takes off across the family on this road trip to honor the family she’s lost.

I probe Kathleen for where the idea of a flip a coin road trip came from, and how you write a book about unfathomable grief that is yet so full of hope. 

We also chat about the genesis of the character and the role of Dicey, the pregnant hitch hiker that Miriam picks up on the road trip. I congratulate Kathleen on a novel which the words beautiful and powerful are used most frequently to describe.

We talk about the relationship between music and writing- and how it led to Kathleen writing such a novel with such breathtakingly lyrical language.

Kathleen shares her editing process, which includes help from a fabulous group of critique partners, and she shares what changed from initial drafts where Miriam was a viral internet sensation.

Reading-wise, she has 3 books to share; SANDITON by Jane Austen, TRANSCENDENT KINGDOM, and THE RULES OF ARRANGEMENT by Anisha Bhatia, which Kathleen describes as unbelievably fabulous! 

Her writing advice involves patience, persistence and humility, and opening our hearts to see our work from others’ perspectives.