I don’t consider myself a person who has pet peeves, but there is one thing that bugs me constantly—it’s that expression, “stay in your lane.” Ugh. What does that even mean? Never mind. Writers get this a lot. We’re told to write what we know because you want to be authentic and how can you do that if you’re writing solely from an “a priori” point of view? See what I did there? I’m not a philosopher, but there I am, writing like one—using philosopher expressions and not staying in my lane. Oops. What bugs me about the “stay in your lane” argument is the lack of appreciation for imagination, curiosity, impulsivity, and just good, old fashioned winging it. Not that there’s anything wrong, per se, with “stay in your lane” writing. It has its place, like all books in a library catalog. (Every book has a home, as I heard the ALA president Emily Drabinski say recently.) How-to manuals, for instance. Non-fiction is a great place for writers to apply “stay in your lane” ethics. Fiction? Not necessarily. It seems to work for some people. Stephen King has made a thriving career out of mastering his lane. Agatha Christie, too. These people are models of dedication to one thing—one specific thing, which they are/were really good at. There are some people, though, who excel at trying new things. Grace Mirchandani is one of those.
I conducted my interview, just over 30 minutes, with Grace on September 11. The interview is available on most podcasting platforms—Apple, Spotify, Audible, to name a few. You can also watch us on my YouTube channel, where you will get glimpses of her beautiful paperbacks. At one point, she declares: “I just write what I want to write!” That contagious, inspirational energy crosses over into her stories, making them so much fun to read.
Grace is a firecracker. At no point did I do something so rude as ask her age, but if I had to guess, I’d say she’s a millennial. Anyway, she’s certainly young-at-heart enough to embrace TikTok, but also just old enough to understand that it’s not serious. It’s just TikTok. It’s for entertainment, not saving lives. If you can’t have fun with it, don’t even go there. If you don’t want to go there, don’t worry. You can check her out on Facebook/Instagram/Threads. I love this Facebook reel: https://www.facebook.com/reel/660159016186698—There she is, just casually reminding her followers that Touch Me, See Me, Feel Me, Hear Me is out in paperback (and kindle) and has won two BookFest awards—one gold, one silver. This is the book I read before the interview. Guys, Grace writes all the time and all sorts of things. I chose Touch Me, See Me, Feel Me, Hear Me because when we first texted about possibly doing an interview, she said it was her favorite. Just a few pages in, I totally understood why. The main character is mute. She can’t speak because her larynx was destroyed in a fire—the same fire that killed both of her parents and left her with massive scars. This character ends up having to change homes and schools. In her new home, she’s treated disdainfully by her awful paternal grandmother. In her new school, it’s basically the same; the other kids either ignore her or look down on her. So she does what we all do, those of us who experienced invisibility. She turned inward. To top it all off, she is a ghost mediator. She can see the dead, and they communicate with her (via telepathy) to let her know what she needs to do for them. It’s YA fiction, so of course, there’s a love story in the mix. What stood out the most to me was the first-person-present-tense, movie-like action. The way Grace pulls it off, the reader is inserted directly into the storm.
Her Linktr.ee (https://linktr.ee/gracewrites) is the proof of how prolific she is as a writer. She has ongoing works on Amazon’s episodic platform, Kindle Vella, one of which we discussed in the interview—Audrey and Maude, a curious work that I’m following, that I wrote a review for her, and that has tones of the film A League of Their Own. She has two completed Vellas, both of which are now in paperback and Kindle format. We talked about Little Hell on the Prairie, a werewolf-spin on Little House on the Prairie, with the tagline: There will be blood...at least a half-pint or so! Grace has a paperback/ebook (and audiobook) called Searching for Sadie; that’s her serious novel, a full-length work of contemporary fiction, about a young widow who finds the courage to start over (and love again) in the wilds of Alaska. As you can see, she writes for all age groups. She confides in our interview that the middle-grade has been the most challenging age group to tap into. Her Mitzi Clark series is aimed at the middle-grade level, and it’s been wildly successful among older kids and even adults, but she would like to figure out how to get it more into the hands of middle-grade kids. That’s a challenging demographic to reach, especially in today’s politically charged environment, with parents being hyper vigilant about what kids are reading and activist groups targeting books for outright bans. Far from being deterred, Grace is ready for the challenge.