Q and A With Author Taylor Stevens

On Tuesday, thriller author Taylor Stevens will be speaking at the . Her latest book, The Innocent, was released in December. 

Stevens took some time to answer questions by email about her background, her interests and what’s coming next. Her answers are below.

Brecksville Patch: You have a unique past. Can you tell me a little about your experiences as a child and how they’ve affected you as a writer?

Taylor Stevens: My background is, perhaps, a little unusual for a novelist, in that I was born and raised into the Children of God, an apocalyptic religious cult that believed education beyond sixth grade was a waste of time and didn’t allow access to television and books from the outside. I grew up in a popular culture void: a worker bee—child labor, if you will, and in place of schooling, the majority of my adolescence was spent begging on city streets at the behest of cult leaders, or as a worker bee child, caring for the many younger commune children, washing laundry and cooking meals for hundreds at a time.

I’ve been able to teach myself a lot, but with some things I’m still frozen in time. Contending with the reality of my educational lacks when entering the real world and facing the number of years it would take to play catch-up certainly propelled me toward being the best writer I could possibly be, because there wasn’t a plan B or alternate career to fall back on if this “writing thing” didn’t work out.

Patch: When did you first decide to write? What drove you to that decision?

Stevens: When, as an adult, finally free of the cult and able to read whatever I wanted, I discovered Robert Ludlum and while reading his stories I had an Aha moment, pretty much made an instant decision that went something like this: I’m going to write a book. It will be fiction, and it’s going to take place in Africa. Since I didn’t actually know anything about writing fiction, I bought a couple of used writing guides which became my Bible, and worked pretty much every day on an old laptop that was on its third continent.

Patch: What do you like most about writing?

Stevens: The ability to chart my own path, plan my own schedule, and provide for my children while still being a full-time mom.

Patch: What do you like to read in your free time?

Stevens: These days I actually prefer non-fiction to fiction, and really enjoy memoirs, biographies, and books that teach me things I can apply toward everyday life.

Patch: Are you working on anything now?

Stevens: I am just wrapping up on the third Vanessa Michael Munroe novel, The Doll, in which Munroe finds herself kidnapped and enmeshed in a human trafficking organization. I’ve got ideas for a fourth book, and am keeping my fingers crossed that we’ll get it under contract, but I think what happens next depends a lot on reader response to the stories currently available. Hint, hint.

For more on Stevens, check out her website. Registration for Tuesday’s event is available on the library’s website.