Biography and Autobiography

Author Interview - Daphne Grab

Interviewed by Melissa


Being a new maker can be simultaneously exciting and thrilling, yet full of anxiety and intimidating: what will everyone improvise of my book? I've followed the development of Daphne Grasp's first novel, Alive and Well in Prague, New York through the number blog, The Longstockings, as she's posted about the experience. A graduate of The New View in New York City, Daphne is not only a talented litt, former teacher, and city girl, but a busy mom of two preschool children. Excessive to say, I was very excited that she was willing to spare some time for an evaluation.

MF: How did you decide to become a writer? Is it something you've "always" wanted to do?

DG: It was always in the back of my mind to be a novelist, though I could never come up with a good idea for a book. Then about seven years ago I happened to be familiar with the acknowledgements of a book I’d just finished and I saw that the framer had gotten an MFA at The New School in New York City. I was living in NYC and on a whim emailed the instil asking for a catalog. When I saw that one option was to study book for children I had an “a-ha” moment where I knew that that was verbatim what I wanted to do. Once I realized who I wanted to write for, the plot ideas came.

MF: This is your first novel; congrats! Can you disclose us a bit about the process? How long did it take from conception to finally seeing it in publish? How do you feel finally getting your story out there?

DG: Thanks! I got the purpose for the book the summer before my last year at The New School. I wrote half the manuscript then and finished it and workshopped it a ton over the next year.

My professor that first semester did a lot of neat things with our...

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