HOW TO EAT A CUPCAKE by Meg Donohue
Funny, free-spirited Annie Quintana and sophisticated, ambitious Julia St. Clair come from two different worlds. Yet, as the daughter of the St. Clair’s housekeeper, Annie grew up in Julia’s San Francisco mansion and they forged a bond that only two little girls who know nothing of class differences and scholarships could—until a life-altering betrayal destroyed their friendship.
A decade later, Annie is now a talented, if underpaid, pastry chef who bakes to fill the void left in her heart by her mother’s death. Julia, a successful businesswoman, is tormented by a painful secret that could jeopardize her engagement to the man she loves. When a chance reunion prompts the unlikely duo to open a cupcakery, they must overcome past hurts and a mysterious saboteur or risk losing their fledgling business and any chance of healing their fractured friendship.
INTERVIEW WITH MEG DONOHUE:
1. Tell us the story behind the story. How did HOW TO EAT A CUPCAKE come to be?
I really wanted to write a story about friendship and food—two things that bring me great joy. I think a lot about how friendships shift over time as people grow and change. While I was brainstorming the book I was going to a lot of showers and birthday parties and I was pregnant—all of which is to say I was eating a lot of cupcakes. I started envisioning two former best friends who are brought back together years after a falling-out by their mutual love of cupcakes. Those were the early seeds of the story.
Once I had those seeds, I wrote a proposal for the novel and sent it, along with the first two chapters and a detailed outline, to my friend Jeanette Perez who is an editor at HarperCollins. Luckily, she loved it and offered me a contract to write the book.
2. Where do you find your inspiration?
Relationships certainly inspire me—friendships, family dynamics, people in love, parent-child relationships. It’s always interesting to analyze how two specific people interact the way they do, the history behind that dynamic, the character quirks that make them get along or continually rub each other the wrong way. Place also inspires me and tends to be important in my writing. I like to think about how location affects people and relationships—how two people interact might be different on a New York City street than, say, on Main Street in a small town.
3. What was the most challenging aspect of writing HOW TO EAT A CUPCAKE?
Having a contractual deadline was both the best possible motivator and the most challenging aspect of the writing process. The occasional bad days when the writing just would not flow felt particularly stressful because of that looming deadline. But in the end, over all, I loved writing with a contract—it kept me focused.
4. What is the message you want readers to take away from your book?
That friendship, at its best, is another form of family. Those friends who know us so well, who listen to us, who surprise us with their thoughtfulness, and for whom we do the same—those are some of the most important relationships in our lives.
5. Describe your background.
I was born and raised in Philadelphia, where I spent much of my youth reading and writing stories. I’ve wanted to be a writer for as long as I can remember. My parents are both lawyers, but they have always had a strong interest in the arts and encouraged my creativity. I studied literature as an undergrad at Dartmouth and then worked for a couple of years in the literary department of ICM agency before pursuing my MFA in writing at Columbia. I now live in San Francisco with my husband and two young daughters.
6. Describe your writing schedule. Do you outline? Any habits?
I started How to Eat a Cupcake by writing a one-line description of the story, then a paragraph-long description, then a ten-page plot outline, and finally a chapter-by-chapter outline. The plot often changed as I wrote, but I found the whole process less daunting once I knew generally where I was headed and how I planned to get there. I aim to write ten pages, or about one chapter, each week. I write for a few hours in the morning four times per week, which is when I have childcare. I am not a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants writer!
7. What books are on your nightstand? What are you currently reading?
I am currently reading The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes. My nightstand is actually a bookshelf, so there are a lot of books on it! I have so many books on my to-read shelf, including The Underside of Joy by Sere Prince Halverson, The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson, The Kitchen Daughter by Jael McHenry, and The Song Remains the Same by Allison Winn Scotch.
8. Which authors inspire you?
Two authors whose work I have only recently discovered and feel so inspired by are J. Courtney Sullivan and Amanda Eyre Ward. Other writers who have inspired me include Siri Hustvedt, Donna Tartt, and Kate Christensen – but, really, I have loved too many books to list!
9. What have you learned from this experience?
I had never outlined a novel to the extent I did when I started working on How to Eat a Cupcake, and the experience of doing so taught me how helpful—necessary, even—that approach is for me.
10. What is your advice for aspiring writers?
I don’t really feel that I’m in a position to offer advice, but I guess I would say that that old adage about how you’re not really a writer unless you write is certainly true. In other words, set a schedule and stick to it—commit to write a certain number of pages each week.
11. What are you working on now?
I’m working on a new novel entitled ALL THE SUMMER GIRLS. It’s about three childhood friends whose lives are unraveling in three separate cities. They escape to the beach town where they spent the summers of their youth and end up confronting secrets about one fateful summer night seven years earlier. I’m still writing about friendship, but in this one I get to write about the beach and the summer too—more of my favorite things!
Thanks, Meg! We so enjoyed this interview and can’t wait to read more from you in the future! You can follow Meg on twitter @megdonohue.
