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Amanda Eyre Ward
Amanda Eyre Ward was born in New York City, and graduated from Williams College and the University of Montana.
Her short stories have appeared in Tin House, Story Quarterly, The Mississippi Review, The New Delta Review, Salon.com, and the Austin Chronicle.
Amanda's first novel, Sleep Toward Heaven, was optioned by Sandra Bullock and Warner Brothers. How to Be Lost is her second novel. Amanda lives in Cataumet, MA with her husband and son.
From the author
I love to write in motel rooms. They fascinate me: the little soaps, the clean sheets, the ghosts of the people who have checked out and gone back to their lives. When I first dreamed of the characters in How to Be Lost, I drove to Tow, Texas with my dog. We stayed at Cottonwood Cove Cabins for a week and I wrote for ten hours a day, stopping only for a quick swim in Lake Buchanan or a phone call from the pay phone down the street.
The characters in How to Be Lost consumed me: Isabelle, a lovely but haunted mother and wife; Joseph, a man who has everything but joy; and their daughters Caroline, Madeline, and Ellie. I cried when I wrote the most wrenching scene in How to Be Lost: the day five-year-old Ellie Winters disappears.
It took me years, and hundreds of pages, before I solved the mystery of what happened to Ellie Winters. Then I had to decide how to reveal the mystery, as I love books that keep me thinking. I get e-mails and letters from readers who enjoyed my first novel, Sleep Toward Heaven. They write that they reveled in putting the story together on their own. These comments inspired the tapestry of narratives that make up How to Be Lost.
I had a hard time letting go of this novel. There are so many moments that I still want to include, so many things I want readers to know about the Winters family. Even as How to Be Lost is heading to press, I can’t stop thinking about its world. I find myself ordering a wine spritzer, Isabelle’s favorite drink. I think of Madeline, and wonder how her new family is adjusting. And, like Caroline, I see Ellie's childish smile in my dreams.
I can only hope the story of the Winters family will have a similar hold on readers. In the meantime, I’m headed back to a motel room to daydream, order room service, and write.
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