We are so excited to feature Lauren Bird Horowitz’s inspirations behind her latest YA novel, Shattered Blue!

Fall on Your Knees by Ann-Marie Macdonald

AMM writes in the way I dream of writing. Her prose is vivid, poetic and muscular—I’ve described it this way before, but really, I can think of no better compliment— because it has the ability to shape, reshape, and transform worlds with a single image or word. Everything you thought you knew about a character or their voice, everything you thought they believed and you believed, she transforms within the simplest, most exquisitely crafted phrases. The first time I finished reading Fall on your Knees, a saga of sisters (like I aspire to create with Shattered Blue), I immediately had to re-read it, to dive deep again through the frothy anemones and slick, dark sea-fronds of her words. I loved it even more the second time, and now I re-read it every year at least once.

Stones by the River by Ursula Hegi

Ursula Hegi is another gorgeously talented writer, and Stones from the River, about a heroine named Trudi in Germany during World War II, is both captivating and thought-provoking. Hegi approaches the daunting miasma of Nazi Germany by coming from an unexpected perspective, seeing it through the journey of Trudi, a German Gentile who is a dwarf. The title of the novel comes from one of the most powerful scenes and metaphors in the novel—the idea of trying to cast pain, like stones, into life’s ever-moving current, to be carried away… but these stones are not in the river, they come from it. Stones don’t float away, she reminds us, they sink and become part of our banks. We must lift them up, weigh them, see that they’re there.

 

East of Eden by John Steinbeck

This is another novel I read every year without fail. Not only do I adore Steinbeck’s haunting portrayal of Salinas (where I also set my novel Shattered Blue), but I am enthralled, over and over again, by the central story of brothers (again, influence on Shattered Blue!). Steinbeck’s generational tale gives the seminal Cain and Abel storyline new nuance with each set of brothers, and has there ever been a more deliciously mesmerizing woman than Cathy? And of course, the shining triumph of the novel, encapsulated in the single word timshel: Thou Mayest. We have the power to break the patterns of our past, to strike our own paths into the future: it is not our destiny, not our fate, but our choice. Empowering.

 

Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix by JK Rowling

I cannot do an all-time inspired by list without putting in J.K. Rowling and her amazingly crafted and acutely planned world of Harry Potter. Every time I re-read the series (and I do, often), I find new hints, planted so early and carefully, for twists and turns that come many books and adventures later. I am also constantly amazed by her ability to imagine the wizarding world down to the smallest detail, so that reading is like entering into a Portal: you are in the world, you question nothing, it is simply all wonderfully, magically real. Order of the Phoenix is probably my favorite of the series because of the prophecy storyline, and the revelation that the Boy Who Lived could have been either Harry or Neville—it was the actions of those interpreting the prophecy that gave it its ultimate shape. I love that interaction of magic and destiny with choice and humanity— its frightening in some ways, but extremely empowering in others, and it requires responsibility be taken even for the workings of fate.

Poets by EE Cummings, Emily Dickinson, WB Yeats

In my heart of hearts, like my heroine Noa in Shattered Blue, I am a poet first. Poetry thrills my blood, buzzes through my veins, sings up my spine and down to my toes. I feel it in my bones and sinews, I get poems stuck in my head instead of songs. While I love so many poets, for the sake of this blog, I will focus on three: First, the inestimable ee cummings, whose poems are so mellifluous and who taught me that punctuation is a tool I can use or not use, or even craft into the meaning of my writing itself. It’s made me a nightmare to copyeditors (sorry!) but wow, how marvelous to have the language of punctuation, free of rules, in my writing arsenal! Second, Emily, my dear Emily, who reminds me of the value of brevity. Her poems are spare but strong, each word carefully picked and dense and with meaning. And she is the master of mixing images of beauty with stark and haunting clarity. Finally, Yeats, oh Yeats, the Irish genius, whose songs about horrifying revolution and war can form the most beautiful impressionist images in my mind. His non-political works are even more breath-taking, and some of their final stanzas forever a part of my soul, like this one:

 

I am content to follow to its source

Every event in action or in thought;

Measure the lot; forgive myself the lot!

When such as I cast out remorse

So great a sweetness flows into the breast

We must laugh and we must sing,

We are blest by everything,

Everything we look upon is blest.

I am so excited to be debuting my new novel, Shattered Blue, and thank all these amazing literary artists for inspiring me along the way. They have fed my soul for years, and given me the courage to try to speak now myself into this world of language they, and so many many others, have so wondrously created.