Interview with an Author: A.D. Koboah

I’ve decided that besides talking about my own writing on this blog, I would use it as a place to showcase the work of other self-published authors who are writing literary fiction. Last week, I reviewed the novel Peace by A.D. Koboah. Today I’m happy to announce that A.D. Koboah has agreed to be interviewed for the blog. The interview is below. My questions are in bold and her answers are in regular type. Enjoy.

Please tell us a bit about your background and how you started writing.

Hi Lovelyn.

Thank you for having me on your blog.

I have been reading and writing for as long as I can remember. Books have always been my first love and I have a ridiculously overactive imagination. So when I wasn’t in a little dream world of my own, I was either reading or writing. After completing an English Literature degree in 2000, I worked for the next few years in Customer Services, and although I wrote in my spare time, I didn’t start writing seriously until I became unemployed in 2005. That was when I sat down and started to write Peace.

Some authors are inspired by newspaper articles, music or events that happened to someone they know. What was the inspiration behind the novel Peace?

Peace was inspired by an episode of the Oprah Winfrey show which aired years before I sat down to write the novel. Basically, without giving away too much, the tragic event that led to the main character’s descent into heroin addiction actually happened to someone, although I wrote it in a completely different way from the actual event. I didn’t watch that show and intend to write a novel around that story, but it stayed with me for years. I have also always been curious as to why people would choose to try a drug like heroin despite the fact that we all know what a destructive drug it is. The only conclusion I could reach is that you would only take a drug like that if you had given up on yourself and life. That is how I ended up with the plot for Peace. I also wanted to challenge people’s perceptions of drug users and see if I could present someone that most people wouldn’t be able to empathise with in anyway, and by the end of the novel, have them view this character is a completely different way. And from the reviews that I have had of the novel, I think that I have achieved that.

What’s your writing process? Do you know exactly where a novel is going when you start or do the characters and story develop as you write them?

When I start writing, I have to know where the story is going. Sometimes, it can change along the way if I get new ideas. And on some occasions, the story that I have in my head turns into something completely different when I put it down on paper. But I’m not one of those writers who starts writing with no idea of where the novel will end up.

Peace and your previous novel, Dark Genesis, are both quite dark. What is it that draws you to dark subject matter?

I think it is because life is not always particularly pleasant for a lot of people, and although I believe in happy endings, I also believe in realism. The other reason why those two novels are so dark is because I wrote them at a particularly difficult period in my life and writing helped me take my mind off what was happening around me.

Many stories have a message. What do you hope readers will get from this novel?

When I wrote Peace, I hoped that it would challenge people’s perceptions of drug users. But ultimately, I want people to take away the fact that there is always hope, no matter how dire things appear to be.

What are you working on now?

I am working on the sequel to my other novel Dark Genesis. I am also working on a screenplay of that novel. So who knows, I may be able to find a producer that will take on the project.

Where can we find out about you and your novels online?

My website: www.adkoboah.com
I’m also on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5807160.A_D_Koboah
Twitter: https://twitter.com/adkoboah
And Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/AD-Koboah/172747466249709

Again I’d like to thank A.D. Koboah for taking the time to answer these questions for us. I hope all of you pick up her novel Peace.

They’ll be interviews with more authors in the future.

This interview appeared in The Third Sunday Blog Carnival.