Interview with Novelist Amanda Dykes
The value of literature can’t be overstated. Beloved Christian author and theologian C. S. Lewis once said, “Literature adds to reality, it does not simply describe it. It enriches the necessary competencies that daily life requires and provides; and in this respect, it irrigates the deserts that our lives have already become.”
Good literature certainly does irrigate our lives. It acts as a light in the darkness of our circumstances. It encourages us when we aren’t sure if we can keep on going. It challenges us to take stock of our lives. It lets us know that we are not alone. It leads us closer to the greatest Storyteller of all.
Amanda Dykes is someone who tells these kinds of stories. The winner of a Booklist 2019 Top Ten Title, the 2020 Christy Award Book of the Year, and winner of the INSPY award for her debut novel, Whose Waves These Are, she has since released a few other popular novels, such as Set the Stars Alight, Yours is the Night, and All the Lost Places.
I was delighted to have the opportunity to not only have Amanda on an episode of Dear Wallflower (#52: How To Write Your Novel), but to also sit down with her to learn more about her journey as a spinner of words, how her faith has impacted her writing, and why reading fiction should never go out of style.
Q: Tell us the story of how you knew you wanted to become a writer, and how that ended up actually happening.
A: I was always very quiet growing up, watching the world around me. In early elementary school, my second-grade teacher took stories we had written in class, brought them to her home, stitched each one up on her sewing machine with a construction paper cover, and brought them back to us—essentially publishing our books for us.
I remember holding it in my hands, seeing that stitched binding, and realizing… this is how books are made. As someone who was drawn to stories and books, this felt like such a revelation—that it started with simple words, inside a simple person…and with just a few steps more, behold: a book!
Ever since then, some part of me has always wanted to write a book. It would be several decades before that actually happened, with many starts and stops along the way. Long story short (ish), I had come up against some disappointments in my late 20’s and early 30’s, a season of heartache when I had some unexpected time on my hands, and this whisper of an invitation wrapped around my heart: why not use this time to try and write a book? Really, fully write one, start to finish, even it it took a long time. The time was going to pass anyway.
I wrote it in about seven months, took it to a writer’s conference in an uncharacteristic step of action and faith, and it was there that I met my agent, who offered right then and there to represent me. It would take several more years (and novels written) before we landed a book contract, with many more lessons to learn along the way, but looking back, I’m grateful for every step of the journey, the time that it took, the chance to grow, and most of all, the people I met along the way.
Q: When there’s so much out there to read, why do you think fiction is an important medium to engage with?
A: We use story every day to make sense of the world around us. We use metaphor, symbolism, narrative, fables, hypothetical situations… even the corporate world, advertising, and education utilize story to connect with minds and hearts, because part of us is built for it.
Some of us connect to it more than others, and I believe that range of uniqueness is beautiful on every part of that spectrum—but deep down, story makes sense to us, and so it’s logical that we’d use it to comprehend the things that don’t easily make sense.
It fosters empathy, compassion, makes us feel seen, assures us we are not alone, helps build bridges—not just between our fellow sojourners in life, but also bridges to the past, and even the future. I’m getting a lovely sort of ache in my heart just thinking about it… fiction is magic, in a very real way.
Q: How do you find that your faith impacts your art?
A: The more I live, and the more I write, the more I see that the story of redemption is woven into every corner of this world. As such, it becomes such an intrinsic and natural part of storytelling: in Yours is the Night, a firefly foreshadows an act of sacrifice, a life poured out. In Set the Stars Alight, a “take me instead” moment changes the course of several lives… embodying echoes of Christ on the cross. In Whose Waves These Are, a life-saving light is built upon fractured stones that represent lives lost. Hope from ruin, beauty for ashes, life from sacrifice—it’s all around us, and makes its way into my stories because it’s the truest thing I know.
Q: Here at Wallflower, we always ask our women of note what their favorite book is. What’s yours?
A: Oh, so many! But the one I keep coming back to in recent years is A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles. It isn’t written from a faith perspective and that can be seen in some of the incidents and word choice in the novel, so know that ahead of time. But the depth and delight, the beauty of the language, the insight into humanity and life, the breathtaking treasure of seeing a life’s story told over decades… it is daring, in this age of quick-paced everything, but it’s refreshing, too.
Q: Tell us about any new projects you’ve been working on.
A: I’m in the very end stages of edits on my next novel, entitled Born of Gilded Mountains. It has been such a delight and adventure to write: it’s part epistolary, part treasure-hunt, explores themes of friendship and community, and of lost things found. It releases in June of 2024, and will be available for pre-order within the next month or so (by mid-November). Be on the lookout for the cover reveal—I adore what the publisher and designer created!
Second, I’m finishing up and turning in a manuscript for children. It’s something I’m very excited about, deeply passionate about, and endlessly grateful to have had the chance to create. More information on that will unfold in the coming months… but it’ll be winging its way into the world in the not-too-distant future!
The easiest way to stay “in the know” about it all is to sign up for my monthly newsletter, “Three Good Things,” at AmandaDykes.com.
Interested in learning more about Amanda’s books?
