Kelly Bennett Seiler | SHIFTING TIME and Revisiting the Past

Interview by Gwen Reyes, Editor

Kelly Bennett Seiler's' latest novel, SHIFTING TIME, tells the story of a young woman who wakes up one morning to find her long-lost first love back from the dead. The author stopped by to answer a few questions about her novel and preview what’s next for her.

Gwen Reyes: Tell us a little about yourself. How did you become a writer?

Kelly Bennett Seiler: I’m a Jersey girl living in Austin, TX. I have three kids – including a teenager who may be the early death of me. I hate cold weather. Love enchiladas. Miss good Chinese food. My goal is to read 40 books this year – I’m on 11. I became a writer by wring and writing and writing and eventually, I showed my writing to some people. I authored hundreds of content articles for sites like eHow and Livestrong. Then, I wrote a screenplay and sent it to an agent. She told me I needed to write a book and said if I would, she’d sign me. So, of course I wrote a book. She sold it to Simon and Schuster two years later. She sold another a year after that. I finally changed my occupation on Facebook to “Author” this past fall.

GR: In SHIFTING TIME your main character wakes up and finds herself face to face with her previously dead boyfriend. What is it about revisiting the past that you found so compelling?

KBS: I don’t think it’s so much visiting the past that I find gripping as much as taking a piece of that past, changing it a bit, and following it through to see “what if” would have happened if life had played out that way instead of the way it did. Everyone has a “What if?” in their life. Who wouldn’t welcome the opportunity to know for certain how it would turn out?

GR: Meade is trying to put herself back together at the beginning of the book. She hasn’t been able to move on from her the death of her high school boyfriend, but she’s trying. Can you talk about finding the right balance when it comes to creating a grieving character that so desperately tries to move on with her life?

KBS: That’s a tough one. It was important for me to show the reader that Meade was ‘stuck’ in her life. She couldn’t get past the loss of Daniel – picking all the wrong men to fill a void she had deep inside. Yet, I didn’t want her to seem unlikeable or even stupid. I tried to show that she was unconsciously doing so to protect herself from every experiencing such unbearable pain again.

GR: How much, if any, of your story is pulled from real life?

KBS: When I was sixteen, a boy I loved very much passed away. I’ve always wondered “what if he’d lived?” Would we be friends? Would we just be Facebook friends? Would he have led a happy and healthy life? Had a career? Had kids? I’m still close to his family. If he’d lived, would that have changed? I think I’ve been writing this story, in my mind, for the past twenty-five years.

GR: What moment from your past would you like to revisit?

KBS: I’d love to go back and spend time with my grandmother. She passed away sixteen years ago, before I had my first child. I’d do anything for the opportunity to tell her how my life has turned out – especially about my kids and my writing. There’s also so much I’d love to ask her. It wasn’t that I didn’t take the time to talk to her when she was still here. It’s that now, as a woman in my (cough cough) forties, the things I would ask and discuss are so different from the topics I found important in my twenties.

GR: What sort of books do you like to read?

KBS: I love any story that won’t let me put it down. I tend to lean towards fiction, but I just finished Shonda Rhimes’ YEAR OF YES and it held my attention from page one until the end. What a fantastic book – one I recommend all women read! My favorite modern-day series is THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO trilogy. I was thrilled when Stieg Larsson’s family hired a writer to continue on with it –and I devoured the fourth novel this past winter. My all-time favorites, though, are JANE EYRE and TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD. As a former freshman English teacher, I’ve easily read Harper’s Lee’s classic thirty or more times and it got better with each read!

GR: Tell us about your next book, THE PLAN

KBS: I am so excited about THE PLAN. It’s a story I’ve had on my heart for the past seven or so years and the fact that I’ll soon be able to share it with others is thrilling to me.

It’s about Claire Matthews – a woman whose entire world—the one she shared with her husband and three children—shattered into a million pieces on a dark, winter road the day after Christmas. The only survivor of a brutal car crash that claimed the life of her entire family, she struggles to find a reason to wake up each morning.

On the other side of the Atlantic, Irishman Callum Fitzgerald’s actual birth was deemed a tragedy. Born a trilateral amputee, no one expected his life to amount to anything. Now in his thirties, Callum has defied the odds. Victorious over his own limitations, he’s built a life and a career around encouraging others to find a purpose for their pain. He assures the tens of thousands who flock from all around the world to hear his inspirational message that nothing occurs by happenstance; there’s always a greater plan.

Claire and Callum are two individuals with seemingly little in common – separated by years, physical abilities and half a world. Yet, their lives unexpectedly converge, thus beginning a love story so profound and enduring, it turns the darkest tragedies into spectacular triumphs.