Interview with Christina Kovac – S. 11, Ep. 7

My guest interview this week on the Crime Cafe podcast is with thriller author Christina Kovac. Get the bird's eye lowdown scoop inside story about her latest novel, Watch Us Fall! For a copy of the transcript, click here. Debbi (00:54): Hi everyone. My guest this week worked in television news covering crime and politics at Fox Five's 10 o'clock news in Washington DC. She went on to become a news producer and desk editor at the Washington Bureau of NBC News. She now writes psychological suspense thrillers set in DC. DC is one of my favorite places to talk about since I live near DC and worked in DC and well, I feel like a DC native almost. Her latest novel coming out in December is called Watch Us Fall. It's my pleasure to have with me. Christina Kovac. Hi, Christina. How are you doing today? Christina (01:36): I'm doing great. Thanks for having me. Debbi (01:38): It's my pleasure to have you on. Believe me, I'm always interested in talking to journalists and former journalists because you guys have such a difficult job. I mean, I know once upon the time I aspired to be a journalist, did freelance writing for a bit, but anyway, but I am intrigued by the description of your latest novel, which Alafair Burke described as, and I quote, "an insightful look at the complex dynamics of close female friendships and the lingering effects of trauma." Wow. Tell us more about what inspired you to create the story. Christina (02:19): I started writing in the beginning, or I think it was in the beginning of the end of the pandemic, and a lot of people around me were coming out of the pandemic. It felt sort of traumatized. I think we all came out of our houses sort of stumbling. I don't know how to act anymore. I don't know how to with my friends anymore. I don't know how to hug people anymore. And it really struck me that being alone, being away from each other felt like a traumatic experience. I wasn't writing out of my own experience. But then I started thinking about what must that be like to have a kind of traumatic experience and then finally find a bunch of friends that you just want to hold onto and that you build this life around. And that was what these four female characters did. (03:30): They met in college. They're Addie, Lucy, Penelope, and Estella, and they met at Georgetown and they became fast friends, and they were actually, when I was writing, I imagined that they started college during the pandemic like my daughter did, which was really a traumatic experience. They were stuck in their dorms. It was just a really horrible thing. They didn't get to know each other, but what they did was they kind of hung out, the group in their little quad. They hung out very tightly together, and they became just kind of forever friends. And so I thought that was really interesting. I wasn't writing out of my own traumatic experience, I will be honest. But at the time that I was writing, I was also very interested in the fact that misinformation had taken off. (04:25): A lot of people were listening to lies on the Internet about COVID and all the rest of things, and I wondered why they were so open to things that were obvious lies and misinformation. And I started to wonder if there was a connection between being alone in COVID and feeling kind of traumatized by that and believing things that were the exact opposite of what their doctors were telling them and what made absolutely no sense to any sensible human being. Basically, why you would believe a lie. And that was really the beginning of my thinking about these people. So it's a bunch of disparate strands, strands, excuse me. It started in one place. It moved all over the place. That's kind of how I write. I don't know why. I wish I could just pick a lane and ride down the highway, but that's just not really how I roll. Debbi (05:19): Yeah, yeah, I can appreciate that. It's funny how when you're writing, sometimes ideas come and stuff that you thought you were goi...