The blog tour begins! Over the next couple of weeks I will be guest posting on various blogs and including the links here. Most of the bloggers are fellow authors; I hope you will check them out.
I’ve known Shelley for almost 20 years! I met her in the fall of 1994 when she was a brash, young reporter at the Mankato Free Press and I was an intrepid news clerk 🙂 Shelley writes middle-grade books and recently was signed to a big publishing deal! We’re so proud of her.

shelley tougas

Today I’m posting a Q & A with Rachael Hanel, author of We’ll Be the Last Ones to Let You Down. (Find her on Tumblr.) Rachael’s memoir is published by the University of Minnesota Press. I’ll post three of the questions/answers today and three tomorrow.

Rachael’s memoir confronts her relationship with death and exposes the difficulty people have with grief, not just the raw, throbbing ache of loss, but knowing how to grieve. A gravedigger’s daughter, Rachael is surrounded by stories of death and witness to grieving. But her childhood doesn’t prepare her to cope with her own losses. You’ll be swept into midwestern, small-town life when you open the pages.

So here we go …

Much of your memoir focuses on your early childhood. I’ve read it, and I see parallels between middle-grade books and your writing about your childhood. You’re just beginning to see the sadness in…

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