EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the second part of a Q&A with Amy Welborn about her new memoir Wish You Were Here, which chronicles a trip to Sicily five month after the death of her husband, Mike. Read the first part here.
This was your 24th book and it appears very different in nature from previous ones. Was the entire process different?
The process was different. Most of my other books are an extension of a teaching mindset and just sort of spill out of me. This, of course, was different. I journaled extensively both in the months right after Mike died and then during the trip. I couldn’t have written the books without the journals. It would have all been just a blur.
Most of my other books only require one or two writings. I’ve never taken more than four months to write a book before. This took two years and some deep rewriting. My first drafts were just too stream-of-conscious-y. I had to really think harder in the writing of this one.
