Audrey Burges: On Giving Yourself Permission to Deviate

Audrey Burges writes novels, humor, short fiction, and essays in Richmond, Virginia. Her presence is tolerated by her two rambunctious children and very patient husband, all of whom have become practiced at making supportive faces when she shouts, “listen to this sentence!” She is a frequent contributor to numerous humor outlets, including McSweeney’s, and her stories and essays have appeared in Pithead Chapel, Cease, Cows, and lengthy diatribes in the Notes app on her phone.

Audrey was born and raised in Arizona by her linguist parents, which is a lot like being raised by wolves, but with better grammar. She moved to Virginia as an adult but still carries mountains and canyons in her heart, and sometimes, when she closes her eyes, she can still smell ponderosa pines in the sun. Follow her on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

Audrey Burges

Photo by Christy Davis – From the Heart Images

In this post, Audrey discusses the hypothetical question that led her to writing her new magical realism novel, A House Like an Accordion, her advice for other writers, and more!

Name: Audrey Burges
Literary agent: Maria Whelan, Inkwell
Book title: A House Like an Accordion
Publisher: Ace
Release date: May 21, 2024
Genre/category: Magical realism/fantasy
Previous titles: The Minuscule Mansion of Myra Malone
Elevator pitch: Hitting 40 can make you feel invisible, but Keryth Miller wasn’t expecting to literally disappear. When she wakes up one morning with a transparent hand, she has very little time to track down the cause before she fades away completely—which means finding her long-lost father, a gifted artist with a peculiar talent for capturing reality in his drawings.

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What prompted you to write this book?

An online friend put out a hypothetical question: What would you buy if money were no object? And I was surprised that my answer was immediate: I would buy every house my parents built when I was growing up. The reaction was so instant and so visceral that I thought there was a story hiding there. It turns out there was a whole book.

How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?

I was about halfway through writing this book when I signed with Berkley to publish my first book, The Minuscule Mansion of Myra Malone, in the middle of 2021. I sent my editor the first version of the manuscript in January 2022, and it was accepted that fall. It changed very little after acceptance—in fact, there were only four small notes in the margins prior to copyedits. I was really happy, because writing this book was much more difficult than writing about the Mansion had been. The relationships were much more complex.

Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?

Hearing back about whether this book was accepted took a very long time, and I tied myself in knots over several months, convinced that it would require a complete rewrite or be rejected entirely. I guess the biggest lesson is that, as writers, our minds can fill any quiet time with worst-case scenarios pretty quickly.

Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?

Not a single character wound up landing where I thought they would when I started writing. The relationships that emerged as I wrote altered the direction of the story. After writing my first book, I started writing a synopsis first (to get the worst part out of the way) and writing to the beats in that summary, but I give myself permission to deviate. Everything in this synopsis, after the first paragraph, had to be completely rewritten after I finished the book.

What do you hope readers will get out of your book?

This book really wound up being about loss, and all the ways that the people and events of our childhood change, in memory and significance, when we become adults and parents ourselves. Writing it was cathartic for me. I hope that readers will find it to be, also. And I also hope they’ll laugh—there are some moments in the story that, as a humorist, I’m particularly proud of.

If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?

My advice is the hardest to follow: Trust your voice, even when you’re not sure what it is yet. For me, figuring out my voice depended on (one of the) most unpleasant parts of writing, which is being rejected. Over and over again. And using those rejections to learn trends and pitfalls in your work. When I’m working on a book, I’m also writing and submitting short pieces—mostly humor—to keep my momentum going while giving my brain a shift in perspective. The vast majority of those pieces don’t get accepted. But I learn something new from every single one.

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