Abby Luby is a freelance journalist who, for over ten years, has covered nuclear power, particularly issues surrounding the Indian Point nuclear power plant in New York. Her articles have appeared in The New York Daily News, The Villager, The Westchester Guardian, The Real Deal, SolveClimateNews, The North County News and the Record Review. She also writes for the Poughkeepsie Journal, The Stamford Advocate/Greenwich Time, Valley Table Magazine, Roll Magazine, Hearst publications HealthyLivingCT, Living@HomeCT covering news, art, food and health. She teaches writing and literature at Marist College.
How have you been able to use social media (Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, etc.) to help market your book?
I have been able to market my book with these three major social media by alerting friends and participants to when I post excerpts from my book, to notify them about upcoming radio interviews and of newspaper articles about my book. I see what other people are reading, recommending and become familiar with different genres of books. For Facebook and Twitter, I post information about relevant newspaper and magazine articles I write on a regular basis.
Do you have any advice for new authors looking to promote themselves on these sites?
For Facebook and Twitter, it can’t all be about your book. You have to cultivate connections with people who have similar interests as yourself, interspersed with information about your book.
What type of writing routine do you have? Any tips you can share about it?
Personally, my best and most creative ideas surface in the morning; so that’s when I try to write. The earlier the better—before the world wakes up and demands your attention. It’s usually the quietest time of day. If mornings can’t work, or I’ve overslept, I try to write ideas down at some point in the day. The ideas don’t have to be prose, just thoughts that may or may not end up being in a future story.
How has it been trying to balance your writing with your day job and/or family life? Is there anything you would change?
There are many challenging situations that arise when you try to write creatively on a continuous basis. Since my day job is a journalist and a writing teacher, I am able to be a “wordsmith” at least in practice. But that usually cancels out the energy to write creatively, which demands a separate mind-space time. Managing a house is also demanding. If I had the funds, I would hire an assistant. But in reality, what I would change is how I prioritize and work first on what absolutely needs to be done and make sure there is always time to write.
Setting is an extremely important aspect in grabbing your reader’s attention. What made you choose to set your book in the suburbs near a nuclear power plant?
The setting in Nuclear Romance is very similar to where I live and it was easy to describe an environment with which I was familiar. The setting is a New York City suburb on the Hudson River near an aging nuclear power plant. The roadways in and around the plant are mostly two lanes and would impede any evacuation attempt should the plant have an accident. This setting is a perfect set-up for the story in which there is an accidental steam release; the ensuing massive traffic jam spreads throughout the entire country, trapping first responders as panic escalates.
What types of books do you read? How do you think they have influenced your writing?
I read general literature from short stories to classic and contemporary fiction, and poetry. Authors include Michael Chabon, Barbara Kingsolver, Carl Hiaasen, John Grisham. Poetry by Stanley Kunitz, W.S. Merwin, Billy Collins, among others. These writers have influenced me by showing me how far you can take your imagination and (in the case of Carl Hiaasen) how news items journalists write about can plant ideas for fictionalized stories.
