Author Q & A

Q: You had to change your title from Unbounded to The Last Will of Moira Leahy after your book deal came through. How did you feel about that? (Heather Heavey)

TW: When I was told we’d have to change the title, which came almost immediately after the book deal, I was devastated—ridiculously so, maybe, considering my book was going to be published. Why should I care so much about the title? But I cried buckets over it. I was convinced that Unbounded was the only title that would ever work for the book. I did not want to brainstorm new titles. I’d start thinking on it, come up with a few cruddy ideas, then walk away from the whole mess. I wasn’t any fun to live with. My husband, who can always be counted on to lighten a mood, came up with a top-ten list:

TOP TEN TITLES FOR TERI'S BOOK REJECTED BY RANDOM HOUSE

10. The Big Wavy Knife

9. Good Thing He Didn't Use eBay

8. The Life and Times of George Lansing

7. The Plumbing Crisis behind the Door

6. "A Javanese mystic, a crazy Italian and an Irish girl walk into a secret, subterranean jazz bar...."

5. Waves of Nausea

4. The Keris of Monte Counto

3. Wet Dreams

2. Angry Nails: The Javanese Hatred of Wooden Doors

1. Bleach Blondes Have More Sax
           
Our title hunt hit a more critical point in December of ’08. We had to find something, and I was determined to like it. Eventually, we came up with a few contenders, including:

            The Shadow of Castine
            Out of Time
            The Third Will
            Prodigy
            The Color of White
            The Far Side of the Storm

We weren’t able to agree on anything before the holiday, so brainstorming resumed after the New Year. I already had a strong idea for what I wanted my second book to be titled, so I considered a similar formula:

            The ___  ___ of Maeve Leahy

Something about it stuck in my mouth, but I thought

            The ___  ___  of Moira Leahy

sounded poetic. I ran The Long Shadow of Moira Leahy by my editor, Sarah Knight. She liked the idea behind it, but wasn’t sure “long shadow” was It. I agreed. About two hours later she emailed me:

            Ooh, what about The Last Will of Moira Leahy?

I loved it. It was perfect on so many levels, for the same reasons Unbounded had been perfect to me. I loved that it established Moira as the book’s protagonist, and that it tied in with the novel’s structure, which is divided into sections: the first will, the second will, etc… That was January 5th, 2009.

On January 6th, which is also the holiday Epiphany, and a critical day in the book, Shaye Areheart chose The Last Will of Moira Leahy from a list of other titles as her favorite. And that was pretty much all she wrote.

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