{"id":452998,"date":"2025-09-26T14:30:15","date_gmt":"2025-09-26T14:30:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/452998\/"},"modified":"2025-09-26T14:30:15","modified_gmt":"2025-09-26T14:30:15","slug":"listen-to-your-sister-a-qa-with-writer-neena-viel-ahead-of-six-bridges-book-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/452998\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Listen To Your Sister\u2019: A Q&A with writer Neena Viel ahead of Six Bridges Book Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"

Whether you\u2019re eager to find a surprise bestseller with an underwater creature as its protagonist (\u201cRemarkably Bright Creatures\u201d by Shelby Van Pelt<\/a>), cynical about the integrity of musicmaking in the era of mass streaming (\u201cMood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist\u201d by Liz Pelly<\/a>), curious about the history of racial inequality in American education (\u201cThe Battle for the Black Mind\u201d by Karida Brown<\/a>), or looking for a crime thriller that, according to The Washington Post, \u201cblurs any imaginary line between genre and great literature\u201d (\u201cSaint of the Narrows Street\u201d by William Boyle<\/a>), the Central Arkansas Library System\u2019s Six Bridges Book Festival<\/strong> has a book for you. With nearly 50 visiting writers in tow, it\u2019s likely that any other stray fascination you can imagine will also be represented at the festival, which runs the gamut from fiction to nonfiction to poetry. <\/p>\n

Arkansas writers appearing at Six Bridges include Regina Black, Kevin Brockmeier, Viktoria Capek, Eli Cranor, Susie Dumond, Buckley T. Foster, Carolyn Guinzio, Maria Hoskins, Jared Lemus, Linsey Miller, Adolph L. Reed Jr., Kat Robinson, Ginny Myers Sain, Vaughn Scribner, Alex Vernon, Neena Viel and Rhona Weaver.<\/p>\n

Getting fully prepared for Six Bridges, which runs from Sept. 28-Oct. 5, might be the world\u2019s longest homework assignment, so we\u2019ve collected a handful of email and phone interviews with Arkansas-connected authors to whet your palate. For a full schedule, head to cals.org\/six-bridges-book-festival<\/a>.<\/p>\n

***<\/p>\n

A graduate of Jonesboro High School, Arkansas State University and the Clinton School of Public Service, writer Neena Viel<\/a><\/strong> now lives near Seattle, which serves as the backdrop for her debut horror novel, \u201cListen To Your Sister<\/a>.\u201d A \u201cfrenzied and addictive supernatural thriller\u201d (Publishers Weekly<\/a>), the plot escalates after a racial justice protest gone catastrophically wrong leads a trio of Black siblings to skip town and hide out in a cabin in the woods. Things, as you might expect, go downhill from there.<\/p>\n

Your publisher describes \u201cListen To Your Sister\u201d as \u201claugh-out-loud, deeply terrifying, and big-hearted.\u201d That sounds like a lot of different tones to juggle. Was it difficult to prioritize all three of those registers at once?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The humor and heart felt very organic during the writing process. I think because people, even in our darkest, most terrifying hour, will find something to laugh about. We want more connection when we\u2019re scared, not less.<\/p>\n

\u201cListen To Your Sister\u201d focuses on a group of siblings, ranging in age from 16 to 25. What about that dynamic fascinates you?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s such a strangely cool, strangely fraught interpersonal dynamic! Siblings can grow up in the same house and experience completely different parents. Siblings are with you on the school bus and know what you did behind the bleachers. They experience a completely different you than your parents. They are bullies and confidantes. With \u201cListen To Your Sister,\u201d I was interested in exploring the inherent duality of the sibling relationship \u2014 loving someone so much, but you\u2019re also tempted to jettison them into space.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"\u201cListen To Your Sister\u201d by Neena Viel<\/p>\n

Many of the reviews of your book mention race as one its primary preoccupations. What does \u201cListen To Your Sister\u201d have to say about being Black in the United States right now? Does it reflect your experience of growing up Black in Arkansas?<\/strong><\/p>\n

That\u2019s a big question. \u201cListen To Your Sister\u201d cycles through three perspectives, and each character has a different sense of how they perceive the world and how they feel they\u2019re perceived. For Calla, the titular big sister, she\u2019s overwhelmed with the newfound responsibility of guardianship for her teenage brother, and undone at how, exactly, she\u2019s supposed to keep a Black child safe in an increasingly polarized community. Her point-of-view is less concerned with her own self-actualization than it is watching her baby brother become aware of why people lock their car doors when he walks by. And that\u2019s a nightmare.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This novel does not reflect my experience of growing up Black in Arkansas \u2014 Seattle and Jonesboro are just too different! However, I do have a work-in-progress that is set in northeast Arkansas, so stay tuned.<\/p>\n

This is your first book. Do you plan to stay in the horror lane for future books or do you imagine branching out to something else?<\/strong><\/p>\n

For now, I\u2019m staying in horror. Fear can be fun, accessible and cathartic. My next work, \u201cI\u2019ll Watch Your Baby,\u201d which comes out next year, is a supernatural reimagining of America\u2019s most notorious welfare queen. I hope readers will follow along with me, keep laughing with me and keep expanding their idea of what horror is.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Who\u2019s the writer you\u2019re most excited to encounter at Six Bridges and why?\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

I have to cheat and name two. Maggie Stiefvater<\/a> and Alex Grecian<\/a>. They\u2019re incredible talents. When I think of their books, I can almost taste the snacks I inhaled while whiling away the afternoon reading on the couch.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Whether you\u2019re eager to find a surprise bestseller with an underwater creature as its protagonist (\u201cRemarkably Bright Creatures\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":452999,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3938],"tags":[3444,152244,77,152245,152246,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-452998","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-central-arkansas-library-system","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-neena-viel","12":"tag-six-bridges-book-festival","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115271082014399860","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=452998"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452998\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/452999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=452998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=452998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=452998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}