Heather’s Bookshelf: Author Interview with Athie Wolfe
Book Title: Dig Plant Walk Wander
Released: 10/18/25
Genre: Historical Fiction
Interview by Heather L. Barksdale
What inspired you to write dig plant walk wander?
As a child I heard the stories about what happened to the mother on the farm in Wisconsin and how her seven children were then scattered to different homes or left to fend for themselves. Decades later, thinking about how such legacies affect the generations that follow, I wondered how much her life, and the life of her orphaned daughter—my great grandmother—influenced mine. Writing her story was one way to process that question.
How did you come up with the names of your main characters?
Wolfe: For my main characters I used the names as I came across them on the Ancestry website. This is why there are two characters with the same name, Alonzo—the main character’s husband and her brother shared that name. It’s possible that the facts on the Ancestry website are incorrect, and I certainly never knew these people, so the story is solidly a work of historical fiction.
Is there anything that you want readers to know about you, your writing process or your book?
Wolfe: I’ve always loved writing, but it hasn’t always been central to my life. In fact, it might be fair to say that it has never been my first priority. Writing is more like a guilty pleasure that I engage in when space opens up. Like swimming in a cold lake, it’s my go-to when my life is my own. This book took ten years, but most of it was written in 2015. Then other things took me away for a while. Sometimes two years would pass without a glance. The book I am writing now is progressing along those lines; I wrote the bulk of it a year ago, followed by inactivity, and now, the endless edits.
If "Dig Plant Walk Wander" was adapted into a movie, who would you like to see cast to play your lead characters?
Wolfe: I don’t think about that anymore. It’s been thirty years since I started writing novels and now I just write in order to write. I wonder what that would be like, though.
If you could have dinner with any character you’ve written, who would it be—and what would you talk about?
Wolfe: If I could have dinner with one character, I think it would be Elizabeth’s oldest daughter Ellen. She could tell me the most about how this story unfolded, how she perceived her parents and siblings. I’d like to know, were they really that religious? Or were all the Biblical verses more like a dress pattern, lines to color inside of until you forgot they were there.
When you encounter writer’s block, what do you do to break yourself out of it?
Wolfe: When I encounter writer’s block, I do something else until the energy returns. It always does. In autumn and spring the garden insists that I set down the writing; I think of it as shifts in energy rather than blockages. Sometimes water swirls in circles, while at other times and in other places it flows.
What is your favorite genre, book, and/or author?
Wolfe: This Is Happiness, by Niall Williams. I love Elizabeth Strout’s matter-of-fact style. Octavia Butler’s Fledgling still feels alive in me even though I read it several years ago.
What are you working on next?
Wolfe: I’m working now on a mystery novel about a death and an adoption. It has another year or two to go. I’ve also begun some flash fiction pieces, which helps when I have “writer’s block” with the novel.
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