Heather’s Bookshelf: Author Interview with Skip Rhudy
Book Title: Under the Gulf Coast Sun
Released: 04/11/25
Genre: Coming-of-age adult fiction
Interview by Heather L. Barksdale
What inspired you to write “Under the Gulf Coast Sun”?
Rhudy: I felt I grew up in a unique environment that had definite influences on myself and the people I came of age with. It is a culture and time now lost to personal experience, but worth preserving in books (either fiction, like my work, or as history)
How did you come up with the names of your main characters?
Rhudy: The names sprang to mind in almost all cases out of nowhere. One character though, Maxim, the surf shop manager, required work. He started out being called a nickname of someone I did not know but was aware of. But the character has nothing to do with the person who had the nickname at the time.
Is there anything that you want readers to know about you, your writing process or your book?
Rhudy: When writing your first draft be absolutely concentrated on your gusto and zeal: Be passionate and do not self-censor based on how you think a reader might react to what you wrote. There will be time to revise later. In my case, the book started out as first person and turned into third person omniscent. Intimate scenes went from more explicit to less explicit by my choice (not by publisher feedback). The obverse could have been true as well. The more I create with words, the less I believe there are any such things as hard and fast rules about how to write good stuff.
If "Under the Gulf Coast Sun” were adapted into a movie, who would you like to see cast to play your lead characters?
Rhudy: I want to leave the appearance of characters in this book completely up to the imagination of the reader. If Kassie, the main protagonist, is considered beautiful--I want the reader to imagine what that means for themself.
When you encounter writer’s block, what do you do to break yourself out of it?
Rhudy: I just go do something else. Although it usually doesn't happen to me. If I write one true sentence, then the rest comes on its own. If you're stuck, think of something you really love or really hate--get in that frame of mind and then write the first thing that seems true to you.
Are there any tips that you would like to share with other aspiring authors?
Rhudy: Here's what I did: I wrote the book as best I could, then I hired a best selling author who offered editorial assessments of love stories (this was on the reedsy.com platform). I took all of her advice. The next place I submitted the manuscript to accepted it for publication. I submitted 3 times. Two rejects before I followed her advice. It was worth it.
What is your favorite book, genre, and/or author?
Rhudy: Sci-fi (Dune, Foundation Trilogy), classics: Aeschylus, Ovid, Homer. Plus reading current stuff by folks retelling Greek myth from a feminist perspective (like Madeleine Miller's Circe and Jennifer Saint's Ariadne).
What are you working on next?
Rhudy: Three things. Foremost a literary fiction novel that is re-casting (not retelling) the Theseus/Ariadne/Dionysus myth as a semi-autobiographical memoir. A book about building my own airplane and flying it around and interviewing other flyers (like Blue Highways, but in aviation context), and a work that is a dialogue between me and an imaginary, but real, AI like ChatGPT. Though I may use my own implementation of an LLM for that.
Interested in checking out the book for yourself?
Find it for purchase here
Want to learn more about Under the Gulf Coast Sun and Skip Rhudy?
https://www.stoneycreekpublishing.com/skip-rhudy
personal facebook: https://www.facebook.com/skip.rhudy.writer
Skip Rhudy Books facebook: https://www.facebook.com/skip.rhudy/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/skiprhudy/
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