Q&A with "The After Girls" author, DTH alumna Leah Konen

Leah Konen, a UNC alumna and a former staff writer for the arts desk of The Daily Tar Heel, recently had her first book, entitled “The After Girls,” published. Set in Boone, N.C., the novel is about two teenage girls who are investigating their best friend’s suicide.

Staff writer McKenzie Coey spoke with Konen about the writing process and her inspiration for the book.

DAILY TAR HEEL: What was your inspiration for the book?

Leah Konen: My sister went to Appalachian (State University), so I visited that area with her and fell in love with it. I thought it would be such a great setting for a mysterious and eerie story.

I wanted to explore what could take a group of friends from before an incident to after. To me, that was suicide because it has a little bit of guilt associated with it and I wanted to explore how that would affect friendships.

I actually came up with the idea of the title before the plot. I got the idea of the title and then the rest just kind of fit it.

DTH: Was the plot based on your personal experiences at all?

LK: It wasn’t based on personal experience. I did lose a friend to cancer during the time while I was writing it, so it definitely affected my writing.
Because I experienced loss while I was working on it, I guess the emotions became a lot more real — it wasn’t something that I was just making up. It became something I was experiencing myself, so that definitely played a role in my writing.

DTH: How did your experience as a writer at The Daily Tar Heel help or influence your writing?

LK: I think the DTH got me used to writing really quickly and writing regularly and working against a deadline.

I also had really good editors while on the DTH, so you know, it got me used to writing precisely and was pretty much the first news writing I ever did. So while it didn’t directly affect fiction, pretty much any practice you can get in writing kind of helps you in every genre that you write.

DTH: Did you face any challenges while writing The After Girls?

LK: I think the most difficult part of writing a book is definitely just the writing though. I went through several drafts of this and did it very differently than I had with other things. I didn’t have an outline and kind of just wrote it as I could. I figured out the story as I went along.
I am really happy with how it turned out, but writing can be a struggle while you’re doing it.

DTH: What have you learned from writing your first novel?

LK: Even once your book comes out, you have some really great reviews and some negative reviews and you’re just constantly learning. To pursue writing, you have to really love it because there are a lot of ups and downs from the process.

The biggest thing that I learned was that you have to keep working. Just because you have one book published, that’s not the end — so that’s why I’m still working on another book and constantly thinking of new ideas.