Dianne C. Braley Interview - Silence in the Sound

Photo Content from Dianne C. Braley

Dianne C. Braley is a registered nurse with a passion for music, poetry, and literature. Dianne has been featured in various online and printed publications, including Today’s Dietician and Scrubs Magazine. Her nursing blog, Nursing the Neighborhood, was named one of the top nursing blogs of 2018 by Nurse Recruiter.

Growing up in Massachusetts’s tough and turbulent inner cities, Dianne has always walked a thin line between her creative dreams and her strong blue-collar roots. From a young age, she found solace from her raw and difficult world growing up in alcoholism in writing and music. Her creative spirit helped guide her through a rebellious adolescence.

Working hard in college, Dianne became a registered nurse like her mother to help others and escape the rough lifestyle of her youth – but she never gave up on her dream of writing, and after caring for a celebrity novelist on the picturesque island of Martha’s Vineyard, the friendship that blossomed between them inspired her to pick up her pencil again and dive into her true calling.

Now the author of her debut novel, The Silence in the Sound, Dianne, still escapes to the Vineyard every summer to reinvigorate herself and channel her creative drive. She is currently pursuing a degree in creative writing. Dianne and her family are firmly planted in a small town north of Boston – but not far enough away to lose her city edge.

        

  

Greatest thing you learned in school.
Hmm, I can go grammar school or college with this question. In high school, I was in a hormonal fog and only existed for loathing my parents and loving my boyfriend. Learning about the human body and mind is fascinating. Being a nurse, I feel blessed most days to have an understanding of this. But…being back in school now for creative writing I am so enjoying poetry and the workshop I am in. There are so many ways to write and read it. Dissecting all of the great works from masterminds such as Poe, Frost, Angelou, and Dickinson is a dream.

Tell us your most rewarding experience since being published.
There are so many but handing my first book to my mother and seeing her face is a moment I’ll never forget.

Was there a defining moment during your youth when you realized you wanted to be a writer?
Yes. I was around eight when I received a pink journal with a gold lock and key. I wrote in it daily for a while in the typical “Dear Diary” way recounting the day and all that had happened etc. I soon found this boring and tucked it away for a time. I was incredibly into music and knew what seemed like every lyric to every 1980’s song that existed (still do). Listening to Prince one day and feeling the words to When Dove’s Cry, I thought about writing differently. I pulled out the journal from under my mattress and started to write more lyrically about things in a similar style to a song. Unbeknownst to me, what I was writing was poetry.

What’s the best advice you can give writers to help them develop their own unique voice and style?
I was fortunate enough to share a time in my life with Pulitzer-prize-winning author William Styron while working for him on Martha’s Vineyard for a time. I learned so many things from reading his work and the small tidbits I’d gather in our conversations. The most important for me is to stay true to your voice. When you start writing especially, write how you would talk and think. It’s hard to develop characters and places opposite or foreign to you until you become more seasoned at the craft. The saying “write about what you know” is true—and I heard it from one of the greats.

What are some of your current and future projects that you can share with us?
I am currently five chapters into my second book. I was in the middle of writing a very different book and put it aside as something came into my family’s life that I felt I needed to capture as the story was one of the most compelling I’d ever heard. It’s a work of fiction inspired by some actual events, and it’s a dark subject. I am trying to capture a story that I have no personal experience with, so it’s challenging, but the beta readers have reported back positively.

In your newest book; THE SILENCE IN THE SOUND, can you tell my Book Nerd community a little about it.
I should hope so considering I’ve read, revised and edited it what feels like a million times, maybe more.

Georgette, a fiery city girl’s memory of a childhood trip to Martha's Vineyard with her father is one of the few good times. Her father was an alcoholic, and her enabler mother chose to stay with him; his addiction was the center of their world. Georgette fled home as soon as she could; years later, as a nurse, she's going back to the island to start her life over. There, she becomes the private nurse for the ailing prize-winning novelist, Mr. S., and becomes enamored with the mysterious Dock, a wash-ashore like her whose disappearing acts only make her crave his love more.

As Georgette cares for Mr. S. and helps him come to terms with the end of his life along Vineyard Sound's beautiful shores, they become friends. His famous book helps her navigate her life as George finds in the running away from her past, she inadvertently ran towards it. She loses herself in her relationship with Dock, who leads her down a road of denial and impossible choices she never thought she'd have to face.

What do you hope for readers to be thinking when they read your novel?
I’d like them to be thinking about who they are and why they are that and take a journey with Georgette to reach a place of acceptance in all things good and bad that got you to the current version of yourself.

So often we spend our lives fighting things that we can’t change—broken relationships, bad choices, our parent’s choices—things like that. At some point, we need to accept and even value the good, bad, and even the tragically horrible. It shaped us. We can learn and grow or keep fighting a never-ending battle when in reality, we’re just fighting ourselves. Does that make sense?

What part of The Silence in the Sound did you enjoy writing the most?
I loved writing about the Vineyard. The scenery, smells and people made me feel like I was there on my beautiful island, the most magical place in the world.

What was your unforgettable moment while writing THE SILENCE IN THE SOUND?
In writing about Georgette’s turbulent relationship with Dock, I wrote from a lot of my own experiences from that time in my life being like her—twenty-something, insecure and broken. I couldn’t stand my once strong and tough character leaving me with a bad taste in my mouth for myself then. I felt sorry for her and the twenty-something-year-old me. We were both confused, sad and so insecure, and foolish.

If you could introduce one of your characters to any character from another book, who would it be and why?
It’s an odd pairing, but I’d love a young Georgette to meet Gone with the Wind’s Scarlett O’Hara. She’d learn a thing or two about staying tough when life gets you down.

What is the craziest thing you have ever done?
I’m from Revere, Massachusetts, a bit north of Boston—an extremely tough and rowdy blue-collar town. I’m not sure I should answer that. I’m not sure what the statute of limitations is for certain things. Let’s go with getting a bit drunk and flying to New York in the middle of the night with just the clothes on my back. That’s safe.

What is something you think everyone should do at least once in their lives?
Travel a ton before you can’t. Life changes greatly after kids.

Best date you've ever had?
Hmm. I have some great worst date stories but best? I guess because I’m married to him, I’ll have to say it was with my husband lol. Wine and a beach picnic, watching the sunset. It was great until we got attacked by flies. My worst date stories are much better.

What is your happiest childhood memory?
Swimming at the beach right across the street all day until sunset, then mom rinsing us off with the hose, not having a worry in the world.

How far away from your birthplace do you live now?
About fifteen miles.

What were you doing at midnight last night?
Trying to finish the book, Anxious People, by Fredrik Backman for my book club on Thursday. I’m a slow reader.

TEN REASONS TO READ THE SILENCE IN THE SOUND

• 1. You love a New England/Boston vibe.
• 2. A love story that isn’t traditional is your jam.
• 3. Part of the proceeds go to the Robert F. Kennedy Community Alliance organization in Massachusetts and will help children and families affected by addiction
• 4. You or someone you love has been affected by another’s addiction.
• 5. You love Martha’s Vineyard or are interested in its allure.
• 6. Nontraditional friendships/relationships intrigue you. Georgette and famous author Mr. S. with their codependent patient-caregiver relationship—you may fall in love.
• 7. You have daddy issues… (sorry, I had to).
• 8. A bit of celebrity always interests you. Doesn’t everyone know the name, Kennedy?
• 9. You’ve been in a toxic relationship and struggled to get out.
• 10. Things coming full circle is a book you’re all about.

SCENES

There it was across the water—the island, my island, or it used to be. It was a place I’d never wanted to leave. I resented that I’d had to. I resented Dock. The anger built inside me again. I resented the anger, too, and didn’t want to feel that today. The island was mine before all of it. It was mine the day I landed on it that weekend with my father all those years ago. Coming back now, I wanted it to be mine again, but so much had happened.

Ferries pulled in and out, down the small hill at Woods Hole terminal, taking islanders, workers, and vacationers with their cars and bikes back and forth to the island. I drove down the embankment, thinking of my father’s truck bumping toward the boats that weekend we came. Looking ahead, I could almost see him, leaning against the truck, tilting his face toward the sun. So much about him annoyed me then that now makes me smile.

The black from my mascara had mixed with the lipstick I foolishly put on this morning, smearing and making a mess as I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. I was going back today, and for a reason I never wanted. It all seemed like a lifetime ago. I stared ahead at the Islander, her name written in big black letters on the giant hull’s side. People walked down the ramp, leaving her, as I waited to get in line to board. I pulled over, giving my name to the man at the kiosk, catching a look at myself in the rearview mirror. Black half-moons of mascara stared back at me from beneath my eyes. I hurriedly put on my sunglasses to cover them.

I still love him.

On the picturesque island of Martha’s Vineyard, an ailing celebrity novelist's famous book about a choice helps his young nurse make a heartrending one of her own.

Fiery city girl, Georgette's memory of a childhood trip to Martha's Vineyard Island with her father is one of the few good times. Her father was an alcoholic, and her enabler mother chose to stay with him; his addiction was the center of their world. Georgette fled home as soon as she could; years later, as a nurse, she's going back to the island to start her life over. There, she becomes the private nurse for the ailing prize-winning novelist, Mr. S., and becomes enamored with the mysterious Dock, a wash-ashore like her whose disappearing acts only make her crave his love more.

As Georgette cares for Mr. S. and helps him come to terms with the end of his life along Vineyard Sound's beautiful shores, they become friends. His famous book helps her navigate her life as George finds in the running away from her past, she inadvertently ran towards it. She loses herself in her relationship with Dock, who leads her down a road of denial and impossible choices she never thought she'd have to face.

Told through the voice of Georgette. The Silence in the Sound is a provocative coming-of-age debut revealing the lasting effects of growing up in addiction. But it also demonstrates a young woman’s strength as she navigates friendship, love, and heartbreak while finding her hidden strength along the way.

You can purchase Silence in the Sound at the following Retailers:

        

And now, The Giveaways.

Thank you DIANNE C. BRALEY for making this giveaway possible.

1 Winner will receive a Copy of Silence in the Sound by Dianne C. Braley.

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