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North Haven resident Stella Sands is the author of the new novel "Wordhunter." COURTESY THE AUTHOR
The cover of "Wordhunter," the debut novel from North Haven resident Stella Sands, available now from HarperCollins. COURTESY THE AUTHOR
Maggie Moore, a whip smart, mezcal-slugging, motorcycle-wielding, 21-year-old Floridian is the extravagant protagonist at the center of Stella Sands’s new novel, “Wordhunter,” which will debut in an author event on Thursday, September 12, at the John Jermain Memorial Library in Sag Harbor.
The book, surrounding Maggie and her near superpower for language, sets up an entirely unique mystery from an author who knows her stuff. Sands worked as a true-crime writer for 10 years, writing six different true crime books before trying her hand (and succeeding) at fiction writing.
“I visited serial murderers in prison, visited victims’ families, I got very deep into it,” Sands said in a recent interview. “I ultimately found it so depressing that I had to get out of it.”
But Sands wanted to keep writing, so she invented Maggie to solve the crimes that Sands created for her.
“I took all the knowledge of all the things that the killers in my true crime books did, and the mistakes they made, their psyche, and I mixed it all up and created Maggie and the crimes she solves based on some of the things that I’ve written about or researched,” she explained.
Maggie’s character has an uncanny ability with language rooted in a love for sentence-diagramming, which involves creating a specific visual representation of a sentence, including the different types of words and their functions inside said sentence. This is something very close to Sands’s heart as well.
“Just like Maggie in the book, I became obsessed [with sentence diagramming] from seventh grade on,” she said. “I was in a new school in seventh grade, I was kind of shy and didn’t know anybody, and I saw this visual representation that my teacher put on the board. I thought, ‘Oh boy, I love this.’
“I started putting the words together, and it was just a place where I could be, figure things out and be quiet,” she continued. “It was a challenge, and I was good at it, as it turned out. I just fell in love with it and could lose myself there.”
Dialogue, and language in general, plays a huge part in the story and the solving of the centerpiece mystery. For Sands, the dialogue is the best part.
“When I was in college, I decided to write a novel, which only had dialogue and no description,” she said. “I thought, ‘Woah, this is going to change the world.’ And then I realized, halfway through the novel, that I was writing a play.”
After that, she began to write plays, which is the way her writing career began. She has since gone on to pen several plays that have been produced Off-Broadway.
“I love dialogue, I do not like description as much,” she said.
That is evident in Maggie’s cleverly crafted dialogue in the book.
“I love Maggie, I love to listen to her talk. I don’t know where her voice comes from, probably inside me somewhere,” Sands continued.
And, just like Maggie, Sands has a knack for solving language puzzles.
“I also just love listening to people talk,” she said. “Sometimes I can tell where a person is from just from one word. Even when you speak, I can visually represent your sentences.”
Sands now lives in North Haven, and before that lived in Amagansett for over 30 years. But she was born in Florida, has visited almost every year since and this is where she decided “Wordhunter” would take place.
“I wouldn’t say I know Florida, because Florida is unknowable, but I feel very comfortable in Florida,” she explained. “Somehow, I get there, and I understand it, even though it’s so complex it’s sometimes not understandable.”
In speaking about the future of “Wordhunter,” Sands excitedly announced that a sequel to the novel is in the works, and that “Wordhunter” has been optioned to become a TV series.
“That wasn’t even on my radar,” she said. “My goal was always ‘I’d love to get an agent, I’d love to get a publisher, I’d love to get it published,’ and that would be it. It’s unbelievable. Really, I never, ever imagined or even thought it would happen.”
Sands ended her interview with a piece of advice for young writers: “Fall in love with your characters. Find a character you can love, because then you’ll want to spend time with them. If you’re not in love with the character, you’re not interested in what they’ll do.”
This is certainly the case for Sands with her fictional Maggie.
“I can relate to Maggie on many levels, even though I am not her,” Sands said. “She’s very much my buddy.”
Local residents will have the chance to “meet” Maggie, along the rest of the vivacious cast of characters in “Wordhunter,” at the launch event for the novel happening at the upcoming John Jermain Memorial Library in Sag Harbor.
“I’m thrilled to be interviewed by Patty McCormick at JJML, my local library,” Sands said. “It’s so special to share the launch of ‘Wordhunter’ in my hometown.’”
The “Wordhunter” book launch event is on Thursday, September 12, at 6 p.m. at John Jermain Memorial Library, 201 Main Street, Sag Harbor. The event is free, but registration is required. Space is limited. For more information, visit johnjermain.org.
