Interview with Joe Rothstein, Author of The Salvation Project

What can you tell us about your new release, The Salvation Project?

My first novel, The Latina President and The Conspiracy to Destroy Her featured Isabel Tennyson (Tenny) a charismatic, reform-minded Mexican-American heiress who becomes president of the United States. Rich and powerful forces fight back using impeachment, murder and assassination. I became so interested in that story that I wanted to know what happened next. So I wrote this sequel, The Salvation Project. Now, she’s up against an even more deadly challenge.

What or who inspired you to become an author?

I’ve wanted to write novels since I was a teenager, but I quickly decided that I had nothing interesting to say. Now that I have lived a pretty exciting, adventurous life, I’m filled with experiences and ideas I’m turning into entertaining stories.

What’s on your top 5 list for the best books you’ve ever read?

I really resist these types of questions. Books are not a competition. They don’t come in first, second or third like runners at a meet or teams on the field. I’ve read hundreds of books that have informed me, thrilled me, inspired me. Two novels I’ve read in recent years have left me in awe, calling me to reread again and again: Hillary Mantel’s Wolf Hall, and Charles Frazier’s Cold Mountain.

Say you’re the host of a literary talk show. Who would be your first guest? What would you want to ask?

A long time associate at an independent book store. I can’t think of anyone else in the business who has that range of experience or likely has read so many books. I’d start with a simple question: Tell me about your reading and customer experiences.

What’s your favorite thing about writing?

For most of my life I have written for specific purposes: TV and radio commercials, documentary films, newspaper stories, and other commissioned projects. Now, I love having an unlimited canvass for combining experience and imagination to create new worlds inhabited by fascinating people.

What is a typical day like for you?

I’m totally undisciplined. Some days I don’t write at all. Other days 24 hours are not enough.

What scene in The Salvation Project was your favorite to write?

I’m partial to my final chapters, where I can surprise readers with conclusions they likely never see coming, and with enough strings untied to keep readers thinking about the story long after they have closed the final page.

Do you have a motto, quote or philosophy you live by?

“The moving finger writes, and having writ, moves on, and all your piety and with will never lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all your tears wash out a word of it.” –Omar Khayyam

Joe Rothstein is the author of the new book The Salvation Project.

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