Allison Blanchard: Natural-Born Novelist

Allison Blanchard, 20, is an incredibly busy college student; along with a full load of classes, she is a member of two honors societies, president of the GC chapter of Sigma Alpha Omega, and a nonfiction editor of the literary journal The Peacock’s Feet. She is all of this and a published author. Most people would buckle under the pressure of all of these responsibilities, but Allison is rarely seen without a smile on her face.

Her first novel, Forget Me Not, was a long-term labor of love. It was published last year, but her writing process started five years ago. She felt compelled to start writing, she says, because her narrator, Adeline Jacely, just started talking to her one day. Adeline herself was very clear to Allison—Allison knew exactly who she was, down to the last detail and how she would react in certain situations, but didn’t know how the story would shape around her. Cole, Adeline’s love interest, was a little more difficult to figure out. “Cole was called ‘he’ for the first few chapters,” she tells me. When she began the novel, she wasn’t even aware that Cole would be a prominent member of the Chippewa tribe.

When I ask her about how she made the decision to incorporate Native American mythology into the series, she says that her father instilled a love for the culture in her from an early age. Still, she says that a large portion of the time spent working on Forget Me Not and its sequel, Morning Glory, was dedicated to research. “I wanted to be sure that I got the details right,” she states. For instance, the name Cole means “leader of the people,” and those who have read the first book of the series know that Cole is the destined leader of his tribe. It is the details like these that make Forget Me Not such a joy to read, and that have her readers sitting on the edge of their seats waiting for Morning Glory.

Above all, she says, she wanted to write a book that she wanted to read.  While writing the second book she was surprised to find that many of the events were shocking even to her. She admits that “it was as if I was reading it for the first time instead of writing it! I just couldn’t believe it.” As far as those surprises go, Allison is tight-lipped. “I’ll just say that there are a lot of revelations, a lot of twists. And it ends with a huge cliffhanger,” she tells me with a smirk. Allison does say that it is quite a bit darker than its predecessor, and readers should be prepared for that. “It starts out happy,” she claims, “but it will definitely escalate quickly.” There is also a change of setting that could bring with it even more drama than the inter-tribe battle from Forget Me Not. And why is that exactly? Let’s just say I hear wedding bells!

So when can we expect to get our hands on our own copies of Morning Glory? “Hopefully by the end of October,” Allison says excitedly. “That way it will have been about a year since the release of Forget Me Not, which I think is a good amount of time.”

Truth be told, I would have liked that wait to be about twelve months shorter.

• 2013
• campus celebrity
• celeb
• gcsu
• student
• writer