Author Bio: Heather Duffy-Stone
’09 Book Title: PERMANENT INK or THIS IS WHAT I WANT TO TELL YOU
Publisher: Flux/Llewellyn
Favorite Books: The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky; This Side of Paradise, F. Scott Fitzgerald; Tonio Kroger; Thomas Mann; Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been, Joyce Carol Oates (ok, these last two are short stories); The Virgin Suicides, Jeffrey Eugenides; Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy; To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf; The History of Love, Nicole Krauss; The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck; Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist, Cohn & Levithan (this list goes endlessly on)
Favorite writing advice: Don’t edit right now. Just go. Don’t stop.
Random Info about me: I grew up the daughter of a chef, in the back rooms of restaurant kitchens and I’m fascinated by the words that describe food and restaurant stories, I grew up in Vermont but since I went to boarding school at 14 have had a hard time staying in one place for more than two years, I get jumpy. I don’t have a savings account but I really really need one. I secretly love waking up early in the morning when it is still dark out and I feel like I am the only one awake anywhere.
PERMANENT INK or THIS IS WHAT I WANT TO TELL YOU Synopsis:
There is something about tattoos, and Noelle Carter is trying to figure out what that something is. There is something about the way the crawl up this boy’s arms and tell the story of his life that she wants to figure out. Meanwhile, her twin brother, Nadio, is finding that there is something about Keeley Shipley, lifelong neighbor and best friend to Noelle, that he wants to figure out. As for Keeley Shipley, there is something about her summer that she does not want to talk about. But maybe, if Nadio is as safe as he seems, he can make the summer take up less space in her brain. In alternating sections, sixteen year old twins Nadio and Noelle tell the story of their junior year in high school. For Noelle, this year is about a boy. He is 19 and has tattoos. He’s a cook and an artist and he lives above a garage. He is as far from her world as she can get. But the mystery of the art on his skin starts to tell her more about herself than about this boy, especially as her twin brother and her lifelong best friend are falling in love right outside of her field of vision. For Nadio the year is about falling in love with Keeley, and trying to make peace with a father he never knew. Nadio’s year is about trying to grow up into a man without ever having known any good men. But not until Noelle reaches her point of desperation do the three characters find a way back to themselves, and to each other.