Amy Passalugo said many of her friends call her story-writing process “crazy,” with the exception of two: Jacey and Liam. But that might just be because they’re confined to her head. Actually, both are the supporting, fictional characters to her recently published novel, “Stay Under the Stars.”
Passalugo, class of ‘08, said both characters lived within the walls of her brain for nearly six months before she began writing the 298-page piece. Starting with Jacey and later Liam, her relationship with both characters grew and, in turn, so did her ideas for the novel.
“I knew who [Jacey] was and how she was, but not what had happened to her,” Passalugo said. “…[The characters] just kind of pop into my head. Some people call them the ‘muses.’ Some people call them the crazy voices in your head.”
Both characters are a culmination of both Passalugo’s own voice and people she’s encountered, to an extent. The character’s experiences never directly parallel what Passalugo experiences.
“I’ve had people that know me pretty well say that they hear a lot of my voice in Jacey,” she said. “[But] nothing I have her doing has happened to me.”
Passalugo admitted there’s one undeniable connection between she and Jacey, though.
“Actually, the university the main character goes to is a small, private university,” she said. “But, in my head, it was St. Bonaventure.”
The creation of the novel’s characters wasn’t the only thing that came naturally for Passalugo, too. She added that the actual plot behind the piece came unexpectedly.
“A lot of the book very much wrote itself,” she said. “…There’s certain things I wrote and gasped out loud because I didn’t realize that was going to happen until it was out.”
Granted, Passalugo added that the fluidity of her writing came about in spurts.
“When I was on and the characters had something to say, it was fluid,” she said. “There were some things that would pop into my head and I’d put some pages in between… A lot of it was piecing it together.”
Passalugo said the paperback work is “definitely a love story.” She added that “it’s also a coming-of-age story.”
Both Jacey, 19, and Liam, 21, are star-crossed lovers, having met in an Australian bar while Jacey, an American, was studying abroad in Australia. Liam, a native to the country, meets Jacey at a bar just two days before she leaves to return home and, so, their relationship undergoes a 10-year hiatus.
“It goes back-and-forth between that time and present time,” Passalugo said.
Inevitably, she added, the two are brought together a decade later and, so, the book focuses on the pair’s attempts to rekindle their long-lost relationship.
According to Passalugo, anyone can take something away from the piece, especially those ages 18 to 25—the same age she was as an undergraduate at the university.
Those years played a major part in her understanding of the craft, added Passalugo, who earned a degree in journalism and mass communication at the university.
While an undergraduate, Passalugo added that she was involved with both The Bona Venture and the First-Year Experience newsletter.
And, so, she said that having her book featured in the university bookstore has a sentimental feel to it.
“To me, it’s cooler than being in Barnes & Noble,” she said.
“Stay Under the Stars” is also available on amazon.com, as well as a number of Barnes & Noble locations in the Rochester area.
mcgurllt14@bonaventure.edu
