I remember reading You Know When the Men Are Gone and thinking, “Dang, this Siobhan Fallon person nailed it.”

Back then, I didn’t know who Siobhan was beyond being a military spouse and author, but the way she wrote that short story collection about life at Fort Hood (fictionalized, of course) was fresh yet familiar.

I recognized her characters in the people I had called neighbors at previous military bases.

I felt the gut punch of her themes in a way only a military spouse can.

Her book was not only brilliant but brave, flying high in the mainstream literary scene and earning her blurbs by literary heavyweights like Dani Shapiro and Jean Kwok, as well as praise from The New York Times, The Washington Post, Entertainment Weekly, and People Magazine.

What I didn’t know then was that Siobhan and I had more in common than simply being military spouses—we shared a specific military lifestyle, one where we followed our husbands to far-flung embassy postings.

Of course, this all became abundantly clear when her debut novel The Confusion of Languages published in 2017, a nail-bitter that brought everyday readers into the world of two military spouses stationed at a U.S. embassy in the Middle East.

“This is our world! Siobhan wrote about our world!”

I told my husband and proceeded to push Confusion into the hand of every friend and family member that asked me about the life I was living.

Someone was bringing our stories to life, bringing our lifestyle to the masses.

I wanted to shout it from the rooftops.

And I am honored to say that in the years that followed, Siobhan and I have become friends.

Siobhan, who grew up just outside the gates of West Point and married an Army officer, is a force of nature but also one of the kindest people you will meet.

She’s lived around the world and finds beauty everywhere she goes. When she’s not working on her own writing, she’s an outspoken champion of military storytellers, cheering them on from the sidelines and pressing their books into readers’ hands.

When I built up the nerve to ask her to blurb my own memoir, she didn’t hesitate, because that’s what she does, she lifts others up.

Siobhan is the type of person you want to have in your corner. 

These days she is hard at work on her next novel, a fictionalized look at Libby Custer, the widow of General George Custer, and her fight to clear her husband’s name and reputation after being branded a coward in the wake of the Battle of the Little Big Horn. 

And I can assure you, when it’s ready, I will be one of the first in line to read it.

Until that time, you can see some of her research and learn more about it on Siobhan’s You Tube Channel.

Siobhan, why do you write?

It’s some crazy human tick. Why do people play music or sing or doodle on old envelopes? We have some unknowable urge to be more than ourselves, more than our fragile bones and flesh and hunger. We long for a connection to God. A desire for magic.

Creation of any kind is a powerful thing. Whatever this act of creation may be, my advice is to embrace it.

Do the thing that makes you soar. Do the thing that transcends sadness and road rage and all the overwhelming moments that happen each day.

Find your passion. Indulge it. Make something. Anything.

It feels good to work hard and accomplish something, no matter how small. To prove to yourself that you are more. For me it’s storytelling. It’s how I figure things out and learn about other people, about history, about human interaction.

And about myself. And yet it exists outside of me. It is better than me. And hopefully lasts longer.

When did you start writing?

When I was a kid, I was always making up little stories and tiny, stapled-together books. It made me happy, getting a story out of my head and putting it down on the page, even if I never shared it with anyone.

Writers are usually bookworms, so I have to ask: What book made you a reader?

All of them! I remember my mom reading me the book Stone Soup when I was a little kid.

How a traveler who has nothing to eat and starts to boil a stone in a pot of water, and slowly people come around and drop something in the pot—an onion, a carrot, a potato.

Alone there was nothing but together there was a feast they could all share. I could understand that story, that the simple tale was actually a life lesson, and I loved it.

Also, The Velveteen Rabbit. Scarred me for LIFE.

God, did I cry my little-girl eyes out! Right now, I can feel this constraint in my chest and tears in my eyes just thinking about it. I blame that book for all the sad stories I write today.

But grief is lasting, right? Like scars on the body, grief makes its mark on you. I read a lot of stories with happy endings, but I have forgotten them today. Yet The Velveteen Rabbit stays with me.

What book made you a writer?

Stephen R. Donaldson’s The Mirror of Her Dreams was a tremendous inspiration. I think I was about fourteen or fifteen when I read it.

I had been writing small things, but that book made me want to write a novel of my own. And the novel I wrote consumed me. It was in my head all the time.

For example, we had relatives that live about 30 minutes away from our house in Highland Falls, New York. We would take the Palisades Highway to get there on holidays. If you don’t know the Palisades Highway, it’s this old highway that has no business being as busy as it is, that snakes through the Hudson Valley and leads to New York City.

It’s narrow and pot-holed and very green. You’d never imagine that New York City is its end destination. Anyway, lots of trees line this highway. I would stare out the window at these trees flashing by and I would have the most vivid visions of scenes from the novel I was writing in my head.

I would fall asleep at night thinking what would happen next.

Ultimately I ended up writing the whole thing down. I printed it out and made a binding for it. Maybe thirty years ago, I spotted it in my mother’s attic. I have no idea where it is now. But the flashes of the book that I would see in that car ride? I still remember those scenes. I think of them every time I am on the Palisades.

Favorite place to write?

My office. I feel a sense of peace descend upon me whenever I walk into the room and see all my books. I’m so lucky to have this space as my own. To have all of my research materials at my fingertips.

Favorite time of day to write? 

When the children are at school. Really anytime I have the house to myself. And silence!

Favorite part of the writing process?

Writing something new. That rush of creativity is the best feeling in the world.

Favorite book about writing?

I’m a fan of Stephen King’s On Writing. I had sort of an ambivalent feeling for Stephen King growing up.

I’d read his novels, but only the beginnings. Man, that guy can set up a book. And he puts hooks in the reader like nobody else. But when things made the jump into the fantastical, I would sort of lose interest. 

But his advice about writing is phenomenal. That fusion of practical advice with anecdotes from his own life is terrific.

Favorite drink while writing?

Coffee. Full stop.

While writing, music or no music?

Nothing. Silence. Sometimes if there is construction going on next door, or loud music, or a dog that won’t stop barking in the neighborhood, I put on background noise from an app on my phone.

There’s one called “Zen” that I like and it centers me back at my desk instead of floating and listening to what’s going on around me. 

Best feedback you’ve received about your writing?

Hmmm. Well, I have been very lucky and received some incredible reviews (Janet Maslin for The New York Times, Lily Burana for The Washington Post, etc).

But the blurb that author Benjamin Percy gave me for my collection of stories, You Know When the Men Are Gone, felt life changing at the time. 

Here is an excerpt:

“There is the war we know—from Hollywood and CNN, about dirt-smeared soldiers… kicking down the doors of terrorist hideouts—then there is the battleground at home depicted by breakout author Siobhan Fallon… her sentences popping like small arms fire, her stories scaring a gasp out of you like tracer rounds burning in the night sky over your hometown.” 

How awesome is that? At the time, I didn’t know what sort of reception I would receive, or how readers would view me.

There are lots of categories of writers out there. Would my book be “chick lit”? Would I be a “woman fiction writer”? Military spouse writer?

Ben Percy’s blurb made me think I was a writer, plain and simple. And a good one. I can’t ever thank him enough for that gift. 

What piece of advice would you give to aspiring writers?

Write. Write often. Write as much as you can, whenever you can. Try to dip into your work every single day to keep your mind in the world you have created.

Take notes. All those actions of writing—typing, pen and paper, pencil on grocery list—all of it is exercise. And like any exercise, it will make you faster, fitter, better.

Don’t complain about not having enough time. No one has enough time. Just write.

Finally, what is your favorite military spouse-authored book?

Ouch, Julie, how are you making me choose a favorite? I’ll go with something I read rather recently and still think about often—Andria William’s latest novel, The Waiting World.

It’s this slim little book with a mysterious cover, all pink and sweet looking. But boy does it have bite. And the language!!!! Now, I know Andria is a great writer. But the writing in this novel is brilliant.

It’s the kind of writing that makes you gasp and reach for a pencil so you can underline a phrase in order to reread it later.

But if I marked up the book every time I gasped, her whole novel would be covered in lines. 

*You can follow Siobhan and her work online at Instagram (@siobhanfallonwriter) and Facebook (@SiobhanFallonAuthor). Her books, You Know When the Men Are Gone and The Confusion of Languages are available wherever books are sold. You can also check out her YouTube Channel.

*To read more of Julie’s Interviews, visit her at Tully Talks Storytelling.