3Ws – Cristina Alger

What do you create?

I’m a novelist and a mother of two small children, so I am always creating. Novels, sandbox castles, pillow forts, puppet shows, ice cream sundaes, finger-painting projects … not necessarily in that order.

Why do you create?

To understand the world around me. Writing is cheaper than therapy and I think it’s a lot more fun. My first novel, THE DARLINGS, was a thriller set in New York during the 2008 financial crisis. I started working on it right after Lehman Brothers collapsed. It was such a stressful time to work in finance (I was a corporate attorney at a large New York firm at the time). Friends were getting laid off right and left; big banks were imploding; local stores were closing; the city felt fraught with tension. Writing THE DARLINGS was my way of processing all of it. My second novel, THIS WAS NOT THE PLAN, is a comedy about a workaholic single dad who gets laid off from his job at a law firm and is forced to spend the summer at home with his five year old son. I wrote it shortly after having my daughter. I was struggling to find some semblance of balance between my professional life and parenthood, and this book was my way of working through that.

What do you consume?

Coffee. So much coffee. It’s a rare, sad day when I don’t eat ice cream (Talenti Mediterranean Mint Chip is my current favorite). And I read as much as I can. This has been such a wonderful year for books. Recently, I’ve loved: BEHOLD THE DREAMERS (Imbolo Mbue), CRUEL, BEAUTIFUL WORLD (Caroline Leavitt), A GENTLEMAN IN MOSCOW (Amor Towles), and UNDER THE HARROW (Flynn Barrow). My nightstand is overflowing!