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wow that is so fun and cute. i especially like the captain's name :)
I felt bad that I had done a pirate then found out you were planning on doing a pirate too, but they turned out so different from each other anyway :)

Thanks, Riley thinks your pirate is cool too. (= He had the idea of walking the plank - he wanted to do a Tick Tock in the water too but we ran out of time.

That's great. Good Luck!

Andrew, I intend to read the book. It sounds very interesting. Thanks for the link.

Barb

I am very eager to read your book. Your explanation of how you formed your characters in "First Person Plural" is very intriguing and makes me think about life in more of an in-depth way. Thank you for guest-blogging.

Karen

What sounds like a bizare concept now seems like a lovely homage to the struggles we all face in discovering our true identities. Plus, what a wonderful author's photo!

Billy-Bob

So many questions, but I'll only give you two. Did you speak to any conjoined twins during the course of your research? And how did you choose their names. (I quite like their names).

Stephanie,

The twins were actually named for a couple I know, but the choice turned out to be quite providential. As the characters developed, it became clear that to some extent Porter "carried" Owen, much the way a railroad porter carries luggage (because Porter really took "ownership" of the body in ways Owen did not). And Owen sounds a bit like "owe," as if he "owed" his life to Porter. Their last name, Jamison, came as a result of thinking about Janus, the two-headed god. Owen and Porter were Janus's "sons," so to speak, thus Janus's son became Jamison. I had thought of using Janson or something similar, but Jamison worked best for me.

Although I did extensive research for the book, I never actually spoke to conjoined twins. These books were among the most helpful:

The Two-Headed Boy and Other Medical Marvels, by Jan Bondeson, Cornell University Press, 2000.

Psychological Profiles of Conjoined Twins: Heredity, Environment, and Identity, by J. David Smith, Praeger, 1988

Extraordinary Bodies: Figuring Physical Disability in American Culture and Literature, by Rosemarie Garland Thomson, Columbia University Press, 1997.

One of Us: Conjoined Twins and the Future of Normal, by Alice Domurat Dreger, Harvard University Press, 2004.

Twins: And What They Tell Us About Who We Are, by Lawrence Wright, John Wiley & Sons, 1999.

Entwined Lives: Twins and What They Tell Us About Human Behavior, by Nancy L. Segal, Plume, 2000.

Also there were a couple of very interesting Discovery Channel programs about Abigail and Brittany Hensel and Lori and Dori (Reba) Schappell that helped.

Thanks for your interest.

Andrew Beierle