Tell us about your upcoming book.

Like Back Roads, Coal Run is set in the coal mining country of western Pennsylvania where I grew up. Thirty years after a mine explosion took the lives of nearly half the men in the small town of Coal Run, the repercussions are still being felt by the residents and particularly by former football hero, Ivan Zoschenko, who lost his father on that fateful day. Returning after almost two decades of a self-imposed exile after a freak accident destroyed his promising professional career, Zoschenko, still known to locals as "The Great Ivan Z," is now a reluctant deputy spending a week seemingly preparing for an old teammate's imminent release from prison.

While he waits, Ivan introduces a rich cast of characters and also reveals himself to be a man whose conscience is burdened by a long-held and shocking secret that he must finally reckon with if he has any hopes of being able to stay. Ivan's struggle to accept the love he feels for a place he blames for his failures will ultimately determine if he will stay or go. His search for a new identity within his old world mirrors the region's search for a new purpose after the loss of the mining industry. The results may enable him to finally forgive the people who he believes ruined him with their adoration and to finally forgive himself for a mistake he made a long time ago. Filled with the same kind of energy, intriguing characters, and unflinching honesty that made Back Roads a success, Coal Run is another example of my attempt to find the humor and humanity in the bleakest situations and to portray a place and a way of life with authenticity and also compassion. I think it's an absorbing novel that advances on, even transcends, the promise of Back Roads.

Do you have a writing schedule?

When my children were very young, I had to write whenever I could steal a moment and I also did a lot of writing at night after they were asleep. Now I'm happy to say I have a much more regular and tolerable schedule. I write everyday while they're in school. They walk out the front door, and I go straight to the computer. Now that they're older (twelve and nine) they have friends and homework and after school activities so I can usually continue to write until I quit to make dinner. Depending on how well I'm writing, sometimes I'll work in the evenings too.

What is your favorite part of the job?

When I go back and read something I just finished writing, and I think it's good.

What's the most important lesson you've learned as a writer?

Never give up on your dream. Talent is a necessity but only part of what goes into making a successful writer. Perseverance is all-important. If you don't have the desire and the belief in yourself to keep trying after you've been told you should quit, you'll never make it.

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Jen Minar is a Washington, D.C.-based freelance writer and the managing editor of Writer's Break. She can be contacted at jminar@writersbreak.com.