Evann Normandin: No Writing Is Ever Wasted
In this interview, author Evann Normandin discusses how a life-changing letter helped inspire her debut novel, The Good Parts.
Evann Normandin earned her BA in English and Theater from Middlebury College and her MSc in English, with a focus on traumatic memory, from the University of Edinburgh. Her work has been published in Broadway World, Rewire News, Slush Magazine, and The Journal of Compressed Creative Arts. Evann lives outside Boston with her son and husband. Follow her on Instagram.
In this interview, Evann discusses how a life-changing letter helped inspire her debut novel, The Good Parts, her hope for readers, and more.
Name: Evann Normandin
Literary agent: Michelle Wolfson
Book title: The Good Parts
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Release date: July 28th, 2026
Genre/category: Fiction/Women’s Fiction/Upmarket/Romance/Sci-Fi
Elevator pitch: An epic, unforgettable love story about a woman who takes a memory-erasing pill and the man she once loved who returns as a stranger, hoping to make her fall for him all over again—for fans of One Day and In Five Years.
What prompted you to write this book?
Ten years ago, my husband wrote me a letter that inspired The Good Parts. We met as 18-year-olds and parted ways after college graduation, tearfully acknowledging that the timing was wrong, we’d met too soon, we were headed in different directions—him, to China, me to Scotland. I tried my best to start over: I met new friends, started dating someone nothing like him, and became, in big and small ways, a new version of myself. His letter arrived two months after he’d first sent it, covered in countless stamps and looking like it’d been on the losing side of a wrestling match. His words changed the trajectory of our lives. He wondered how I felt about the idea of choosing each other now, rather than waiting for someone else who fit when the timing was right. He wanted the chance to love every version of me. It was the first time I realized that great love is never a straight line.
I always thought that letter would make a great start to a novel. At 33 I was a new mom, staring down this new version of myself, somewhat amazed at the many discrete versions of me I could now see from this new vantage point. On a bike ride I started thinking, what if I’d never gotten that letter? Who would I be today? Would I carry some of the past with me, or would it feel better to forget? They were big questions—questions that made sense to me to explore alongside concepts I’d grappled with in school: how memory defines and redefines us, the profound connection between destruction and creation, and what the body remembers when the mind does not.
There are some parallels to my own love story (only the good parts), which is part of why the writing process was so joyful. It was so fun to mine memories, rearrange and rewrite pieces of them, and give them to Rose and Landon.
How long did it take to go from idea to publication? And did the idea change during the process?
Like so many people who suddenly found themselves with more time on their hands (and without any kids at home to support through virtual learning), I sat down to write my first book during COVID. It got some interest from literary agents, but I ended up putting it in a drawer. My second book—a contemporary myth retelling—landed me an agent, but that one ultimately went into a drawer too. I got the idea for The Good Parts in October 2024 and had a draft I was really proud of by April. When I’m working on a book, I aim for 1,000 words a day minimum, and even though some days it's like pulling teeth, I find that if I’m away from the characters and story too long I waste time getting reacquainted with them and lose momentum. While I’m slowly becoming more of a plotter, and I had a good idea of how The Good Partswould end, so much changed in getting there. At around the 30,000 word mark the characters became real people to me, and what they wanted and needed started to shift things. That’s the most exciting part, when the characters start talking to me. The core of The Good Parts never changed, but so many characters and scenes I couldn’t have seen coming ended up in the final version.
The road to publication with The Good Parts was a whirlwind. My rockstar agent Michelle Wolfson sent it out and within weeks it was scooped up at auction by Nicole Luongo at Grand Central Publishing. Because I had two books in a drawer, I’d kept my expectations for submission very low. The night before the auction my husband and I were up at three in the morning too excited and nervous to sleep. We didn’t say it out loud at the time, but I think we couldn’t sleep because we knew in the morning our lives would change. And they did. Every aspect of working with Nicole and the team at Grand Central has been a dream. Nicole in particular is so sharp and made this book immeasurably better. She and I share a love of Vermont and Broadway musicals—she immediately and correctly identified that The Good Parts’ narrative structure was inspired by Jason Robert Brown’s musical The Last Five Years!
Were there any surprises or learning moments in the publishing process for this title?
The cover design process has been perhaps the most surprising and exciting! I’ve adored every one of the three different versions (fairly fitting for this book, actually) designed by the incredibly talented Albert Tang. So many people have to sign off and weigh in on the cover, including the Sales team and sometimes even retailers like Barnes and Noble. I love the cover we finally landed on—it’s so atmospheric and romantic, and hints at both the hope and heartbreak you’ll find between the covers. And I love having the old galleys so that I can always remember the covers that could have been. But I didn’t realize that even a “final” cover can head back to the drawing board.
I’ve also learned a lot about foreign markets. As I write this, The Good Parts has sold in 17 foreign territories thanks to my incredible foreign agent Taryn Fagerness and her fabulous team. Getting letters and PowerPoints from editors around the world about how The Good Parts resonated with them and the ways they felt the book would resonate with their readers was such a highlight of this journey. I’ve learned that there are different covers, titles, and taglines that do better in different markets. For example, my German publisher Penguin Random House Verlagsgruppe changed the title to Enough for Half a Life (Genug für ein halbes Leben) because in German “parts” takes on a technical connotation. The Dutch publisher changed the title to The Best of Us. I love that both titles still position the book as having a great love story at the center, but also push beyond that, hinting that there’s something under the surface that will surprise you.
Were there any surprises in the writing process for this book?
I wasn’t sure how I would tackle the dual-timeline, dual-POV structure, but I knew both characters needed to have distinct and coherent narrative arcs. I toyed with the idea of writing each POV separately and merging them together in edits but found myself loving jumping between Rose and Landon and finding ways for the present to echo in the past, and vice versa.
What do you hope readers will get out of your book?
I’m really excited for readers to share how the story affected them. The beautiful, terrifying thing about art is that once it’s out in the world it no longer belongs to you. I hope I hear from at least some people that even if parts of the book made them sad or touched on old wounds, they walked away with this idea that hope will naturally fill voids if we create space for it. And I hope people have strong opinions and questions they want to talk about with others.
If you could share one piece of advice with other writers, what would it be?
No writing is ever wasted. I’ve put scenes, chapters, entire novels in drawers, but every bit of that writing made me better, even if it (thus far) has not seen the light of day.
