Kate Maruyama ’09 (Los Angeles, MFA) is featured on the Los Angeles Public Library blog about her new novel, Alterations.
In the article, Maruyama shares her inspiration, influences, and process for writing the novel. Alterations is about a seamstress who works for Edith Head at Paramount Pictures and secretly falls in love with a bit player named Rose. As her career rises, personal choices reverberate through generations. In 1998, Adriana’s granddaughter, Laura, reeling from heartbreak and a failed career, moves in with her in Baltimore, alongside Lizzie, the 13-year-old daughter of Laura’s late cousin. As the three women confront grief and the weight of the past, their intertwined lives reveal how family shapes identity across time.
Maruyama is the author of The Collective (Writ Large Press, 2023), Bleak Houses (RDS Press), Halloween Beyond A Gentleman’s Suit (Crystal Lake Publishing), and Harrowgate (47North). Her novella Family Solstice (Omnium Gatherum) was named Best Fiction Book of 2021 by Rue Morgue Magazine.
