As part of Silicon Valley Reads and other events, author Michelle Richmond will speak about her New York Times bestseller, The Year of the Fog.

Join her Tuesday at 7 p.m. at the Los Altos Library, where her talk and book signing is co-sponsored by the Los Altos Library Endowment and Friends of  the Los Altos Library. Her full tour schedule is listed here.

Los Altos Patch: San Francisco plays an enormous role in the story. Was writing about your current home city a liberating decision, or did you feel like you constantly had to do justice to all your locations?

Michelle Richmond: Both! I wanted to write about San Francisco, because my first two books were written about the South, where I grew up. By the time I started writing Fog, I considered the Bay Area to be my home forever—I can't imagine leaving. So it was liberating to be able to write about the landscape that is so much a part of my life. It's so dramatic and beautiful. I also think the city itself is really interesting—so many nooks and crannies. But I was also aware when I was editing: I have to get this right. I made up the surf shop, but it's in a location where a former shop used to be. A lot of places were ones I actually frequented.

I did have the advantage of my husband having grown up in Burlingame—he works in Palo Alto now—and my dad growing up in Richmond, and my mom in the Outer Sunset. Whenever I had a question, I had them to turn to. And, of course, I could always just wander. I spent a lot of time wandering or driving by a spot to make sure I got it right!

Patch: How much research was involved?

Richmond: I did have to do a lot. I'm not a photographer—I had taken photography classes in college, so the tactile passages that involved dark rooms were written from memory—but my sister, Misty, is a professional photographer. I ran everything past her to make sure I got it right. The surfing I knew nothing about! I've never surfed in my life, so I hung out at Ocean Beach a lot and read books and talked to people. I would be scared to surf—it's dangerous and cold! But the major research I did was all about memory. In terms of reading, most of the books and case studies were about that.

Patch: Is there any significance in choosing Costa Rica as a setting for the climax of the novel?

Richmond: I had been there for a month during the early stages of writing the book. When I went to Costa Rica, I had just sent out Dream of the Blue Room. I was starting to write Year of Fog, which at that time was called Ocean Beach. I was at a writer's colony there, and during my first week got a call from a San Francisco publisher—I had to walk down this hill to get a calling card, then use a payphone! I was very excited. But at the time, I had no intention whatsoever of having Costa Rica in the book. It took me a long time to write Fog—about four years—before my agent sent it out. My wonderful editor at Bantam took a look, and I spent another year revising.

Patch: You have a son in kindergarten; did Abby's suffering ever reflect your own anxiety over losing a child?

Richmond: When I wrote the book, I had nieces, but I had never had a child. Abduction was something that sort of terrified me and fascinated me from an early age. As a kid in Alabama, I remember watching those news stories unfold. When I was 13, I had a scary experience walking past this white van in an abandoned gas station—I took off running and ran into a drugstore crying and called my mother. I lived my adolescence feeling like I had had a very close call.

I felt that one of the worst things you could ever imagine happening would be to lose a child that was in your care, and not know what happened—to have no closure or awareness of where they are or if they're being taken care of, if they're alive. I had an experience when my son was 2, in a massive playground in SF. We were going down a big slide together, and another kid got between us. I ran down the stairs, and he wasn't there. It didn't last for more than five minutes, but I was running around panicking. Another dad saw me and pointed him out—he was just wandering nearby.

If anyone has any paranoia whatsoever about something like that happening, it was probably exacerbated with the book! I think it's a maternal instinct: The first thing you think is that somebody has done something, somebody got my baby.

Patch: What is your favorite place and time to write?

Richmond: I'm a morning person. Before I had my son, I'd write very early. He's 6, so in the last six years, my writing has really changed a lot. School starts at 10 a.m., so I have a four-hour window! I always write at home—I prefer being in my space. I can't handle distractions very well. There was a period of a couple of years where I'd have a babysitter and go write in a cafe, but now I sometimes write in bed, because I can spread all my papers out! It's more comfortable. In a perfect world, I would start at 5 a.m. and write until 10 a.m. Being a novelist is like having a continual deadline imposed by outside factors.

Patch: Is being a writer your only job at the moment, or do you also teach, like most authors?

Richmond: I did teach for quite awhile, but I stopped after Fog came out, when I no longer needed to. I enjoyed teaching creative writing and composition at places like USF, California College of the Arts and St. Mary's. I taught as an adjunct professor and did craft seminars in fiction writing. But after Fog came out in paperback, I had a writing contract I had to fulfill for my next book. Juggling being a mom and finishing on deadline didn't leave time to do any teaching. I will go back to it eventually, even if just one class a year. I like the interaction. Writing alone is very solitary—I enjoy the solitude, to some degree. But I loved the students!

Patch: Who reads your work first?

Richmond: Always my husband! We were just joking the other day how both of us gain weight when I'm finishing a book, because we spend so much time sitting and reading it over, and we don't have as much time to exercise. He reads everything and gives me tons of suggestions for line edits. Then it goes to my editor—she's really intuitive. So is my agent. I have been extraordinarily lucky. I want to keep them both forever. I need them!

Patch: What are you working on now?

Richmond: I've just finished a book—I'm always tinkering until the very last minute, when my editor whips it out of my hands and says I can't do anything else! It's called California Street and will come out fall 2011. It takes place on a single day in San Francisco. Very local. 

No One You Know is probably my best book purely from a craft standpoint. But Year of Fog resonated most strongly with readers. I have an appreciation for it for that reason. It's the book that allowed me to write full time, sort of my “lucky break” book. Writing is such a mysterious process; you never know who or how many people will read your work. I feel grateful that so many people have read it and talked about it. It took more time to write than most of my other books.

Patch: What should readers do if they want to learn more about you?

Richmond: My website has tour dates. And I do twitter! @michellerichmon (no “d” because of character limits). I tweet whenever I'm doing events. I rarely do a private class that I hold in my home, but if so, I'll usually announce it. And when my new book comes out in the fall, I'll be doing a round of signings in the Bay Area.

Patch: Do you have any advice for aspiring writers?

Richmond: Write the book the way you feel it should be written. Don't get too many hands in the pie! Find a couple of readers that you really trust to give you honest, constructive feedback. Just keep at it—it's what everyone says, but it's true. Also, most people who are writing seriously know this already, but when I taught in graduate programs, I wasn't sure every writing student knew this: You should write because you love writing. If you don't feel like you have to write, you're not going to have the internal motivation to do it. It has to be you!

Redmond speaks at 7 p.m., Los Altos Library, 13 S. San Antonio Rd., Los Altos
For information call 650-948-7683