The 193-page book took Lisa Dunphy three and

a half years to write.
By Seth Golden
Special to the Sun Journal

DURHAM – Lisa Dunphy hopes her debut novel will sell with the punch of another author who attended her alma mater.

Both she and Stephen King went to Lisbon High School. King has gained worldwide fame as a horror novelist, and now Dunphy’s first novel has been published.

“I’m ecstatic,” Dunphy said. “I really didn’t think it was going to happen.”

The novel, “To Share One Soul,” centers on 33-year-old Nadine Greer who goes from rural Georgia to the big city in an attempt to escape and forget a haunting past. Once she forgets that past, though, Greer has to return to her old home. The figurative worm turns in her mind, and her impossible past rears its head.

“She has completely forgotten what had happened,” Dunphy said. “It starts coming back to her.”

During all of this, Stewart Callahan, Nadine’s boyfriend, becomes more and more jealous of the life Nadine once lived without him. In his jealousy, Stewart commits an unspeakable act in the name of love. As dark secrets emerge, the fate of the couple looks uncertain.

The 193-page novel took Dunphy three and a half years to write and was published by PublishAmerica. “It’s not a typical big company,” she said.

The 31-year old Dunphy said she took a look at traditional publishers but found they all would only deal with agents.

“When I was first starting out I was very discouraged,” she said, adding that she lacked the confidence to pursue a bigger company.

She also looked into self-publishing but that did not appeal. But one day she found PublishAmerica online after reading about it off-line. It appealed, and she submitted her manuscript. The company accepted and gave her a small advance payment in addition to royalties.

“Otherwise it was just going to sit up on my shelf and collect dust,” she said. “I’m happy getting what I got.”

Now her book will be available at Mr. Paperback in Lewiston where she will sign copies from 11 a.m. to noon on Saturday, Sept. 13. The book will also be available at the PublishAmerica, Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble Web sites.

The novel is Dunphy’s first attempt at fiction. “It gives me an opportunity to express myself,” she said. “Things that I would want to say, or to do, in my own life I can actually project though the characters in my book.”

Dunphy’s process begins with an idea, builds into sketches of characters and burgeons into important scenes which she surveys with her mind’s eye before putting pen to paper and distilling those images.

“I just started right from the beginning and worked through to the end,” Dunphy said. “And it all just sort of fell into place.”

She keeps a notebook for the kernels of ideas that pop in her imagination. While driving, she sometimes pulls over to jot down ideas.

Dunphy has another book coming out soon called “The Truth is Arbitrary.” It is an autobiography. “I find it very therapeutic,” Dunphy said.

Dunphy lives in Durham with her husband, Kevin, and their son, Dalton. The couple expects a second child in November.

Any advice for aspiring writers?

“Stick with it,” Dunphy said. “Definitely don’t give up.” Especially, she said, “if you truly believe in a story and yourself.”