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Today we have Aline Ohanesian, international bestselling author of Orhan’s Inheritance, on the show! We dive right into the inspiration behind her debut novel and what the research process was like. Aline’s episode will leave you inspired through her personal stories, and ready to take action through career advice like perfecting the query letter and landing a literary agent.
“I had to write this story, even if it meant 5 years of my life going to complete waste.”
What You’ll Learn From This Episode:
- The inspiration behind Orhan’s Inheritance
- What the in-depth research process was like
- How to expertly weave in historical facts into a novel for accuracy
- How Aline crafted her perfect query letter and landed her literary agent
- How she found her writer’s workshop and how it helped her writing
Summary of ‘Orhan’s Inheritance’
When Orhan’s brilliant and eccentric grandfather Kemal—a man who built a dynasty out of making kilim rugs—is found dead, submerged in a vat of dye, Orhan inherits the decades-old business. But Kemal’s will raises more questions than it answers. He has left the family estate to a stranger thousands of miles away, an aging woman in an Armenian retirement home in Los Angeles. Her existence and secrecy about her past only deepen the mystery of why Orhan’s grandfather willed his home in Turkey to an unknown woman rather than to his own son or grandson.
Left with only Kemal’s ancient sketchbook and intent on righting this injustice, Orhan boards a plane to Los Angeles. There he will not only unearth the story that eighty-seven-year-old Seda so closely guards but discover that Seda’s past now threatens to unravel his future. Her story, if told, has the power to undo the legacy upon which his family has been built.
Moving back and forth in time, between the last years of the Ottoman Empire and the 1990s, Orhan’s Inheritance is a story of passionate love, unspeakable horrors, incredible resilience, and the hidden stories that can haunt a family for generations.
“Figure out what kind of writer you are, then execute that as much as you can.”
Learn More About Author Aline Ohanesian
Aline Ohanesian was born in Kuwait and immigrated to So. Cal at the age of three. After getting her MA in History, she abandoned her PhD studies when she realized her heart belonged to the novel. Her writing was a finalist for the PEN Bellwether Award for Socially Engaged Fiction and the Glimmer Train Best New Writers Award. ‘Orhan’s Inheritance’ is her first novel and has been long listed for the Flannery-Dunnan First Book Award. An international bestseller, it’s has been translated into several languages. Aline is an alumni of the Bread Loaf and Squaw Valley writer’s conferences. She lives and writes in San Juan Capistrano, CA with her husband and two young sons.
Aline’s Recommended Books:
The Anatomy of Story: 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller by John Truby
Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life by Anne Lamott
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