A soft smile spread across lips as eyes, smiling too, squinted in knowing. An intimate relationship exists between an author and the characters he or she writes into being. Imagination meets research, past experience, desires and noted traits as personas spring from pages into a reader’s inner monologue. Acting as creator, the author knows his characters better than anyone else, as they act out parts of him, stumble into behaviors and dive, head first, into uncharted waters.

Whether extensions of some self or explorations in what-ifs, Author Frank Tuner Hollon certainly knows “Austin and Emily” best of all. He addressed a full house during Page & Palette’s Read It & Eat series at Tamara’s Downtown in Fairhope.

He explained that Austin, a 347-pound, canned-ham salesman, and Emily, a 23-year-old stripper, find an unlikely romance in his new work of fiction.

“I just wondered what would happen if two people as different as these, fell in love,” he began. “I love details—if I think something’s funny, I put it in a book.”

“Many times I write the funny ones as short stories when I’m in the middle of a serious book, because I’m getting depressed.

While exploring a variety of characters and themes, he e admits that keeping himself in mind, helps keep his work honest.

“When you start worrying about what people will think, who will like it and who will buy it, you stop writing with any real purity or originality—which for me is pretty lost,” he divulged. “We all find time to do what’s important to us; each time a write a book that won’t get published, it sets me up to write other ones that will.”

He said that the publishing process is its own animal because of the often, inevitable editing process.

“The first couple of times, it’s a really humbling experience,” he recalled. “You put the ego aside because you can learn some things from a really good editor.”

He went on to explain that, “If you fall into the trap of believing the good reviews, you have to believe the bad ones,” he chuckled. “But the fun part is the day the book shows up at your door.”

“It takes 2 to 3 years to get the book, after 1 year to write it. Then, you can see it, hold it, smell it. You see somebody reading it an airport and you walk past them, then you walk past them again, then you walk past them again.”

For more on the Read It & Eat series or to order a copy of “Austin and Emily,” visit pageandpalette.com.