Sarah Tomlinson, PEN America member since 2018, is a Los Angeles-based writer with more than 20 years of experience as a journalist, music critic, writer, ghostwriter, and editor. Last year, her debut novel, The Last Days of the Midnight Ramblers, brought together these passions in a thriller set in the glitzy—and sometimes dangerous—world of rock and roll. (Bookshop)
Tomlinson sat down with our Los Angeles Events and Operations Coordinator, Ayana O’Brien, to discuss the impact of losing her home to the recent wildfires, finding Mari’s voice and her own, and what it means to be a writer in Los Angeles at this moment.
Take a look at PEN America resources for those impacted by the 2025 Los Angeles wildfires >>
In your novel, you mention how the best stories “really begin” in the middle of the story. So I want to start in the middle of your story– you’ve been a music critic and ghostwriter for years. How did you make the decision that it was time to pen your own tale?
I always wanted to be a fiction writer. I was lucky enough to go to a wonderful early college called Simon’s Rock (part of Bard College), so I took my first fiction workshop when I was 16 and was completely smitten. I went to journalism school and was able to start freelancing for The Boston Globe through an internship program. They had a real principle of mentorship at the Globe at that time, so it was very easy for me to meet editors. I actually started out as a food writer, but I was in my 20s – I was living in an apartment with friends and only had three working burners on my stove. My writing career has sort of been jumping from one melting iceberg to another, and I’ve been lucky enough to keep landing on icebergs that still have some life in them. The early aughts were a really transformative time in journalism, and during that time I moved out to Los Angeles. Through a friend of a friend, I had the opportunity to get into ghostwriting, which I happened to love as well.
I’m sure getting started and taking on celebrity clients was difficult. The poise you have to be in these spaces– I can’t even imagine.
Right! But that’s material as well– if everything was easy and seamless, what would we write about?
Exactly.
As for writing my own novel, I had the opportunity to work with a really wonderful literary agent named Kirby Kim who was representing me for the ghost writing projects I was working on, and he said to me one day when I was visiting him in New York that I should write a thriller about a ghost writer. He told me I had all this interesting experience, and it’s sort of a closed world, in that most people maybe don’t even know it exists, or don’t really understand how you do it. It took me a couple of years to really think about what my book would be and to make the decision to start it– but I really owe Kirby the credit for seeing that it was a great idea.
In thinking about voice and identity in your novel, I think it’s no surprise that in this moment it’s so important to tell stories where women feel empowered, in control of their own narratives. So much of this story is about its female characters– how they survive and who gets to tell their story. I wonder if you have any thoughts on this moment, and on writing so the reader sees the women in this story.
It’s about this idea of giving voice to people who don’t normally get to be in the spotlight—so in this case, it’s the women who are around famous men. We’re used to hearing the stories of the rock stars, the men at the center of the story, but we’re not used to hearing the stories of the women who were their wives, or their children, or around them in that world. I was interested in thinking about the people who haven’t traditionally been given a voice, and the fact that they’ve been there the whole time. They’ve been witnessing everything, and sometimes they actually have more perspective because of what it has taken for them to survive in that environment.
A major component of the book is Mari interviewing first Anke, who’s her client but who was also the companion of several members of the band The Midnight Ramblers– and then to have her move to interviewing Dante, who was in the band. I had a lot of fun thinking about what Mari is getting from Anke and how it is different from what she’s getting from Dante. Playing around with their differing perspectives, their differing experiences, and having a little bit of tension there, which is also narrative tension.
I was interested in thinking about the people who haven’t traditionally been given a voice, and the fact that they’ve been there the whole time. They’ve been witnessing everything, and sometimes they actually have more perspective because of what it has taken for them to survive in that environment.
Women are often these “peripheral eyes,” so to speak. A lot of the work that we do here at PEN deals with these issues of who gets to be “seen” or “heard” in literature, on film, in policy, and more. How did you think about shaping these characters so they went beyond these peripheral figures?
First, in some ways it gives you an advantage when you choose a specific world– in this case entertainment. It’s a world that has its own rules, so in thinking about women in this world in particular, I thought about how women see themselves and how they’re seen. How do they get power? In this 60s/70s world of rock and roll, I realized that a lot of women get power because they’re beautiful or they’re smart. If your power is your beauty, like Anke– how does that make you feel? Is that real power, and what happens as you get older?
Whereas Mari feels she’s constantly in danger of falling out of the job, falling out of the world. She admires [the band’s manager] Sigrid for surviving by her wits, but she also has some concern because there are some dangers to that path. These characters inform each other and push on each other. The Midnight Ramblers are a fictional band, somewhat loosely based on the Rolling Stones who had some of the most interesting girlfriends and wives in popular culture– talk about someone who is in the shadows and yet saw everything and had such astute observations about the main players.
Your story is an interesting window into this space we aren’t typically in and does a great job of humanizing people (celebrities) who aren’t typically afforded that. Like the Ramblers, they’re often seen as larger than life. I’m curious about how you found balance between telling the story of these rock ‘n’ roll characters, while also recognizing that this was, at the end of the day, Mari’s story.
I was basing Mari on myself, so that helped, but I knew she needed to grow as a character. The opening scene at the Polo Lounge is actually based on a meeting that I went to in early 2011, so in some ways it was fun to go back and think about where I was at that point in my life. I was almost a character because I was remembering how I felt and what I did know and what I didn’t know yet. What I was still yet to learn as a ghost writer and a person. And then, of course, I had to give Mari some flaws that I didn’t have, so there’s a few morally questionable things that she does, and moments where you want to say, “No, Mari, don’t do that!”
Mari is specifically based on me in another aspect which is that, as I’ve written about publicly in my memoir, I’m the daughter of a father who was an addict. Part of what I think made me a good ghost writer and made me good at sort of reading the room was learning how to be close to people who sometimes are sort of larger than life, as that was my childhood with my dad. I wrote that into Mari’s character as well, but I don’t think it’s necessary to be a ghost writer. Still, if I had been writing Mari as a completely fictional character with no basis in my own life, I would have needed to come up with some of those elements to answer the question of why is she so good at this job, and what are the gifts she has that she brings to ghost writing, and to solving the mystery that she has to solve. Plus, what are the vulnerabilities or the blind spots that come along with that, and how can she grow as a character. I did want her to have a happy ending, and I believe that she does, but it’s sort of a quiet happy ending that has to do with her growth as a person, as much as it does her succeeding in the industry.
I have learned a lot from being a ghostwriter, I mean, one thing is that you have to produce so much at a level that is publishable, that you get over any preciousness you have about writing, any writer’s block you might have, any idea of waiting for inspiration to strike. You just have to write.
The Last Days is steeped in Los Angeles: from the Trader Joes, to the Palm Springs and Joshua Tree getaways, to the old school music soul and rock ‘n’ roll of the city. How did you approach the city and its secrets when writing your novel?
Well, one thing that really helped is that I just love Los Angeles. When I came to Los Angeles, I fell in love with it like you fall in love with a person. I found it so fabulous and exciting– plus it was a great place to be a young writer. I think maybe because there’s not so much of an idea of what it means to be a Los Angeles writer as there is perhaps a New York writer. There’s a lot of freedom to explore your creativity. As for the book, there is a particular history of rock and roll in Los Angeles that is a part of pop culture history. Even Joshua Tree and Palm Springs have their own unique histories and mythology, partly related to popular culture or even famous people wanting to go to the desert to have a little bit of privacy, so I was really interested in what secrets the desert hides.
How has your experience ghostwriting been different from writing your own novel? Your experiences, your process? Lessons learned?
Actually, the original title for the book was “How to be a Ghost,” and at the beginning of each chapter, there’s a little lesson about ghostwriting, which is meant to be from Mari’s point of view. I always knew that that was going to be a component of the book, and then my wonderful editor, Zack Wagman, challenged me to have a lesson at the beginning of every chapter; it really forced me to to dig deeper, and to think about my experience as a ghostwriter, and what I had learned from it, in terms of succeeding within the world but also the type of life I want to live.
The moment that came very late in the writing was the prologue to the book—I was thinking about Mari’s experience, and realized that she loves her clients. She feels this love for them, and I had loved all of my clients, too. Ghostwriting is such an incredible service job; it’s such an incredibly intimate thing to do with someone, no matter how vulnerable their book is.
I have learned a lot from being a ghostwriter, I mean, one thing is that you have to produce so much at a level that is publishable, that you get over any preciousness you have about writing, any writer’s block you might have, any idea of waiting for inspiration to strike. You just have to write.
My first book that was a New York Times bestseller– we had six weeks to write the book. Another writer had fallen off the job at the last minute. There was a particular deadline they really wanted to hit for publication, and I did all my own transcription… we didn’t quite hit the six week mark, but we did a complete draft in eight weeks.
Just like Mari, I was striving to prove myself. But once you’ve done something like that, you gain so much confidence, not just as a writer, but as a storyteller. You start to see what the through line of the story is, who the character is, where they come out at the end. Doing it so many times has really helped my own writing.
Plus, even very famous people that I’ve worked with have sometimes wondered about their own right to tell their story. I think sometimes we assume that anyone who’s been in the spotlight is automatically feeling validated, but our secrets can always be vulnerable. So, especially when I was writing my memoir, and for this book as well, I could lean on the people I had seen fight their own doubts to say “I have something to say, and my story matters.” Seeing people act with courage in these private moments and come through to completion with a book that they felt so proud of was a great lesson for me and gave me a lot of courage in my own writing.
As you wrote in your book, ‘If you are this courageous in your life, you can be this courageous on the page.’ This current moment in free expression, let alone the start to this year, hasn’t been easy. For anyone living in Los Angeles, the wildfires have shaken our communities to the core. Literary community always seems to bounce back, though, and to rally together in times like these. How have you been taking care of yourself and your writing practice in the midst of these times?
This has been one of the most difficult and complicated moments in my life as a writer. I lost my home in the Eaton fire. I lost all of my archives– my journalism clips, my journals from when I was a teenager and throughout my life, my early drafts of things, my hard drive. I haven’t really had the heart yet to fully explore what has been lost. Now, I’ve been sort of asking myself what is a writer without her archives? Without the history of how she got here?
Thankfully, I’m far enough into my career that I can walk into book stores and find Ramblers and books that I’ve ghost written on the shelves. I’m really lucky because that’s an easy way to say “I’m a writer,” but I think I have also been striving to just be a writer. To think about what I have to say. For me, writing is about trying to express my experience of being a human and connect with other people around their experience of being a human, and I don’t need my archives to do that. I think when we go through grief and loss, it takes off some of our protective layers. That can be very uncomfortable, but it’s also a beautiful experience for an artist because it allows you to get closer to the heart of the matter. And I have to say, the Los Angeles writing community, my family, and friends have been incredibly supportive. So rather than feeling estranged from the city because this difficult thing happened to me here, I feel even more passionate about it– this is my home.
I think collectively we’re in a very tender moment. A lot of people are wondering whether there is a place for them, and whether it’s safe, and always our storytelling and our ability to connect with our humanity through story is incredibly important. It’s something I continue to value.
Part of why I went to New Year New Books LA was because I was feeling vulnerable; it’s hard to talk about everything I’ve been going through, but I knew I would be met with open arms. Being in community is trusting that you can show up on a day when you’re feeling vulnerable, and that deepens those relationships.
Los Angeles as a community never fails to disappoint. And you’ve got a paperback release soon, as well as a celebration at Stories Books on February 25th. Congratulations! Any last thoughts?
Well, at the time of the fire, I was about 2 weeks from finishing my draft of the second book I’ve sold, called Occupancy, and I must say that it has felt really good to get back to work. It reminds me of the power of writing and storytelling as a lifeline out of confusing and difficult times.
About The Last Days of The Midnight Ramblers
Three Rock and Roll icons. Two explosive tell-all memoirs. One ghostwriter caught in the middle.
Anke Berben is ready to tell all. A legendary model and style icon, she reveled in headline-grabbing romances with not one but three members of the hugely influential rock band the Midnight Ramblers. The band members were as famous for their backstage drama as for their music, and Anke is the only one who fully understands the tangled relationships, betrayals, and suspicions that have added to the Ramblers’ enduring appeal and mystique. That is most evident in the mystery around Anke’s role in the death of Mal, the band’s founder and Anke’s husband, in 1969.
When Mari Hawthorn accepts the job to work with Anke on her memoir, she is determined to get to the truth of Mal’s death. She has always been deft at navigating the fatal charms of celebrities, having grown up with a narcissistic, alcoholic father. As she ingratiates herself into the world of the band, she grows enchanted, against her better judgment, by these legendary rock stars. But if she gets pulled in too deep, she’ll risk her objectivity and her integrity–and maybe even her life.
Sarah Tomlinson is a Los Angeles-based writer. She has more than 15 years of experience as a journalist, music critic, writer, ghostwriter, and editor. She has ghostwritten or co-written twenty-one books, including the New York Times bestseller, Fast Girl, with Suzy Favor Hamilton, and four uncredited New York Times-bestsellers. Her debut novel, The Last Days of the Midnight Ramblers, was published by Flatiron Books in February 2024, and her sophomore novel will be forthcoming in 2026. Her father-daughter memoir, Good Girl, was published by Gallery Books (Simon and Schuster) in April 2015.
She has long turned her passion for music, literature, and pop culture trends into cutting-edge coverage and cultural criticism. Her personal essays have appeared in publications including Marie Claire, MORE, Salon.com, Publishers Weekly, The Los Angeles Review of Books, and The Huffington Post. Her fiction has appeared on Vol. 1 Brooklyn. Her articles and music reviews have appeared in publications including The Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, Boston magazine, Spin.com, Billboard.com, Alternative Press, Swindle, Preen, Rockpile, The OC Weekly, and The Willamette Week. She wrote a weekly local music column, “Notes,” for The Boston Phoenix. She has written bios for bands on Virgin, Red Ink/Columbia, and MySpace Records and contributed to the electronic press kits for artists on Warner Bros. Records.
