Authors Interviewing Characters: Donna Miscolta

by Donna Miscolta

Ofelia and Norma

Publication date: September 29, 2026

Available for pre-order now.

In community college, large-bodied twin sisters Ofelia and Norma struggle for a sense of self. When Ofelia sheds pounds from long, solo walks, Norma senses their twinness slipping away. She decides to slip away herself to a transfer college out of town, leaving Ofelia for the first time, and each sister confronts alone life as a large person in an anti-large-person world. 

Ofelia, having previously lost weight without trying, now makes a deliberate effort to do so, resulting in disordered eating and a treadmill disaster that shakes her to her senses. She moves out of the family home, leaving their emotionally clumsy and clueless mother Lyla to fend for herself. Meanwhile, Norma escapes into her solitude by swimming laps in the college pool where she suffers an experience that sends her into emotional retreat. Neither sister shares with the other what she has experienced, widening the gulf between them. They move into careers, still estranged, until a tender moment leads to the sharing of their secrets. Ofelia, appalled at what Norma has suffered, vows to help seek revenge.

Donna Miscolta interviews Ofelia and Norma

It’s assumed that a special bond exists between identical twins. Describe the bond that you two shared growing up.

Ofelia: It’s what Norma says in the book. “It was like never having to look in the mirror. Or like constantly looking in the mirror.”

Norma: Yes, and I don’t just mean our physical appearance. I mean the intangible, and I don’t mean the weightless and invisible. I mean the substantially intangible if that makes sense. 

Ofelia: It does to me. 

What do you each admire most about the other? 

Ofelia and Norma together: Her strength!

Ofelia: And we don’t just mean our physical strength.

Norma: Though that’s considerable.

Ofelia: Infused with grace.

Norma: Sometimes hilarity.

Ofelia: And always humility.

What bugs you the most about the other?

Ofelia: The imperfection in Norma’s nose.

Norma: The fact that Ofelia caused that imperfection.

When you were young girls, your cousins gave you cruel nicknames. How did that affect you?

Ofelia: I don’t think we understood them at first as cruel. We had inadvertently performed something funny. We had been laughing at ourselves, at how our twin wires had crossed and we had landed on our butts. This was where pun and amusement entered into our physicality, into our strength and substance, into our humanness. The nicknames Oafie and Abnorma seemed almost like endearments. 

Norma: Later of course, we had to acknowledge that naming someone based on a salient physical feature of a body, especially a female body, can be diminishing.

Ofelia: Though it was hard to diminish us, despite the constant reminders, intentional or not, of our size.

Norma: We are big women, hear us boom.

Ofelia: Those nicknames persisted at some level in our consciousness to sow doubt about our worth, to goad us into often questionable decisions. But at another level they taught us to revel in the distinctive girls we were and the noteworthy women we would become.

How would you describe your relationship with your mother?

Ofelia: As you know, we have for a very long time referred to her and directly addressed her by her first name Lyla. 

Norma: I think it’s because we learned early on that the role she had been born to play was something other than mother. More like…

Ofelia: Movie star.

Norma: Or TV game show celebrity regular.

Ofelia: Don’t get us wrong. We love Lyla.

Norma: She’s the best Lyla anyone could ask for.

While attending separate colleges you each try hard to make a friend to replace the sister no longer in your everyday life. Why did you find it such a difficult undertaking?

Norma: We’d lived in our twin world for so long and despite its limitations and frustrations, we were comfortable in it. We shared so much.

Ofelia: Until one day we didn’t. It was a loss that was like no other. 

Norma: Our mistake was trying to replace a sister with a friend. 

Ofelia: Especially when we were still trying to figure out who we were apart from our twin. 

Norma: We were alone and lonely. And yet…

Ofelia: It was an important stage toward becoming us—as individuals and as reunited sisters.

Swimming pools and the beach play an important role in your story. Can you talk about their significance?

Norma: Vin, our dad, managed an apartment building and we spent many weekends at the apartment pool. We cannonballed and made splendid splashes. 

Ofelia: We felt buoyed by the water. Embraced by it.

Norma: Sometimes it could make you feel like a queen.

Ofelia: Until it led to devastation.

Norma: But it was never the culprit.

Ofelia: And water has always been calming. Which is why we love the beach.

Norma: And leaving footprints in the sand.

Ofelia: Yes, that. Very much that.

Except for Gabe, the men in your story seem to be befuddled, emotionally arrested, or misogynistic. Do you see them as an accurate reflection of society?

Ofelia and Norma: Yes.

I’ve saved this question for last. It’s about bodies and body image. It’s about your bodies that happen to be big and your hearts and minds that are big as well. What served you the most in your separate and united journeys as big women in an often unkind world?

Ofelia: I think you have to remember that our story is our story and that every big woman or girl will have her particular variation on the theme. For us, what helped was having each other. 

Norma: Even when things got tough and we grew distant, the fact of Ofelia’s existence in the world was still a touchstone for me. Even when I didn’t want to be near her, I needed to know that she was there somewhere.

Ofelia: I think that though early on we were aware of our bigness and aware of how others saw us, what we saw when we looked at each other was comfort and reassurance. 

Norma: And love. For each other and ourselves.

Ofelia: Right. 

—

Bio: Donna Miscolta is the author of four books of fiction, the most recent of which is Ofelia and Norma. A recording of her work is part of the Library of Congress PALABRA Archive, a showcase for Latin American and Latino writers. She blogs monthly at donnamiscolta.com about writing, reading, and her life in Spain where she has lived since 2023 after spending most of her adult life in Seattle, Washington.

Find out more about Donna on her website https://donnamiscolta.com/bio/

Tags: featured, women writers

Category: Interviews, On Writing