The Last Boat—Beginnings, Weather, and Farewell

Clara Wren

Alright, Vincent, let’s set the scene—take us right back to the first image or moment that wouldn’t let you go when you started The Last Boat.

D. Vincent Delorenzo

Strangely enough, it was... it was an empty slip after this pretty vicious storm—a real row of boats gone, just one stubborn coil of rope left dangling where something used to be tied up. It just stuck with me, you know? That sense that a place remembers what left it, especially when everything else has gone.

Clara Wren

That’s such a vivid picture—the rope, the shape of absence. Was that always a departure in your mind, or did it, I dunno, wiggle about a bit during the drafting?

D. Vincent Delorenzo

Oh, it wiggled—a lot. My first draft... well, I fell into the old trap of explaining everything. The character practically gave a TED Talk about why he was leaving! I kept telling the reader what to feel instead of letting the harbor—like, the objects—the rope, the old ticket stub wedged under a plank, the wake of the ferry—do that work. Eventually, I realized I needed to sort of pull the camera back and trust the details to speak for themselves.

Clara Wren

We keep coming back to that “let the objects work for you” idea. I think we actually talked about that—was it the Ashes in the Rain episode? Let ordinary things bear the emotion, right?

D. Vincent Delorenzo

Yeah—and, for me, it’s almost always something in the world with texture—like how the slip after a storm feels loaded, or how a stubborn rope can mean more than dialogue ever will.

Clara Wren

And that threshold space—the title itself hints at the in-between. Is that intentional, you always circling those moments where someone’s just about to go?

D. Vincent Delorenzo

Absolutely. I realized every story I write is, in one way or another, about thresholds—the moment that’s before the actual leaving. For The Last Boat, the real scene in my mind was the second right before the foot actually lifts off the dock, before anything dramatic. Living here in Southeast Asia, I’d watch ferries leave before sunrise, you know, the island half-asleep, water glassy, some old man smoking and the same coil of rope left behind. That’s where it all started—it was pure image before it was anyone’s story.

Clara Wren

Alright, let’s talk threads. What are, like, a couple of the core ideas holding this book together? I feel like it’s more than just “someone leaves.”

D. Vincent Delorenzo

Yeah—definitely more. I kept circling this idea of duty versus escape, you know? Like, are you leaving because you need freedom, or is it something heavier you owe yourself? And then... repair as prayer. That fixing a thing, even an old boat, can be almost sacred. And another strand—weather as a silent witness. It’s—it’s always there, honest but not invested: tides shifting, storms, or even just a stubborn calm.

Clara Wren

The courage part gets me. It’s not the big cinematic leave-taking, is it? More like the quiet decision to leave clean, not bitter.

D. Vincent Delorenzo

Exactly. It takes a small courage to part ways and not poison your memory of where you’ve been, right? There’s something honest about leaving without ceremony.

Clara Wren

And on the craft side, what did you find yourself reaching for, technique-wise?

D. Vincent Delorenzo

Restraint—always. Short paragraphs, nouns that do heavy lifting, verbs that move. I wanted to leave more off the page than on. Sometimes it meant skipping over time or whole feelings and just trusting the image to hold the weight. My little mantra: if the image is carrying the tone or opinion already, slice the explanation. Otherwise, I’m just crowding out what the weather or the rope or even silence could say better.

Clara Wren

You actually did a lot of literal hands-on repair for this book, didn’t you?

Clara Wren

Let’s dig into that scene you read—the repair moment that’s quietly a farewell. Why does the boat become, like, both object and argument there?

D. Vincent Delorenzo

Because it stands for what words can’t get at. The character’s not making a speech, he’s not, you know, delivering a self-important monologue. He’s just—I might be repeating myself—but he’s making something right, by touch, by fixing. Redemption happens in action, not noise. That’s why the scene feels weighty without anybody saying “goodbye.”

Clara Wren

And the weather—like the tide, or that turning of the season. We talked about this too when we read Ashes in the Rain. The environment does a lot of the emotional work.

D. Vincent Delorenzo

Absolutely. Weather is honest. It can’t lie. When the tide turns, or the season changes, you just know something’s about to shift, even if no one names it. I like to let those honest forces carry the mood, instead of dressing it up in big language. And, yeah, I’ll always cut the “speech”—if the wood’s warm under his hand and the rudder’s finally quiet, there’s nothing else he needs to say.

Clara Wren

Let’s bring in a couple listener questions. I love this one—how do you write departures without melodrama?

D. Vincent Delorenzo

You write the preparations, not the performance. Let the leaving be, well, a fact. One honest image—the way a coil of rope sits, or a ticket disappears into a pocket, or just that brief hand on the rail. That does more than a page of dialogue.

Clara Wren

And balancing clarity and mystery at the end? That’s always tricky—how not to be, like, either totally cryptic or way too tidy?