Author 10 Q&A

Find out more about the authors on tour here… who they are, how they think and what’s next!

 

 

 

Interview - Ellen Meister, author of The Smart One

Who are you?
A Long Island girl who’s always romanticized what it means to be writer.

The Smart One is your second novel, the first being Secret Confessions of the Applewood PTA.  How was the writing/publishing process different this time around?
I wrote Applewood thinking I had only the remotest chance of ever publishing it, while The Smart One was written under contract. In many ways, the first book was easier even though I had no idea what I was doing. I was writing to amuse myself. With The Smart One, I was thinking about my readers, my editor, my agent, etc. It was awfully crowded up there in my head with all those voices. Took me quite a few drafts, but I eventually learned a valuable lesson about trusting my own instincts. Not that it’s unimportant to listen to those other voices, it’s just that you have hear them, process them, and then lock them in a box when you sit down to write.

Which one would you be… the smart one, the pretty one or the one with a specific talent?
There are two answers to that question: I’m none of them … and I’m all of them.

When an idea for a book comes to you, are you obsessed by it, or do you let it come to you in its own time?
Funny thing about ideas is that you have to leave them alone with your subconscious for a while, where some sort of organic magic takes place. They can start out as just a phrase, an image or a question you want to explore. Often nothing comes of them, but sometimes they start to stick to the other ideas and before you know it a shape emerges. For instance, I was always curious about what drives a person to covet fame, and one day it occurred to me that the question might fit into a novel somewhere. Before I knew it, my subconscious was pushing me to write a sister story, exploring the ways in which our childhood labels form the core of our adult selves. And the famous one wasn’t even the protagonist. At the same time, I was thinking about a terrible murder that had happened right in my home town. The ideas crashed like hot and cold fronts, forming a storm that became THE SMART ONE.

What do you do in your spare time?
Excuse me. I just spit Diet Coke on my computer screen. Did you say spare time?

Who (living or dead) would you like to have dinner with?
I love this question, but it makes me schizophrenic. Living: I think Richard Russo (greatest living American author, imo)  … Woody Allen (it’s Woody, c’mon) … David Letterman (if I could only make him laugh) … Bill Clinton (all that intelligence and intensity … woosh!). Dead: Dorothy Parker (lingering girl crush that started in college) … Rosa Parks (personal hero) … Thomas Jefferson (I just want to listen) … Richard Yates (favorite dead author) …my best friend Fern Meyerowitz (oh, for one last dinner!).

What is your favorite book?
Depends what day of the week you ask me. One day it might be Empire Falls by Richard Russo. Another day it could be To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Still another it could be J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, John Irving’s A Widow for One Year, or any novel by Richard Yates. I’ll stop now …

Do you prefer to write longhand or type into your computer?
Longhand? Eep. No, never. I type almost as fast as I can think, so I use the computer.

What is your writing space like?
Messy.

What’s next?
I’m working on an untitled high concept novel. Ha! Is that vague enough for you? Let’s say it has a kind of paranormal element though it’s not sci fi or fantasy, more like magical realism. I’m busy falling in love with the characters as we speak.

 

 

 

 

Interview - Leah Starr Baker, author of Bunko Babes

Who are you?

I am a 37 year old woman who is a proud wife and mother of two. My husband Douglas and I have been married for going on 15 years. My daughter Alexandria just turned 8 and my son Deuce is 6 years old. I love to watch football, basketball, American Idol and a variety of movies. I have been an avid reader from a very young age and have always loved the beauty of words and their ability to take us to worlds we would otherwise never experience. And now, I am one of the fortunate ones who get to create stories and characters for my own readers. Blessed am I and forever grateful for this opportunity.

Where did the idea for The Bunko Babes come from?

It’s a funny story. One night my husband and I were sitting in our hot tub relaxing and enjoying the all too rare quiet. After a few moments, he turned to me and said that he had a book that he thought I should write. Going on, he added that the name of the book should be “Bunko“ and the story would revolve around a group of women who are using their monthly game night to cover up a methamphetamine ring. “Sounds interesting,“ I replied. “I’ll keep it in mind.“

Though I loved the title, the concept of the book didn’t seem to fit it. Mulling it over, I thought about it off and on for a couple of weeks before I felt that I had a good storyline to pursue. It wasn’t a thriller or detective novel but a chick lit story, a genre in which I had never read a single book. Crazy how God works. It wasn’t until I was 75 pages into the story that I came up with the final title “The Bunko Babes“.

Do you have your own group of Bunko Babes?

Now, I do. Though when I started writing the book I had only heard of the game but had never played it. In fact, I learned to play this fun and simple dice game off of the Internet. And yes, I was aware of the fact that Bunko is normally played with 12 people but my story involves only 8. In fiction, you get the license to create your world any way you like as long as it is believable and consistent.

My group of “Bunko Babes“ has never been larger than 8 women and we’ve never had the joy of playing it where we actually trade tables but the truth of the matter is Bunko isn’t really about the game as much as it is about the fellowship.

Do you have a favorite type of playing card?

I love Rook. I learned to play it when I was 8 years old and if you’ve never had the privilege head to the store and buy you a set of the cards right away. But you do need to have four people in order to play it.

What do you do in your spare time?

I sleep, read, watch movies, and shop! I am a truly talented shopper. I can always find something on sale that I have to have. My husband doesn’t seem to appreciate my rare gift.

Who (living or dead) would you like to have dinner with?

My Great Grandma Miller. She died before I was born but I grew up hearing stories about her and her adventures from my Dad. She sounds like my kind of woman.

What is your favorite book?

You mean besides “The Bunko Babes“? J I have always said that my favorite book is Gone With the Wind. I have read it at least 5 times and make a point to pick it up once every 3 to 4 years. I can only imagine what it must have been like for Margaret Mitchell to have created such enduring characters.

Do you prefer to write longhand or type into your computer?

Long hand? What is that? I joke with my husband that after all the hours of typing I have forgotten how to hold a pen. My laptop is my best friend and by my side constantly. I can hardly conceive of the fact that people used to write entire manuscripts with nothing but pen and paper. What would I do without the delete button or the save? Life as a writer is much simpler now.

What is your writing space like?

My favorite space is my office. Upstairs, I have a desk set up with a flat screen monitor, a wireless keyboard and mouse. I am spoiled to have had my husband purchase me a wonderful chair that is rated to have you sitting in it 24/7. This is where I go if I am strong enough. But on the days when my lupus is giving me fits I can only manage to sit up and plop my laptop onto my legs. I have become very adept at writing anywhere, anytime.

What’s next?

I’ve got a pretty clear idea of where I want to go with Becca and her Babes. So I am planning on writing a book two in the series. But right now I am working on rewriting my very first book I ever wrote. Hopefully soon, I will have another book on your bookshelf for purchase and pure enjoyment.

 

Interview - Xujun Eberlein, author of Apologies Forthcoming

Who are you?

A sleepwalker between excessively modern America and ancient China. Hopefully I am striking enough of a balance to at least make the year AD.

What was your experience like when you moved from China to the United States?

It has been two decades now.  In the first decade I was too busy raising a family and studying and working to notice much, other than the usual culture shock. Now, I sometimes approach things from a Chinese perspective, and sometimes an American perspective - the trouble is I am not always sure which is which.

What is your favorite memory about growing up in China?

Trees and plants - every time I find a plant that I knew as a child I get very excited and want to buy it and plant it immediately. Unfortunately,  Boston is much colder than Chongqing so most things will not grow outside, so many of those become houseplants.

What do you like best about the United States?

To be left alone, both by neighbors and the government. To be able to have a garden of my own.

What do you do in your spare time?

Gardening, or playing guzheng, a traditional Chinese instrument.

Who (living or dead) would you like to have dinner with?

Hmmm… I think I prefer to have dinner with my own family.

What is your favorite book?

Three Kingdoms, a Chinese classic.

Do you prefer to write longhand or type into your computer?

I type - no spell-check on paper.

What is your writing space like?

A messy library with books and magazines piled on sofas, stools, coffee table, desk, and four big bookshelves. The best feature of my library is that its window faces my front garden. Whenever I lift my eyes from writing, I see my gingko tree surrounded by flowers (or snow) and  I’m in heaven.

What’s next?

I’m working on a memoir, “Swimming with Mao,” and also planning a novel set in the 1960s Chongqing.

 

 

 
Interview - Christina Meldrum, author of Madapple

Who are you?

I am the author of Madapple, which was published recently by Alfred A. Knopf. I received my Bachelor of Arts in religious studies and political science from the University of Michigan. After working in grassroots development in Africa, I earned my Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School. I’ve worked for the International Commission of Jurists in Geneva, Switzerland, and as a litigator at the law firm of Shearman & Sterling. I currently live in the San Francisco Bay Area with my family and am on the advisory board of Women of the World Investments. Madapple is my first novel.

Where did the idea for Madapple come from?

When I was an undergraduate studying comparative religion, I was fascinated by the traditions and mythologies that seem to cross cultures. I thought it would be interesting to build a sort of mystery around some of these overlapping traditions.

Then I went to law school and began working as a litigator. During this time, I spent my days formulating arguments for my clients, selecting and emphasizing those facts that best supported by positions. In each case, my opposing counsel would do the same, emphasizing those facts that best supported her argument. In theory, truth somehow filtered through: the judge or jury would sort through the extreme arguments and parse out what was fair and true. In actuality, each argument oversimplified reality, and the ending result, while perhaps as fair as was feasible, often had little to do with truth.

It was this experience as a litigator, combined with my background in comparative religion, that spurred my writing of Madapple. In Madapple, I wanted to explore how we humans, in our attempt to understand the world, at times simplify and thereby distort it. I wanted to think about how we create categories, based on what we want or have felt or believe is socially acceptable, and then divide the world into these categories.

Specifically, I wanted to explore the dichotomy between science and religion. Having studied religion, I’d come to believe this dichotomy was a human construct. As Aslaug, the protagonist of Madapple, says, “Science describes the world, it doesn’t explain it: it can describe the universe’s formation, but it can’t explain…how something can come from nothing. That’s the miracle.” Yet religion absent science also seems insufficient. If God exists, would not nature be a means by which to understand God? The more I researched the natural world in my writing of Madapple, the more convinced of this I became.

Ultimately, I hoped Madapple would be a contemplation on faith: faith in God; faith in science; and the way in which faith can both open the mind and confine it. And I hoped Aslaug, the protagonist of Madapple, would be an embodiment of this contemplation on faith. An isolated girl whose daily existence is utterly dependent on the natural world—on foraging—and who interprets the world through this lens; but whose emotional life, due to extraordinary circumstances, becomes fueled by religion and mythology. When these two ways of seeing the world collide in Aslaug’s trial for murder, the reader must ask: Is the devil in the details, or is it God? In the end, the categories fail: the answer is both.

Why did you choose Maine for the setting?

Perhaps the best advice I ever received as a writer is: write what you love. I love Maine. Although I have never lived there, I have vacationed there. I knew I had to become intimately familiar with the setting of Madapple, because the protagonist Aslaug and her mother Maren essentially live off the land. For this reason, Maine seemed the perfect setting, because I knew I would enjoy researching the flora and fauna of a place I so love.

Herbs are a huge part of the book. How did you research the information?

I used a variety of different means to research the herbs in the book. I traveled to Maine, I read books, I used the internet and I consulted with a professor of botany at Bowdoin college in Maine. I constructed a fairly complicated (and rather unwieldy!) chart of Maine plants. The chart identified each plant’s appearance, location, type of fruit, time of flowering, medicinal and practical uses and any related mythology. The research literally took me years, and at times I felt I was barely progressing on the book. But when I finally completed the chart, it was incredibly useful and really facilitated my writing.

What do you do in your spare time?

I read, of course! And I spend time with my favorite people on earth: my husband and children. I also love to travel, run trails, bake bread, make jewelry and spend time with my additional favorite people: friends and family. I have a particular affinity for Africa and an interest in development. I am on the advisory board of Women of the World Investments, a micro-financing organization that provides loans to women-led businesses in West Africa. I long to have a vegetable garden, but my yard is very shady and grows little but lettuce. So, instead, I read about plants! (I also have an inexplicable desire to become a bee keeper.)

Who (living or dead) would you like to have dinner with?

I wish I could say Albert Einstein, but it would sound pretentious bordering on cliché. The problem is: it’s true. I would want to ask him about his view of the nexus between religion and science. Based on what I know about him, I think he would have a very interesting response… So I guess I’ll say it: Albert Einstein.

What is your favorite book?

It is so difficult to say: there are so many I love. But if I have to choose, I’ll say To Kill A Mockingbird. I have read it more than any other book I own. My copy is so worn. The cover is missing and the binding is broken. I’ve owned the copy since I was a young teenager—and that was quite some time ago now!

Do you prefer to write longhand or type into your computer?

I write on the computer when I’m writing prose, but I write longhand when doing research or plotting. Often in my research and when constructing a framework for my plot, I find I need a more visual representation than what I—with my limited technological abilities—can accomplish on the computer.

What is your writing space like?

I have a very small home office on the second floor of my home. It is full of all the books I love and those I use for research. It looks out over my neighbor’s sunny vegetable garden. (At least I can look at his vegetable garden!) The office contains pictures of my children, my husband, my mother, my grandmother and my nieces and nephews. It contains a tiny but cozy guest bed, perfect for curling up to read. It’s the warmest room in the house in the winter, and one of the sunniest year round. I feel very lucky to have it!

What’s next?

I recently completed a first draft of my second novel, which has been purchased by Alfred A. Knopf and will be edited by Madapple’s fantastic editor, Michelle Frey from Knopf. It also is a literary mystery of sorts, but I am not ready to share much about it. In the early stages of a project, I find I need to have the freedom to write without being concerned about what others might think, at least until I have solid draft. And the draft I have isn’t solid!

 

 

 

 

Interview - Susan Woodring, author of Springtime On Mars

Who are you? 

I’m the daughter of the daughter of mid-western farmer. I have been living in North Carolina since I was nine and consider myself to be a Southern girl. I went to college in the mountains and I now live in the Carolina foothills. 

I am a mother to three children with summer birthdays: in July, my stepson will be 15, my daughter will be 6, and, in August, my son will be 2. I home school my daughter—we’re finishing up kindergarten now.

What prompted you to write Springtime On Mars? 

I did not set out to write a collection of short stories. Actually, I had always considered myself to be a novelist and was surprised to find myself writing short stories in the summer after I completed my MFA. I fell in love with the short story form—I love how aerodynamic it is, like an arrow, very cleanly pointed to a dazzling moment of understanding, nuance, or transcendence. A good short story is a miracle of prose. Its inhabitants, the characters, are often these seemingly normal people who, because of how tightly woven a short story must be, flinch beautifully, revealing a glint of the bizarre.

After a few years of writing stories, I was surprised to see that though the characters, the settings, and the occurrences in the stories varied quite a bit, they seemed to each spiral around the same themes of loss, fear, and faith—in both science and God. I began to see that these stories were speaking to similar experiences and ideas, each from a different viewpoint, collectively offering a more complete view of what we humans commonly fear—both consciously and subconsciously—versus what the real dangers in life are.          

There are defining moments for all of us.  My mother’s was the assassination of J.F.K., mine was the first space shuttle exploding just after takeoff.  What was yours? 

It’s interesting that you ask that since both of those events have a story in my book. I grew up in the eighties, and like you, I remember well the Challenger explosion. I was in the sixth grade, and it was the first time I witnessed a national disaster. Though I couldn’t really articulate it at the time, I think there’s something profound and unnerving about the first moment you realize the powers that be—the president, NASA, my parents, the entire adult world—is ultimately powerless against such tragedies. I also have a very clear memory of President Reagan speaking of the Soviet Union, the “evil empire,” in the mid-eighties. I was studying the USSR that year in school and was struck by how strange it was to think that our “enemy” was a country made of people who—according to my social studies book—grew potatoes and waited in long lines for rolls of toilet paper. I pictured a sixth-grader in Moscow fearing us evil Americans.

I ended up going to live and teach in Russia about a decade later, after so much had changed. I cannot express what a valuable experience this was for me. Living in another culture was just such a gift; I can’t imagine any other way to gain that kind of perspective on this world.

When 9/11 happened, I had just quit teaching to focus on my writing, and I was, of course, completely undone by the magnitude of the tragedy. Yet, there was something more: during that time I had just moved to my little writing island, cut off from the world in many ways, watching those horrific images on the television. It affected my writing ways I can’t fully explain. I believe somewhere deep in my subconscious, I was already writing this collection; really, I think my subconscious started writing it when I was eleven, watching the televised shuttle launch recaps and listening to Reagan speak of distant, faceless enemies.

According to Stephen King, short stories (in general) aren’t doing so well.  Do you agree or disagree?

I agree and disagree. I think he’s right that short stories have become less popular than they were, say in the fifties, and I think that’s at least partly due to the short story’s becoming—or at least having the reputation of becoming—the domain of the hyper-literary and stuffy academics. Yet, I also think the short story is seeing a revival of sorts—it is the place for innovation and experimentation in fiction. I am thrilled to see truly imaginative, extraordinarily funny and intriguing collections such as Aimee Bender’s The Girl in the Flammable Skirt.
  
What do you do in your spare time?

I spend most of my time with my kids and write whenever I can. I’m not much of a hobbyist: I don’t do much cooking besides heating up things I find in my freezer, and any plant I buy is doomed from the get-go. I go to church. I run (a bit). I watch Lost and The Office. Once upon a time, I was a knitter.

Who (living or dead) would you like to have dinner with?

A long list! Really, at the top is my husband. We’re so busy with the children and everything else, a meal with just the two of us is a rare luxury! Of course, I have my favorite writers: Charles Baxter, Bret Lott, Deborah Eisenberg, Raymond Carver, and John Irving among others, but I’m not convinced any of them would make exceptional dinner-time company.  Writers are such mind-creatures; I think I’m better off reading their books. I would love to meet Amy Sherman-Palladino, the creator of my favorite guilty pleasure, Gilmore Girls. If I’m allowed a fictitious character, give me a Lost castaway. I’ll dine with Hurley. Or, let’s go both dead and fictitious and bring back Charlie Pace and Driveshaft. 
  
What is your favorite book?

I’ve already mentioned Aimee Bender’s collection, which I love, but I also admire Ann Hood’s An Ornithologist’s Guide to Life and the work of another Ann, Ann Packer’s Mendocino and Other Stories. Quinn Dalton is a master short story writer; her collection Bullet-Proof Girl is extraordinary. And then there’s the gold standard in story collections, Believers by Charles Baxter.

Do you prefer to write longhand or type into your computer?

I make scribbles and notes at the first and along the way on a legal pad, but I do most of my drafting on my laptop.  
  
What is your writing space like?

I share an office with my five-year-old daughter, Abby. She has a long table with bits of household debris, glue, paper, glitter, and markers she uses for her “projects,” and I have a black bookcase with a secretary I write at. On my side of the office, there are books piled here and there, various writing implements scattered about, and mountains of legal pads and sticky notes. There’s a filing cabinet around here somewhere. Abby has a pile of Little Petshop Pets on her side and a decrepit old computer she uses to check in on her Webkinz cyber-pet. 
  
What’s next?

I’ve been working on a novella-maybe novel?? for several months now, and have plans for another project. I also have several legal pads with snippets of unwritten stories on them.

 

Interview with Susan Breen, author of The Fiction Class

Who are you?
I teach creative writing for Gotham Writers’ Workshop in Manhattan. THE FICTION CLASS is my first published novel (but there are two other ones under my bed). I started off as a short story writer and a number of my stories have been published by literary magazines, among them www.anderbo.com and The Chattahoochee Review. My husband and I have been married twenty-five years and we live with our children in Irvington, which is a suburb of Manhattan.

What is your all time favorite story about one of your students?
My favorite students are those who commit one hundred per cent. (If you want to get me crazy, tell me you’re writing as a hobby.) So my favorite student story involves a young man who took his first class with me six years ago. He was working sixteen hours as a manager of a store and he did not have much money or formal education, though he was always reading. I used to cringe whenever his work would come up for critique, because the reviews would be so harsh. But he didn’t give up, and now, his stories are very well-received and I think he will be published very soon. Best of all, he has a unique voice and a great story to tell.

What do you do when you’re not teaching or writing?
I read a lot. Also, I do a lot of things with my family. The other day my fourteen-year-old son had five friends over for a sleepover and my seventeen-year-old daughter had some friends over as well, and I was listening to them all laughing and running around the house and I thought, this is my idea of a good time.

What is your favorite book?
This changes from day to day, but at the moment it’s The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens. I feel like that book has everything in it–tragedy, joy, laughter, tears.

What is your writing space like (office, kitchen table, nook)?
I have a small office with a computer and a desk that I assembled myself one insane day along time ago. I’ve stacked my favorite books on top of the desk and I’ve papered the walls with every encouraging note I’ve ever received from anyone.

Do you prefer to write with a manual word processor (A.K.A. pen and paper) or typing at a computer?
I write the first fifty pages out by hand, but once I’m in the flow, then I switch over to computer.

What’s the funniest reaction you’ve gotten when you tell people you’re an author?
Recently I had to have surgery, and I was lying on the operating table, waiting for the surgeon to arrive, watching the nurses and anesthesiologist bustle around, though no one was paying much attention to me. Which was fine, though I began thinking about that movie in which the person is awake during his surgery. Anyway, I was getting very anxious and then the surgeon came in. He nodded at all the people in the room and then he said, “So, do you know this woman is a published author.” Everyone perked up immediately and came over to talk to me and I thought, Whew. Anyway, they all did a good job.

What did you do when you found out The Fiction Class was definitely being published?
Some years ago, someone gave me a bottle of champagne and said, Don’t open it until you sell your book. So that bottle of champagne sat in my refrigerator for years. But, on the night I found out TFC was being published, my husband uncorked the bottle of champagne and we drank it and then we gagged, because it had gone bad. Which taught me a valuable lesson, which is that if someone gives you a bottle of champagne, drink it right away.

How does your family feel about you being a published author?
My husband is absolutely ecstatic. He is a lawyer and values books and he is fascinated by all the workings of the publishing business. My brother has also been very supportive, which means a lot to me because so much of the book deals with my/his mother. In fact, everyone has been supportive of me, but I think we are all somewhat dumbfounded that after so many years of struggling and writing, I actually have a book in print.

What’s next?
I just gave my agent a synopsis for my new novel. It is tentatively titled The Dickens Affair and it is the story of a woman and her teenaged son and a traveling troupe of actors.