Interview with L.B. Gschwandtner, author of The Naked Gardener

Last month I read LB Gschwandtner's novel, The Naked Gardner (read my review here). This month, LB was gracious enough to answer my questions. Her fun answers definitely give you a sense of what the writing in the book is like.

Which book or books are on your bedside table right now?
The Year Of The Flood by Margaret Atwood (in the middle of it)
Tinkers by Paul Harding
The Financial lives of Poets by Jess Walter
The Hospital For Bad Poets (short story collection) by J. C. Hallman (reading his great stories here and there)
The Widower’s Tale by Julia Glass

I'm so glad I'm not the only one who seems to be in the midst of a zillion books at once!

What was your favorite book when you were a child?
The Princess and The Goblin

I don't know that one. My favorite is a relative unknown too (The Fabulous Flight).

What book would you most want to read again for the first time?

Dr. Zhivago because it’s the only book that made me cry. I’ve read it 5 times and at the same place I always cry. It’s a phenomenal book.

Interesting. I've read quite a few of the Russian classics but I've never read that one.

How did you get started writing?
It started with editing a business magazine. I had to rewrite a lot of other people’s writing and found I was good at it. But fiction is something entirely different. It’s very complex to learn how to write a work of fiction. It takes many different ways of thinking. That’s what I like about it. I started by going to the Iowa Writers Workshop and just kept studying and writing.

I can re-write other people's work with the best of them but writing a novel is so different I don't know if I'd be able to do that. You weathered the big mindset switch well.

If you heard someone describing your book to a friend out in public, how would you most like to hear them describe them/it?
This book was transportive and you have to read it.

::laughing:: I don't know too many people who use the word transportive (I would but I'm a word nerd) but what a great thing to want to hear.

What's the coolest thing that's happened to you since becoming a published author?
Getting to do stuff like this. Writing is a solitary occupation. It is wonderful to interact with other people who love books and who want to know more about the process. And it’s gratifying to read reviews that say things about your book that you never considered.

What was the first thing you did when you heard that you were going to be published?
A writer friend actually talked me into becoming an Indie author. I was reluctant but now I’m having a great time and I love being an Indie. I think the first thing I did was check my sales stats. The first book that sold was a thrill.

Tell us three interesting or offbeat but true things about yourself.
#1: I like to do laundry.
#2: My father once had a dinner date with Marilyn Monroe.
#3: Charlie Merrill (the founder of Merrill Lynch) was at my parents’ wedding & I have the wedding present he gave them.

You know #1 makes you officially weird, right? But feel free to come to my house and indulge yourself any time. ;-)

If you couldn’t be an author, what profession would you choose and why?
Physicist. If I had a brain that could manage math that is. Which I don’t. Physics fascinates me. It explains the universe right up to the ultimate unanswered question. How did it all come to be? And then … still a mystery. So that’s where the arts take over.

What’s the hardest thing about writing, besides having to answer goofy interview questions like these?
It’s when you get stuck on something and don’t know what to do next. That is different from writers’ block, which I’ve never had. It’s a place where the puzzle pieces don’t seem to fit. It’s very frustrating and makes you want to throw your computer out the window (which is a scene in the movie Julia when the Jane Fonda character – supposedly Lillian Hellman – tosses her typewriter out the window in frustration with a play she’s working on)

This frustration is why my computer is not near a window. I hope yours isn't either!

Are you working on something new now? If so, give us a teaser for it.
It’s called Foxy’s Tale. About a 40-year-old former southern beauty queen who’s ex football star turned sportscaster husband has been caught naked with a “hostess” in the fountain at the Las Vegas Bellagio. She takes her teenage daughter and moves into an old house in Washington, D.C. and opens an antique store, rents out the two extra apartments, and begins life over. Except one of her tenants turns out to be – well, not exactly what he seems.

I’m writing it with another writer who specializes in humorous mystery. We’re having the best time working together. Sort of like Lucy and Ethel.

This sounds like it would be hilarious (both the book and the collaboration). I'll look forward to reading it when it's finished.

Thanks to LB Gschwandtner for humoring me and giving such great answers to my questions. Be sure to check out her book, The Naked Gardner, and her website, The Novelette.

Interview with Katharine Davis, author of A Slender Thread

A big welcome today to Katharine Davis, author of East Hope, Capturing Paris, and her latest book, A Slender Thread. Katharine was a good sport about answering my questions:

Which book or books are on your bedside table right now?

Tinkers, by Paul Harding. I read it early in the summer but it’s a must re-read. I just finished Father of the Rain, by Lily King which left me breathless –a truly gripping story. I’m also dipping in and out of E.M. Forster’s A Room with a View because I’m working on a novel that takes place in Florence.

What was your favorite book when you were a child?

The Witch of Blackbird Pond. I can’t remember anything about it now but I remember reading it over and over.

What book would you most want to read again for the first time?

Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier. It was the first adult book I remember reading and has one of the greatest first lines in fiction “Last night I dreamt I was at Manderly” or something close to that. That novel turned me into a reader.

How did you get started writing?

I’ve always been a huge reader and writers were the rock stars of my world. I’d had a career teaching French, raised two children, and at the age of 50 decided to “become” a writer- if not then, when? I quickly learned that I loved to write and stopped worrying about “being a writer.” So, I’m an extremely late bloomer and I do get a little cranky reading those lists of the brilliant ones under forty! If you love writing, it’s never too late.

If you heard someone describing your books (or just the latest book) to a friend out in public, how would you most like to hear them describe them/it?

I would love to hear, “A Slender Thread was an amazing book. I can’t imagine how Lacey survived. You just have to read it.”

What's the coolest thing that's happened to you since becoming a published author?

I think getting fan emails from strangers. I am always delighted to hear good things from readers- I love knowing my books are being read and enjoyed.

What was the first thing you did when you heard that you were going to be published?

I called my husband, my children, and all my friends. I was so excited. Then I worried that “they” would change their mind. Had I really heard this correctly?

Tell us three interesting or offbeat but true things about yourself.

I learned to drive in Switzerland and my teacher wore a lab coat and swore at me in German. I hate pigeons and cross the street if a group of them are in my path. I never smoked because I hate lighting those little paper matches.

If you couldn’t be an author, what profession would you choose and why?

I’d love to be a country singer and tell sad love stories in perfect harmony. In reality I’m not at all musical, can’t sing, or play an instrument. Yet, I think it would be a thrill to sing outside if front of a huge audience under a starlit sky. This will never happen!

What’s the hardest thing about writing, besides having to answer goofy interview questions like these?

Keeping the faith. Can I get the story that’s growing inside my head onto the page and make it live for a reader? Can I stay with it month after month, year after year? The most difficult thing is believing in myself and not giving up.

Are you working on something new now? If so, give us a teaser for it.

I’ve started a novel that takes place in Florence, Italy in 1969. Three women, aged 21, 51, and 81 are all at the same Pensione and their lives intersect in unexpected ways. This summer I’m cooking Italian, playing Italian language CD’s in my car, and of course I hope to visit Florence for necessary research.

Be sure to check out Katharine Davis' website for more information about the book and for her Thursday Thoughts Blog.

Interview and giveaway with Jeanine Cummins, author of The Outside Boy

Author Jeanine Cummins was gracious enough to drop by and answer my questions to her. After you read the review, check out my review of her latest book, The Outside Boy, and then leave a comment to be entered to win one of two copies of her wonderful book.

Which book or books are on your nightstand right now?
I was going to fib and say The Dead Republic by Roddy Doyle because that’s next on my list. But in truth, right now I’m reading a very depressing book called Famine Echoes by Cathal Póirtéir as research for my next novel. It’s a really harrowing collection of first-person folk-memories of the Irish famine, which makes it horrible pre-sleep reading. So I’m also reading Jennifer Belle’s very funny new novel, The Seven Year Bitch.

What was your favourite book when you were a child?
I could never choose just one! Top few were probably Tuck Everlasting, Bridge to Terabithia, all of The Chronicles of Narnia, and Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry.

What book would you most want to read again for the first time?
The Hobbit. It really was astonishing, to read that for the first time.

How did you get started writing?
I wrote my first book when I was about seven years old. It was seventy-five looseleaf pages in a blue, three-ring binder with stickers on the front, and it was about a little girl who skateboards across America. I did all kinds of poetry and story contests, too, when I was a teenager, and I never won anything – I didn’t even manage to get published until my college literary magazine.

If you heard someone describing your books (or just the latest book) to a friend out in public, how would you most like to hear them describe them/it?
I would like them to say, “The Outside Boy is the greatest book in the history of the universe.” But I guess that might be a bit of a stretch. So I think I’d just like them to say that my narrator Christy is funny and loveable, that his story is a compelling one. And maybe also that he opened the reader’s mind to an unfamiliar culture.

What's the coolest thing that's happened to you since becoming a published author?
Probably the most gratifying thing has been all the mail I received (and still receive) in response to my memoir, A Rip in Heaven. So many people have written to tell me about their stories, their personal traumas. I’ve heard from sexual assault survivors, homicide survivors, people who have lost children – and in many cases those people found some healing in my book, or a sense of kinship with my family. That always makes me feel like, despite the emotional difficulties of writing and publishing that book, it was a worthwhile endeavor.


What was the first thing you did when you heard that you were going to be published?
I called or wrote to every member of my family to warn them. Publishing my first book wasn’t the unreservedly joyous experience for me that it is for many authors – it was really bittersweet. I mean, I was proud of A Rip in Heaven, both as a love letter to my lost cousins and as a battle cry for victims’ rights. But because that book was about a very personal trauma and my family’s ensuing grief, I knew the publication would be difficult for a lot of people in my life, but I really wasn’t prepared for how hard it was going to be. I never anticipated the publicity that would surround the book, or that it would become a bestseller. So, while I felt pleased that the book surpassed my hopes in those ways, there was also a lot of emotional fallout surrounding that success.


How was writing fiction different emotionally from writing A Rip in Heaven about your cousins' murders?
Oh, writing fiction was so refreshing, after the darkness and terror of that memoir. It was so nice to be writing about made-up characters, people who I could mold and shape, and who would make the choices I wanted them to make. Which isn’t to say that these characters don’t make some questionable choices, or that I don’t grieve for them in their suffering – but it’s the kind of grief that I can leave on the page, and it doesn’t infect my life. However, I did find that it wasn’t as easy to strip my own psychology out of the story as I thought it might be.


Tell us three interesting or offbeat but true things about yourself.
1. I am a HUGE Green Bay Packers football fan. My great uncle was one of the founding members of the team – he worked at the Indian Packing Company in Green Bay, and played football with Curly Lambeau and crew on Sundays before the NFL even existed. My grandpa used to pass the hat on the sidelines to raise money for their team uniforms. I have made pilgrimage to Lambeau Field, and I’m often seen sporting an actual cheesehead on autumn Sundays. I cried when Favre signed with the Vikings. My Irish husband finds this kind of ritual devotion slightly bizarre.


2. When I was nineteen, I participated in an international Irish cultural pageant called The Rose of Tralee, where I won the right to represent the Washington DC Irish Community. I travelled to Ireland where I was interviewed for seventeen minutes on live, Irish national television by Gay Byrne, who’s sort of the Johnny Carson of Ireland. Then I sang a song called Kilkelly,about the Irish American diaspora, in front of an audience of something like three million people. My mom showed the very embarrassing video of said performance to anyone who came within 200 yards of my house for many years. I think even our postman has seen it.


3. Although my legal name is Jeanine, my real name has always been Tink. When I went to my first day of kindergarten, and the teacher called role, afterwards, she asked if anyone hadn’t heard her name on the list, so I put my hand up. She asked my name, and I told her “Tink Cummins.” She said, “Well, I have a Jeanine Cummins here. “ And I replied, “Never heard of her.” To this day, all of my family and friends still call me Tink – I only use Jeanine in my professional life.


Bonus true, offbeat fact: I can make my tongue into the shape of a shamrock. This might actually be the most interesting thing about me.


If you couldn’t be an author, what profession would you choose and why (and no cheating and falling back on your previous life in publishing)?
I would like to do something involving hardhats and heavy machinery.


What’s the hardest thing about writing, besides having to answer goofy interview questions like these?
No question, for me it’s the solitude. I’m an extremely sociable person, and my former position as a sales manager at Penguin took full advantage of my outgoing nature. I feel so lucky to be able to write full-time now, but in the beginning, I found the isolation of that position to be a little daunting. Social networking has been a God-send for me, because I can spend the whole day alone, writing, and still feel like I’m interacting with friends and colleagues on Facebook or Twitter.


Are you working on something new now (besides the baby)? If so, give us a teaser for it.
I just started work on a novel half-set in Irish famine times, and half-set in modern day New York, with a young mother who’s researching her Irish roots. Summing up a book concept in just a sentence is hard! But I hope it will turn into a story about all kinds of physical and spiritual hunger.


Thanks to Angela at NAL/Penguin, I have 2 books to give away. To enter, leave a comment with a valid e-mail address. I will randomly choose winners from all eligible e-mails. The comments will be open for entry until August 19th.

For more about the author, be sure to visit her author website. You call also follow Jeanine Cummins on Twitter.

Interview with Holly Christine, author of Tuesday Tells It Slant

Author Holly Christine, whose latest book is Tuesday Tells It Slant, stopped by to answer a few of my questions.

Which book or books are on your nightstand right now?
Right now I’m rereading Saul Bellow’s The Adventures of Augie March. I’m also enjoying Stephen King’s ‘Salem’s Lot and just recently finished Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol.

What was your favorite book when you were a child?
Ah! I loved Nancy Drew and the Babysitter’s Club books. I think I read every book in every series when I was younger. When I was really young, I had these cassette books, where you could pop in a tape and some voice would read the words to the corresponding book to you. My favorite was Cinderella. I couldn’t read yet, but I fooled my parents by memorizing the tape and when to turn the pages. That’s how well I know the story of Cinderella.

What book would you most want to read again for the first time?
I loved Mark Z Danielewski’s House of Leaves. I’ve read it a few times now and fall more in love with his work each time. It’s creepy and beautifully crafted at the same time.

How did you get started writing?
When I was in grade school, I would come home and my parents would ask me to tell them a story about class. I never told the truth. I would tell stories about kids getting hit by cars, someone sticking his arm in the washer and having to go to the hospital, and the whole time my parents are thinking... What is going on at that school? I started to put my stories on paper as soon as I could understand how to get them down.

If you heard someone describing your books (or just the latest book) to a friend out in public, how would you most like to hear them describe them/it?
I would hope to hear that they enjoyed the book and that it made them think.

What's the coolest thing that's happened to you since becoming a published author?
I became more confident in my work. I also began to network with other authors. It’s always fun to pick the brain of another storyteller.

What was the first thing you did when you heard that you were going to be published?
I self-published, and publishing traditionally didn’t even occur to me. I made Tuesday Tells it Slant available for Kindle download after the second or third edit, and when sales proved successful in the eBook world, I made it available as a paperback.

Tell us three interesting or offbeat but true things about yourself.
I sing in the car. Loudly. I’m also an aggressive driver (I have no idea where this comes from... I’m so passive in normal, walking life). I’m a terrible dog trainer.

If you couldn’t be an author, what profession would you choose and why?
I would choose something that challenged my creative side and gave me space to thrive both individually and artistically. Something that mimics writing, I guess.

What’s the hardest thing about writing, besides having to answer goofy interview questions like these?
Separating yourself from your words a bit. A writers group really helps with the critiquing and editing side of writing. It helps to open your mind and take your work to the next level.

Are you working on something new now? If so, give us a teaser for it.
I’m working on creating a few modern parallels to well known and lesser known stories in Greek mythology. The concept came about after a friend told me about the Library of Celsus. I plan to somehow make the work mimic the architecture of the building.

Be sure to check out Holly's webpage, her Facebook page, and follow her on Twitter.

Question and Answer with Richard Morais

Richard Morais, the author of The Hundred-Foot Journey was kind enough to sit down and answer my crazy questions for you all.

Which book or books are on your nightstand right now?

RCM:
SPOONER (in Kindle) by Pete Dexter.
MYSTICISM: CHRISTIAN AND BUDDHIST by D. T. Suzuki
BEST NEW AMERICAN VOICES 2007 (Selected by Sue Miller)
RIVER OF FIRE, RIVER OF WATER by Taitestu Unno
DON CAMILLO TAKES THE DEVIL BY THE TAIL by Giovanni Guareschi (finished)
DON QUIXOTE – by Miguel de Cervantes (finished)
THE BIRD ARTIST by Howard Norman (finished)
BUDDHA OF INFINITE LIGHT by T.D.Suzuki (finished)

Can I just say that I love that finished books are included? On my own nightstand, finished books have to be removed immediately in order to lessen the risk of injury should the pile topple over though.

What was your favourite book when you were a child?

RCM: MY FAMILY AND OTHER ANIMALS by Gerald Durrell

I just read this one and I have to say that I loved it, even though I am far, far, far past childhood. I wish I had discovered it earlier and I fully intend to introduce my own crew to it as soon as I can bully them into it.

What book would you most want to read again for the first time?

RCM: WAR AND PEACE by Leo Tolstoy

Interestingly enough, I read this one for the first time last year. I don't know that I would go for reading it over again soon though given how much of my reading life it consumed.

How did you get started writing?

RCM: I wrote a play about Richard I (The Lionheart) in first grade.

I'm impressed you remember what you wrote about. I wrote stories all the time when I was small but they are (blessedly) lost to the mists of time. I do have school papers dating back to fifth grade though and I refuse to get rid of them, occasionally threatening my children with being forced to read them.

If you heard someone describing your book to a friend out in public, how would you most like to hear them describe it?

RCM: It’s about a human being finding his place in the world.

What's the coolest thing that's happened to you as a published author (either as a magazine writer or now that you have a full-length novel)?

RCM: THE HUNDRED-FOOT JOURNEY was picked as one of their best reads of the 2010 summer by some heavy hitters I deeply respect: O, The Oprah Magazine; (“favorite summer reads”); the American Booksellers Association (“Indie Next Great Reads”); the American Library Association (“starred” review); and the editors of Amazon-Kindle (“Ten Best” books of June.)

I see that The Hundred-Foot Journey is in active film development. Who would be your dream cast?

RCM: I originally imagined India’s Shashi Kapoor as Abbas Haji and France’s Jeanne Moreau as Gertrude Mallory. But I think both are little too old and unwell for the roles now. So I have since warmed to the frequently floated notion of Meryl Streep as Madame Mallory – the only American actress I think who could pull her off – and blank-faced Dev Patel as Hassan Haji (during his youthful years). Luckily, India, France and Britain all have many fantastic actors to fill the book’s rambling cast.

If it was my book, I would be pushing hard for a combo Bollywood/food porn flick but I'm weird that way. Plus I love the enormous and cheesy production numbers in Bollywood movies. Just think how great all that singing and dancing could be around food! Of course, I have no idea who I'd cast for any of the parts but I agree that Meryl Streep is the only actress I can think of who could pull off Madame Mallory.

Tell us three interesting or offbeat but true things about yourself.

RCM: I think I am rather conventional, but my daughter and wife insist I am eccentric.
I have been fly fishing In Iceland for salmon since I was 14 years-old
I weep easily in movies. Even during puerile Disney films. Very embarrassing.

If you couldn’t be an author, what profession would you choose and why?

RCM: An actor – I love pretending, for a little while, that I am someone else far from my own skin.

Can you give us a teaser of your next book, Buddhaland Brooklyn?

RCM: The book is in the form of a diary kept by Reverend Seido Od, a Japanese priest, sent to Brooklyn to build a Buddhist temple. The motley crew of characters the repressed Buddhist priest meets in Brooklyn change him profoundly over the course of the year. One character, Jeanette, is a neurotic American woman hell-bent on seducing the Japanese priest. But the perplexed Reverend Oda, not understanding what is going on after one loaded exchange with Jeanette, asks his American assistant, Jennifer, why the woman with the big hair appears to be stalking him. Jennifer uses a vernacular American expression to explain what is going on, but Reverend Oda still doesn’t get it. Here their brief exchange:

“Jump bones?”
Miss Jennifer pause briefly, before she add, much more gently, “Jeanette is hoping to see what you have under your robes, Reverend Oda.”
I blush. Deep red.
I not say another word, but at next corner, I curtly excuse myself and head over to Smith Street, allowing Miss Jennifer to continue down Court Street by herself.
Imagine this. I am speechless.

This scene totally cracks me up.

What’s the hardest thing about writing, besides having to answer goofy interview questions like these?

RCM: Actually enjoyed these questions. Writers LOVE talking about themselves, so no hardship here. The hardest part is the day-to-day monotony of working through all my bad writing - all necessary in order to get to that good place where the characters come to life and start doing their own thing on the page.


Thanks so much to Richard for sharing all of that. Read my review of his book, The Hundred-Foot Journey, pick up your own copy over which to salivate, and be sure to visit Richard's author blog for more interesting information about his books and his life.

Now for the giveaway part. Yes, I know you've all been waiting for this bit but wasn't it interesting to read Richard's answers to get to this point? Thanks to InkWell Management I have three copies of this book to give away to US residents. Leave a comment below with your e-mail address to enter. No entries after midnight July 20th. Winners will be chosen and posted just as soon as I can get myself off the island and into a place with working internet (hopefully the 21st but no promises).