Interview with writer Laurie B. Levine

Author Laurie B. Levine is kicking off a new week with me. We’re talking about her debut YA coming-of-age novel, Now I Know It’s Not My Fault.

Bio:

Laurie B. Levine has a Ph.D. in Marriage and Family Therapy from Syracuse University, and is Clinical Fellow in the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy. She has been in private practice, helping people understand their trauma stories, for more than twenty years. Now I Know It’s Not My Fault is her first novel.

Welcome, Laurie. Please tell us about your current release.

Alexandra Geller is a bright, 14-year-old from an accomplished, well-educated family, coming of age in the big hair 1980’s. The sudden death of her mother five years ago, and her relationship with her well-meaning but emotionally unavailable father, leaves her vulnerable as she tries to figure out who she is. Early in her freshman year, she’s befriended by Paula Hanover, a young, attractive science teacher at her high school. Alex is thrilled to be chosen by this woman and relishes the feeling of finally “belonging” to a mother figure. Paula’s intentions aren’t so benevolent, as she slowly and carefully draws Alex into a relationship designed to meet her own needs, not Alex’s. Desperate for maternal attention, Alex finds ways to ignore the vague sense that something is wrong. Her compelling story sheds light on a common, but rarely talked about kind of trauma which is subtle, and occurs under the radar.

What inspired you to write this book?

I started writing this story several years ago but then put it down. I was inspired to pick it back up after a female teacher in our town was accused of sexually abusing several male students. There were two objectives for me in writing this book: the first, to shed some light on the fact that women can be abusers too. There’s a lot written in abuse and trauma literature addressing men as abusers, but very little about women. I wanted to write a story that depicts an attractive, charming woman in that role. The second objective was to draw attention to a more subtle form of abuse. When most people think about child sexual abuse, they think about an adult engaging in direct sexual contact with a child. Now I Know It’s Not My Fault highlights a kind of abuse that occurs under the radar, but can be just as damaging.

Excerpt from Now I Know It’s Not My Fault:

Amber and I sit, sideways, in the first two seats closest to the door and lean against the blackboard. My knee begins to bounce as Mrs. Hanover finishes up with another student at her desk. 

She walks over with a huge smile and says, “Alexandra Geller. Who did you bring with you?” She always calls me Alexandra and I hate it. Everyone calls me Alex except Mrs. Hanover and my grandmother. 

Nervously, I stand to introduce them. “This is Amber.” Paula shakes Amber’s hand as I drop back into my seat. I’ve seen my father offer a handshake, but never my mother, or any of her friends. I decide women shaking hands is commanding and resolve to start doing it. 

Standing over us wearing black jeans, tall black leather boots, and a long, clingy v-neck gray sweater, Paula asks, “What can I do for you two?” 

With my hands dug into my jacket pockets I answer, “I don't understand the parts of a cell.” 

She smiles. "What they are or what they do? 

“Both.” 

“Plant cells or animal cells?” 

“Both.” 

She smiles. “Let’s start with a plant cell. Can you name the parts?” 

“Nucleus, golgi bodies, endoplasmic reticulum…those cleaning thingies,” I say using my fingers to count off the properties I can remember. 

She looks amused. “First off, the ‘cleaning thingies’ are the vacuoles. And the endoplasmic reticulum is part of an animal cell, not a plant cell.” 

“See. I don’t understand,” I say with a grin. 

“Where’s your book?” She repositions a chair from the second row and sits facing me. 

“At home. I use hers for class,” I say gesturing toward Amber with my thumb. 

Paula laughs. “It’s probably going to be easier for you to learn Biology if you actually put the time in to memorize the material.” I bristle. I must look discouraged because she says, “Look, it’s okay if science isn’t your best thing.” 

In that moment, something inside me quiets. I feel understood by an adult for the first time in a very long time. 

She continues, “Plant cells have a cell wall, animal cells don’t. And those cleaning thingies, the vacuoles, are in plant cells but usually not animal cells.” 

I sit up straighter. “Okay,” I say slowly, not really absorbing what she’s saying. 

“Let me draw them for you...Where’s your notebook?” 

“In my locker,” I say without any hesitation. 

“Really?” she says with one raised eyebrow. “Take off your jacket and give me your hand.” 

I offer her my right hand, palm up. 

She pushes up the sleeve of my shirt, to the middle of my forearm. Her fingers feel cool against my warm skin. She cradles my hand in hers, across the desks. Her thumb rests along the inside of my wrist keeping me still. I hold 

my breath and think, Holy shit! She’s touching me. Paula begins drawing a plant cell and its structures on my palm. The sensation of the ball point on my skin tickles but I resist the urge to pull away. I look up at her. Smiling, she holds my gaze until I drop my eyes. I blush. Mesmerized by her touch, I don’t hear anything she’s saying as I stare at the diagram written in her loopy handwriting and blue ink. 

Luckily, Amber is paying attention and asks, “Why do plant cells have cell walls and animal cells don’t?” 

Paula says, “That’s an excellent question. Good for you.” Amber beams. I’m instantly jealous. 

Paula answers, but looks directly at me when she does. “That’s just one of the mysteries of the biological world you have to memorize. Now, let me draw you an animal cell.” 

I fish through the pockets of my jeans and pull out a Kit Kat wrapper. “Finish on this,” I say. She smiles again but this time her brown eyes seemed to sparkle at me. 

She says, “I knew you were cute, Alexandra, but I didn’t realize, until today, you’re also really funny. You’re so shy and quiet in class.” My cheeks redden again. I laugh nervously as I tuck my hair behind my ear. 

What exciting story are you working on next?

I’m not actually writing anything now, but I am percolating on a story that picks up with Alex, the main character in Now I know It’s Not My Fault, ten years down the line. I really like the character, and it would be interesting to see where she is after college and how her experiences with Paula affect her life into adulthood.

When did you first consider yourself a writer?

I published my first article when I was a 23-year-old graduate student, so I guess I’ve technically been a writer since then. I’ve been a therapist for more twenty years and it’s hard to think of myself as anything other than that, professionally. But I think publishing my debut novel probably means I’m now a writer also.

Do you write full-time? If so, what's your work day like? If not, what do you do other than write and how do you find time to write?

I’m a Marriage and Family Therapist and I have a private practice in the town where I live, so most days I see clients. Although, I almost never work all day, which often leaves me large blocks of time to write. I enjoy the balance of doing therapy and writing. I have to admit, I always use the open blocks in my schedule for writing. I have three kids and a giant dog who need my attention.

What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?

I almost always write the music of the Fleetwood Mac station on Pandora.

As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

As a young child, I wanted to be a jockey. I was small and loved horses so it seemed like an obvious choice.

Anything additional you want to share with the readers?

I’m a bit shy, and both love and hate all the attention my book is getting.

Links:

Twitter | Amazon

Thanks for being here today, Laurie. All the best with your 'percolating'!

Interview with mystery author Susan M. Boyer

Author Susan M. Boyer is here today chatting with me about her new Southern mystery, Lowcountry Book Club: A Liz Talbot Mystery #5.

Bio:

Susan M. Boyer is the USA Today-bestselling author of Lowcountry Boil, Lowcountry Bombshell, and Lowcountry Boneyard. She has received various awards for her series, including the Agatha Award for Best First Novel; the Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence in Mystery/Suspense; and SIBA Alliance Okra Picks for Spring 2015 and Summer 2016. Lowcountry Boneyard is a Finalist for the Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence in Mainstream Mystery/Suspense. Susan loves beaches, Southern food, and small towns. She lives in Greenville, SC with her husband and an inordinate number of houseplants.

Welcome, Susan. Please tell us about your current release.

Who would have pushed Shelby Poinsett out of her second-story library window if it wasn't her husband? Private investigator Liz Talbot and her husband Nate Andrews are hired by a prestigious Charleston law firm to prove the innocence of Shelby's husband. There’s a lot of suspects, including the members of a 100-year-old, invite-only book club whose members are a tight-knit community of Charleston's genteel ladies. Liz is convinced that one of these women knows what happened to Shelby that night.

What inspired you to write this book?

Shortly after the release of Lowcountry Boneyard, I was invited to visit a book club quite unlike any I’d ever been to before. Some aspects of the book club I use in Lowcountry Book Club were inspired by this very unique organization. Other aspects are complete figments of my imagination, of course.

What exciting story are you working on next?

I’m in the planning and outlining stages for the next Liz Talbot mystery, which will release next year.

When did you first consider yourself a writer?

In my mind there was a distinction between being a writer and being an author. I considered myself a writer when I started writing with the goal of publication. I considered myself an author when I held a copy of my first novel in my hands.

Do you write full-time? If so, what's your work day like? If not, what do you do other than write and how do you find time to write?

Yes, but it depends on whether I’m writing or launching a book. On a writing day, I take my second cup of coffee with me to the computer. I check email and respond to any Facebook or Twitter messages. Then I try to avoid all distractions and write until lunchtime. During lunch, I’m still partially in my alternate reality, thinking about the story. Then it’s back to work until my stomach starts growling for dinner. In the evening I check in with social media again and try to relax. I usually read in the evening. I try to work in exercise when I can. Lately I’ve been trying to go in the mornings before I start work. It’s hard, because I have no self-discipline whatsoever.

What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?

I’m not sure this qualifies as a quirk. There may be a diagnosis code for it. But, under deadline pressure, I write best in a Hampton Inn (no other hotel will work) with absolutely no view of anything remotely interesting and a desk facing a neutral toned wall. I get up in the morning, go down for breakfast (and ask that they make up the room during that time) then go to work. I take a break periodically and pace the hall of whatever floor I’m on to get my steps in and work out plot problems. Sometimes I talk to myself during these strolls. Housekeeping staff, if they’re around, give me concerned looks. For lunch I eat something odd from the hotel shop. I snack on Lindor truffles and nuts. Dinner is whatever someone will deliver, often some variety of Asian food or Pizza. I basically isolate myself in my alternate reality until I’ve birthed a book.

As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

I wanted to be Nancy Drew. Or an actress. Or Miss America. For a while I wanted to be a lawyer. But I always wrote. It was just something I did.

Anything additional you want to share with the readers?

Y’all please come over to my website (http://www.susanmboyerbooks.com) and sign up for my newsletter. (Home page, scroll down to bottom right. Be sure to respond to the verification email.)

I only send them when a new book is coming out (or if some wildly improbable, wonderful thing happened) so I won’t be cluttering up your inbox, and I never share email addresses. Occasionally, I have giveaways just for newsletter subscribers.

Links:

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Amazon | Barnes and Noble

Thanks for being here today, Susan! Happy writing.

Interview with YA mystery author K.C. Tansley

I’m kicking off a new month and new week with YA author K.C. Tansley. She’s here to chat about her new young adult murder mystery, The Girl Who Ignored Ghosts. This is the first book in The Unbelievables series.

Feel free to leave comments for her below. She’ll be stopping in to answer any questions you may have.

Bio:

K.C. Tansley lives with her warrior lapdog, Emerson, on a hill somewhere in Connecticut. She tends to believe in the unbelievables—spells, ghosts, time travel—and writes about them.

Never one to say no to a road trip, she’s climbed the Great Wall twice, hopped on the Sound of Music tour in Salzburg, and danced the night away in the dunes of Cape Hatteras. She loves the ocean and hates the sun, which makes for interesting beach days. The Girl Who Ignored Ghosts is the first book in her YA time-travel murder mystery series.

Welcome K.C. Please tell us about your current release.

The Girl Who Ignored Ghosts is a YA time travel murder mystery. It is the first book in The Unbelievables series.

In The Girl Who Ignored Ghosts, prep school junior Kat Preston accidentally time travels to 1886 Connecticut, where she must share a body with a rebellious Victorian lady, prevent a gruesome wedding night murder, disprove a deadly family curse, and find a way back to her own time.

What inspired you to write this book?

It was a concept my best friend, Anthony, and I dreamed up when we were in 7th grade. The 11-year-old me loved the idea of ghosts, curses, spells, castles, time travel, and a murder mystery.

I was a huge fan of soap operas like Dark Shadows and Santa Barbara and that’s where the romantic thread came in. Back then, I only thought about the story I wanted to tell and this was it. Anthony and I never got beyond the character sketches and general concept because the original idea had way too many characters. He still has a notebook somewhere filled with dozens of character sketches.

Decades later, when I was working on Wall Street and mourning the end of the Harry Potter series, I thought if I could write my own novel, then the characters would always be with me. That was when the 28-year-old me remembered the story the 11-year-old me was dying to tell. I emailed Anthony and he gave me the go ahead to work on it. And then the work truly began.

Excerpt from The Girl Who Ignored Ghosts:

     The two weeks leading up to finals were the perfect time to do research at Gilman Library—if you needed to be surrounded by people. Bustle and noise didn’t distract me anymore. I was much more likely to be disturbed by quiet. Or, at least, what the quiet conjured up. Old buildings like Gilman were the worst.

I made my way to the library’s elevator. My progress was slowed by the twenty pounds of research material that I carried. I slid my thumbs under the straps of my backpack, trying to relieve my aching shoulders, while I waited.

Professor Astor’s classes were unusual—even by McTernan standards—and his paper topics were insane. But he was a prestigious university professor willing to teach prep-school kids, so the school let him teach pretty much whatever he wanted. This semester was “The Lore and Lure of Historical Places,” which might sound innocent enough, but Astor had me investigating a notorious double murder that had happened in 1886.

The professor expected McTernan students to do as much as his students at Georgetown, but he helped anyone willing to do the work. For my latest assignment, he’d loaned me some incredible resources from his personal collection. I couldn’t wait to explore the books in my backpack, but investigating a grisly mystery and a family curse meant that I had to take some special precautions. Working alone in my dorm room was out of the question. I needed the frantic energy of my classmates preparing for finals.

Once the elevator arrived, it was a short ride to the fourth floor. The place was packed, just the way I liked it. I found a free chair at a table with three sophomores. They didn’t look happy about my intrusion, but I was a junior, so they had to deal.

I had a lot of work to do. If I was going to discover anything new about what happened at Castle Creighton, I had to start by reviewing what was already known. While I read, I needed to look for blank spots and anything that had been overlooked. Professor Astor’s willingness to believe that I might be capable of unraveling a 129-year-old mystery was one of the reasons he was my favorite teacher.

I slipped on my headphones, cranking up some Taylor Swift. I needed happy music to explore something this dark and scary. Then I pulled out my binder and reread my notes on Castle Creighton.

The castle sat in the middle of an island just a few miles from the village of Wright in Connecticut. It felt a world away from the hustle of Washington, D.C. I’d only seen a few photos of the place, but my first thought was desolate and creepy. Maybe it was the isolation of the island or the Medieval Gothic architecture of the castle, but the place seemed designed to provoke bad dreams. I couldn’t help envisioning what I could face there—an endless line of restless ghosts, waiting for someone like me.

What exciting story are you working on next?

Right now, I’m working on the sequel to The Girl Who Ignored Ghosts. It picks up a month after everything that happened in TGWIG. It’s so exciting to get to continue the adventures with Kat and Evan. We’re going to discover so much more about the Langley family in this book. And if I’m channeling Toria, there will be more time travel for Evan and Kat too.

When did you first consider yourself a writer?

It started out as a life long hobby. I wrote incredibly angsty poetry all through high school and college. Back then, it was just something I wanted to do. As I got older, it became something I snuck in time to do. Even after I wrote my first manuscript, I didn’t think I was a writer. I was just someone who wrote. I didn’t start using the title writer until I got more serious about it. When I was writing my novel with the intent to publish—that’s when I felt like I was a writer. So probably around 2009.

Do you write full-time? If so, what's your work day like? If not, what do you do other than write and how do you find time to write?

I write full time, but I also teach part time to pay the bills. My days are mine. Two evenings a week, I teach. Those are half days of writing and promoting.

A typical day starts with me rolling out of bed and sliding into the chair at my desk. I spend an hour checking email and social media. I break for breakfast. Then I get down to writing. When I’m drafting, it’s 2000 words a day of writing. When I’m revising, it’s 50 pages of revising.

Around 1 p.m., I get in an hour workout. Then back to promo work like ad creation, social media, writing guest blogs, setting up events, etc.

Right now I’m creating workshops for school visits. Between developing the talks and creating the Powerpoints, that’s a few months of work.

My graphic designers all have day jobs, so I have to check email at night and respond to them about ad design, newsletter design, and website updates. My day usually starts at 9:30 am and ends at 1:00 am.

What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?

I have to feel what my characters feel. So if my character is depressed, I have to summon up that emotion and go into it. Sometimes it’s exhausting to write because my characters go through so much. I have to be right there with them, feeling my way through it. They say to torture your characters, which means I torture myself right along with them.

With The Girl Who Ignored Ghosts, I couldn’t time travel and see how it felt. So I had to approximate it. Think about what emotions it would trigger and summon them up. So shock, fear, and uncertainty were things I was constantly tapping into.

As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

Green.

This is a true story. When I was five and my cousin was six, my grandmother asked us what we wanted to be when we grew up.

My cousin was playing with a cash register and replied, “A grocery store check out lady.”

When my grandmother turned to me, I said. “Green.”

“No, Kourtney, what do you want to be?”

“I want to be green.” It was my favorite thing in the world.

Anything additional you want to share with the readers?

My tagline is “Believing in the unbelievables” and I do. I’ve had some creepy ghost experiences.

When I lived on Wall Street, there were several nights in that haze between dreaming and fully awake where I saw ghosts at the end of my bed. People dressed in clothes from another era and exuding an eerie bluish light. It turns out there were some horrible fires that destroyed buildings down there. I think when people die tragically something of them remains.

Links:

Website | Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads | Amazon

Thanks, K.C.!