« BOOK NEWS: Pop Tart | Main | Win a dream holiday with Platinum! »

May 21, 2009 10:54 PM

AUTHOR INTERVIEW: Elizabeth Leiknes

Elizabeth Leiknes is author of the fabulous The Sinful Life of Lucy Burns (trust me, it's a must read!) Trashionista asked her some questions on life, writing and of course, the intriguing Lucy...

Please describe your latest book in 15 words or fewer.
A good, but flawed woman commits hideous (yet justified) acts, and then finds redemption.

Where did you get the inspiration for Lucy Burns?
In graduate school I wrote a short story titled “The Furnace” in which a woman named Lucy Burns works as a Faustian henchwoman who escorts very bad people to her basement furnace and, ultimately, their death. My husband actually had a key role in helping create the story’s premise. But when I decided to expand the story into a full-length novel, I wanted Lucy to have a solid reason, one routed in goodness, for doing what she does, so I developed her back story and tempered it all with a healthy dose of Midwestern guilt.

Click over the cut to read more from Elizabeth,,,

What is your favourite chick-lit book?
My all-time favorite chick-lit book is a collection of short stories by Julia Slavin titled The Woman Who Cut Off Her Leg at the Maidstone Club and Other Stories. It is smart, surreal, and simultaneously sad and hilarious. I consider it chick-lit because every woman will see herself somewhere in these stories, and either laugh or cringe at what she sees.

Where do you do most of your writing?
In my dreams and fantasies, I do most of my writing from an amazing, gothic-looking desk in front of a giant picture window, which overlooks a serene pond. All of this, of course, takes place in a forest with no distractions except for chirping birds and the occasional whistling of a teapot. In reality (because I am a full-time teacher and mother of two small boys) I write wherever I can, in short, frenetic chunks of time in-between lots of questions like “May I have more juice, Mama?” and “Could the Hulk beat up Superman?” In fact, in the middle of writing this response, I was summoned to the backyard to start the sprinklers for wet and wild merriment. Now, what was I saying?

Do you have a favourite female heroine?
Strangely, it would be a tie between Dorothy Gale and Elizabeth Bennet.

Are you working on anything new at the moment (and if so, can you tell us?)
Since Lucy, I’ve completed two other novels. Black-Eyed Susan is about a woman who finds out she has three months to live, and the journey she finds she must take. The Understory is about six broken characters who become serendipitously intertwined. Currently, I’m working on a fourth novel that is too early to talk about because I’m horribly superstitious.
 
Do you have any tips for our readers who want to become published authors?
Don’t listen to what I call the Anti-Muse—that mean-spirited voice in your head (and sometimes from real people!) that reminds you what a silly, often self-indulgent practice novel-writing is. Of course, that assertion is probably right, but you must believe in your work and the story you have to tell, or no one else will.

Came straight to this page? Visit www.trashionista.com for more female fiction news, reviews and interviews.

Posted by Elle Symonds on May 21, 2009 in Interviews | Permalink

Comments