|
Kids get
arthritis, too. How can that be you might ask yourself? Arthritis is
an old person’s disease, right? Unfortunately, I am here to tell
you that it’s not. According to the CDC, over 300,000 children
nationwide suffer from this chronic and at times debilitating disease of which
there is no cure. Yes, we have come a long way, but there is still much
work to be done.
By now you’re
probably wondering what this has to do with Laura Lippman. Well, about four months
ago I approached HarperCollins with the opportunity
to sponsor an author luncheon to help raise money for The Arthritis
Foundation and in particular, for the kids who have arthritis. Not
only did they enthusiastically climb on board, but also Laura Lippman volunteered
to be our keynote speaker. So, on April 12th here in the Baltimore area,
one hundred of Laura’s biggest fans will be having lunch with her while
celebrating the release of her newest novel, ANOTHER THING TO FALL,
to help raise money for a cause that is very dear to my heart. Words can
not express my gratitude for the support from Laura as well as HarperCollins. With
their generosity, we are one step closer to finding a cure.
So, please
grab a cup of coffee and get to know my friend, the fabulous Laura Lippman. And,
don’t forget about the contest section at the end of the column! (For more
information about The Arthritis Foundation, please
visit www.arthritis.org. If you
are interested in making a donation for the luncheon whether it be a monetary
contribution or an auction item, please contact me directly at jensjewels@gmail.com. Thank
you.)
 Jen: For those of us living in the Baltimore area,
we are fortunate to be able to closely follow your exciting career because
you are one of our own. So that my readers can get some insight into the
path of your success, please tell us little bit about your educational and
professional background.
Laura: It was a pretty ordinary path – public schools, 1-9 in Baltimore
(including a year at Western High School’s A-course) then three years
at Wilde Lake High School, then still in the grip of “open space” education,
an interesting contrast. I went to Northwestern University’s Medill School
of Journalism. College admission wasn’t so overwrought, then; my memory
is that almost everyone I knew got into his or her first-choice school.
Jen: What influence did your father, Theo Lippman, Jr., have on your choice
to become a newspaper reporter? Did you feel pressure to live up to
your well-known father’s reputation as a respected writer? Is there a
particular story that you broke that stands out in your mind as one of your
finest hours in the newspaper business and why?
Laura: I thought my father’s job seemed cool. He went to an office,
he wrote what he thought – that was my rather simplistic sense of what
an editorial writer did – he got to travel. It looked fun.
I have a lot of cherished stories from my life in journalism. But my favorite
one was a quiet one – a day I spent with a single 10-year-old boy, on
his last day of fourth grade. It was one of the best stories I ever wrote,
and it didn’t hurt anyone, a rare feat in journalism.
Jen: I read that you wrote seven books before leaving your career as a journalist.
What finally made you take the leap of faith and leave it all behind to pursue
the life of a writer? Do you miss the adrenaline and constant chaos
associated with working on a strict deadline and how, if at all, has it translated
over into your writing career?
Laura: I don’t want to dwell on this, but my last year at The
Sun was pretty intolerable. My bosses, in effect, made the decision
that I would be leaving. (I think they thought I would opt to stay and give
up writing novels, but they clearly didn’t understand just how well
I was doing with my fiction.) It was the best thing that ever happened to
me.
I miss the people, the camaraderie. I never miss the work. When something
awful happens – the day the water taxi capsized, for example, and all
those people drowned – I think, “I’m so happy I don’t
have to cover that.” As for deadlines . . . well, I’ve gone from
having lots of little ones, to one big one.
Jen: Your lead character, Tess Monaghan, mirrors your life in the sense that
she too left a career behind at a newspaper, hers being the fictitious The
Beacon-Light, to embark on a new chapter in her life. Of course,
she became a private investigator and you an author. Is she a compilation of
many people in your life or was she meant to be a sort of metamorphosis of
the new person you had become?
Laura: She’s the road not taken, in a sense. What if I had been laid
off? What else was I equipped to do? (A not so-wild fear in the 1990s.) But,
by virtue of her biography and temperament, Tess is very different from me.
We agree on a lot of things, particularly books and music and films.
Jen: Your latest release, ANOTHER THING TO
FALL,
incorporates the Hollywood scene into your popular Tess Monaghan series.
Some of my readers may not know that you are married to David Simon, the executive
producer of HBO’s show “The Wire.” Were you at all
concerned that some readers may think you were writing about certain members
of his staff? Also, how concerned were you with accurately portraying
the way in which a television production operates without offending anyone?
How much research went into the writing of this novel? Find this book in our catalog.
Laura: I’ll begin with the last question: Enough. I did enough research.
I always do enough. I think research is a bit fetish-ized in fiction-writing,
often by people who have no background in journalism, and therefore find it
extraordinary. You call people up! They tell you stuff! Look, I once had less
than an eight-hour shift to research and then explain several aspects of Baltimore’s
water filtration system. I once learned, on deadline, how to explain the refinancing
of transportation construction bonds, and why the increased fees were not counted
against the project as cost overruns. Those kinds of things demystify research.
As for offending people – novelists really can’t afford to think
that way. I don’t write roman `a clefs, but I also understand that those
who don’t write fiction can never really grasp that. Non-writers keep
trying to reduce novels to their parts, as if they were recipes that can be
deconstructed very precisely. I know that no one in my book is “real.” I
expect that others will believe they see real people in my characters, which
is kind of a knock on my imagination, but so it goes.
Jen: Have you collaborated with your husband on any projects or have any plans
to do so in the future?
Laura: Hmm. I think we both contributed to Rafael Alvarez’s going-away
page when he left The Sun. And I did edit David’s story
for Baltimore Noir, not that it required any real editing. We have
one project we might work on together, one day. But there’s no real urgency
to it.
Jen: I think series like yours is very appealing to readers because they feel
connected to the lead characters, somewhat like visiting with an old friend.
What is the biggest challenge as a writer in respect to keeping the material
fresh without losing the familiarity of past novels?
Laura: The big challenge is providing familiarity and novelty,
because a series requires a careful balance of both. I don’t make many
claims for my work, but the 10 Tess Monaghan novels to date are very different.
I’ve never written the same book twice.
And, in fact, there are often things or characters that don’t show up
from book to book. If it’s winter, Tess isn’t rowing. Whitney and
Crow, among others, don’t have always prominent parts. But life’s
like that, right?
Jen: You are no stranger to winning such coveted awards
such as the Edgar,
the Anthony, the Agatha, and even the first-ever recipient
of the Mayor’s Prize for Literary Excellence. With
that being said, how does that compare to making the New York Times Bestselling
List for the first time with your novel WHAT THE DEAD KNOW? How
has that impacted your career? Has it changed the way in which you write? Do
you now feel more pressure to exceed your readers’ expectations with
each new novel?
Laura: The pressure, always, is to exceed my expectations. The readers are
generous. I am not.
It’s hard, a year out, to assess the impact of WHAT THE
DEAD KNOW. Mostly good, I think. I’ll sign a new contract
with Morrow this year. There are even more foreign editions of
my work. I think, I hope, that I’m taken seriously within crime fiction
as someone with serious and earnest ambitions. That’s all I really
want, to be credited with doing my best, to being very sincere about my
work.
Jen: There are many challenges when piecing together a crime novel, especially
in determining whodunit. What is the most difficult part of the novel for you
to write and what part do you enjoy the most and why?
Laura: Middles are the worst. I loathe the middle. The beginning is always
fun, fresh and full of potential. And ends tend to fall into place quickly – but
only if the middle is right, which it often isn’t.
Jen: What has surprised you most about the publishing business and why? Who
is you biggest critic and whose opinion do you value most when it comes to
your work?
Laura: Like a lot of writers, I had to learn that publishing is a business.
I don’t obsess over it, but I do understand it now.
I’m my biggest critic because I’m the only one who knows exactly
what I’m trying to do. Although, it’s my sense that there are some
folks who would like to fight me for the job. They’re just not tough
enough.
Jen: Please tell us about your website. Do you have e-mail notification of
upcoming releases? Do you participate in a blog? Are you involved with author
phone chats? And if so, how would my readers go about arranging one?
Laura: HarperCollins has a program in which authors “attend” book
clubs via telephone. I have a website that is updated (almost) every month,
and I blog at a Journalscape site called the Memory Project.
Jen: Are you currently at work on your next novel? If so, what can you
tell us about it?
Laura: First, I just finished a novella, “Scratch a Woman,” which
will be part of a short story collection released this fall, HARDLY
KNEW HER. I’m also in the beginning stages of a new novel,
a stand-alone, but it’s too early to talk about it. I don’t always
feel that way, but this one needs some breathing room. I don’t want to
weigh it down with my own expectations and hopes, not in public.
Jen: Thank you very much for taking time out of your busy schedule to chat
with my readers. I also want to personally thank you for being the keynote
speaker at The Arthritis Foundation’s Author Luncheon. It
means so much to me that you are willing to be a part of such a very special
event. Best of luck in 2008!
I hope you have enjoyed my interview with Laura. Okay…here is the trivia
part that you all love! The first five people to e-mail me at jensjewels@gmail.com with
the correct answer to the trivia question will win a copy of ANOTHER
THING TO FALL!
What is the title of Laura’s first book that made it to the New
York Times Bestselling List?
Next month, I will be bringing to you my interview with Andrew Gross! His
latest release, THE DARK TIDE, is one you won’t
want to miss!
Happy St. Patrick’s Day! Jen
|
Meet
the Author: featuring Jen's Jewels