Interview With Author Candida Pugh
Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
In 1961 I joined the Freedom Rides and was sent to Parchman Farm, Mississippi’s notorious state prison. I wrote a novel loosely based on that experience. I’ve worked at a wide variety of jobs, from waitress to foreign student advisor to Silicon Valley marketing copywriter, and am ABD (all but dissertation) from the University of California at Berkeley. My husband and I love good wine, good dogs, and good company. I’ve written four published books: Bridge of the Single Hair, Baby Fat, Happy Talk/Zone Defense, and My Life in Dog Years: A Poodle Named Henry and Other Melodramas.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
My love of dogs started when I was about seven, and has continued throughout my long life, leading to my writing a memoir, My Life in Dog Years: A Poodle Named Henry and Other Melodramas.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
My MA is in 19th century American literature, so a number of books from that era have meant a great deal to me, but I’m also very fond of Victorian British authors such as Thomas Hardy, George Eliot, and Charles Dickens. Mark Twain’s humor engages me, but I’m additionally moved by Jane Austen’s ability to ramp up desire through repression.
What are you working on now?
I’m writing a novel, working title Spare Us, about a group of old women who form an unusually strong bond with one another. I’ve finished a novel called Burn Scars, but am waiting to hear from an editor about changes to its structure.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
I’m pretty much scattershot and therefore probably 80% non-effective.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Edit until your fingers bleed. Well, that’s ridiculous, of course, but I mean it nevertheless. Read aloud, edit, read aloud again. Pay special attention to dialogue. Ironically, actual conversations that have been recorded do not sound authentic while well-constructed fictional dialogue convinces us the characters are real.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
That, if you want to move a character to the other side of the room, just put her there.
What are you reading now?
The Lost Bookshop by Evie Woods
What’s next for you as a writer?
Complete Spare Us and Burn Scars
If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
Anything by Anthony Trollope in his Barchester Towers series, anything by George Eliot, anything by Thomas Hardy, and The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton.
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