Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I live in Berkeley, California and, yes, this is the place I feel most comfortable living in. I have graduate degrees in psychology, did research and program development for a living, do art, am married, and have a son. I have traveled, probably more than average, and I stay a little while to soak in the life and culture of a place, a month at least; the longest, six months (in Paris). I have published three books: two novels (Hello, My Love and Margaret of the North) and a book of travel essays (Mindful Journeys: Paris and Other Illusions).
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
In Hello, My Love!, my latest, I wanted to write a modern version of the type of stories Jane Austen and Elizabeth Gaskell wrote in the 1800s. I imagined what a character like Elizabeth Bennet or Margaret Hale would have been like transported to the age of the internet, greater choices for women, and sexual freedom.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
I don’t think so. I never stop tweaking. Is that unusual? That means, for me, that a book is never really finished.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
Obviously, Jane Austen. I also find valuable insights in Francine Prose’s Reading Like a Writer. I love the way Evelyn Waugh (Brideshead Revisited) and Robert Hughes (Shock of the New) string their words together.
What are you working on now?
I intended Hello, My Love as a standalone book. But after I finished it, I saw possibilities in the heroine’s mother. So, I’m writing a prequel to the book. I also have a nonfiction book I’m mulling over. I’ve written about half of it but I’m not sure, right now, how to get it to where I want to take it–something like “from the first illuminated manuscripts to comic books or graphic novels.” I guess I wanted, in this nonfiction book, to marry my art with my writing.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
I can’t tell what the best method is because I can’t usually tell what the results are. For Hello, My Love, I did engage BookBozo. While it’s early yet in our “campaign,” I’d say they have been quite effective in boosting my free downloads, bringing my ranking up in certain amazon categories. I had a book tour with another company which most likely did nothing for sales. But I got a few quotable reviews from that which, for some reason, could not be posted on amazon.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
No. Different strokes for different folks.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
Target your market. Narrow your niche (to that target).
What are you reading now?
I’m several pages into each of these books: Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook, Elizabeth Bowen’s House of Paris, and Jayne Krentz’s Dangerous Men and Adventurous Women. I like to go from one book to another. But I’m slow because reading competes with my writing.
What’s next for you as a writer?
I don’t honestly know. I have ideas for a fourth novel but that’s as far as I have right now.
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?
Geez! I’ll take an ebook reader and have way more than 3 or 4. I’ll download all the classics I can get, starting with Shakespeare and Jane Austen.
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