Now without further ado here's my interview with Lisa.
Lisa, first thank you so much for joining us in March for
our month long featured read and discussion of your last novel The Proper Care
and Maintenance of Friendship, I say last because you have one due out soon One
Good Friend Deserves Another.
Thanks so much for inviting me
here! I’m thrilled to be part of
this forum, and I’m looking forward to some fabulous, nitty-gritty discussions.
Tell us a little about the new novel
Well, my next book, One Good
Friend Deserves Another, is about love, marriage and, of course,
friendship. It follows three women
as they struggle to save a fourth—Dhara, an Indian-American cardiologist—from
her sudden and shocking decision to submit at the age of thirty-seven to a
traditional arranged marriage.
It’s Dhara’s commitment to this path that troubles them most, because it
calls into question all the friends’ former
assumptions about romantic relationships, and shines a harsh light onto their
own troubled situations. Forced to
take a fresh look at the choices they’ve made, each woman must decide how much
she’s willing to risk for happiness, for love, and—most importantly—for each
other.
Now let’s talk about your history as an author, according to
your website you have a wicked past, would you like to enlighten us about that.
Ah, yes, my “wicked past!” I actually started my career writing
historical romances, sweeping, sensual stories mostly set in France and Ireland
in the eighteenth century and published in the 1990s under the name Lisa Ann
Verge. (Saucy details
at www.lisavergehiggins.com)
But when my third child was
born, I took a hiatus from writing.
When the youngest went off to kindergarten, I took up my pen again . . .
and decided pretty much right away to switch genres. I have three daughters, you see. It became increasingly difficult explaining to them and their
Catholic school teachers what I was doing, scribbling in the attic all day.
Here’s my secret vice: I still adore big historical
novels. When I’m reading for
pleasure I’ll most often pick up a nice meaty tome like Madame Tussaud by Michelle Moran, or Ghost Light by Joseph O’Connor.
Now on that same note tell us about the challenge of going
from a Harlequin heart throb writer to mainstream fiction, what is different
and what’s the same.
The main difference between the
two genres is this: Romance is
glorious escapism; romance is all about the happy ending. Mainstream women’s fiction is
reality-based, gives the writer a breathtaking amount of freedom, and is most
fundamentally about a woman’s emotional journey.
Strangely, I’ve never felt that
it was much of a “switch” for me as a writer. When I wrote romance, I always felt that I was writing about
a woman’s romantic journey that led,
after much strife, to a satisfying ending. Now, writing women’s fiction, I feel I’m writing a different
sort of emotional journey but it’s still about women, it’s still about
transition, but it’s less singularly focused, more grittily real, and more
all-encompassing of the many issues any woman will face.
I like to think I’ve grown as a
writer; I guess it’s only natural that the issues I write about have matured,
too.
The Proper Care and Maintenance of Friendship is very
definitely a Women’s fiction and from the description of your upcoming novel it
would fit in that category too, do you mind getting put on a genre shelf like
that.
Genres are created for marketing
purposes—they define books in a way that’s easiest for the readers who love
them to find them. I think my
latest books fit smack in the middle of the women’s fiction genre, so I’m happy
to be so wisely placed.
What’s next for you
Like most authors, I’m very
excited about the book I’m writing right now! It’s slated to be released next March as Friendship Makes
The Heart Grow Fonder.
It’s about a widow whose husband
left behind a “bucket list” as well as the financial means to fulfill it. For four years she has ignored it, too
busy raising her only daughter to think about resurrecting old dreams. But when one neighbor starts acting wacky
in her empty nest, and another receives a shocking medical diagnosis, the widow
starts to wonder if that crazy list of adventures might just save them all.
Do you know how the novel ends before you start writing it.
I do! Or, at least, I think I do. I write a detailed outline before I start the first draft,
so I don’t write myself into a tiny dark corner. But it’s during the first-draft process that all kinds of
exciting new ideas emerge, and I will adjust the outline accordingly. I’m fifteen books along, now, and it’s
still a wonderful, mysterious process every time.
Now I have to ask about a tidbit I saw on your website, it
says that you were a PhD candidate in chemistry, now this we have to hear, tell
us about what happened on the way to the lab.
Yes, I was a Ph.D candidate in
organic chemistry at Stanford University, taking classes, teaching as a TA, and
working in a laboratory for one of the professors. But after a year I began to doubt this was my path, so I
took a leave of absence and got a job working as a chemist in a local
environmental lab. I also began
writing a novel, just for fun.
Avon Books bought it and published it, and soon I had an agent and two
more books in the pipeline.
For a number of years, I worked
as a chemist and wrote novels at night, and always in the back of my mind dangled
the possibility of returning to get my Ph.D. Three fantastic choices: A strange luxury. So I sought advice. A friend told me this story about
Pavarotti, the opera singer: When
Pavarotti graduated from college, he asked his father if he should teach or
sing. His father said: Choose one, because you can’t sit in
two chairs.
I followed my heart and chose
the writer’s chair. I’ve never
regretted it.
It’s one of the reasons why my
books are all about taking risks.
For facebook friends of yours we know you often tell of life
with teenage girls in the house so let’s expand on that just a bit and go one
further and give us an average day in the life of Lisa Verge Higgins
I do live with
three teenage daughters. Someday
I’ll write a book about all the drama and upheaval . . . when they let me. In the meantime, my life is a sit-com,
and I’m shamelessly mining it for my facebook friends in the snippets “Life
With Three Teenage Daughters.” I
invite you to laugh heartily at my expense at www.facebook.com/lisavergehiggins.
I’d wager that
an average day in my life mirrors the average day in the lives of any woman: I get up, shuttle a car full of neighborhood
teenagers to school (hopefully not in my pajamas), run errands, gulp coffee,
and settle down to my computer.
While I’m supposed to be writing I’m cackling over a video someone
posted on my facebook wall, reading my email, paying bills, and thinking up new
ways to avoid working (I call this “refilling the creative well.”) But when I finally start writing, I’m
all in: I lift my head and
suddenly it’s three in the afternoon and my kids are texting me wondering why
I’ve forgotten about them again. I
chauffeur them to their various activities then, after taking care of mail and
phone calls, I make a fabulous dinner (McDonalds? Pizza? Only under deadline of
course!) Finally, I collapse into
the dining room table to share my day with my patient, fabulous hubby of
twenty-three years.
What is your dream vacation
In my youth, I spent three
months backpacking through Europe. I lived on a few dollars a day, slept in a
series of frightful youth hostels, drank a lot of cheap wine, slept on a lot of
trains, met amazing people, laid eyes on many of the world’s masterpieces of
art and architecture, and roamed through breathtaking cities from Edinburgh to
Rome.
My dream vacation is to be
twenty-four years old and do it all over again. ;)
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