Interview With Author - Loraine Despres
Name: Loraine Despres
Website: www.LoraineDespres.com
Contact: ld@LoraineDespres.com
Questions:
Q: Where are you originally from?
A: I was born in Chicago, but I grew up in a little town in Louisiana 90 miles north of New Orleans.
Q: Can you tell us your latest book news?
A: My new book, The Bad Behavior of Belle Cantrell will be published in October by William Morrow/HarperCollins. It’s a prequel to my best -selling novel, The Scandalous Summer of Sissy LeBlanc. It will be out in hard cover and also as an audio book on CD.
Q: How old were you when you first started writing?
A: I was in 6th grade. I wrote a 28 page novel about a girl who gets kidnapped by pirates. The reviews were unanomous: “The child needs her head examined.”
Q: When did you first realize you had the potential to be a writer?
A: My first job out of college was writing educational radio plays for WBEZ in Chicago. So it’s something I always did.
Q: What was your inspiration to write your first novel?
A: I wrote a short story in a writing class and the character kept coming back and speaking to me, waking me up at night so I had to pull myself out of bed and write down her words. But by that time I was a successful screenwriter, so I knew what writing was and how to do it.
Q: Is there anyone or anything that inspired you to write?
A: No.
Q: How has your environment/upbringing colored your writing?
A: My two novels are inspired by family myths and stories. My mother’s family who had a store for a hundred years in a little town in Louisiana. The Scandalous Summer of Sissy LeBlanc was inspired by a story my mother told me about a man who went into a bar and found his wife with another man. He walked across the street to my grandfather’s store, bought a gun and shot them both dead. My grandfather was so upset he said, “That’s it. From now on, no more handguns on credit.” I called the story “Gun Control.” My second novel, The Bad Behavior of Belle Cantrell was inspired by the time vigilantes tried to run my mother’s family out of town and they fought back. But both stories are essentially about women who learn to stand up for themselves and the ones they love and take their lives into their own hands.
Q: Do you have a specific writing style?
A: Yes. My happiest time is when I can come up with something clever enough to tickle me. If I think it’s funny, I’m thrilled. I write about serious subjects, with a light touch.
Q: What genre are you most comfortable writing?
A: Literary fiction. My editor says, I write literary fiction with mass market appeal. I also write screenplays.
Q: How do you come up with the title(s) for your book(s)?
A: I like titles that tickle me. When I find one that grabs me, I know it.
Q: Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp?
A: Yes. Rule #1, in Sissy’s Southern Belle’s Handbook: “What makes you a woman is working up the courage to take your life into your own hands.” or “It’s OK for a woman to know her place, she just shouldn’t stay there.”
Q: How much of the novel is realistic?
A: It’s not a memoire.
Q: Are experiences based on someone you know, or events in your life?
A: I think I’ve answered that.
Q: What books have most influenced your life?
A: Madame Bovarie I think it’s perfect. It’s also about a small town housewife who dreams of romance. I love 19th century French fiction. I also like a lot of modern fiction, especially women’s fiction.
Q: What are you reading now?
A: I’m sort of in between books right now and dipping into non-fcition. But the best three novels I’ve read recently are Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides, who won the Pulitzer Prize, In Her Shoes, by Jennifer Weiner, light fun, and breezy, but insightful, and Brick Lane by Monica Ali, who was short listed for the Booker Prize. She’s huge in Great Britian. It’s a wonderful book about an immigrant who came to London in an arranged marriage and becomes an independent woman. I can’t recommend it too highly.
Q: What new author has grasped your interest?
A: Julie Glass. She won the National Book Award a couple of years ago for her first novel, Three Junes. Her writing is magical.
Q: Is there anything additional you would like to share with your readers?
A: I wish them lots of fun with the books they read. Remember life is too short to fill it with bad books.