Novel: Trouble is a Friend of Mine

Available: August 4th, 2015

Who’s your favorite author, living or dead? Only one? Under protest, I guess I would single out Virginia Woolf. But you know…there are so many.

What’s your favorite thing about your book? Besides the fact that it’s done and I don’t have to do any more work on it? Haha. Kidding. Sort of. But really, I think what I like about how the book turned out is that despite Digby’s being such a strong character, the story still belongs to Zoe. There were times when, like Zoe, I had to fight to keep Digby from overwhelming everything.

If you could spend one year on a deserted island with one character from literature, who would you choose? Robinson Crusoe would be a pill but at least with him, I’d live. Well, if he didn’t go nuts and suddenly decide to kill me in my sleep. But for conversation, I think I’d choose either Lorelei Lee from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (super funny 1920s book by Anita Loos) or Fanny from the Pursuit of Love (another super funny book from 1945 by Nancy Mitford). Actually, now that I’m thinking about it more deeply, Lorelei would be funny but ultimately, she’d be a liability. Fanny, though, knows a lot of funny anecdotes about strange rich people while still seeming like she’d know how to survive.

Where do you write? I don’t have one set “place.” I love to write in public, preferably in the middle of a crowd. One of my favorite spots is the McDonald’s down the street from our apartment in Hong Kong. I’ve seen amazing things there…I once “excuse me, excuse me’d” into the middle of a full-on triad brawl to rescue my handwritten manuscript.

Who is your favorite hero or heroine of history? I have a hard time with this question because history rarely memorializes nice people and I think the concept of “The Great Man or Woman” whose foibles I’m supposed to overlook has proven kind of bankrupt for me. May I choose one from mythology instead? I like Zhong Kui, who in the Chinese pantheon is considered the King of Hell – he isn’t Satan! He was a scholar, who, after his death, was given the job of capturing evil spirits and imprisoning them. He’s basically John Constantine (I love Hellblazer).

Do you tweet? What’s the funniest thing you’ve ever tweeted? Yes, I tweet but I am only just learning to use Twitter so I don’t try to do anything ‘funny’. I’m terrified of writing something offensive. I’m told this fades.

What is your favorite season? I live in Winnipeg. We often get our first snow in early October and we sometimes get our last snow in May. My favorite season is not-winter. All four months of not-winter.

If you could teleport anywhere in the known universe right now, where would you go? My husband and kid are asleep in the next room. Sorry to be smug but I’m here already.

Do you have any writing rituals? I’m a streaky writer. I wish I weren’t. I wish I were good at the grind but I’m not. When I feel a hot streak coming on, I like to paint my nails red. Then I use my pen to write something soothing on my left hand, too, so I can look at it every time I feel the record about to skip (so to speak) while I’m writing. I spook easily.

What is your idea of earthly happiness? My list is long…one good combination is salty snack (for example, chips, some kind of nasty unhealthy salad, spicy popcorn) plus reading material that fuels my outrage (The Sunday Times, The Economist, and Vogue are all well-written and full of outrage-worthy stuff like bags for $35k or lists of rich people who don’t pay taxes) plus a cushy surface so I can go full horizontal. I also love the feeling in the theater when I’m eating the popcorn before the movie starts. I love the anticipation. Also, at that point, my kid usually isn’t bored yet and is sitting quietly.

What is the best concert you’ve ever been to? Musically, there have been so many good ones. I saw one where Garbage opened for The Smashing Pumpkins. Billy Corgan got made when someone threw a water bottle at him and he avenged himself upon us by playing a fifteen minute atonal guitar solo before storming off. I saw an unannounced one by the Foo Fighters that was awesome. But one of my favorite non-musical concert memories was during a Beastie Boys concert when during a minor stampede, I stepped on Stephen Dorff. He was so mad.

What are you currently working on? Currently, I am being tortured by the sequel (Trouble Makes a Comeback) and the spectre of the book-after-the-sequel. Just the thought of how much work is ahead of me makes me queasy. So much red nail polish…

Thanks Stephanie! We can’t wait to hear more about Trouble Makes a Comeback!

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