Here are 5 Questions and answers to help you get to know her a little better.
- What was your inspiration for writing The One That Got Away, and how long did it take you to write it?
Early on I was very strongly attracted to someone who was already in a relationship (A), and her girlfriend (B) had a friend (C) that she spent quite a bit of time with. At one point the two of them (B and C) joined a mycological society. One night I was out at dinner with A and some other friends, and the topic of B and C’s mushroom activities came up. A said: “They bring the mushrooms home and cook them and then they watch me eat them.” I felt a kind of electrical charge run up my spine, and I said, “That would make a great story.” The next day I went to the library and checked out a field guide to mushrooms. That was around twenty years ago. Of course, in the novel, there is no resemblance to real people, living or dead.
- Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp?
I’m a sucker for a happy ending, but I’ve learned that you have to love yourself first. That’s not easy, so maybe learning to love yourself is enough. You don’t need someone else to complete you.
- Who are some of your favorite LGBT writers?
I’m glad you put the “some” in there! I’m a huge fan of Bob Smith (Selfish and Perverse, and Remembrance of Things I Forgot: A Novel), and I loved Hilary Sloin’s Art on Fire. I enjoyed J.M. Redmann’s Micky Knight series and Ellen Hart’s Jane Lawless series. Karin Kallmaker never disappoints. And I have to put a plug in for Shelley Ettinger’s recently-published Vera’s Will— it’s a wonderful book. There are so many more I could name.
- What are you reading now?
I just finished Jacqueline Winspear’s latest Maisie Dobbs, A Dangerous Place, and now I’m re- reading Deanna Raybourn’s Lady Julia Grey romances. I’m also reading—for something completely different—Jane Hirschfield’s new book, Ten Windows: How Great Poems Transform the World. Soon I’ll begin compiling my summer reading list.
- What projects are you working on now?
Now that The One That Got Away is almost out, I’m going back to a satirical lesbian romance that I started during National Novel Writing Month a couple of years ago. It’s called Birds Do It. The star-crossed lovers are Robyn Wrenn, a sex-crazed East Hampton heiress, and Jayne Goodgirl, a world-renown ornithologist researching birds in the Amazon rainforest.
