Wow! I can’t
believe Thanksgiving has come and gone and Christmas is on the horizon. To celebrate surviving the feast, and continuing my November Chick-Lit/Romance Author Interviews series, today I have
YA author Marie Lamba on the blog talking about writing and life.
Welcome,
Marie!!!
ME: Thank you so much for joining us
today. I’m excited to have a young adult author check in! What are you writing
now?
MARIE: I'm putting the finishing
touches on a young adult paranormal called DRAWN. It's about a teen artist who
moves to England with her dad in search of a normal life, but once she starts
channeling a hot ghost through her drawings, nothing will ever be normal again.
It's reminiscent of Jude Deveraux's KNIGHT IN SHINING ARMOR, only for the YA
audience.
ME: Sounds amazing! This might be a
tough one since you write for a younger audience, but… How closely do your
characters resemble you? (Any particular quirk?)
MARIE: My female characters tend to
really care about their families, but also have a strong need to break out on
their own, something that definitely paralleled my own feelings in my teen
years. Also, in OVER MY HEAD, my
summery YA romance, the family parallels my own in a way. The main character
Sang is biracial, just like my own daughters are, and the half Indian half
Italian mix flavors the story with lots of humor and culture
clashes...especially when Sang falls for a gorgeous college-aged lifeguard!
And Michelle
in DRAWN is a Jersey girl and a fine
artist with out of control hair. That's
me alright. I actually studied writing
and fine art in college, but then leaned more toward writing afterwards...and
my hair now benefits from mousse...
ME: I love that you weave so much of
yourself into your characters! And… Ah yes, hair products are a definite
necessity! Do you ever wish you lived a character’s life (not just in your
imagination)?
MARIE: My characters often get to put
the bad guys in their place, something I'd love to do. Like in OVER MY HEAD when Sang and her cousin Raina get unwillingly pulled into a
catfight with two nasty girls who have been tormenting them. They escape with
their dignity, while the tormentors lose their mini-skirts! Ah, justice.
Also, yeah,
I would NOT mind falling for a hot medieval ghost, like Michelle does in DRAWN. Just saying...
ME: I’m with you in regards to
characters being able to tell people off! How about this: Sunglasses (a particular fetish of mine):
designer or drugstore cheapies? How many pairs are enough?
MARIE: My older daughter has tons of
them, so I live off her hand-me-downs.
Sadness!
ME: No fair (but then again, I don’t
have children so I get to be completely selfishJ).
Would you ever want to work on a combined project with your favorite author? If
so, who?
MARIE: I get so lost in my own head
when I write that I don't think I could work on a combined project... but I
wouldn't mind grabbing a cup of coffee with Ann Tyler, and then perhaps going
shopping with Sophia Kinsella.
ME: Definitely shopping with Miss
Kinsella! Love itJ! I’ve found that readers really enjoy
connecting with authors… what is one thing you want your fans to know about you
that they may not already be aware of?
MARIE: That I've been a Girl Scout
leader for the past 15 years! Right now I'm leading a high school troop, and we
recently took a week-long trip to London. As an author I also do special Skype
and in-person workshops for teen Scouts about writing and my YA novels. I've done
this now for over 1000 teen Scouts, and it's a great way to share my time and
my love of writing with my readers. I hope to do more of these in the future
and would enjoy Skyping with book clubs, too.
ME: I bet you get an amazing amount of
reader-research done through your time with the Girl Scouts. That’s fantastic! Marie,
thanks so much for taking the time to share with us today. I wish you great
success!
Don’t forget
to check out Over My Head by Marie Lamba, available on Amazon, Barnes &Noble, and many other online retailers! And be sure to look for her upcoming
novel, Drawn, available soon! Want to learn more? Visit Marie’s Amazon Author’s page for a complete listing of her books and her author bio!
Happy
Reading and thanks for stopping by!
~Heidi
What a fun interview and I loved this book, and I don't normally read YA. I am so looking forward to Marie's DRAWN. I am lucky to have her local to me, and she is super nice too besides being a wonderful writer. :)
ReplyDeleteHi Donna,
ReplyDeleteThanks for stopping by! And I agree with everything you said :-)
~Heidi