If you could apologize to someone in your past, who would it be?

First, thanks for inviting me to your page.  You know, this is a tough question. Writers, I think, tend to be risk takers in their emotions, and taking risks often means hurting other people. There are so many people I probably should apologize to, my mother among them. But I think, giving the chance, I would apologize to my fourth grade boyfriend, Jimmie.  He tried to kiss me once during recess and I slapped him.  No reason.  But I’d been reading a romance, and that was often what women did when men tried to kiss them. He didn’t know I was just reacting to something I’d read, not him. Poor kid. Glad to say, he went on and had a marvelous life without me.

  If you could keep a mythical/ paranormal creature as a pet, what would you have?

Lovely question.  I have a reprint of a twelfth century bestiary full of entrancing creatures, and from this bestiary I would chose to have, for inspiration, the aquila, or eagle.  According to the medieval legends, the eagle, when its eyesight began to fail, would find a fountain, fly over it up to heaven, then fly back down, renewed.  As a writer, I wish I could do this! Sometimes, when writer fatigue sets in, we need our vision restored. I imagine this aquila hunkered down on my desk, fluttering its wings at me and saying ‘Look. You need a break.  Let’s find a fountain and go flying!”

How do you keep your writing different from all the others that write in this particular genre?

I don’t even think about that, when I’m working or after. Every character, every plot, has to have its own identity.  It is the writer’s job to stay true to the character and true to the plot. If, though, when I’m writing something sounds too familiar, either in plot or character, I’ll remind myself to take things a step deeper, to dig harder for a truth, an insight.  We bring ourselves to the work, and we are each unique. The work, if we are honest and and willing to take a few chances, will also be unique.

What are the best and worst pieces of writing advice you ever received?

Believe it or not, the best advice I’ve ever received was not to write sentences all the same length.  It sounds elementary.  It is. But I tend to write long, and this mentor was reminding me that language is music as well as meaning. Every sentence shouldn’t be a march. Some should be a waltz or polka, a little three-step instead of a parade.  The worst advice I ever received?  Wait for inspiration to strike. Don’t. 

Are the experiences in this book based on someone you know, or events in your own life?

Absolutely.  When I began writing this book, my best friend of many years had just died and I honestly didn’t know if I could write anymore. The grief that Lily feels for her dead husband was my grief for my friend, transformed.  Lily needs to be leave mourning behind and return to the living, and I needed the exact same thing.  As for the setting, Paris just before and during World War II, I write about Paris because I love the city. If I could be anywhere, at any time, it would probably be Paris, so I go there in my imagination.

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