Interview Laura Pedersen

As I started to prepare for this column, I had to pull out my huge manila folder containing all of my past book club fliers. According to my files, it was just over a year ago that I first met Laura Pedersen. Her book, Heart's Desire, was our January 2006 Book Club pick. The club was also lucky enough to be selected for an author phone chat from Ballantine Reader's Circle. When we spoke to her, we all were amazed at her story of how she became an author. I'm not going to steal her thunder. I'll let her tell you, but let me just say, she's something else.

What I did want to share with you is why I like Laura's books so much. Let me start by saying: February is the most certainly the month of love. An obvious question is why didn't I choose a hot, steamy romance novel instead of a book about a young woman and her dysfunctional family? Good question! The answer is simple. I chose The Big Shuffle because it is a book about love, not the romantic kind, but of a familial kind. There is no stronger bond than that of family. Whether you like yours or not, the old saying is true. Blood is thicker than water. Laura weaves a tale of family love as you have never read before. Frankly, I don't know how she does it. With each book in her Hallie Palmer series, the stories just get better and better.

By the time you read this column, I will be home recovering from a hip replacement. With the support of my family (and my friends), my life will soon be back to normal. For that, I am thankful. So as you celebrate Valentine's Day this year, perhaps you can stop what you are doing and tell your family how much you love and appreciate who they are. I bet you they'll think it's the best gift you've ever given them.

As part of this interview, Laura has graciously agreed to give five lucky readers a copy of The Big Shuffle. So you know what to do! Read the column and then look for the trivia question at the end.

Go grab a cup of coffee and get to know my friend, Laura Pedersen.

JEN: Please tell us a little bit about your educational and professional background.

LAURA: I went to local overcrowded public schools from kindergarten through high school. My mother worked as a community mental health nurse and believed that you have to deal with all sorts of people in life and so you may as well get started early on. After graduation I moved from a small town outside of Buffalo, NY, to Manhattan, and took an entry level job at the American Stock Exchange. New York University was only a few minutes away and so I picked up a finance degree there. On Friday and Saturday nights I'd sometimes do standup comedy at clubs like The Improv, Catch A Rising Star, and Comedy Cellar. After a number of years on Wall Street I became a columnist for The New York Times. It was fun, but also a lot of research and meeting deadlines, so I transitioned into writing novels.

JEN: At what juncture in your life did you decide to take the plunge and write a novel? Who was the most surprised by this turn of events and why?

LAURA: I decided to start writing novels when I became bored with standup comedy, creating jokes just for the sake of getting laughs, especially since I didn't particularly enjoy performing or aspire to have a TV sitcom, like most of those working the circuit in the 1980s. But I've always loved stories, and so the idea of weaving humor into a story appealed to me. I was impressed by the way the movie "When Harry Met Sally" made such clever use of Billy Crystal's standup comedy routines.

I'd have to say that I most surprised myself by becoming a novelist, because I was a late reader and very much in doubt as an English student. I believe that when the principal suspended me for writing sonnets as absence excuses that his exact words were, "laugh a minute, thought an hour."

My parents aren't surprised by much at this point. I'm an only child and had already cracked my head open five times by age thirteen. I tend to lead with my skull. Anyway, they've warned me: "No more surprises!"

JEN: About how long did it take for you to write your first book and what was the most difficult part of the process?

LAURA: It took about two years to finish my first novel, Going Away Party. At the time I was traveling around the country doing a lot of speaking, and also writing a weekly column for The New York Times, so I had to chisel away at it a few hours here and there. Also, since I'd never taken any writing courses, it was necessary to figure out exactly how to write a novel as I went along. I prefer learning by doing. (Though I can see why this wouldn't work for brain surgery or engineering.) The most difficult part was making it so all the characters don't sound like me. This is still a big challenge.

JEN: We first met when you graciously agreed to call in for my book club discussion of Heart's Desire, which you know I loved. The Big Shuffle is the third book in this series. For those readers who are not familiar with it, would you mind giving us a little background information about the series?

LAURA: Beginner's Luck was my second novel and the first installment of the Hallie Palmer series, which now has a total of four books (the final one, titled Best Bet or The Long Shot, you decide, will come out in 2007). It's about a teenage girl with a talent for gambling who must decide what direction her life will take, and the ensuing adventures that lead her to a decision. When I was growing up, I adored Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer, and I suppose it was in the back of my mind that I'd love a story where a girl gets the really good parts. Since Beginner's Luck turned out to be very popular, people regularly asked what happened to Hallie after the last page. The book had a conclusion, but as to the rest of Hallie's life, it was rather open-ended. Thus followed Heart's Desire, another series of escapades starring Hallie, though this time involving her love life. And now we have The Big Shuffle, where a family crisis sends our plucky protagonist hurtling into adulthood at warp speed.

The question of whether these novels should be classified as "young adult" has arisen from the start, because they feature a girl going from age 15 to 21. However, as much as we've been enjoying crossover with teenagers, and the books are on high school reading lists, we've decided to stay with mainstream fiction. For one thing, the stories aren't written with the teen market in mind, and second, the other two most popular characters, Olivia and her son Bernard, are sixtyish and thirty-something, respectively, and I believe they have strong plotlines with which older readers can identify.

As a result, I think the books can be read individually or out of order, but it's probably more fun to start with Beginner's Luck and work forward.

JEN: An obvious question but, how did you come up with the lead character, Hallie Palmer and what makes her so special to you and to the readers?

LAURA: Hallie is a creative rebel -- no drugs, alcohol, rehab, tell-all memoir, and then the talk show circuit for her. I think Hallie is faced with the same daily dramas and questions about her future as most teens, but she's willing to engage fully with life and give all the different possibilities a chance. I was also intrigued with the idea of an intelligent girl who no longer feels that school is the best way for her to learn, and yet her parents and teachers are flummoxed by this. In my experience as a teacher, traditional schooling works for about 90% of kids. Most thrive on the structure and enjoy the society. But the big question/problem is what to do when regular classroom instruction isn't the answer.

JEN: Comparing the first book to the third, how have you grown as a writer?

LAURA: I'm still worrying about the same things I was when writing the first book -- trying to show an emotion rather than just saying it (i.e. she suddenly became very angry!), finding variations on words so that paragraphs don't read like legal documents, and trying not to use characters or storylines that feel familiar. It's a nice compliment when people say that the books are original. And I rather like it that booksellers and librarians find them hard to classify, not really fitting into specific categories such as teen or chick lit. My great hope is that they're somewhat timeless and can still be enjoyed twenty years from now -- that the circumstance and emotions are sound enough so that it doesn't matter what kind of cars people are driving or whether they have dial up or Wi-Fi Internet access. Best of all would be for the books to get banned entirely. That seems to be the ultimate marketing trick. (Which actually happened to Huckleberry Finn, starting in Concorde, MA. Plus I just found out that Louisa May Alcott of "Little Women" fame was on the board and voted to remove that racy text forthwith. Oh Lou, we hardly knew ya!)

JEN: I have to admit, what attracts me most to this series are your quirky, lovable characters like Bernard and Gil, for example. Besides Hallie, who is your favorite character and why? Whose lines are the most fun to write and why?

LAURA: Olivia is the most fun for me. She's a voice inside my head that oftentimes comes up with her own lines and regularly makes me laugh out loud or roll my eyes. I grew up attending the Unitarian Universalist Church of Amherst in upstate New York and as an adult I belong to All Souls Unitarian Church in Manhattan. Olivia is a composite of all the wonderful women I've known over the years who have fought so many important battles -- equality for women, tighter drunk driving laws, improvements in healthcare through the settlement movement and other outreach programs, and the list goes on and on. This character gives me an opportunity to include the idea of having the courage of one's convictions, though yours certainly don't have to be hers, and also to make lots of Unitarian jokes, which are basically a win-win since Unitarians laugh hardest at themselves while everyone else is laughing at us.

JEN: Unlike the first two books in the series, I would say that this book is a little heavy, meaning it's not an upbeat novel. That's not to say it's not enjoyable, but it's overshadowed by death. Why did you choose to write about this theme?

LAURA: To me, moving from childhood to adulthood means developing the capacity to think more about others than yourself. This happens in all sorts of ways -- entering relationships, having children, caring for aging parents. People in their twenties and thirties can be very focused on their careers, but when they reach fifty and sixty they tend to be much more concerned with contributing something to society and what kind of world they'll leave behind.

So this family crisis was meant to be Hallie's moment, where she really has to put all thoughts of herself and what she wants aside for the time being, not even knowing how long it might last.

JEN: The addition of Pastor Costello to the plot is delightful and quite entertaining, especially the way in which he interacts with the family. What is his significance to the plot and will we be seeing more of him in book four?

LAURA: I'm drawn to religion, I suppose because most people can get so passionate about the subject, and have such an enormous variety of ideas on what is right or wrong, true and false. Then you have the fact that more wars are fought over God than anything else. I took on the subject of theology in a big way in my novel Last Call. But it tends to be an undercurrent throughout all the stories, and I try to represent different groups and perspectives, usually the more popular ones in our society. For me, Pastor Costello is an example of a Good Christian in the truest sense of the words. He interprets his faith to mean that we should love thy neighbor and do unto others. Pastor Costello leads by example, through performing good deeds and by not being judgmental.

JEN: What do you like best about this book and why?

LAURA: I hope that none of the characters are perfect, and that through helping, listening and learning that they compliment, and in a sense, complete each other. By the time we get to The Big Shuffle, Bernard knows Hallie so well that he can almost always offer some good advice and assistance in a difficult situation, such as when the two hold a tête-à-tête in the front hall closet right after her father's funeral. Maybe it's odd that a gay man in his thirties who is no relation to 18-year-old Hallie is the one she turns to at this moment, but life is full of surprises, especially if you give it a chance.

JEN: Is there a general theme or message that you are trying to convey with the Hallie Palmer series and if so, please explain.

LAURA: I like the idea that people can get to know the characters and stories and develop their own themes. Or consider how they might react in such circumstances. But if pressed to come up with something I'd say the series is about belonging -- with regard to friendships, families, and relationships -- and how sometimes camaraderie and understanding isn't in the places you expected it to be, but then suddenly turns up in another place, perhaps even a rather strange corner of your life. The last page of every book contains a statement that's almost a narrator speaking rather than Hallie, where I present the one main idea I was working off of for that particular novel. However, it's not really supposed to stand out.

JEN: What has surprised you most about the publishing business?

LAURA: There are a tremendous amount of books out there. In the olden days if a person had an idea for a novel they actually had to sit down at a typewriter and pound it out, which took a certain amount of dedication, especially if Wite Out, or worse, carbon paper, was involved. It's much easier to produce a manuscript on a word processor, so more people seem to be keyboarding away and looking for agents. On the bright side, this technology allows writers to make their work available to the general public without having to go through intermediaries, if they wish.

JEN: What one piece of advice would you give someone who wants to become an author?

LAURA: I know a number of writers who create a story based on a single idea or character, which is fine, but then they find themselves pretty far along when they realize there isn't an ending. I like to know early on what the arcs of my main characters will be. If they lose love will they find it again? If someone is faced with a big dilemma then how will it be resolved? The ends don't all need to be tied up in neat little bows, but the main characters have to travel from A to B. Once I know the beginning and the end, what's commonly referred to as "the muddle" can be worked out. And then it's actually quite fun to take that journey with my characters.

JEN: Of course, we want to know more about book four! What can you tell us about it? When is the anticipated publishing date?

LAURA: Best Bet (or The Long Shot) is the final phase of Hallie's becoming an adult. She journeys out across the big blue marble for the first time after having always stayed close to home. Then she must make some tough decisions that will set the course for the rest of her life, the way most of us do. The first chapter is available on my Website: laurapedersenbooks.com

I assume the book will come out in the fall of 2007.

JEN: Do you have a web site? Blog? Mailing list?

LAURA: Just the Website. The rest of my time is spent e-mailing my mother and calling my father and telling them where I am and exactly what I'm doing. From the age of about 10 to 30 they had no idea what I was up to, and now that I'm 40 they want all the details. My dad lives out in New Mexico and likes to take my itinerary, match it against the weather forecasts, and then call me about all the storms. He's 100% Danish. They have a dark side, but it's humorous. My mother is Black Irish, and they can have a dark side that isn't so funny. If I catch cold she's immediately looking for signs of viral pneumonia.

JEN: Any upcoming scheduled public appearances?

LAURA: I just did some readings down South and that's always fun because when people ask you how you are, the first tendency of a New Yorker is to become suspicious. Why do they want to know how I am? Are they going to try and sell me drugs or a beach condo or something? Then after a few days you start to become a normal human being -- talking to people in checkout lines and making remarks about the humidity.

Next for me is a reading/signing at Barnes & Noble in Manhattan. I'm envisioning a lot of people in metal folding chairs who haven't taken off their coats and scarves, their arms crossed high in front of them, staring at me with a look that says, "Make me laugh in the next two minutes or I'm outta here. I can't believe I gave up my AA meeting for this."

The Big Shuffle came out at the end of October in 2006 and so by the time this runs I'll pretty much be winding down, just doing some phone chats with book clubs -- sitting on my couch in my Tweety Bird pajamas at night with a box of S'mores Pop Tarts in my lap and the dogs poised to leap at any crumbs. And of course telling my parents what my plans are for the next day.

JEN: I just can't thank you enough for your kindness and especially your friendship. It has been such a pleasure getting to know you. I wish you the best of luck in your career and always.

LAURA: Thanks so much for staying in touch. I am thinking lots of good thoughts for a speedy recovery from your medical adventures.

I hope you have enjoyed my interview with Laura. If you haven't thought of a good gift for someone in your family for Valentine's Day, why not buy all three books in the Hallie Palmer series?

Speaking of which, what is the title of the first book in the Hallie Palmer series?

Five people who enter the Jen's Jewels contest with the correct answer will win a copy of Heart's Desire. Good luck!

Next month, I will be bringing to you an interview with Jennifer Apodaca. Her latest release is The Sex on the Beach Book Club. Now there's a title for you! You won't want to miss it.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Until next month...Jen