1--What is the title of your latest release?
THE LOVE SCRIBE
2--What’s the “elevator pitch” for your new book?
The Love Scribe is about a woman who has sworn off love for herself only to discover that she has the magical ability to write stories that help people find love. Only, finding love and staying in love aren’t quite the same thing. When some love stories start to turn for the worse, she’s forced to confront whether her ability is in fact a gift at all.
3--How did you decide where your book was going to take place?
Before I started writing, I knew that part of the novel had to take place at a secluded cabin the woods. I also knew that I wanted the other parts set somewhere that felt romantic and distinct from the nearby woods. In California, the beaches and mountains are in close proximity to each other, and Santa Barbara is about as romantic a beach city as you can get. Plus, I’m obsessed with Cold Spring Tavern, a restaurant and bar on the San Marcos Pass between Santa Barbara and nearby wine country, which I wanted to work into a book. So, the pieces all clicked around Santa Barbara.
4--Would you hang out with your protagonist in real life?
I think you have to want to hang out with your protagonist, if only to study them. I would enjoy hanging out with Alice, but I’d want to shake her and tell her to stop getting in her own way. And, I’d worry that she was constantly observing me for my fatal flaw, which she identifies in her clients in order to help them find love.
5--What are three words that describe your protagonist?
Observant, private, loyal
6--What’s something you learned while writing this book?
One of the characters is a bookbinder, so I watched a lot of videos about binding books. As a writer and reader, I think of books as the story on the page, but for bookbinders, the book is an object of art. I also tried to talk to a few bookbinders, but they didn’t want to reveal the secrets of their craft.
7--Do you edit as you draft or wait until you are totally done?
Somewhere in between. I aspire to wait until I’m totally done to edit because that seems the most efficient way to write. Instead, each day when I sit to write something new, I read a few paragraphs of what I wrote the day before to help bring me into that moment in the story. Although I tell myself I’m just reading, I always do a light edit. One thing that’s really helped me not spend too much time editing partial drafts is to feel comfortable marking certain moments as placeholders or writing (MAKE BETTER) at the end of the paragraph. This gives me permission to leave something that isn’t working and move on. It’s always a little disconcerting to go back in and see how often I’ve written (YUCK!) at the end of a paragraph.
8--What’s your favorite foodie indulgence?
Sushi! Is that an indulgence? It’s definitely a splurge.
9--Describe your writing space/office!
I wrote most of this novel at our old house, where I had the office of my dreams, a tree house at the top of our small property. We had it built, so it was exactly to my specifications. In our new house, I work in a closet-size office that is doubling as my daughter’s nursery. It has fantastic bookshelves, a sturdy built-in desk, and a view of a cacti garden across the street, but it’s cluttered with my daughter’s crib as well as a balance bike and scooter my son never uses. Actually, it’s a pretty good physical representation of what it’s like to be a writer with young children.
10--Who is an author you admire?
There are way too many to name here. I admire different writers for different reasons. These days, I’m in awe authors who can put out a book every year or even every two years, which I aspire to do. To be able to shift that quickly to something new, to be constantly producing—it’s incredibly difficult and incredibly inspiring. But, I’m also awed by those books that take 6 or 7 years to germinate, not only because of their breadth but also because of the author’s ability to sit with something and to keep the faith going for so long.
11--Is there a book that changed your life?
I think every book I read shapes me as a writer, but the first book that really made me want to be a writer was Even Cowgirls Get the Blues. It was bold and innovative and a little naughty in ways that, at 15, I’d never read before.
12--Tell us about when you got “the call.” (when you found out your book was going to be published)/Or, for indie authors, when you decided to self-publish.
This book came together quickly after floating around a few ideas with my editor. It was over Christmas 2020. After my editor and I brainstormed, I went on a long cold walk with my husband and a thermos of mulled wine and just talked out all the ideas until I had an aha moment. Then I wrote it all out in a pitch to my editor, and before I knew it, we had a book deal.
13--What’s your favorite genre to read?
I go through phases, but most of what I read is contemporary fiction that would fall into the upmarket commercial fiction space. While I love beautiful language, I tend to be drawn to books that have an immersive story, probably because that’s what I strive to do on the page.
14--What’s your favorite movie?
My automatic response to this has always been Reality Bites, but I actually haven’t seen it in a decade. These days, I watch more tv than film. Every time we put on a movie after our kids fall asleep, I pass out in the first fifteen minutes.
15--What is your favorite season?
Outsiders would probably say that we don’t have seasons in LA, but we do! They are just more temperate than in other parts of the country. In LA, I like spring the best. It’s not hot yet and the days are getting longer, which always feels hopeful.
16--How do you like to celebrate your birthday?
I love using my birthday as an excuse to get friends together. In fact, I usually make my birthday last a week, so I can make plans with different friend groups. It’s less about celebrating me as it is getting them to hang out.
17--What’s a recent tv show/movie/book/podcast you highly recommend?
We are watching Bad Sisters on Apple TV right now, and I just love it. It’s funny and quirky and very human but also a little surreal and whimsical in a way I adore. I’m also listening to Age of Vice, which is one of the most cinematic books I’ve ever read.
18--What’s your favorite type of cuisine?
I love these foodie questions because I love food! In Los Angeles, we are lucky to have excellent food from an array of cuisines. It’s impossible to choose just one, but we live close to the San Gabriel Valley, where there is excellent Chinese food. We love to go for Szechuan and have even gotten my 3-year-old to like dan dan noodles.
19--What do you do when you have free time?
Between writing, teaching, and parenting, I don’t have a ton of free time these days. I love to cook and to hike, and those are things I can do with my family. When I do get a night off, I try to meet up with friends for dinner and an excellent glass of wine.
20--What can readers expect from you next?
I’ve always been quick to share my next project with readers, but I think for this one, I’m going to stay mum. I’m working on two different ideas right now to see which one feels more urgent. I think I’ll eventually write both, but I’m just not sure which one I want to do next, which one I think readers will want to read first.
From the bestselling author of The Bookshop of Yesterdays comes a charming novel about a woman with a special gift—her stories help people fall in love.
When Alice’s best friend, Gabby, is reeling from a breakup, Alice writes her a heartfelt story to cheer her up. While reading it in a café, Gabby, as if by magic, meets the man of her dreams. Thinking the story might have some special power to it, Gabby shares it with her sister and other friends, who all find instant love. Word of mouth spreads, and Alice stumbles upon a new calling—to be a love scribe.
But not all the love stories she writes unfold as expected. And while Alice tries to harness her extraordinary gift, she is summoned to a mansion in the woods where she encounters the reclusive Madeline Alger and her mysterious library. As Alice struggles to write a story for Madeline, her most challenging assignment yet, she’s forced to confront her own guarded heart. Because maybe—just maybe—there’s a love story waiting to be written for her, too.
Emotional, deeply imaginative and brimming with valuable life lessons, The Love Scribe explores love, fate and the power of stories when we choose to believe in them.
Women's Fiction | Coming of Age [Park Row, On Sale: February 7, 2023, Hardcover / e-Book, ISBN: 9780778387084 / eISBN: 9780369725981]
Amy Meyerson teaches in the writing department at the University of Southern California, where she completed her graduate work in creative writing. She has been published in Reed Magazine, The Manhattanville Review, The Bloomsbury Review, The Fanzine and Obit Magazine, and was a finalist in Open City's RRofihe Trophy Short Story Contest and in Summer Literary Seminars's Unified Literary Contest. She currently lives in Los Angeles.
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