Q&A with Erika Robuck
New Release Feature 9-4-2012
Erika thank you for visiting with me and the members of theB&N General Fiction Forum
Debbie - Firsttell us a little about your new novel Hemingway’sGirl.Erika - Hemingway’s Girl is the story of ahalf-Cuban young woman living in Key West in 1935 who secures a job as ahousekeeper for Ernest Hemingway and his family, and becomes more involved inhis personal life than she could have anticipated. As the writer’s secondmarriage begins to crumble, she finds herself torn between the larger than lifewriter and a WWI veteran and boxer building the Overseas Highway.
This is your second novel, tell us how you felt when yousold your first book.I actuallyself-published my first novel, Receive MeFalling. During the querying process for that novel, many of my friends inbook clubs wanted to read it. I decided to self-publish, knowing I couldcontinue to query agents since I owned the rights to the book. Thirty bookclubs later, that novel is still going strong.
Tell us about how you came to be an author, did you always wantto write, how did it happen?I’ve written as longas I can remember. I started with plays, poetry, and songs. In middle and highschool I wrote two terrible novels and even more terrible diaries. I minored inliterature in college and taught elementary school until I had my first son adecade ago. While staying home with my son I was finally able to use my freetime (naptimes and bedtimes) to work on novels. I’ve been committed to the formever since.
So far both your books are historical in nature, are youplanning to always write historical novels?I have always beendrawn to the past in art, architecture, music, and literature, and I anticipatethat I will always write historical fiction. I’ve been thinking about a memoir,but even that will utilize the history of Ireland. I’ve always felt a deepconnection to the past, and find it both relevant to the present and importantfor inspiring empathy in readers.
Are you a reader, fiction or non-fiction, who are some ofyour favorite authors?I love to readanything and everything, but especially historical novels. The research phaseof writing is one of my favorites because I get to immerse myself in nonfictionlike biographies, autobiographies, letters, and other writings on or from thepast.
Do you belong to a writers group?I do, and I don’tknow how I would exist without them. First, I have two critique partners onopposite ends of the globe. Kelly McMullen lives on the west coast and writesnarrative nonfiction and poetry in the style of Kerouac and DiPrima. In Prague,Jennifer Lyn King writes multi-period upmarket fiction. I exchange work withthese women once a month and conference afterward by phone or Skype. I amdeeply connected to them, and my work is better because of our exchanges.
Tell us about a normal day in the life of Erika Robuck.This question made mesmile. It’s hard to describe a normal day with three sons ranging from agesfour to ten, a husband, a dog, piano lessons, hockey practice, soccer practice,and on and on.
You have many events planned for your release and yourlaunch as well as others are at Barnes & Noble Bookstores-I hope you meetmany fans who read about you here and good luck with the novel.Thank you so much. Itwas my pleasure!
Friday September 7th 7:00pm
Barnes & Noble
2516 Solomon’s Island Road
Annapolis, MD 21401
410-573-1115
My review of Hemingway's Girl
Hemingway’s Girl
Erika Robuck
NAL
ISBN13:9780451237880Erika Robuck gave me a fly on the wall look not only intothe great novelist Ernest Hemingway’s personal life in Key West, but the relationships he made andbroke, the ruined economy of post WWI Key West and the multi-cultural residents who populated the area. Withsimple easy to read dialogue she painted a real picture of the area, the timeand it’s people that was both informative and imaginative. Her protagonistMariella Bennet was a fascinating specimen of fortitude, attitude and humilityand she will long be remembered in this reader’s mind and along with hermultitude of wonderful eclectic characters made this novel a definite keeper asshe educated and entertained me. It’s a hard to put down read so make sure yourchores are finished before you pick this one up. Know that this journey wasmore than worth it’s time and I’m anxious for the next place this incrediblestoryteller wants to take me.
It’s 1961 Key West Florida and after a day of deep seafishing with her son Mariella learns of Papa Hemingway’s death. The news sendsher back in time to 1930s Key West where the living was anything but easy,where left over depression still lingered in the Keys, in the shanty homes andthe gaunt hopeless faces of it’s residents, to the year she met Papa, whereonly months before her own father had died. She was almost 20 the first timeshe met him, bigger than life and full of himself and he left an impressionthat never would or could die. She remembers that tumultuous year of her lifeand the role Hemingway and others played in it, she remembers falling in love,she remembers joy and sadness. She remembers the best and worst of times, sheremembers just what Papa meant to her and she to him.
Photo by Catherine Pelura of KC Photography
Hiç yorum yok:
Yorum Gönder