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Interview – Linda Lappin
– When did you start writing, what moved you to start writing?
I have always written – ever since I was a child. I think it was actually my father’s typewriter that first moved me to write. I learned to read about age 4, and by age 6 was typing out very short poems on his typewriter. I was fascinated by this mechanical device.
– Tell us about your books.
My fiction deals mostly with women artists and writers struggling to balance their daily lives with their creative drives – though this takes very different forms in different stories and genres. My books have a strong travel element—travel as escape and as pilgrimage. I try to recreate rich authentic, historical settings – mainly the 1920s, for my readers’ enjoyment with Italy and Paris being the main places I write about. I seek to transport my readers into an enticing and very real elsewhere – as in Signatures in Stone — to a spooky villa in Italy or to the artists’ enclave of the 1920s Paris in Loving Modigliani.
Art, and its power to make us live through time, is also an overarching theme in my novels.
– What is your all time favorite novel/book? What makes it special?
I have many all time favorite books. It would be so hard to choose one, or even one writer. One book I love is The Magus, by John Fowles, because of the uncanny mystery it creates around the character of Conchis and his island and the spell he casts on Nicholas. But I would also have to add the Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell – for its amazing four-fold points of view, which shift, corroborate, and contradict each other, and for its amazing descriptions.
– Tell us a bit about your writing process, and how often do you write?
Both the pandemic and retirement have changed my writing schedule.
With my husband home even now part of the week, working remotely, and our decision to spend as much time as possible in our second home ( in a village outside Rome, quiet and closer to nature) it takes me an extra effort to schedule blocks of two or three hours at a time to work in, which I do at least 4 times a week, or more. My work also involves research, site visits, travel, so I need to work that in as well.
– What author would you love to have dinner with?
I’d love to have dinner with Charmian Clift, an Australian writer who wrote some superb memoirs about living in Greece.
– Tell us about your hobbies and passions other than writing.
I am trying to learn Modern Greek ( have been for ages), I love traveling, and I love art — Also cooking, baking, and I have a passion for old rugs and kilims and I’m learning rug repair. I’m also a literary translator from Italian.
– We have many followers who would like to start writing a book or are already writing their first book, any advice for these brave people?
Let it all out in a rush of creativity – and then edit, edit, edit. Read your sentences aloud as you edit. And don’t underestimate the benefit of a good external editor – it will make a difference. When you’ve gone over your manuscript millions of times and are literally sick of it – that’s when you’re getting close to the end.
– What are you reading at the moment?
At the moment I am reading the memoirs of Charmian Clift.
– How is it to be an author in your country? Do you have a good support from the local public?
I am an American writer living and working in Italy and writing in English – but my community is spread all over the globe. The pandemic changed opportunities for writing events, and some English language libraries and bookstores in Rome have closed for good. Things are normalizing again, but may never be the same. My public is everywhere, thanks to Zoom, IG, ebooks.
– Certainly you have had some interesting episodes as an author, fans related or others, share one of them with us.
For years I ran a writing center in our little village, and writing groups and individuals came mainly from US universities and writing associations for week long workshops and retreats. This was a wonderful way to meet new writers and create a community. Everything ended with the pandemic, and now we are starting up again. I am also the author of The Soul of Place: A Creative Writing Workbook – Ideas and Exercises for Conjuring the Genius Loci – (Travelers Tales, 2015) a book which seeks inspiration for creative projects in the special places in our lives, and have had the chance to work with writers on these ideas in different countries and settings. I was thrilled when a Canadian artist selected this book as the basis of a workshop last year, combining writing and painting in nature, which we held here in my village, and hopefully I will be teaming up with another artist in the future. Naturally, the group visited the Monster Park of Bomarzo, the setting of Signatures in Stone!
Thank you Linda Lappin. We at circleofbooks.com wish you much success!
Click here to visit the author page here on Circle of Books.
