Featured Interview With Elizabeth Mitchell
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I’m married with two furbutts, though I believe we are the ones being had. I’ve been lucky in love, finding my husband before I was twenty-five and adopting my two boy cats shortly after our magical North Carolinian castle wedding.
My family and I live in Vancouver, Washington. We love the Pacific Northwest. Though I was an Army brat, I spent most of the years I can remember in Louisiana and North Carolina. I do have some good memories from my time in Germany though.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
Around age ten I was a voracious reader of Wishbone and writer in a color-your-own unicorn journal. Stories filled the half-colored-in book until I turned eleven. By twelve, I didn’t read or write for recreation.
It wasn’t until I was fourteen, on the edge of suicide, that I picked up the pen again. Poems poured out of me–bad poems. Stories came next–bad stories. I read all of the time–vampire romance novels. Life and boyfriends and a career change got in the way, and I lost it again around eighteen.
Years later, I was laid up from a major shoulder surgery with my right arm in a sling that I dove back in; I was twenty-three. In a month, I wrote a novel edited a novel. Needless to say, the pain medication made me think my rambles were Pulitzer-worthy.
But since then, I’ve been writing–sober, mostly.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
My favorite genres are crime fiction and paranormal romance. I know using crime fiction is a cop-out. But I don’t know whether I like suspense, thriller, or mystery better. As for authors, there are so many I love. Carlos Ruis Zafon, Gillian Flynn, and Charlaine Harris have all made a great impact on me.
No author inspires me more than another, despite some leaving a larger impression. I feel like all authors have a line, paragraph, story arc, or character I can get inspired from. My dreams bring about more of my stories than anything, though.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
sweethearts–the lowercase is on purpose as the letters are meant to be written in candy conversation hearts–is a psychological suspense novel unlike anything I’ve ever written and exactly what I’ve wanted write since I decided to become an author. I had the idea when I was sixteen, long before I decided to write. In my teenage mind, I pictured it as a film. When it felt ready, I sat down and wrote. It took a year and a half from start to finish. Half-way through I added a character that turned part of the story upside down, so I had serious work to do. It was frustrating and rewarding; I put in the work, and I’m happy I did.
It’s from two main first-person perspectives with a few other key voices chiming in once in a while. Ada and Sam are the main characters. You hear from them in first person, sinking deep into the psyche of a fractured woman and a serial killer.
Twenty-nine years after finding Laura Hurst in a frozen lake, Ada Bailey decides it’s time to revisit Lynn Pond and confront the past. But Silynn holds more than memories.
Decades-old secrets tumble out as Ada explores the town she was sent away from. Her return dredges up more than sordid pieces of the townsfolk’s lives, though. Sam Pruette, a collector of innocents, worries Ada may remember details from that frigid day in November of 1988.
Laura was only the first sweetheart.
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