Featured Interview With Lauren Linwood
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I’m a native Dallasite who now lives in a Dallas suburb. I grew up with a fascination with anything about history. That passion led me to majoring in history and education, and I became a high school history teacher. I tried to show my students that history isn’t always about huge events–but the ordinary people who lived through them. Many times that unknown person steps up, and the course of history is changed by the action of one person.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I don’t remember a time when reading books and trying to write weren’t a part of my life. I made up stories and acted them out with my dolls and stuffed animals even before I could write. I discovered a set of biographies in my school’s library in third grade. Each was only about a hundred pages, and I read every single one by the time I left. The series featured inventors, military officers, authors, actors, musicians, politicians, explorers. Reading the stories of these people in so many different eras and places in the world became a huge contribution to my education (and still helps me answer trivia questions!).
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
I read in a variety of genres. I love thrillers, especially if they have an historical angle. Steve Berry and Brad Meltzer do a great job with those. I like books about cops, and John Sandford has a terrific series, while James Patterson does several. In historical romance I enjoy reading Amanda Quick, Mary Jo Putney, Julia Quinn, and Diana Gabaldon. Stephen King is a huge favorite of mine. The Stand is my favorite book from him.
I’m most inspired by King because he creates ordinary people who do extraordinary things. I try to do the same in my novels.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
Written in the Cards is a western historical romance. I decided I wanted my hero to be an author who wrote dime novels, which were very popular after the Civil War. That’s when my newly-created heroine Maggie put her foot down. She demanded to be the dime novelist. I had her write her books under a male pen name, as many women authors in the 19th century did.
That freed up Ben to be a Civil War veteran who became a gambler. He calls a cheater out at cards and shoots the man in self-defense. Unfortunately, this cheater is brother to the most famous gunslinger in the West, who swears revenge upon Ben.
Ben hides out in the place no one would expect to find him–on the cattle trail as a cowboy. When he comes off the long drive, Maggie is waiting in Abilene to interview cowboys for her upcoming book. Sparks fly, and the two become an item–until Black Tex Lonnegan hits town with murdering Ben on his mind.
It took about five months to write Written in the Cards. I was sad to finish it because I’d grown so fond of Maggie and Ben.
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Great interview! I love Stephen King, too. I try to follow his “write a novel within a season” system. 🙂