More from Liza Palmer's interview

Liza is the author of "Seeing Me Naked" and "Conversations with the Fat Girl". I talked with her last night on Realgoodwords - check out the archive to hear it yourself.

There are so many books that are labeled "chick lit" - stories that concern younger women. Often times books like "Sex and the City" are confused with being the norm; centering on fashion and boyfriends. But there is a whole world beyond "Sex in the City" that is thoughtful, fun and mostly about relationships, like Liza Palmer's writing.

I talked with her about her main character, Elizabeth:

"Elizabeth is just your run-of-the-mill 30 year old - always trying to figure out where she fits into life - she's a perfectionist who doesn't quite know what decisions she needs to make - the big decisions of career...family...love. She's doing okay, but I think she's kind of waiting for her life to kick in - and it's not clicking in at the moment."

And Liza continued, about that in-between time in life, like her character Elisabeth experiences as she starts making pastries that are more comfort foods....

"I think we start moving in a certain way - in our career or our taste - the books we read or movies we watch - before we get that we're moving that way personally. It's like the outside of our our life starts changing before we even realize it. I really identified with that."

and Liza's thoughts on her writing process...

"My first drafts are very quick because I hate the blank page. So I vomit out very quickly the worst first draft ever. I don't really know any of the characters at that point - so then I will go back and edit and edit and edit. "Seeing Me Naked" was edited like 10 times or something like that - It is almost like the first time you write a draft its like you and the main character are at a Starbucks together - like maybe you are in line and chat a little bit and the next time you edit is like you are at a bar and maybe you've got a beer in her and she opens up a little more - then the 3rd edit maybe you are driving up the coast to go to San Fransisco so you've got her for 8 hours and she opens up more. So every single edit I get to know her AND you also get to know the main characters by our secondary characters getting fleshed out. Every single edit you get the idea of your main character's world."

What I'm reading - upcoming interviews

I just finished reading "Seeing Me Naked" by Liza Palmer - I got a review copy of this and was excited to read it, because it looked a little "lighter" and I'd like to stop having nightmares from all the mysteries I've been reading in the last few months. Well, I was right - kind of - it took my mind off of mysteries but I couldn't go to sleep until I finished it.

There's a few things that appeal to me about it: the main character is a pastry chef (which is the next career I'd like to tackle) , the Food Channel is involved, it involves the literary world and the characters make some profound changes. Here's a little synopsis:

Elisabeth is the daughter of a living literary legend - and has grown up in a wealthy and genteel old money world. She's bucked the family though, and studied and worked furiously at being a french pastry chef. Brother Rascal is fast usurping his father's writing career and Elisabeth is beginning to wake up and see her life for what it is: baking, farmer's markets and an occassional visit from her equally dysfuntional childhood love. She begins to see isolation is not all it's cracked up to be and plugs her nose and jumps into the deep end. Publisher's Weekly wrote:

"If it sounds chick litty, it is, but consider it haute chick lit; Palmer's prose is sharp, her characters are solid and her narrative is laced with moments of graceful sentiment. "

I'm also reading Felicia Sullivan's "The Sky Isn't Visible From Here - Scenes from a Life". It's scenes from her life - and it too is affecting my sleep, like reviewer Dani Shapiro wrote "Read this book at your own peril. It will keep you awake at night and haunt your dreams."

Felicia's memoir is about her growing up in 1980's Brooklyn. From a young age, Felicia was a caretaker to her drug addicted mother. When she graduated from college, her mother disappeared. Instead of looking for her or mourning her loss, Felicia decided that her mother was now dead to her - and she would rebuild her life and become who she always wanted to be. What happens is eerily similar to her mother's lifestyle.

Lucky for us, Felicia is now clean, sober and busting with literary talent - writing honestly of finally finding who she really is.

Also in the hopper: award winning Minnesota mystery writer William Kent Krueger's new Cork O'Connor mystery set in Aurora, Minnesota "Thunder Bay" (nominated for this year's MN Book Award). I haven't gotten too far into it yet - Cork is trying to find the long lost son of his Ojibwe spiritual advisor, Henry Meloux. William Kent Krueger will be in Grand Rapids as part of the MN Crime Wave on Monday February 25th with Ellen Hart and Carl Brookins.

I've got a mysterious weekend ahead of me!