Author Laura Bowers discusses the publication of her debut novel, BEAUTY SHOP FOR RENT, and the winding path she traveled to discover the dream of writing within herself.
YA author Laura Bowers continues her discussion with Mechele R. Dillard in Part II of Bowers's interview for Teen Fiction at Suite101.com! For a recap of PART I, click here!
MRD: Abbey believes she can find her true happiness, i.e. security, in money. Was there ever a time in your life when you saw money as the key to life and success?
LB: Yep, it’s called my early to late twenties. During those years, I put too much value in materialistic things, such as having the perfect house, nice furniture, cool vehicle, vacations, clothes, etc. But, you live and you learn. That’s why I love my thirties; I appreciate life from a different angle!
MRD: Your husband, Bob, provided you with a copy of Billie Letts’s Where the Heart Is (Warner Books, 1995), and you realized that you, like Letts, must embrace your own unique writing voice, not imitate the voice of others. How would you describe your voice as a writer? What about your voice do you feel makes it unique? Did the acceptance of your own voice and style empower you as a writer?
LB: I come from a family of colorful, vibrant people and the way the ladies talk in the beauty shop is how I talk with my mom or girlfriends over coffee, so it was fun bringing that out in my story. I guess you could call my voice simple and home-style, which is fine by me. But at the beginning of my writing career, I wanted to sound eloquent and worldly, like someone who was interesting enough to capture the audience. After reading Billie Lett’s book, I realized it’s the amazing characters that make a book interesting and that I was working against the grain. I just needed to create these colorful, vibrant characters—the kind I’ve been surrounded by all my life—and tell their story. I guess somewhere along the line, my voice sort of fell into place!
MRD: You have had a series of dreams throughout your life, as most of us have; do you see writing as a dream that is going to stick around for awhile?
LB: Absolutely! I love my job, even though it does drive me nuts sometimes. But hey, I can work in my pajamas if I want to, I can call my coffee addiction a job requirement, books are a tax write-off and talking out loud to myself is considered perfectly acceptable. You can’t get much better than that!
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Laura Bowers’s debut YA novel, Beauty Shop for Rent, is available at your local bookstore, as well as online. Her first book signing will be Saturday, May 19th, at Locust Books in Westminster, Maryland, where she will be meeting readers and autographing copies of her book from 1p until 3p. For more details about this signing, as well as others, visit her Web site, or make friends with the author herself at MySpace.com—and don’t forget to take the Blog Tour while you are visiting!
Speaking of blogs: If you’d like to know a bit more about Beauty Shop for Rent (Harcourt, 2007), just check out Mechele R. Dillard's review of the book, found right here in the Teen Fiction at Suite101.com Blog.
