To view the 4 star review, click here.
The view the book on the bookshelves (and find the link to Amazon), click here.
To view the book of the month discussion, click here.
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1. How and when did you know you wanted to write?
I’ve had the desire to write for a long time. Even as a kid I started a few “novels.” Of course, they usually ended after chapter one, but I always had an itch to be a storyteller. Eighteen years ago I decided to give it a go for real.
2. What does your schedule look like when you're writing?
I’ll write morning, noon, or night, depending on what my schedule allows. Once I get to the revision phase, I get very focused and want it done yesterday, so those can be long days for sure.
3. Besides coming up with stories, what do you do for fun?
Reading certainly tops the list. I also love traveling, going for long walks, catching up with my college kids, spending time with my husband, and going to movies.
4. Let's talk about your book Eating Bull. The book centers around Jeremy, an overweight teenager, and a serial killer that targets those that are obese. Why have an obese protagonist? What message are you trying to convey?
Given my background in medicine and public health, I have an interest in overweight/obesity and the research surrounding it. People are quick to blame the individual, but many other factors contribute to obesity, not the least of which is our unhealthy food environment. With an overweight protagonist, I hoped to show how difficult it can be for people to change their lifestyle and lose weight, especially with a food industry that bombards us with supersized, processed, and sugar-laden food.
5. The book includes sections told from the serial killer's perspective. How difficult were these to write?
Those scenes were difficult to write in the sense that I found his thoughts and actions despicable. But fiction requires a villain, and since I wanted to show the spectrum of hurtful attitudes toward overweight/obesity, he made a good representation of the extreme.
6. How long did this book take to come together?
It was published in 2015, and I think I started planting the seeds for it in late 2011, so I guess over three years.
7. Were any of the characters based in reality?
The idea for the main character initially stemmed from a patient I saw in clinic several years ago. The tearful adolescent said to me, “Not a day goes by I don’t know I’m fat, because no one will let me forget it.” Those heartbreaking words have stayed with me ever since, and through fiction I hoped to convey this person’s struggle, as well as highlight the reality of food addiction and the food industry’s role in it.
8. What other projects are you working on? Any more books on the horizon?
My most recent novel, The Bone Curse, was published March 2018. It’s the first in a series about a man of science who gets caught up in otherworldly situations. I’m working on the second draft of book two now. I also have a completed psychological thriller and a cozy mystery that I hope to see published within the next year.
9. Do you have any advice for aspiring authors?
Study the craft. Read books in your genre, but don’t be scared to push the genre envelope a bit. Don’t edit as you write—just get the first draft out no matter how ugly it might seem. Ugly writing can be edited. Empty pages from too much self-doubt of what you’re already written can’t.
I like to end on a few silly questions.
10. What's your favorite food or meal?
Nonhealthy: pizza, ice cream, chocolate. Healthy: Big leafy salads loaded with veggies, fresh berries in Greek yogurt, black bean burgers.
Needless to say, I try to eat more of the second and less of the first. But ice cream—yum.
11. What super power would you most want and why?
As long as my clothes and molecular structure traveled with me, teleportation. No time wasted getting from here to there!
12. What's your favorite book to read?
That’s always a tough question, but I think the book that touched me most was A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry. As for genres, I’m partial to thrillers and mysteries.
13. Mountains or beach?
Can I have both?
