<\/p>\n
Lone Star Literary Life corresponded with Lisa Wingate as one in a series of profiles tied to the national conference of American Christian Fiction Writers, slated for Dallas, Sept. 17\u201320.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n LONE STAR LITERARY LIFE: Lisa, your bio says you were a journalist before you wrote books. Where did you work as a journalist? How did being a journalist later inform your writing as an author?<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n LISA WINGATE<\/strong>: I wrote articles for various magazines and small-town newspapers, all of which I enjoyed. I can still lay out a newspaper page by hand, with a grid and a sticky-wax roller. I\u2019m sure I never will again, but I do remember how. What journalism and technical writing taught me was that, as beautiful as words are, there\u2019s a time and place for economy of language. Writing for newspapers and magazines also gave me an appreciation for the fact that, in terms of story, a golden nugget can be waiting around the most ordinary-looking corner.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Who gave you your first big break as a writer, and how long did it take you to \u201cget discovered?\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n I was fairly fortunate in getting started, although mine is not one of those magical Cinderella stories. I spent about a year writing Tending Roses<\/em>, my first mainstream novel, mostly while my little ones were napping or playing. When it was finished, I edited it repeatedly and then sought agents for it. I did that in the typical way\u2014researched, used Writer\u2019s Market<\/em>, and sent queries to the agents.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n While I was trying to sell it, I wrote a second novel called Texas Cooking<\/em>. Lisa Hagan of Paraview Literary Agency called me out of the blue one day, having read the partial of Tending Roses<\/em>. She said she was crying and couldn\u2019t wait to read the rest. I sent it. A couple weeks later, her rejection came via email. I was crushed. Weeks after that, she called and told me she couldn\u2019t stop thinking about the book and, if I wasn\u2019t mad at her, she felt she was meant to agent it. I wasn\u2019t and she did. She sold both books to Penguin Putnam six or eight months later. I completely forgave her for having rejected me in the first place.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n How did you balance raising a family and writing books?<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n I didn\u2019t get serious about freelance writing and selling until after I\u2019d graduated from college, married, and started a family. I can put some of the blame on a busy day job and sleep deprivation from raising young children. I wrote and sold various smaller projects between naps, diapers, and playgroups. As the boys grew older, I wrote while they were at school. I wrote while sitting in carpool lines. I wrote while waiting for baseball practices to let out.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n I learned that I can write anywhere, anytime, with any amount of ongoing commotion around me. I don\u2019t require quiet or soft colors on the walls or calm surroundings. I write from life and about life, and pretty much while life is going on around me.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n How has publishing changed since you started?<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n I predate the days of electronic submissions, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and writer\u2019s \u201cplatforms.\u201d When I started, success was all about the in-store placement of physical books. I still remember my first editor telling me, \u201cOh, Lisa, don\u2019t bother looking at your Amazon rating. That\u2019s such a small percentage of the market. It means nothing.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n My, how times have changed! Now entire careers are built on e-books and Amazon. Many authors have chosen to publish their own works. Life is faster. Authors are hit with more marketing demands, in terms of online platforms and so forth. People are busier and more fractured. <\/span><\/span>The upside of this change is that there\u2019s more opportunity for new authors to step into the business and it\u2019s easier for authors to maintain relationships with readers. I\u2019m not sure that I prefer one age of publishing over the other; they\u2019re just different. There\u2019s good and bad in everything.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n What\u2019s your writing process like? How often do you write?<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n I write every weekday if I\u2019m not traveling. I don\u2019t battle writer\u2019s block nearly as much as I battle writer\u2019s laziness. For me, the battle isn\u2019t so much about what to write as it is about getting myself to the keyboard and getting down to business.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n In terms of getting a book together, I set a page count for myself (about 2,200 words per day) and I stick to it. Even if I feel that what I\u2019m writing that day isn\u2019t particularly great, I\u2019ve learned to push through it and put words on paper. I can always revise it later, and there\u2019s nothing better than a completed first draft. That\u2019s when the fun really begins!<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n How do you manage to write for both a Christian and a mainstream audience?<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n People always tell you to write what you know. I write where I live\u2014in a world where small towns center on Sunday service and life is bound by family ties. I like stories that are gritty and honest, but I don\u2019t think a novel has to be graphic or gratuitous to be literary. As an author, the most satisfying thing you can do is to create stories you\u2019d love to read. I love stories that dig deeply and earnestly into the characters, that investigate the drama of real-life history on a personal scale. Those are also the types of reads that can cross over between markets. I\u2019ve been fortunate to write for both for CBA [Christian Booksellers Association] and ABA [American Booksellers Association] publishers over the years, which has helped to build a crossover audience for the books.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n How has Christian literature changed since you started?<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n My first mainstream novel, Tending Roses<\/em>, was published in 2001 in the general market by Penguin Putnam. At the time, there was a strong division between general-market books and Christian books. Tending Roses<\/em> was one of the first novels to fall in that middle ground. Selling the book took a little over a year\u2014roughly four months of searching for the right agent, and then about seven or eight months of shopping the book around to publishers. Because it fell somewhere between Christian and mainstream publishing, that was an interesting process, involving many rewrites and much discussion with several publishers.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Eventually, we ended up selling the book to Penguin in the general market. At the time, the CBA market was mostly dealing in historical novels set in the American west. Since then, CBA readership has broadened to include many different genres and stories that are more gritty or that trend toward literary. It\u2019s interesting to see publishing strategies evolve as the market has changed, and it\u2019s been nice to continue on both sides of the market. My next novel, due out in 2017, will be published by Ballantine in the general market.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Story Keeper<\/em> has won a multitude of awards and has been a best seller. In your words, what\u2019s this story about?<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Story Keeper<\/em> is about a young, New York editor who discovers a mysterious manuscript on an old slush pile and finds herself drawn to the heart of the Appalachian Mountains, searching for the book\u2019s mysterious author.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Sea Keeper\u2019s Daughters<\/em> is coming out this week. What\u2019s this new book about?<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n While researching a different novel, I came across life-history interviews written during the Roosevelt era by members of the Federal Writer\u2019s Project. I\u2018d never heard of the FWP and quickly became fascinated with the lives of these thousands of writers, working for the WPA and tasked with recording the lives of everyday Americans.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Sea Keeper\u2019s Daughters<\/em> was born from the process of researching and imagining the experiences of a Federal Writer. In the novel, a modern woman, Whitney Monroe, finds herself tasked with cleaning out a turn-of-the-century hotel once owned by her grandmother. Inside, she discovers the letters of Alice, a great-aunt she never knew, who left her wealthy family behind to become one of Roosevelt\u2019s Federal Writers during the Depression. What does Whitney find among Alice\u2019s field notes? Possibly, among mountain stories handed down by oral tradition, not only her own family history, but a clue to one of America\u2019s oldest mysteries.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n What advice would you give aspiring authors?<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n First, remember that everyone starts out as a yet-to-be-published author. I know it sounds elementary, but don\u2019t attempt to set out into the publishing world until you\u2019re fully ready. In other words, begin by finishing a novel. It\u2019s almost impossible to sell a partial manuscript or idea if you\u2019re unpublished. Polish it and send it out, because as much as we\u2019d like them to, editors won\u2019t come looking in your desk drawer. <\/span><\/span>Yes, showing your work to the world involves some risk.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n If there is a particular area of your writing that seems to be holding you back (action scenes, dialogue, description, characterization, etc.) devote extensive study to this area. Seek out conference sessions and online workshops devoted to the topic. Study other authors\u2019 techniques in this area. Don\u2019t just read and admire\u2014dissect, break down, take notes. <\/span><\/span>Last, never marry yourself to one project. Keep creating new material\u2014that\u2019s where the joy is, and if you keep the joy in this business, you keep the magic of it.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n * * * * *<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Praise for Lisa Wingate\u2019s work<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n \u201c. . . a gift for crafting a story. Lisa Wingate never disappoints.\u201d \u2014USA Today<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n \u201cA novel of remarkable depth and power. Not since To Kill a Mockingbird<\/em> has a story impacted me like this.\u201d \u2014Colleen Coble, USA Today<\/em> bestselling author of Seagrass Pier<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWingate is, quite simply, a master storyteller. Her story-within-a-story, penned with a fine, expressive style, will captivate writers and nonwriters alike.\u201d \u2014Booklist<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWingate\u2019s latest tale is beautifully crafted and has so many layers to appeal to readers. The plot moves at a quick pace to keep readers enthralled and turning the pages to discover what happens next.\u201d \u2014RT Bookreviews Magazine<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Interview with Texas author Lisa Wingate<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":270,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[229,53,30,8,15],"class_list":["post-271","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-authorinterview","tag-interview","tag-lonestarlistens","tag-lonestarliterarycom","tag-texasauthor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}