<\/p>\n
LONE STAR LITERARY LIFE: Amanda, you were born in New York. Would you tell us about your background and your family?<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n AMANDA EYRE WARD<\/strong>: My mother\u2019s family is from Savannah, Georgia. My grandmother, Alice Marie Roux, met my grandfather (a \u201cYankee\u201d!) on a cruise to Bermuda. When they married, they settled in New Jersey, where my mother was raised. My mother became a model and writer, and she and my father raised me and my three sisters in Rye, New York. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n You\u2019ve always traveled quite a bit, studying in Massachusetts and Montana, teaching in Greece, spending time in Kenya and Egypt. Would you tell us about what drove your decisions to learn and live in such diverse locales?<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n I wanted to see what sort of a life was possible. Traveling makes me very happy\u2014I still travel as much as I possibly can. Seeing the world as a visitor\u2014even in my own hometown\u2014is essential to my writing.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n At what point did you know that you wanted to be a writer?<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n I was first and foremost a reader. Still am. I read to learn, to escape, to become someone else for a time. It wasn’t until college when I saw a class titled Fiction 101 that it occurred to me that I could write for a living!<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n How would you describe your \u201cfirst big break\u201d?<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n On my thirtieth birthday, my first novel Sleep Toward Heaven<\/em>, was sold to a young editor named Anika Streitfeld. Meeting Anika (whom I later followed to Random House) taught me so much about how a book should be edited and rewritten.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n For our readers not familiar with your most recent book, The Same Sky<\/em>, would you describe it for them?<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Same Sky<\/em> is a story about two people who yearn for something that is just outside their lines of sight. Set along the Texas\/Mexico border and in the Austin barbecue community, it is\u2014to me\u2014a story about coming home.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Hands-on research seems to be a big part of your writing, and you actually spent time with agencies working on behalf of undocumented children for The Same Sky<\/em>. Would you tell us what that was like?<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Heartbreaking, amazing, harrowing. And I learned the meaning of faith from the children I met. I think about them all the time.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n The Same Sky<\/em> is your sixth book, how has publishing changed since you began your career?<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n How fiction is marketed and sold has completely changed, but what I do\u2014typing alone in my pajamas\u2014remains the same.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n You have been very generous in your praise of Austin as your home. How does it inform your writing?<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n I find the whole state of Texas fascinating\u2014full of bright characters and endless contradictions. There are so many stories here. I am also obsessed with barbecue!<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Which Texas writers do you enjoy rea<\/span><\/span><\/strong>ding?<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Mary Helen Specht, Owen Egerton, Sarah Bird, Elizabeth Crook, Stephen Harrigan, Karen Olsson, and my friend Dalia Azim, who is still polishing her wonderful first novel.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Since barbecue plays a large role in The Same Sky<\/em>, are there any key insights you learned from your research?<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Oh, yes! Low and slow is really the big takeaway. You can\u2019t imitate the flavor of meat cooked for a long time over carefully tended flames. You just can\u2019t. I am currently a fan of La BBQ, Brown’s BBQ, J Mueller, and (whenever I can get it) Franklin\u2019s BBQ.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n * * * * *<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Praise for Amanda Eyre Ward’s The Same Sky<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWard is deeply sympathetic to her characters, and this affecting novel is sure to provoke conversations about immigration and adoption.\u201d \u2014New York Times Book Review<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cA deeply affecting look at the contrast between middle-class U.S. life and the brutal reality of Central American children so desperate they\u2019ll risk everything.\u201d \u2014People<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cAfter reading The Same Sky<\/em>, you just might view the world a little differently. And isn\u2019t that the goal of all great art?\u201d \u2014Bookreporter<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cEmotionally gripping . . . a novel that brilliantly attaches us to broader perspectives. It is a needed respite from the angry politics surrounding border issues that, instead of dividing us, connects us to our humanity.\u201d \u2014The Dallas Morning News<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cIt takes a skilled, compassionate writer to craft an authentic, moving page-turner from a complex social issue like immigration, but Ward nails it.\u201d \u2014Good Housekeeping<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cPoignant and bittersweet . . . Eyre\u2019s wrenching fifth novel is a study in contrasts. . . . Carla\u2019s journey is powerfully rendered and will stick with readers long after they close the book.\u201d \u2014Publishers Weekly<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Interview with Austin’s Amanda Eyre Ward<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":381,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[26,53,30,8],"class_list":["post-382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-authorevent","tag-interview","tag-lonestarlistens","tag-lonestarliterarycom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382","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=382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/382\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}