<\/p>\n
Sawbones<\/em>, historical fiction from metroplex author Melissa Lenhardt, was recently named one of Lone Star Lit\u2019s Top Ten Favorite Texas fiction titles for 2016. What\u2019s even more remarkable is that in 2017 Lenhardt will have published five books since her 2015 debut. Earlier this week she took time from a busy holiday schedule to be interviewed by email for Lone Star Literary Life.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n LONE STAR LITERARY LIFE: Melissa, you grew up in a small town in East Texas. Which town was that; what was it like; and how do you think it eventually influenced your writing?<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n MELISSA LENHARDT<\/strong>: I grew up in the \u201970s and \u201980s in Winnsboro, Texas, a small town about fifty miles north of Tyler. That was when Main Street was a real main street, with small businesses run by local men and women \u2014 clothing stores, a five-and-dime, a hardware store, pharmacies, banks, insurance agencies, restaurants, law offices. There was a Dairy Queen and a Sonic, lots of gas stations and churches. So many churches. You could walk anywhere in town (though there were no sidewalks) within about fifteen minutes. Though the schools were integrated, the town was segregated, with African-Americans living in one area, whites in another. As far as I know, that\u2019s still the case.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n I don\u2019t think growing up in Winnsboro has influenced my writing any more or less than living in a city. People are the same everywhere, and I draw on the people surrounding me now as often as I draw on people from my childhood.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n I understand that you never had any aspiration, when you were growing up, to be a writer \u2014 that you went to college but ended up in an industry that didn\u2019t suit you. When did you get the writing bug, and how did you pursue it?<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n I started writing fan fiction, and the encouragement by my cousin, who\u2019s been a professional writer for thirty years, to start writing my own ideas is what spurred me on to start writing the book that would eventually turn into Stillwater<\/em>.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Persistence paid off for you. I read that you wrote your first draft of Stillwater <\/em>in 2003, but it wasn\u2019t published until 2015. What inspired you to stick with it?<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Stillwater <\/em>didn\u2019t start as a mystery, but as a modern-day retelling of Jane Austen\u2019s Persuasion<\/em>. That idea didn\u2019t work at all, mainly because I wasn\u2019t a good enough writer to emulate Austen. I stopped and started two or three times, with big gaps between working on it. I kept coming back to it because I loved the town and [main female character] Ellie, and wanted to tell their story.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n What do you consider to be your first big break, and how did it come about?<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Signing with my agent in 2013. I met her at the DFW Writers\u2019 Conference and pitched Stillwater <\/em>to her at the end of the last day. She requested a full, and I signed with her six weeks later.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n What inspired Stillwater<\/em>, your debut novel, and can you tell our readers about the book and the series?<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n I created Stillwater, the setting, for my modern-day Persuasion<\/em>. My intention was to write in multiple genres, and set all of my books there. The novel in its current form came about when I apparently decided to turn it into a mystery. I\u2019m sure it was a total whim, a \u201cYou know what? I\u2019m gonna write a mystery.\u201d When I started writing original stories, I had a real problem with abandoning projects when a new shiny idea came along. Finishing a book \u2014 taking it through multiple drafts and editing it relentlessly \u2014 didn\u2019t happen for years. I saw a tweet recently that said, \u201cIdeas are the easy part,\u201d and that\u2019s totally true. I learned that lesson when I set my mind to finishing Stillwater and had to make sure the mystery resolutions and motivations made sense. I spent a lot of time staring at my office wall.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n As far as my idea to write in multiple genres in the town of Stillwater goes, I\u2019m not sure how realistic that is. Publishing likes you to find a lane and stay in it, and now that Stillwater has been established as a mystery setting, I\u2019m not sure a publisher would be eager to explore other stories and genres there. But the good news is I have lots of ideas for mysteries, so as long as the readers enjoy Stillwater mysteries, I\u2019ll keep writing them.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n From your debut novel in 2015 through 2017, you will have had five books published. That\u2019s a pretty intense undertaking. What\u2019s your creative process like?<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n I have no process. Seriously. Lots of writers can detail out their daily schedule and give great advice on how to be successful and productive. I cannot. I write almost every day, but when I write depends on life, inspiration and motivation. I\u2019ve learned the best motivator is a publisher imposed deadline.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Our staff selected Sawbones <\/em>as one of our Top Ten Favorite Texas Fiction titles of 2016. Will you tell our readers about Sawbones <\/em>and the series?<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n I love all my books, but I think Sawbones <\/em>is my favorite. I started writing it after my father died in 2008, so there is a lot of emotion tied up in the book. It also went through a lot of drafts and iterations until I finally found the right voice and story. Sawbones <\/em>was the first book I finished and sent out on submission. I realized quickly that it needed more work, and that it was going to be difficult to find an agent with a Western. So, I decided to finish and polish Stillwater <\/em>and submit it, thinking that finding an agent with a mystery would be easier. And, I was right.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Sawbones <\/em>was written as a standalone, but when the publisher asked if it could be a series I said, \u201cOf course it can!\u201d Then, panic set in because I had no idea what happened next. I\u2019d never thought of it. They rode off into the sunset. The End. But, when in doubt, start writing. (I suppose if I have a process, that\u2019s it.) Somehow, that worked, and I wrote the next two books in sixteen months. The trilogy will be released in print in April, May, and June of 2017.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Which Texas authors do you enjoy reading?<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Charlaine Harris, Julie Murphy, Kathleen Kent, Larry McMurtry, Harry Hunsicker, Joe Lansdale, James Lee Burke.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n What\u2019s been the biggest surprise about being a published author?<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n How much work there is to do outside of creating, writing, and editing.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n What\u2019s next for Melissa Lenhardt?<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n I am under contract for another historical novel, a standalone with entirely new characters, time and setting. I\u2019ll be working on that in 2017. After that, I suppose I\u2019ll see where the muse takes me.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Interview with Frisco novelist Melissa Lenhardt<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":770,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[229,53,30,8,15],"class_list":["post-771","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\/771","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=771"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/771\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.etypegoogle10.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}