Current Giveaways

Click on the book cover to head over to the giveaway page for these books! None right now :)

Thursday, December 23, 2010

Lesley Livingston Mini-Interview


If you haven't already, please take this blog evaluation survey for me. Thank you so much! :)

I got together with Lesley Livingston, the author of the amazing Wondrous Strange Trilogy, and did a small interview about the books, theater, and Shakespeare. Here it is:

Q: I myself am a theater person, (the musical I’m in goes up next week! Aah!), and I wanted to know just how big a role does theater plays in your life? Why did you choose theater as a main part of your novels?

Ooh! Break a leg! (er... maybe not in the way Dame Barbara does in WONDROUS STRANGE).

Theatre has always played a huge part in my life. I wanted to be an actor from the time I was a kid and it influenced me greatly growing up. I adore Shakespeare and I love the thrill of getting inside a character's head and then the rush of performing. It's funny how the two professions - acting and writing - dovetail so nicely. They are both storytelling and, while acting - essentially telling someone else's story - is awesome, at some point I realized that I also wanted to tell my own!

As for the theatrical aspects of the WONDROUS STRANGE books, well - it just fit so perfectly: I needed a girl who was living in NYC because of Central Park; the city is famous for its theatre scene; Shakespeare wrote about Faeries; and I already had a deep knowledge of the biz, so... voila! Kelley was an actress from the get-go. I love it when a plot comes together!
 

Q: You have an immense love for Shakespeare. How was the experience of taking characters from his plays (like Puck) and giving them a new life? Also, are there any specific scenes or lines from Shakespeare that you would go back to again and again for inspiration?

I do have a pathological fondness for the Bard, I must admit! It was both daunting and gratifying to take on the task of borrowing from his work, but I think Shakespeare was the kind of writer who would be totally okay with that kind of thing. After all, he himself built some of his best-loved stories around pre-existing plots and characters. And I always say - if you're gonna steal, steal from the best! ;-)

There is so much richness in those tales that it makes it easy to draw inspiration but I did go back again and again to the first confrontation scene between Oberon and Titania, and also to a few of Puck's speeches when I was deciding on what my version of the Fair Folk would be like.

There's also a line from Hamlet which has always inspired me in my writing and that is: "There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy".


Thanks so much Lesley for answering my questions! 

_____________________________________________________________________
Lesley is a writer and actor living in Toronto, Canada.  Captivated at a young age by stories of mythology and folk lore, past civilizations, and legendary heroes, she developed into a full-fledged Celtic Mythology Geek, steeped in stories of the Otherworld, Faeries and King Arthur. Lesley went on to earn a Master’s Degree in English from the University of Toronto specializing in Shakespeare and Arthurian literature.

For almost three years, Lesley hosted weekly late-night movie marathons on the nationally broadcast television show, SPACEBAR, as the Waitron-9000, a sparkly holographic waitress with an encyclopedic knowledge of obscure B-movie trivia. She is also a founding member and principal performer with Tempest Theatre Group.

Lesley is an unrepentant egghead – a character-trait that somehow doesn’t interfere with a love of shoes and shiny things. WONDROUS STRANGE is her debut novel, the first in a trilogy published by HarperCollins. The second book in the series, DARKLIGHT, will be in stores in December 2009. 

_____________________________________________________________________

4 comments:

  1. i'm your newest follower! care to follow back?

    pruesbookblog.blogspot.com

    HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I popped in via the Hop. Hope you will stop by and take a look around my blog, too.

    I'm off today to take a meal and presents to a family with lots of troubles this Christmas.

    I'm a new follower!

    http://readerbuzz.blogspot.com/2010/12/quiet-masterpieces.html

    ReplyDelete



  3. The Louis Vuitton handbags comes in three sizes and assorted colors. Chanel handbags It is a affected bag fabricated of bland covering with topstitched detail. Rolex Air King brands that have a history in China often do better than newcomers, because the Chinese trust Original Rolex Watches brands they have heard of for a long time. “Trust of the 1:1 Replica Breitling Watches is a very serious issue for Chinese consumers, because Chinese consumers are concerned about quality and safety problems and worried about counterfeit products, which hits hard on the Omega Watches Replica trust they put on made-in-China products and brands.This reimagined Replica Tag Heuer advertence 116523 is the antecedent bearing Rolex Daytona that aboriginal came out in 2000.

    ReplyDelete

Thank you so much for stopping by my blog. I love hearing from you! Please, feel free to comment to your heart's content. :)

LinkWithin

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...