Interview with Laura Drewry

1. I live in a city - Vancouver - but I often set stories in small towns for the sense of community which echoes what I find in my downtown neighborhood. What about you? Where do you live and where do you set your stories? And why?

We live in Squamish, which is a smallish-town about 45 minutes north of Vancouver.  It’s a place where we have the best of both worlds; the small town feel, with easy access to the city if or when we want it.  We’re surrounded by mountains, water, trees, trails, bears. . .it’s fabulous.

My books are all set in small towns.  I love the feel of a close-knit community where people know each other, or they know “of” each other, where most people have the whole Six-Degrees-of-Kevin-Bacon thing going on, and you can get from one end of town to the other in less than ten minutes.

2. What's your favorite book ever and why? I have 2 or 3 books that I read over and over again - including Jane Austen's Persuasion. I love it because the characters are older and their relationship isn't easy, but you know, when they do finally get together, they're grown-ups and they know exactly who they are.

Oooh, don’t ask me to pick just one.  Seriously.  Can I pick two authors instead?  :o)

Mary Balogh’s Regencies are amazing.  Her 6-book “Slightly” series revolves around the Bedwyn family.  I confess right now, after I read (and LOVED) the first three, I became skeptical, thinking there was no way in the world she could maintain that for the last three, but I’m very happy to report, she not only maintained the quality of the series, but the last book was my favourite!  We spend the first five getting to know bits and pieces of the oldest sibling, Wulfric,  Duke of Bewcastle, so when his story finally gets told, it’s nothing short of magical.  We know him, and we’ve come to love him already, so for him to finally find a woman who deserves him (and who he deserves, as well). . . .wow.  Loved it!  Her characters remain true to who they are throughout the stories, even though they must, of course, bend at some point. 

I’ve also become a huge fan of Kristan Higgins, who is snort-coffee-out-your-nose funny.  I’ve read all but two of her books and my favourite, so far, is ‘My One and Only’ which will not only make you laugh, but it’ll make you cry, too, and sometimes you’ll do both at the same time.  I think it took me two days to stop laughing after I finished this book.  She writes heroines who are so real and honest, you’d be hard pressed to not like them, and her heroes are real men with all the good and bad that goes with them, and she’s not afraid to give them their own share of issues.

The fact that Ms Higgins is a huge Derek Jeter fan, too, makes me like her even more.

3. What's the story you've always wanted to write but somehow can't? For me, it's a story about World War I. I'm fascinated by the stories I've read about it but I'm pretty sure I'm never going to write a real war story. I've just finished a book that is set partly during World War I but a very long way away from the battles. I think that's as close as I'm going to get.

For a long time now, I’ve been toying with ideas set in the Klondike Gold Rush.  Having lived up in Whitehorse, and having visited the towns of Dawson City and Skagway, Alaska, it’s something that sits in my brain all the time (seriously, ALL the time) and one day I’m going to write about it.  I just haven’t come across the perfect characters for that story yet, but I will.  One day.

4.  Finally, do you have a routine? If so, what is it and how easy/hard is it to stick to it? I try to have one, but because I work as a freelance paralegal and teach paralegals occasionally, my schedule tends to change from week to week, if not actually day to day. I'm always buying lottery tickets, hoping to win just enough money not to have to work and write to a regular schedule though I'm pretty sure that even if I did have the money to write nine to five, I wouldn't, as I've been scrambling like this forever :)

I’m the type of person who likes to have a routine, but with 3 Little Darlings and a husband, it doesn’t always work.  Once the Little Darlings are off to school, I get the dog out for a good walk so she’ll be happy (read “she’ll leave me alone”) for a while.  Once that’s done, I try to work between 9:30 and 2:30, only stopping to refill my coffee cup or to make myself a PBJ for lunch.  :o)  I don’t answer the door bell, I ignore the house phone, and I only answer my cell if it’s the Little Darlings, the husband or one of the schools).  

There must be music, it must be loud enough in my ear buds to block out every other sound, and when the Little Darlings are home, that includes blocking out their arguments, the dinging of fourteen billion incoming text messages per day, Mario Kart music and the constant replaying of Star Wars or Lord of the Rings movies.  Depending on what I’m writing will determine what I listen to; this present WIP is all 80’s music, but for the next one, it’s all country, and I thank the iTunes gods on a regular basis for making it easy for techno-challenged people like me to make new playlists.

When I’m in the middle of a WIP, like I am now, I would seriously consider trading a kidney for the chance to be able to sit here and type twenty hours a day, seven days a week.   Selfish?  You bet!!  :o)

Laura can be found at: www.lauradrewry.com 

Laura grew up watching her mom iron, watch The Edge of Night, and read all at the same time.  While Laura only irons when it’s a matter of life and death, and she hasn’t watched a soap since Luke married Laura, she did inherit her mother’s love of reading, and somewhere along the way, it morphed into a love of writing as well.

Her books have been described as “delightful”, “clever”, and “smart, sassy and refreshingly different.”

Laura lives in southwestern British Columbia with her husband, three sons, an energetic German Shepherd and a turtle named Sheldon.