Edan Lepucki
Edan Lepucki
Edan Lepucki is an American novelist notable for her debut novel, California, which rose to prominence as a result of a public dispute between comedian Stephen Colbert and online publisher Amazon...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionNovelist
CountryUnited States of America
agent auction believe editors few interested others request sold submission weeks
With 'California,' editors were reading it, and fast, and others were emailing my agent to request it. Ultimately, there were a few editors interested in the book, and it sold at auction about two weeks after the submission process started. I couldn't believe it!
carrie obsessive oh revision save trouble wish
Oh how I wish I could be as obsessive as Carrie from 'Homeland' when I'm writing a book! That would save me a lot of trouble during the revision process.
simple thinking stories
With my students, I don't offer any simple tips like that, maybe because my own process is pretty messy, but when we workshop we talk a lot about the deeper subject, which is what the story or novel is about. I think defining a narrative's themes can lay bare a narrative's tensions.
california people scary
I am glad it's [California novel] resonated with people because, for me, most apocalyptic novels aren't scary, because they feel so very far off.
book thinking boston
It's a bit scary to see my book come true: the recent (if minor) LA earthquakes, Hurricane Sandy, the Boston bomber, and so on - much of it stoppable, I think, and yet I, too, am also guilty of passivity.
hate scare camping
Oh my goodness, I hate camping. I am like Frida times 1,000. I have always been attracted to wilderness stories, à la the movie Badlands, when Sissy Spacek and Martin Sheen are in the woods on the lam - maybe because it scares me a little.
mean california safety
California seemed to me to be all about secrets and the need for safety. And this leads to this thematic messiness I'm still trying to figure out what to do with. I mean, when it comes to the themes, this is nothing like an Atwood novel.
book loss safety
The messiness [in my books] is nothing like an Atwood novel. For me, the deeper subjects are secrets versus intimacy, and how both beget safety but also threaten it. And there is a lot for me about loss, too.
children scary world
For me, even when I was pregnant, I wondered, Should we even have children if we're bringing them into this horrible, scary world? But I did have a child, despite these fears - or because of them - and these fears are both contemporary and as old as time.
book writing sadness
I am not sure I knew what I was doing, writing an "apocalypse" novel, when I started this book. Now that the book is done, I can own that I have in fact written an apocalypse novel, one that speculates on a dark, dark future. Why I did it, I really don't know - every time people read my work they comment on its darkness, its sadness.
scary world impulse
I suppose that it's my impulse to mine, as a writer, these scary parts of ourselves and the world.
single-mom thinking giving
I am not sure how a novel changes the world. I think it alters a reader's perspective by asking him or her to see the world through another consciousness. That can perhaps cause people to see their own lives differently. Or just give a single day, a single moment, a slightly different sheen.
writing progress world
I was interested in writing about gender in this future world where progress has not only halted but turned backward. On another note, sometimes the personal is not so politically correct, and what we are turned on by can't be made to behave.
dirty men pirate
I tossed off a mention of the pirates early on. And they became integral to the backstory. Sometimes now I imagine them in the woods. They scare me. All men. Dirty and wearing red.