Author Interview: Laurie Perry & Giveaway

Earlier today, I reviewed a fun book called HOME IS WHERE THE WINE IS by Laurie Perry. If you are familiar with Ms. Perry's blog, Crazy Aunt Purl, then you already know she's hilarious. But if you're not, it only takes reading a few pages of her latest book to appreciate her sense of humor.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading her book, and I especially appreciated the knitting and crochet patterns in the back! I am so glad that Ms. Perry took time from her busy schedule to answer a few of my questions.

Booking Mama: HOME IS WHERE THE WINE IS is your second book, but you also maintain a full-time blog. How do you find the time to balance your work, your writing, your play, and of course your knitting?

Laurie Perry: Well, I don't sleep much. I have chronic insomnia, so sometimes staying up knitting or writing helps me get my mind cleared enough to fall asleep. There are times when I'm busy at work and I have a deadline with the book or some aspect of promotion and the website won't get updated for a few days but I try to keep up with it, I think the longest I've ever gone without posting is five days. When I'm writing a first draft or in the editing process for a manuscript I have zero social life, everything revolves around the book or the deadline. But I'm so happy in that zone, I have no complaints. It suits me, I'm a homebody.

Booking Mama: How does writing a book differ from writing blog posts?

Laurie Perry: There's the mechanics -- a book is obviously much longer and the voice and tense all have to work together. There's pacing in a book, and story arc and flow and you have many, many editors. Your regular editor, the copy editor, the reader, the sales team, the editorial director, your publicist -- a lot of people go into making a book. In a blog post it's all standing alone on its own so the pace is contained, the tense can be whatever you want, the voice can be totally different from yesterday's post. And you are your own editor, with complete control of the content.

But nothing tops the feeling of seeing your book on a shelf in a store. Nothing. I don't have children, and for me it was like seeing my own baby right there on the shelf!

Booking Mama: Your honesty in the book is so refreshing. Do you ever find it difficult to write about an event in your life or feelings that you are experiencing?

Laurie Perry: All the time. For example, in this book I was totally against writing anything about dating. I thought that if your personal life became your content, you would no longer have a personal life. (I still believe that, by the way!) And I'm a very private person, contrary to what folks may think. So I wrote the dating content for myself mostly, just in my diary, and I was re-reading it and I realized it was the funniest material because we've all been there, we've all had these awkward experiences and wondered what on earth we're doing. If I am able to write something that doesn't hurt someone else and makes people laugh I don't mind sharing a little more than I expected. I do think there is a very fine line, though. I almost never talk about politics or religion or sex, and I definitely self-edit all the time. It's a balance between keeping your life private and still being able to write honestly and relate to people.

Booking Mama: I am a fellow knitter (not a great one by any means) so I absolutely loved the pictures and patterns in the back of the book. Can you tell us a little bit about how you began knitting? What is the knitting project you are most proud of?

Laurie Perry: I started knitting as a way to keep myself busy during my divorce. I couldn't sleep and I was slightly insane most of the time and a friend of mine dragged me to a knitting class. I was hooked! I loved it from the very first moment. It kept my hands busy and my mind occupied and it was relaxing and at the end of a project you would have a scarf or a hat, miraculous! Now I've been knitting for six years and I'm not particularly advanced but I still love to knit. By far my greatest knitting accomplishment is my entrelac scarf from last year. I am so proud of entrelac I may add it to my resume.

Booking Mama: Do you have any words of advice for bloggers out there hoping to make the next step to writing books?

Laurie Perry: Write! Write all the time, never give up. And the best advice I could give anyone is just to get out of your own way as much as possible. Sometimes we get hung up on being the best or writing the Great American Novel or trying to emulate someone else's success and it becomes this giant mental roadblock to our own voice. Just write your best. Your best is really good enough.

Booking Mama: I almost always end an interview asking what books you are currently reading, but I'm also very interested in what knitting projects you are working on right now?

Laurie Perry: I'm reading BEL CANTO by Ann Patchett. I wanted to get into it the way I did with THE MAGICIAN'S ASSISTANT but it's been slow for me, so I also started re-reading THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO because I just saw the movie on TV and wanted to re-read the book. The book is always so much better than the movie! As for knitting, I'm working on another long scarf knit lengthwise in garter stitch. It's all these crazy yarns mixed together, I love it. It's crazy like me.

I'd like to thank Laurie for taking the time from her very busy schedule to provide such wonderful answers to my questions.

And now for the giveaway information...thanks to the publisher of CRAZY AUNT PURL'S HOME IS WHERE THE WINE IS, I have five copies of the book to giveaway! To enter, just leave a comment with an email address telling me something you found interesting about Laurie. The contest will be open until March 8th at 11:59 p.m. ET, and I will notify the winners the following day. This giveaway is open to those of you with U.S. and Canada mailing addresses only. Good luck!