Author Spotlight:
Therese (Reese) Szymanski
New Book Releases:
- When It's All Relative: The 8th Brett Higgins Motor City Thriller, a lesbian mystery from Bella Books, released in April 2008!
- It's All Smoke & Mirrors: The First Chronicles of Shawn Donnelly, a lesbian mystery from Bella Books, released in November 2007.
- The Life and Times of
Ornery Crazy MeanBad Bill, a novella in the lesbian erotica release Tall in the Saddle: New Exploits of Wild West Lesbians, from Bella Books (Bella After Dark imprint), released in December 2007.
Recent/Upcoming Book Signings:
- None. However, Reese plans on speaking at Gaylaxicon in Washington DC in October 2008; at the York (England) Lesbian Arts Festival in October/November 2008; and crashing a competing publisher's event at Baltimore Pride in June 2008!
Questions We Asked Reese...
What is your favorite place to write? My living room. I sit in my lounge chair with a beer (or 12) and write.
Are you a typewriter, Mac, or PC person? Mac all the way! (Macs rule, PCs drool!)
How many full-length novel manuscripts did you complete before selling? Depends how you count. I finished one and queried the publisher, who told me to keep writing. So I did. And I think I had 3 or 4 done by the time she accepted me about 15 months later.
Can you give us a quote from one of your best (or worst) rejection letters? I don't really have any good quotes from rejection letters. But I do have a favorite line from a review: "When Some Body Disappears [my 3rd book] is an act of reader abuse so severe someone should contact Amnesty International." With me being me, the next time I was in San Francisco that reviewer took me out to lunch.
What would you say is the most valuable writers' training course you've taken? My first playwriting class in college. All of them (playwriting courses I took at Michigan State) were phenomenal in fact.
What is your reason for writing? In one book Robert Heinlein had a character have his ability to write removed so he ended up sitting in a corner drooling on himself because he was a writer who could no longer write. That about sums it up. (Well, then there was the kid who stalked me through a convenience store when I was 21. He finally got up the nerve to ask me if I wrote the play And Divided We Fall. I admitted it, and he thanked me profusely, telling me how thankful he was and that I was his hero. When he did this, I was in a T-shirt and cutoff jean shorts, fresh out of the shower with my hair slicked back. When he saw me at the play, I was in full drag: skirt, hose, pumps, makeup, hair curled, etc., so it was no mean feat for him to recognize me.)
What would the hero/heroine of your latest book say if that person met you on the street? She scares me and I don't think she'd talk to me anyway. Well, maybe a butch nod, but that'd be it.
What advice would you give to other aspiring writers? Develop a thick skin, realize that you don't have to listen to EVERY suggestion (even from editors), and you should read Don't Murder Your Mystery by Chris Roerden (and this does go for romance writers, too). Oh, and don't forget to keep on living life and having adventures!
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Still have questions?
If you want to know more about Reese, visit her website at
www.BigBadButch.com.
You can also purchase her books from the Elements online bookshelf at http://www.ElementsOfRWA.com.
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