Today
literary, mystery, suspense, and thriller author Jennifer Leeper sits down with us for an interview. Learn more
about Jennifer and her books at her website.
When did
you realize you wanted to write novels?
In high school and college, I had written poetry and
short stories, but it wasn’t until after college, in my early to mid-20s when I
decided to delve into novel writing.
How long
did it take you to realize your dream of publication?
It wasn’t until my 30s that my first short story was
published, followed by a novella and novel, so it was a long time coming!
Are you
traditionally published, indie published, or a hybrid author?
I’m indie published across the board and I love to
support indie presses.
Where do
you write?
My ideal writing setting is a coffee shop with the
perfect level of white noise, however, I usually wind up writing at my kitchen
island or laying on my bed.
Is silence
golden, or do you need music to write by? What kind?
In the beginning, I listened to mostly alternative
and some contemporary folk/rockabilly music, but eventually I found this
distracted me too much so now silence is golden, unless of course we’re talking
about the “coffee shop” noise I mentioned above.
How much of
your plots and characters are drawn from real life? From your life in
particular?
I’ve only based on of my characters on someone I
know. Most of my characters are developed in my imagination and subconsciously
they could be rooted in friends or family, however, at face value they are
constructs of how I imagine them to think, act, look and feel.
Describe
your process for naming your character?
Either a name pops into my head in a moment of
inspiration or I do an online search for unique names and when I’m doing such
searches I consider the personalities and backgrounds of my characters to help
me match them to the right names.
Real
settings or fictional towns?
The southwestern mystery I’m currently working on is
a hybrid setting – a mix of real and fiction. Generally, I alternate between
real and fictional towns in both my short and longer fiction writing.
What’s the
quirkiest quirk one of your characters has?
One of my short story characters is a shoe hoarder.
What’s your
quirkiest quirk?
Where do I begin? I can (and have) eaten the same
thing (think Chipotle) every day for months at a time.
If you
could have written any book (one that someone else has already written,) which
one would it be? Why?
The Call of
the Wild by Jack London. Because a
writer that can humanize a dog who teaches me something new about myself and
the world I live in, is my hero in fiction and in real life.
Everyone at
some point wishes for a do-over. What’s yours?
I wish I would have continued on in geology instead
of following a boy to a different city/university and earning a journalism
degree.
What’s your
biggest pet peeve?
People who post too much personal information on
social media. I’m a mystery writer. The lives of others should hold some
mystery even though it’s possible share everything with everyone these days.
You’re
stranded on a deserted island. What are your three must-haves?
A great book, my laptop and plenty of gummi bears – I
live on them when I write. Sugar and creativity seem to go together.
What was
the worst job you’ve ever held?
I worked as a mall housekeeper in college. Women’s
bathrooms are horrible!
What’s the
best book you’ve ever read?
That’s tough. I could list a hundred books, but the
one that comes to mind is Things Fall
Apart by Chinua Achebe.
Ocean or
mountains?
MOUNTAINS. There is no debating with me here. My
dream permanent place of residence is Leadville, Colorado – living and writing
at 10,000 feet-plus.
City
girl/guy or country girl/guy?
City girl unless I’m living in the mountains or on
the high plains of Eastern Colorado/Western Kansas.
What’s on
the horizon for you?
Other than Border
Run and Other Stories being released this month, I’m working on a
southwestern mystery/suspense novel that I hope to finish in the next few
months.
Anything
else you’d like to tell us about yourself and/or your books?
Readers can get a free 4-chapter preview of Border Run and Other Stories at BarkingRain Press.
Over at my Twitter feed, I run a Twitter blog called
One Question, where I ask authors one question about their writing and post
their Q&As, along with anything they want me to promote over at
@JenLeeper1.
Border Run
and Other Stories
This collection of 14
stories dives headfirst into self-exploration through varying degrees of loss,
from two sisters, one widowed, once divorced, who must find their way off a
mountain South Korea at night as well as out of the darkness of their
relationship with one another, to a boy who has lost his abuela and takes her final request to carefully distribute her
house-sized hoard of shoes more seriously than the rest of his family.
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