[Here is another link to my review, in case you want to read it before the interview]

SK: What types of books do you enjoy reading? Do you have any favorite books? Do you have any books that you've read recently that you can recommend to the rest of us?

CL: You know, I'm weird this way: I actually mostly read fantasy novels, like swords and magic kinds of things. I love Robin Hobb's books and George RR Martin. I read a lot of books along with my kids and Nancy Farmer is incredible--well worth reading even for an adult. Simon Rich's books are funny beyond belief--everyone should read Ant Farm, which is a collection of very short humor pieces. It takes like fifteen minutes to read but you'll be telling people at parties about it for the rest of your life. I still love Bronte, Austen, and Dickens--I know they're old but they're also completely modern and cynical and brilliant and fun.

SK: You write about sisters in The Smart One and the Pretty One. Do you have a sister?

CL: I have THREE sisters. And one brother.

SK: Does your relationship mimic Ava and Lauren's at all?

CL: Originally there were three sisters in the Nickerson family. There was an older sister who was married, with children, very responsible and occasionally didactic. In those early drafts (before I killed her and her family off--sob), I did play around with some basic multiple-sister kinds of moments that I knew from real life, like how two sisters will often bond by both being slightly annoyed at another sister or by agreeing on something they know she disagrees with. It's not exactly mean or malicious, but it is a reality of how women bond, both within and outside of families.
When I tossed out the oldest sister in favor of streamlining the novel and the characters, I had to polarize the younger two a bit more and they ended up more useful as characters but not really like anyone in my family. My sisters are truly all smart and pretty and even though we all have our insecurities, I don't think our issues come out of being labeled so much as just general competitiveness across the board. So, no, actually, my relationship with my sisters isn't much like Ava and Lauren's, but the way they talk to each other at times is similar--the way that sisters can get away with saying more critical things to each other than other people can because the loyalty is there, too.

SK: I noticed on your blog that you said The Smart One and the Pretty One got a bit of a negative review from Kirkus (there is a history of a tiff between you two). How do you deal with negative reviews? Do you take them personally?

CL: A lot depends on my mood and how the book's doing. On a day when I feel emotionally strong and my book seems to be selling well, I can read a bad review and think, "Well, that's the price you pay for having a lot of different people read your book--not everyone's going to like it." Emotionally healthy, right? But on a bad day--and I have a lot of bad days--a negative review makes me feel sick inside. It's so one-sided, you know? Someone can post a review anywhere that says, "She doesn't know how to write a sentence," and you can't defend yourself, explain the stylistic choices you make as a writer, acknowledge that it may not be everyone's cup of tea, but it's not sloppiness either, etc. It's frustrating on top of being hurtful.
The truth is there are really two kinds of bad reviews. There are the truly stupid ones, the ones you read and feel annoyed about because the reader is just so clueless and still gets to rate your book, and then there are the smart ones that happen to focus on the very things about your book you feel most insecure about. They're both painful, in very different ways, but I have to say the latter ones are ultimately somewhat helpful because you can learn from them. And if you wrote something a little lazily thinking "eh, I'll sweep it under the carpet" and someone notices it, the you don't do that again. But the really stupid, unhelpful reviews aren't worth reading and I don't bother finishing them.

SK: Generally, your books would probably be classified as "chick lit." Do you take offense to that term, or do you embrace it? What does "chick lit" mean to you?

CL: Here's a metaphor: I'm short and small and dark-haired and most of my adult life, I've been called "cute." I'd like to be beautiful and sexy. But I'm stuck with cute and the truth is--cute ain't so bad. Given most of the alternatives, I'll take it. That's kind of how I feel about "chick lit." I'd rather be writing "literature." I never set out to write chick lit. My first novel was supposed to be for a general reading public. Then it started being referred to as chick lit and I tried to decide if it was demeaning or not. In the end, I just thought, "what the hell, I'll go with it" and my next two books were for the 5 Spot imprint, which describes itself as "chick lit for the intelligent woman."
I've read descriptions of the classic chick lit book and I guess mine do sort of follow that basic outline, although I don't do a lot of the workplace stuff (or haven't yet). I am happy when a review says that while my book does fall into the chick lit genre it also transcends it (I had a lovely one that just came out about SOPO saying just that). That seems like the best of both worlds.
Ultimately it's like, call my books whatever you want. Just publish them, buy them, and read them.

SK: How do you write your men? As I said in my review, I feel like you gave the male characters in The Smart One and the Pretty One more depth than they usually get. How do you get inside your male characters' head and write them as three dimensionally as possible?

CL: One of my favorite questions to answer is which character in Knitting under the Influence I identify with most because people assume I'm going to say one of the three lead women, but the truth is I'm most like James, who's impatient with people who don't think the way he does. I'm not exactly like him--he's handsome and arrogant--but I probably think more like him than like any of the girls.
All of which is to say that I try to give the guys "normal" emotions and reactions and not just set them up as these reactors to what the women in the books are doing. They have their own lives--one of the main points in The Smart One and the Pretty One is that Daniel has a ton of stuff going on his life that Lauren really doesn't know anything about and because he's pretty tight-lipped she can only guess at a lot of it. He isn't there to be her Prince Charming and fall in love with her and end the novel--he's in her life because of some weird circumstances and there's no definite role for him there. It's like when Ava says something sarcastically about being put on the earth to make Russell see how wrong he's been about women in the past. I try to think of both the women and the men in my books as real people leading real, messy lives, and not just romantic props. It does bug me in novels when a lead character behaves really horribly, but there's some guy standing nearby the whole time falling madly in love with her for no discernible reason. I want to know why two people find each other appealing, not just take it as a given that the hero's going to give steamy looks and wait around for the heroine to come to her senses.


So that's my first author interview! It was my first one (but something I'd like to do more often), so hopefully I'll get better with time. Thanks to Claire LaZebnik for answering my questions, and make sure you pick up The Smart One and the Pretty One soon!