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INTERESTING HUMANS: EPISODE 21
“I love relationships. I like observing them. I like thinking about them. I like back in the olden days going to the coffee shop and sitting there with my coffee and my laptop pretending to write and watching people around me,” today’s guest, Liz Crowe, tells me.
Liz Crowe is a novelist who has published more than 25 books with two more coming soon. Her focus is romance but before you put her in a box of stereotypical romance authors, you’ll have to wait. Liz is a serious writer whose books push the parameters of conventional romance novels. As Liz says her characters get into “messy situations” and she’s not into HEA, short for “Happily Ever After,” which is most often a requirement of romance publishers. At the core of every novel she pens is this fascination with relationships and how the evolve–or don’t–and how they affect people.
For her writing process, Liz admits to being “a 100% died-in-the-wool ‘pantser’.”
What is a ‘pantser’? (You’ll have to listen).
Liz decided she wanted to write romance because she fell in love with the work of Charlaine Harris, who is especially known for Sookie Stackhouse series picked up for the HBO True Blood series.
Liz’s characters are both snarky and humorous—much like she is–as well as authentic and, she admits, troublesome. In our conversation we discuss her craft, how she approaches creating the characters who populate her books, her writing process, some of her roadblocks and she offers advice for others who might want to start writing their own fiction. We also discuss how Liz got into writing and how her stints traveling from the States to Istanbul to Japan to London, helps inform her writing.
We also discuss her love/hate relationship with horror giant Stephen King, who, while she hasn’t loved everything he has written, is a “master of internal dialogue” of his characters and obviously well-loved the world over. Much like Stephen King and other authors in the horror genre, Liz says there are accomplished authors in romance who don’t get credit for their mastery of storytelling and writing craft.
Our conversation is a deeper dive into the process, the challenges, and the mindset of an authentic, original character who happens to be a published novelist on an upward trajectory. I hope you enjoy my conversation with Liz.
Links:
Firebrew
Other writers Liz loves:
Marian Keyes
Olivia Dade
Talia Hibbert
Neil Gaiman
Other mentions:
Fermenta, Fermenta is a 501 (c)(3) non-profit trade group initiated by women, committed to education, networking, diversity, and empowerment within the fermented beverage and food industries.
Annette May, Cicerone
Liz on Instagram
Liz on Facebook
Intro/Outro Illuminate graciously provided by Wildes