Laura Lippman is a New York Times bestselling novelist who has won more than 20 awards for her fiction—and been nominated for 30 more. Since her debut in 1997, she has published 20 novels, a novella and a collection of short stories. Lit Hub recently named her one of the “essential” female crime writers of the last 100 years. She also has written for the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and T magazine. Her novel Every Secret Thing, optioned for film by Academy Award-winning actress Frances McDormand, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in April 2014, starring Diane Lane, Elizabeth Banks, and Dakota Fanning. Laura lives in Baltimore with her husband, David Simon, and their daughter. Her new novel, Sunburn, will be published in February 2018.
On December 5th, she will be speaking at House of SpeakEasy’s Seriously Entertaining show, Caught in the Act alongside James Forman Jr, David Friend, and JT Rogers (tickets). We spoke to Laura ahead of the show…
Name: Laura Lippman
Describe your current project: Sunburn. Postman Always Rings Twice crossed with Ladder of Years
What is your earliest memory involving reading or writing? Trying to write a book at age 5
What is your favorite line from your current work? “Pay attention. I haven’t even told you my name yet, but I’m telling you who I am, what I care about.”
What is your favorite first line of a novel? From Endless Love by Scott Spencer, “When I was 17 and in full obedience to my heart’s most urgent commands, I stepped far from the pathway of normal life and in a moment’s time ruined everything I loved – I loved so deeply, and when the love was interrupted, when the incorporeal body of love shrank in terror and my own body was locked away, it was hard for others to believe that a life so new could suffer so irrevocably.”
What writer, past or present, do you wish you could eat dinner with? Patricia Highsmith
What writer do you wish you could share with the world? Jack Pendarvis
What are you reading right now? Student manuscripts and Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan
What fictional character do you most closely identify with? Tess Monaghan
Are there any quotes you use to inspire you? Flaubert, “Human speech is like a cracked kettle on which we tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music to melt the stars.”
