Interview with Amy Elizabeth Smith

Books-n-Kisses is pleased to welcome Amy Elizabeth Smith to the blog today to chat about her new release All Roads Lead to Austen.

Q1) Can you please share with us a little about yourself?
I’m from westernPennsylvaniaoriginally, but now I live inCaliforniaand teach at a small private university. I just got married in late April to a fabulous man I met while I was traveling inLatin America, preparing for my book. I’m 48, and I’ve never been married before — so yes, it can happen! At the wedding reception my sister reminded me of a funny story. She and my brother once walked by a store with a t-shirt in the window of a skeleton on a park bench wearing high heels and a dressy hat — and the caption said, “Waiting for Mr. Right.” Apparently they exchanged looks and starting laughing. Yeah, that was me. But I found him, after all!

Q2) Have you always wanted to be an author?
It wasn’t until the 4^th grade that the reading bug bit me, but from then on, I’ve been a committed book nerd. I started writing little mystery novels as soon as I encountered Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden. I’d make covers for the books out of thin cardboard and did my own illustrations. When I discovered “bodice rippers” in the late 70s, I tried a few of those, too (although I’d moved up to blank books by that time, instead of binding my own). I think some of those fledgling attempts are still haunting my Mom’s attic . . .

Q3) Who are some of your favorite writers? Who do you feel has influenced your writing?I

I’m a huge fan of David Sedaris — but I’m afraid I could never allow myself to be so outrageous. I love big voices (Hunter S. Thompson also comes to mind), but I don’t work in a style like theirs, I’d say. Among the classics, there’s Jane Austen, of course, but I also love Dickens, Emily Brontë, and Virginia Woolf. As for romance — I know this makes some people cringe, but I love vampire novels and paranormal romance. J. R. Ward’s Black Dagger Brotherhood series is hot, hot, hot. I’m enjoying Lara Adrian’s series, too.

Q4) How did you get into writing in this specific genre?  Have you ever thought about writing in a different genre?

I wrote my Ph.D. dissertation on 18^th-century travel literature, and since then, I’ve wanted to write a travel narrative of my own. Travel writing is a great way to learn about new places. But I never expected that my book would have so much romance in it — who knew I’d meet my future husband on the road? My editor tried to get me to be a little more forthcoming on some of the detail . . . but in the Austen universe, I’m an Elinor, not a Marianne. And who knows, maybe someday I’ll get back to mystery novels and see if I can improve on my 4^th-grade efforts!

Q5) What are some of your writing rituals?

Procrastinating (half the writers you ask say this, right?). Cleaning the house. That aside, my most consistent ritual is time of day — I’m an early bird. I love to pop out of bed at 4:oo am when I’m really on a roll with a chapter. Something about the fact that almost nobody else is up — makes me feel so virtuous.
Q6) Can you please tell us about your latest book?

All Roads Lead to Austen was meant to just be a travel narrative — I did reading groups in six Latin America countries, to find out what people would think about Jane Austen in Guatemala, Mexico, Ecuador, Chile, Paraguay, and Argentina. Like on most trips, things didn’t always turn out the way I planned — sometimes in a good way, sometimes in a not-so-good way . . .

Q7) How did you come with the idea for this story?

I teach a Jane Austen class, and my students do projects rather than research papers. They’ve done so many fun and creative things over the years that that finally thought, hey, I should do a project myself. Some inspiration from Azar Nafisi’s Reading Lolita in Tehran was in the mix, too.

Q8) What would you be if you were not an author?

It wouldn’t hurt my feelings if I could only be an author — but I’m very lucky to have a wonderful “day job” at my university. If we’re talking fantasy “what would I be,” that’s easy. Lottery winner, living on the beach with my husband, reading (I think I could talk him into that). If “lottery winner” were off the menu and I weren’t a professor, I just might have turned into a librarian. Something to do with books, one way or another.

Q9) What is in your To Read Pile that you are dying to start or upcoming release you can’t wait for?

I just read a beautiful novel called The Oracle of Stamboul, by Michael David Lukas. He’s at work on a book about Cairo, and I can’t wait to read it. I also recently discovered a classic romance writer. She was half English and half Chinese but pretended to be Japanese and used the pseudonym Onoto Watanna. Her books came out between 1899 and 1925, with sweet titles like A Japanese Nightingale and The Honorable Miss Moonlight. A lot of her books are available for e-readers — but for real lovers of classic romance, I’d recommend hunting down original editions, because they’re beautifully illustrated. If I weren’t writing this blog right now, I’d be reading a title I just got in the mail — Daughters of Nijo.

Author Amy Elizabeth Smith on the Road with Jane Austen in Antigua, Guatemala

Thanks so much for inviting me to stop by — and I hope my book on Austen and Latin America might inspire readers to take on a bit of travel (or romance) of their own!

All Roads Lead to Austen
Release day June 1, 2012

Amazon | B&N

Is the magic of Jane a moveable feast? Jane Austen thrives in the 21st century, living on in book clubs, in conversations, in quiet reads with a cup of coffee.She is unchanged by time. But is she unchanged by place? Does Austen still work magic in new time zones, new countries, new languages? Amy Elizabeth Smith wanted to find out. With a suitcase full of Austen novels en español, Smith set off on a yearlong Latin American road trip with Jane. In six unique, unforgettable countries, she gathered book-loving new friends—taxi drivers and teachers, poets and politicians—to read Emma, Sense and Sensibility, and Pride and Prejudice. On the road, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times (no, wait, that’s Dickens…).Whether sharing rooster beer with Guatemalans, joining the crowd at a Mexican boxing match, feeding a horde of tame iguanas with Ecuadorean children, or wrangling argumentative booksellers in Argentina, Amy came to learn what Austen knew all along: we’re not always speaking the same language, even when we’re speaking the same language. But with true Austen instinct she could recognize when, unexpectedly, she’d found her own Señor Darcy. All Roads Lead to Austen celebrates the wisdom (and pleasure!) of of letting go and becoming a student again, no matter what our age.