| Interviews |
| Interviews with Linda Howard herself collected from Harlequin.com, All About Romance and Cresent Blues |
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| Crescent Blues: And she's oblivious to the whole thing. Linda Howard: Yeah, she's oblivious. She's such a naive character, but she's good-natured and kind of starchy. I'm having a lot of fun with her. Crescent Blues: Will this have another cop hero? Linda Howard: Yeah, the chief of police. Crescent Blues: Frustrated, I'm sure, that the heroine's so oblivious. |
| Linda Howard: Well, mostly, he's totally amused by her. She's so good-natured and na�ve, and at the same time, she's so old-fashioned. She's enthusiastic. She's just an open person. Crescent Blues: How much of her reflects you? Linda Howard: I don't think any of them ever reflect me. Crescent Blues: So you tell yourself stories about people completely divorced from yourself? Linda Howard: I think they are people in themselves. Crescent Blues: Anyone who hears your wonderful drawl knows you're from the South. Do you think your way of working stems a Southern story-telling tradition. Did people tell stories in your family? Linda Howard: Southerners always tell stories. It's not the kind of stories that are written, but they recount things that have happened to them and draw it out so long. You sit around the dinner table and�talk. There are a lot of Southern writers. There always have been. I think it goes back to the predominantly Scottish and Irish heritage -- people who were also storytellers. I don't know if it's inherited or not, or if you just were sprinkled with the magic dust. Crescent Blues: You said earlier that you always knew you wanted to be a writer� Linda Howard: No, I always knew I was a writer. |
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| Crescent Blues: You always knew you were a writer. When did you figure out you could make a living from it? Linda Howard: When I was 29 years old. You know, I'd written for myself for years. I wrote my first book when I was nine, and it was for my own enjoyment. Totally. But all of a sudden� �I woke up, and I had to see if I was good enough. Crescent Blues: Did your husband support your calling? Linda Howard: Being a published writer is not a common thing. I was working full-time too. He didn't think it would really ever happen. But I wanted to do this. What |
| was he going to do? Tell me "No?" Excuse me. We were two adults. I was not dependent on him. Crescent Blues: That's one of the advantages of having your own job and paying your own way. Linda Howard: Exactly. And I wasn't of that temperament anyway. You know, people say, "Oh, my husband will be so angry that I bought this." That thought has never crossed my mind. But I bought a typewriter. I don't think he particularly liked it that I would go off in a room, instead of sitting in the living room with him watching television. But I explained to him that wanting me to do that was no different than me wanting him to stop watching television and come into the room with me and watch me work. And when I explained it to him that way, it was: "OK." But when I sold the first book -- there's nothing like that first check for an attitude adjustment. Then it's no longer a hobby. It's: "My God, there's money." Crescent Blues: It's real. Linda Howard: It's real. Crescent Blues: Not only among your family, but your friends change their attitudes too. She's not "the scribbler" anymore. We don't have to ask her when she's going to be published. Linda Howard: I was always very private with my writing. The people at work didn't even know I wrote. Very few people did. Crescent Blues: Was it hard "coming out of the closet," as it were? Linda Howard: Yes. Crescent Blues: Do you have a problem with marketing yourself? Linda Howard: I have never done any self-promotion. At all. Not so much as a bookmark. That's not my temperament. In school, I was the extremely shy person. I've learned how to deal with it, and as I became more self-confident, the shyness receded. I can speak in public now with no problem. So I am no longer a shy person. But when I sold the first book, I was terrified at the thought of losing my privacy. Now I know I have the privacy regardless, because the privacy's inside. You just learn. Crescent Blues: Sounds like the learning was a good process. Linda Howard: It was. Crescent Blues: You mentioned that your husband is a "bassmaster?" What's that? |
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| Linda Howard: He fishes the Bassmaster Tournaments. He has been a professional bass tournament fisherman, full-time, since 1991. That's all he does. Crescent Blues: I don't recall fishing playing a major part in any of your books. Linda Howard: No, I'm not interested in fishing. That's his obsession, not mine. Crescent Blues: How do you coordinate your schedules between his tournament circuit and your book signings? Linda Howard: For the most part, it's two separate things, because the way the tournament schedule is set up, they take off during the summer. They don't fish |
| during the summer months. That just happens to be when my books usually come out. So it doesn't correspond. Crescent Blues: How do you find time to write if you're touring with him and touring for yourself? Linda Howard: Laptops. Crescent Blues: So you got into the computer age quickly. Linda Howard: Certainly did. I currently have�how many computers do I have? One, two� But I can write in hotel rooms. I did some writing last night, but I did it by hand, because I didn't bring my laptop with me here. We were just in Tennessee. [My husband] had a tournament in Tennessee, and I carried the laptop with me, and I worked during the day while he's gone. I just left the laptop with him and flew up here. Crescent Blues: You don't have to answer this, but I've got to ask, because your drawl sounds so familiar. Are you from Alabama? Linda Howard: Yes, I'm from Alabama. I've lived in the same county my entire life. Crescent Blues: That obviously proved no problem, either in terms of dreaming or getting published Linda Howard: Actually, it's been a benefit, because I'm so far removed from the politics [of publishing]. It doesn't touch me, and it's so much more peaceful that way. Crescent Blues: How did you get your start? Did you find an agent? Did you send to the slush pile? Linda Howard: I sent to the slush pile. Once I decided that I was going to do it, I went to the library and I started researching -- Writers Market and all that. And I read heavily. I still read heavily. I've never lost the enjoyment of reading. I don't analyze it; I just enjoy it.. I looked to see who was publishing the books I liked, and I wrote it all down, and I made a decision and sent the manuscript to Silhouette, because this is where I am right now. And I was right. I'm very analytical in some ways. I'm instinctive in my writing, but I'm very analytical in everything else. Crescent Blues: You may have sent to Silhouette, but you have a deep, dark secret. You read science fiction and fantasy. Linda Howard: I read and write everything except horror. Crescent Blues: Why haven't you felt like you weren't ready to publish a science fiction or fantasy novel? Linda Howard: It's a growing process, and my natural strengths tend towards the romantic suspense. I haven't reached the point yet where I'm skillful enough, I think, to take it over completely and do a straight sci-fi or fantasy. I play with it for my own entertainment right now. Crescent Blues: You mentioned in your speech to the Washington Romance Writers last night that you enjoy the dreams of others as well as your own. Specifically, Farscape and John Crichton. Do these characters ever find their way into your fiction? Linda Howard: Their physical characteristics do but not their personalities or anything like that. In After the Night for example, Gray Ruillard was a physical combination of Adrian Paul and Antonio Banderas. Crescent Blues: Oh man, I've gotta find that book! Linda Howard: He was a physical combination of those two. I think Adrian Paul [the star of Highlander: the Series] is one of the most perfect looking men I've ever seen. I don't know anything about him, personality-wise, but physically� Crescent Blues: I really enjoyed Highlander a lot. |
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