Author Interview and Giveaway: Lauren Bjorkman discusses My Invented Life

Today I have a very fun interview with Lauren Bjorkman,
the debut author of MY INVENTED LIFE which I reviewed recently. Don't miss the last question - it had both Daniel and me ROTFL.

If a drama teacher were to pick another play to put on that showcased sisters Roz and Eva’s talent in equal measure, what do you think she’d pick?
WICKED. Roz would do anything to play Elphaba, the girl who becomes the Wicked Witch of the West. And Eva would enjoy playing Glinda.

Who are those cute fun girls on the cover?
I think of them as the sisters in my story. A few people have told me they thought the cover was racy, so I'm guessing they think the girls are lesbians. One guy asked me if the girls on the cover would be at my launch party! That made me laugh.

In other interviews you’ve mentioned that Eyeliner Andie is your favorite character in My Invented Life and that you’d like to write a novel with her as a main character. Pitch me an Eyeliner Andie dystopian novel.
Cautions and warnings:

Before I start, let it be known that I suck at pitches. More than suck. My nine year-old son can pitch better than me, and I’m not talking about baseball. Also, as someone who wrote a so-called gaytopian novel, dystopian might be a bit outside of my range.

Okay, you’ve been warned.

Eyeliner Andie’s parents die in mall shooting, so she’s sent away to live with her grandparents in Laramie Wyoming. Andie goes androgynous and tries to put on a production of the Laramie Project, a play about a true life event where two homophobic teens tied a gay college student to a fence, beat him, and left him to die. Unbeknownst to Andie, the son of one of the original perpetrators goes to her school.

(Told you so.)

Hmmm...well that might be more in the thriller category, but we'll take it! So, you’re very well travelled, so well that you’ve even been to my dream destination of Bhutan. Can you tell us a travel anecdote from your trip and try not to make me too envious?
So cool that you want to go to Bhutan. Some people think it’s a new scent for men by Christian Dior instead of a small Himalayan kingdom.

When we arrived in the capital of Bhutan, we tried to hitch hike to the village where our friends worked. After sitting by the side of the road for an hour, we discovered there were no private cars in Bhutan. So we rented one. It turned out that it was cheaper to rent a car with a driver than without one. That’s how we met the charismatic Karma Dorje, twenty-four, fluent in eight languages, charming, an excellent guide, and gifted alcoholic. Every night he insisted that we go to a bar together and drink heinous home-brewed alcoholic beverages in unnatural colors. We were his “table friends,” he said. And every night I went to bed with a hideous headache.

Oh, and there was the time when we were at someone’s house that Karma knew, and I had to drink fermented yak butter tea with a dead fly floating on top to be polite.

Still jealous? You should be. I loved every minute of my trip there minus the fly incident and the headaches.

Your cats invite my cats to dinner. What do they serve?
Zorro and Rabbit would usually prepare wounded mole as an appetizer, followed by un-stuffed wild bird in feather sauce for the main course. But after I showed them a picture of Emmy, they changed the menu to meet her obviously refined sensibilities—salmon sashimi with a sesame wasabi glaze, followed by warm goat’s milk sweetened with attar of roses.

LOL! You have Emmy totally pegged :) Thanks Lauren!

Find out more about Lauren and MY INVENTED LIFE at her website.

Lauren is also offering one lucky reader a signed copy of MY INVENTED LIFE. To enter, just leave a comment about the interview or tell me what your cats would serve my cats for dinner (if you have cats). As always, 1 extra entry will be given for posting the link to the contest on your blog (sidebar is fine) or social media site. Just leave your link in an extra comment for it to count.

This contest is open INTERNATIONALLY and will run until November 27th at 11:59 PM CST.