Lisa Jewell
From: goodreads.com
Her first novel, Ralph’s Party, was the best- selling debut novel of 1999. Since then she has written another twenty novels, most recently a number of dark psychological thrillers, including The Girls, Then She Was Gone, The Family Upstairs and The Night She Disappeared. Lisa is a New York Times and Sunday Times number one bestselling author who has been published worldwide in over twenty-five languages. She lives in north London with her husband, two teenage daughters and the best dog in the world.
From: Publishers Weekly
Lisa Jewell Raced Through Writing Her Latest Novel
“I love to write thrillers about creeps and coercive controllers, and about letting the wrong person in,” Lisa Jewell says via Zoom from the sun-dappled bedroom of her London home, which is packed with books and looks out onto a leafy communal garden. “You can literally wake up one morning, meet someone, and let them into your life, and that can be enough to destroy everything. With thrillers, there’s so much to play with. So many emotions to investigate, so many secrets to uncover.”
Jewell’s novels, which include romantic and family dramas and psychological thrillers, can feel like hornets’ nests pulsing with secrets. The 54-year-old has written 21 page-turners that have sold more than 10 million copies worldwide over the past 30 years and been translated into 29 languages, according to her publisher, Atria. Her next, None of This Is True, out in August, follows a successful podcaster in search of her next project who meets an odd, mousy woman at a restaurant and, at the woman’s suggestion, agrees to interview her for her podcast. The podcaster then discovers that behind the woman’s meek facade is a dangerous character with control issues—who may be trying to dismantle the podcaster’s life.
t took Jewell five months to write None of This Is True—it’s the fastest she’s ever written a novel. “There’s something terrifying about working that quickly,” she says. “I felt slightly out of control.” The idea for the book came to her last January while she was out walking her dog. “I saw a man sitting at the window, working on his laptop, minding his own business, and couldn’t get rid of this feeling that there was something dark going on, that there was some dysfunctional atmosphere there. I wanted to focus on this stranger and find out what could be happening behind him. The front door is a huge thing for a writer. To breach that door and see how people behave when nobody’s watching, that’s fundamental to writing.”
Jonny Geller, Jewell’s agent at Curtis Brown, praises Jewell for her ability to get into the heads of her characters and build rich worlds around them. “Lisa understands that characters come first and that you sort out your plot twists after,” Geller says. “She doesn’t plan out her books. I’ve thought, there’s no way you’re not planning those twists—but she doesn’t. She’s at the peak of her craft, and she’s always hungry for new stories.”
Born in North London, Jewell was a painfully shy kid—nothing like the confident author fans meet at book events today. “I had pigeon toes and a terrible blushing problem,” she recalls. “I would turn this brilliant red at the suggestion that anyone was about to talk to me. I could never just throw myself into anything. My mother says I was always on the edge looking in.”
As a young woman Jewell was “desperate to settle down” and feel grown up. After earning a diploma in fashion communication and promotion from Epsom School of Art & Design (“I had no clue what I was doing and where I was going,” she says), she married an emotionally abusive man. “He love-bombed me and proposed after three months, and the minute I agreed to spend my life with him the abuse started,” she continues. “He threw out my photos and diaries. He told me I was bad at sex. I wasn’t allowed a front door key. He chose what we were going to eat and watch. There’s no sunshine when you’re living like that. I’m still confused by how I let it happen.”
When that toxic marriage ended after five years, in 1996, Jewell set out to reinvent herself. She began dating her current husband—they’ve been together for over two decades and share two daughters—and, after getting laid off from her job as a secretary, started working on a novel at the suggestion of a friend who promised to buy her dinner if she could write three chapters. That novel became Ralph’s Party, a rom-com released in 1999 after Bridget Jones’s Diary ushered in the chick lit age. “It was the right book at the right time,” Jewell says. “London publishers wanted to snap up as many young female writers as they could. Had there not been that zeitgeisty thing going on, I might have missed my moment.”
As Jewell’s readership expanded in the 2000s, she began to focus less on romance and more on the dark sides of human nature—and she used her first marriage as source material. “I’m constantly drawn back to writing about coercive controllers,” she reveals. “My first marriage was probably the most interesting thing that’s happened to me—in the bleakest, most gothic way imaginable. It’s character building for a writer.”
“Lisa’s stories come from a place deep within her,” says Atria publisher Libby McGuire. “They come from an interest in exploring women, men, and control. She’s a number one bestseller and her profile is building, and that’s what I find most heartening. She’s on the cusp of being that big brand-name author that so many strive to become.”
Sophie Kinsella, author of the bestselling Shopaholic series, has been friends with Jewell for more than 20 years and chats with her often about life and work. “Lisa’s writing has changed over the years,” Kinsella says. “I love the thrillers she writes now. Lisa knows exactly how to play the reader, what details to drop in and when, and she creates such compelling characters that you want to follow their stories, whatever happens. I’m so proud of her.”
When Jewell isn’t writing, she’s spending time with friends and family, especially her daughters, who bring her boundless joy. “I love living with teenage girls,” Jewell muses. “I love their sass and potty mouths. I love their mess and wet towels. I love driving them places and fixing meals. I like looking after teenagers in a way I never liked looking after children. I’m not a fan of babies. Toddlers do my brain in. Whereas with teenagers, I’m in my element.”
Clearly Jewell has hit her stride—as a parent and a novelist. “I’ve found myself in a position where, by any reasonable measure, I’m comfortable now and could actually stop writing,” she says. “Truly it’s nothing to do with money. I just have to do something with these feelings I get, where people jump out of the street and get in my head, or I see a house and want to walk into it and find out who lives there. I need to use these weird things and make something out of them. With every book I publish, it seems like an extreme privilege. I’m not sure what the secret is. I’m just following my instincts.”
Elaine Szewczyk’s writing has appeared in McSweeney’s and other publications. She’s the author of the novel I’m with Stupid.
A version of this article appeared in the 07/03/2023 issue of Publishers Weekly under the headline: Stranger Danger
Molly Tuttle
Molly Rose Tuttle is an American vocalist, songwriter, banjo player, guitarist, recording artist, and teacher in the bluegrass tradition. She is noted for her flatpicking, clawhammer, and crosspicking guitar prowess. Wikipedia
“A female flat picker extraordinaire with agility, speed, and elegance who distinctively brings American roots music into the spotlight.”—NPR
“A vibrant blend of bluegrass with flashes of Old West, anchored by Tuttle’s earthy-yet-angelic vocal and the entire group’s ace musicianship.” —Billboard
Raised in northern California, singer-songwriter and bluegrass musician Molly Tuttle moved to Nashville in 2015. In the years since, she has been nominated for a Best New Artist Grammy and won awards for Album of the Year at the 2023 International Folk Music Awards, Female Vocalist of the Year at the 2022 International Bluegrass Music Awards, and Instrumentalist of the Year at the 2018 Americana Music Awards. She also won consecutive Guitar Player of the Year awards from the International Bluegrass Music Association in 2017 and 2018—and was the first woman to win the award, let alone win it twice.
Tuttle and her band, Golden Highway, released their latest album, City of Gold, in July 2023. The Grammy-winning album followed Tuttle’s acclaimed 2022 record, Crooked Tree, which also won a Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album. Produced by Tuttle and celebrated progressive bluegrass musician Jerry Douglas, City of Gold was inspired by Tuttle’s constant touring with Golden Highway, during which she and the band have grown and cohered as musicians and performers. Musical Instrument Museum
Her song Crooked Tree (video w/Jerry Douglas) also visits the subject of Alopecia Areata (article) and Molly.
Molly Tuttle has ushered in an exciting new chapter in her career by forming an all-female touring band, stepping away from the four-year run with Golden Highway. This change aligns with the release of her new solo album So Long Little Miss Sunshine, set for August 15, 2025. It signals a stylistic expansion beyond bluegrass, blending pop, country, and rock – a direction further emphasized in her all-female backing band choice.
Lollapalooza
Another big year with 8 stages, and 170+ bands from all over the world, every Lolla lineup makes hands wave, heads nod, and crowds holler.
Click Visit Site for information about the 2020 festival.
Randy Wayne White
Randy Wayne White
SALT RIVER AND CARIBBEAN RIM are White’s most recent Doc Ford books and SEDUCED is the 4th book in his award-winning Hannah Smith series. He has also had four collections of his columns for Outside magazine and elsewhere published. In 2002, a one-hour documentary film called The Gift of the Game, about Randy’s trip to Cuba to find the remnants of the Little League teams founded by Ernest Hemingway in the days before Castro, won the “Best of the Fest” award from the 2002 Woods Hole Film Festival, then was bought by PBS and broadcast station by station in the spring and summer of 2003.
White has been awarded the Conch Republic Prize for Literature, as well as the John D. Macdonald Award for Literary Excellency. He is one of only four writers named as an Editor At Large by prestigious Outside magazine (Jon Krakauer, Hampton Sides and Tim Cahill are the others). In 2011, White was named a Florida Literary Legend by the Florida Heritage Society. A fishing and nature enthusiast, he has also written extensively for National Geographic Adventure, Men’s Journal, Playboy and Men’s Health.
He lives on Sanibel Island, Florida, where he was a light-tackle fishing guide for many years, and spends much of his free time windsurfing, playing baseball, and hanging out at Doc Ford’s Rum Bar & Grille.
Hardly Strictly Bluegrass
Hardly Strictly Bluegrass 2019 happened Friday, October 4, Saturday, October 5, and Sunday, October 6, 2019. Click Visit Site for information about the 2020 event.
Florida Writers
Going to Florida?
Don’t Forget to Write!
Florida. True, it is the land of retirement, sunshine, Disney, traffic, crime, and hurricanes. Let’s not forget environmental and immigration problems. What a great place to write about. Some who write Florida fiction make it to the best-seller list some don’t. Most, however, write a darn good story.
John D. McDonald’s Travis McGee set the standard for Florida crime fiction. Prominent on bookstore shelves is Miami Herald columnist Carl Hiaasen. His quirky novels are “laugh out loud” events, even if they don’t always make it to critical acclaim at the box office (i.e. Striptease.) In memory, I have never recommended a Hiaasen book to a friend and gotten anything but terrific reactions.
The list of well known writers boiling just below superstar status is a fairly long one. On it are some of my favorites. Some would qualify as mystery writers, some, a half step away, suspense/crime. Others have simply created memorable characters, many reappearing, and all enormously engaging. Laurence Shames, Randy Wayne White, James W. Hall, Les Standiford, John Lutz, Paul Levine, Ed McBain’s “Matthew Hope” series and the unforgettable Charles Willeford, who although deceased may have been the “writers writer” in the Florida genre.
In the past several years several writers have emerged as best-selling Florida writers. Jeff Lindsay, the creator of Showtime series character, Dexter has four books to date featuring the intrepid “Dark Passenger.” James Grippando is hot and so is James O. Born.
If Key West has ever enchanted you, authors Laurence Shames and Tom Corcoran can put you there in a fashion that most tourists would surely miss. They each have casts of characters, recurring in their books, zany New York transplants, good guys and bad guys, funny guys and hard guys. Sometimes a minor character in one story becomes central in another. Throughout their work; humor, love, unusual criminals and unlikely heroes abound. It may have been Hemingway’s town once, with Shames and Corcoran, it’s a whole different trip.
