Off the Pages: The Reese Witherspoon Questionnaire with Stephanie Dray & Laura Kamoie
From ugly crying over books on airplanes to quitting law for fiction, July authors Stephanie Dray & Laura Kamoie share their go-to writing rituals, dream bookstores, and best creative advice.
Hi Readers! We’re so excited to be back with another monthly feature straight from the desk of our book-lover-in-chief, Reese Witherspoon. Reese is asking our monthly pick authors seven questions to help us get to know the writers behind the stories we love. Read on to learn more about the co-authors of this month’s pick, A Founding Mother!
Want to learn even more about how A Founding Mother came to life? Tune in to our July Book Club Live on July 29 at 2 PM PT/ 5 PM ET! Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie are joining moderator Chanel Cleeton to chat about the research, writing, and incredible history behind our latest pick.
The Questionnaire
Stephanie: Only coffee and Scrivener. Before I start writing, I read over whatever I wrote the day before to remind myself where I was going — and to reassure myself that I did, in fact, know how to write sentences yesterday and might be able to do it again today.
Laura: I start each writing day by rereading and revising what I last wrote. That gets me back into the issues I was working on and also helps me create a cleaner draft by the end. I also really like to listen to music, often one song on repeat in a way that sets the mood but also becomes white noise.
Stephanie: Hold two contradictory thoughts in your head at the same time: your writing is special and worthwhile, and your writing is deeply flawed and desperately needs work. The first belief keeps you brave enough to continue; the second keeps you humble enough to revise.
Laura: Give yourself permission to write crap (or make crap)! It’s how you learn, how you improve, how you identify your strengths and weaknesses. And you can always fix a mess, but you can’t revise a blank page.
Stephanie: A family friend named Jean Slattery, Ed.D., is an educator who devoted her life to taking young minds seriously, including mine. When I was younger than one might be expected to appreciate such a gift, she gave me Fawn Brodie’s Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History, which helped spark my fascination with the interior lives of our founding figures and eventually led me to write about Jefferson’s daughter Patsy, and now Abigail Adams.
Laura: My mom supported me in everything I ever wanted to try or do. Even though we were poor and she worked multiple jobs, she made it possible for me to do everything from playing multiple sports to singing in chorus to marching in the band where I eventually became drum major — and she showed up to cheer me on in everything I did. Because it was just the two of us, we talked a lot and she always treated me like what I had to say mattered.
Stephanie: I’m tempted to say Shakespeare and Company, because I’ll latch onto any excuse to visit Paris. But ultimately, I’d choose Livraria Lello in Porto, Portugal, because I cannot resist a red double-helix stairway, and I really want to visit Portugal for the first time.
Laura: Nooooo how can I choose??? The bookstore closest to my heart is probably Browseabout Books in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, where I’ve been going since I was a kid and where my kids also spent a lot of their childhoods. But then I think of Shakespeare and Company and I’m right back to how can I choose???
Stephanie: You’re probably expecting me to name a novel, but the book I recommend most often is Arthur Okun’s Equality and Efficiency: The Big Tradeoff. It isn’t a beach read, but it’s a short little book that will change the way you look at the world and make you a more discerning participant in almost any conversation about what we owe one another in a democratic society.
Laura: Oh, there are so many, but my friend Kate Quinn’s The Alice Network is always at the top of that list in part because one scene made me ugly cry/heave on a plane so much that another passenger asked if I was okay. Thanks, Kate. LOL!
Stephanie: Yes, but it’s usually the books I’m writing, not the ones I’m reading. Research has taken me from Monticello’s blue mountains to Paris cafés and Lafayette’s remote château at Chavaniac, and from my great-grandmother’s Italian mountains to Abigail Adams’s lilac-scented Peacefield — because for me, history calls me to the places where my stories begin.
Laura: I’ve done this with books I’ve written. I need to be in the places my historical characters were. But there are places on my to-visit list because of books I’ve read: like Forks, Washington (The Twilight Saga!) and Bamburgh Castle in England (The Saxon Series).
Stephanie: I wanted to be a writer, but my mother sensibly warned me that I’d never earn a living that way, so I became a lawyer instead — for about ten minutes — before returning to my first love. I’m definitely surprised by the weird and winding road my career took, but pleased as punch that I managed to pull off my childhood dream!
Laura: I always knew I wanted to do something with history and be a teacher – and that’s what I went to graduate school to do and then actually did for 13 years before my writing career took off and I had to make a choice. Now, I consider writing my historical novels as an extension of that — a kind of public history — so I’m a little surprised I left academia behind but also feel like writing is part of the same path.
We want to hear your responses to Reese’s questions! What’s one book you’re constantly recommending to your friends?
GO PICK PEAS: A Childhood Out of Touch. Haunting— beautifully written.
The Secret Life of Bees