Visiting with April Lurie

by Claire Guyton, Art + Life Editor

Do you remember when you decided you wanted to be a writer?

Yes, I was eating a platter of crawfish at Pappadeaux’s with my husband, Ed. I was pregnant with my fourth child, and I had just finished reading Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech. I fell in love with that book and I wanted to write one just like it. “I’m going to write a novel,” I told Ed. Of course, I’d been thinking about it for a while, but it was the first time I had verbalized the idea. “Cool!” Ed said. He smiled, lifted his glass of ice water, and we toasted to my new career. He’s been my rock in the crazy world of writing and publishing ever since.

What’s your favorite title?

My favorite title is: Someday This Pain Will be Useful to You, by Peter Cameron. It’s the motto of my life.

All writers have favorite words we have to guard against over-using. What are yours?

When I write from a teenage girl’s point of view, I have to edit out a thousand OMGs. When I write across gender I have to edit out about a thousand “Dudes.”

Is there a “writing rule” you love to break?

I love to base my characters on real people and keep their names. I even named one of my protagonists April. Her love interest is Dominick – the boy I had a mad crush on when I was thirteen. He never knew!

The photo below is of my group of writer buddies in Austin, The Delacorte Dames and Dude. Left to right: April Lurie, Varian Johnson, Shana Burg, Jennifer Ziegler, Margo Rabb.