Last week I reviewed Last In A Long Line of Rebels by Lisa Lewis Tyre and today I have the pleasure of doing an interview with her! Mrs. Tyre was kind enough to sponsor a giveaway of the book, so at the end of the post, enter to win and I’ll announce the winner on Wednesday.
LISA LEWIS TYRE grew up in the tiniest of towns in Tennessee, where the only form of entertainment was watching her crazy family and even crazier neighbors. As a child, she heard the story of siblings who found gold in their field, enough to pay off the family farm. Legend claimed it was Civil War gold. Whatever the truth, she and her friends spent many hours searching their own backyards for treasure. Lisa now lives with a crazy family of her own, her husband and daughter, in Atlanta. Visit her Lisa here!
THE QUESTIONS
What inspired your debut novel Last in a Long Line of Rebels? The book was inspired by a story my mom told me when I was nine years old. I wondered why she kept calling my neighborhood “Zollicoffer.” We didn’t live on Zollicoffer Road, and there was no Zollicoffer Store. That’s when she told me that the locals called it that because during the Civil War, General Felix Zollicoffer’s men camped nearby. When I asked exactly where the camp had been located, she pointed to a field and said that some kids found gold in it and most people believed it had been part of the encampment.
What books or authors (children’s or otherwise) do you admire than influence your writing? There are so many, but anything by Kate DiCamillo, Neil Gaiman, or Jacqueline Woodson goes straight to the top of my read pile.
Do you have advice for aspiring authors? Writing is like anything else – basketball, piano, etc. It takes practice! Keep writing and don’t give up. Also, READ. Reading makes you a better writer.
Can you explain the research and writing process for Last in a Long Line of Rebels? I knew the basic story before I began – a group of kids trying to save Lou’s house by searching for gold – but I didn’t know all of the details. I like to use an outline, and I start from the end of the story and work backwards. For this to happen, that had to happen first, etc..
The Civil War diary entries took the most amount of work. I had to make sure that what Louise wrote about was actually happening at the time. The Tennessee State Government website (TN.gov) provided me with lots of information and I bought a reprinted Civil War diary to get a better grasp of the language.
Do you have a favorite scene or quote from the book? I don’t want to spoil it for people who haven’t yet read the book, but I like the scene where Lou and Benzer “borrow” the dump truck and the aftermath of that decision. I get a lump in my throat when I read the end of that chapter. 🙂 And pretty much anything that comes out of Bertie’s mouth makes me happy.
ENTER THE GIVEAWAY!
Thank you so much for the giveaway and interview, Lisa! Have you read Lisa’s books? Do you want to? And how are you inspired by your family and childhood in your writing?
Fun interview! 😀 This certainly sounds like a book I would enjoy. Thanks for the chance at a giveaway, Emily and Mrs. Tyre!
Thank goodness I remembered to enter right now, I almost forgot and there’s only a couple hours left on the giveaway! Thanks for the giveaway btw 🙂
I loved this would definitly read it!