#WriterWednesday Author Interview with Marlie Wasserman
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I’d like to welcome author Marlie Wasserman back to the blog for #WriterWednesday!
Hardest thing about being a writer: For me, the hardest part of being a writer is the way I work on multiple books at once, yet I need to focus on a single book in my daily marketing efforts. As I shout out to everyone about my new, fourth novel, I’m still fielding requests related to the third, writing the fourth, and thinking about the fifth. Admission: sometimes, as I prepare for an event centered around one of my books, I need to reread it myself because my brain is deeply into the next book. Few readers realize how our books overlap in our lives.
Easiest thing about being a writer: Presenting at a book club. I love talking about my book, anticipating questions about it, and formulating answers that are—I hope—just the right length for the audience. No one at a book club has insulted my writing so far. I like to think the quality of my book is the cause, but maybe it’s the cookies and wine.
Things you need for your writing sessions: Coffee, but not in any old mug. It must be in a favorite mug—just the right ten-ounce size, the right light weight, the right thin handle, the right picture of a scene from my travels on the front.
Things that hamper your writing: When I can’t find the word file I worked on the previous day. You’d think this would be easy after many years of writing, but no one has explained Microsoft’s OneCloud to me, and I use it at my peril.
Words that describe you: goal-oriented, obsessive
Words that describe you, but you wish they didn’t: unathletic, a klutz
Something you’re really good at: I have fantastic visual memory. If I meet someone for an hour or two, months later I can spot them walking down a street and feel certain the person I see from afar is the person I met.
Something you’re really bad at: I have the world’s worst hand-eye coordination. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve managed to hit a tennis ball.
Last best thing you ate: Ice cream, yesterday, and the day before that. Is there any better food?
Last thing you regret eating: Popcorn that stuck in my teeth and my throat. Not the first time—I should know better.
The last thing you ordered online: A book, of course—Alvarez’s The Cemetery of Untold Stories. Add it to your to-be-read pile!
The last thing you regret buying: Yet another hair straightener. Living in humid NC, I should learn to accept the frizz.
Things you always put in your books: Smells. I literally go through a round of revision, just to add smells because I always forget that sense in first drafts. Then of course, I can’t just cram in a smell—I must show how it affects a character. So that turns into more revision.
Things you never put in your books: Diary entries. I don’t mean to insult all the great writers out there who advance their plots through the use of diaries, but, really, do you know anyone who pours her heart into a diary then hides it—poorly—so a descendent or detective can find it later?!
Favorite things to do: Sketch people, but I struggle to convince them to sit still for five minutes.
Things you’d run through a fire or eat bugs to get out of doing: The weekly wash. My wonderful husband does 100% of our laundry. I don’t know how to turn on the machines. But before you try to steal him away from me, know that he can’t cook.
Most daring thing you’ve ever done: I walked over a swinging bridge, strung over a chasm in northern Ireland. That might not sound daring, but the others in my group bowed out the minute they saw it.
Something you chickened out from doing: Scuba diving
Besides writing, what’s the most creative thing you’ve done: I’ve sewn quilts by hand, creating my own designs.
A project that didn’t quite turn out the way you planned it: Oh, my—this list is long, starting with a sweater with arms that could have embraced an elephant.
My favorite book as a child: All right—I know it’s a cliché—but my favorite as a child was Little Women. I identified with a different sister every year of my adolescence.
A book I’ve read more than once: Hmmm, I’ve never read a book more than once. Life is too short and the world has too many great books. I still have hundreds of thousands to go!
About Marlie:
Marlie Parker Wasserman writes historical crime fiction, after a career on the other side of the desk in scholarly publishing. She has written The Murderess Must Die (2021), Path of Peril (2023), Inferno on Fifth (2023), and the forthcoming First Daughter (2026). Her books are set between 1895 and 1927, years of rapid social and technological change. Marlie lives with her husband in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Strange fact: unlike most mystery writers, she is afraid of dogs and cats.
Let’s Be Social:
Bookshop.org: https://bookshop.org/p/books/first-daughter-marlie-parker-wasserman/2b98d3281a55ae75?ean=9798898201548&next=t
Barnes and Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/first-daughter-marlie-parker-wasserman/1149891550?ean=9798898201531
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/marlie.wasserman
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marliepwasserman/?hl=en
Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/marliewasserman.bsky.social
