Interview with Lindsay A. Franklin

About the Author

Lindsay A. Franklin is a best-selling author, award-winning editor, and homeschooling mom of three. She would wear pajama pants all the time if it were socially acceptable. She lives in her native San Diego with her scruffy-looking nerf-herder of a husband, their precious geeklings, three demanding thunder pillows (a.k.a. cats), and a stuffed wombat with his own Instagram following.

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The Interview

1. What top 5 books do you have on your TBR pile?
1) Ever the Hunted by Erin Summerill
2) Wintersong by S. Jae-Jones
3)The Evaporation of Sofi Snow by Mary Weber
4) Wonderbook by Jeff Vandermeer
5) The Shadow Queen by C.J. Redwine

I could list so many more! My TBR pile is taller than I am.

2. If you were to go to lunch with one of the characters from your book, who would you go with and why?
This is a tough question, but I think I would want Tanwen and Brac to take me to Blodwyn's Tavern so I could listen to their banter while I quietly ate some onion soup. They make me laugh.

3. What does your writing process look like?  Specifically, what was your writing process like for The Story Peddler?
I always outline first. I need to have a clear idea of where the plot is going, otherwise I'll meander around too much and never end up with something that feels whole. I allow myself the freedom to change my outlines on the fly (and I do when something doesn't feel right as I draft), but having a road map before I start is essential for me.

4. What inspired the idea for The Story Peddler?
I was sitting in a workshop at a writers' conference, and an acquisitions editor for a large publishing house was explaining her role in the publishing process beyond what aspiring writers typically saw her doing (rejecting our pitches). Whatever tiny handful of stories she liked and wanted to acquire, she had to turn around and pitch to her bosses, the publishing executives. She made a comment—something like: "I have to peddle your stories to executives. At the end of the day, I'm just a story peddler." My fantasy brain went wild. I thought of what a "story peddler" might look like if we added a little wonder and a sprinkling of fairy dust to the equation. A character emerged who might be a fun vehicle for this story-peddling process, and then I imagined a story around her. The rest is history.

5. What did you as an author take away from writing The Story Peddler?
I'm always working through difficult personal situations in my fiction. I've tackled a lot of different pieces of my past before, but The Story Peddler is the first book where I dealt with some of the emotions involved with raising my oldest son, who was born with a very rare type of brain lesion. That might not be immediately apparent when reading the story for those who don't know my family's backstory, but being able to work through those feelings is definitely one of my biggest personal takeaways from this series.

6. What is your current WIP?  What can you tell us about this project? 
I just turned in the next book in The Weaver Trilogy! I can't say much if I want to avoid spoilers, but I will say this book just got a new title. I liked the original, but as I wrote the book, it didn't feel right for the story anymore. It's now titled The Story Raider and it releases in 2019. I can't wait to share it!