Sensational 7 Q & A with Lauren Oliver!

Have you ever wanted to know what it would be like to hang out with your favorite author(s)? In an attempt to get a better understanding of authors, my Sensational Seven Q & A takes a closer or more personal look at these authors to give you a glimpse of the personalities behind the writing of your favorite books.

“Talent alone cannot make a writer. There must be a man behind the book; a personality which, by birth and quality, is pledged to the doctrines there set forth, and which exists to see and state things so, and not otherwise.” By Ralph Waldo Emerson

Lauren Oliver was previously an editorial assistant at a publishing company in New York. A graduate of the University of Chicago and the MFA program at New York University, she is now a full-time writer and lives in Brooklyn, New York. Her favorite things include: underlining and making notes in the margins of her favorite books; cooking for good friends; running in Prospect Park; lingering in farmer’s markets; coffee; and ketchup. Before I Fall is scheduled for release March 2, 2010.

If you were given a chance to travel back in time, what year or place would you go / Why?
I would probably choose to go to Paris or New York in the early 1920s, and not just because I like fringe and flapper dresses. There was a kind of cultural explosion after the first world war, I think, in which young artists were trying to make sense of the horrors that had been perpetrated and the society they had felt was in dissolution. Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, T.S. Eliot, Virginia Woolf—not to mention painters like Picasso and Matisse—were all busy redefining the rules of art and literature, and I just think it would have been a tremendously exciting/inspiring time to be alive. They didn’t have twitter back then, but I would have surely found a way to stalk my favorite writers nonetheless.

Additionally, the 1920s were pretty good to outspoken, fun-loving, independent women, unlike pretty much every single other era in Western history.

Describe your novel in seven words or less?
Samantha Kingston’s final chance to make meaning.

Please share with us about your favorite book and fictional crush to date?
Well, my fictional crush is, has always been, and will always be Darcy in Pride and Prejudice. Swoon.

My favorite book? I’m not sure I have one. I have always loved Matilda, by Roald Dahl. I am a huge James Joyce and F. Scott Fitzgerald fan, and I love One Hundred Years of Solitude as well. My favorite book might be Alphabears, a gorgeous picture book, now long out of print, that my mother used to read to me as a child. Very mature, I know.

If you could be any character in fiction, whom would you be / Why?
Um, Elizabeth Bennet. See above. What is infuriating is that my sister was actually named after Elizabeth, inspiring years of name-envy on my part.

If Hollywood made a movie about your life, whom would you like to see play the lead role as you / Why?
Natalie Portman, because I wish I were that pretty! Kidding, kidding. Probably Uma Thurman. She’s older than I am, obviously, but she’s a great actress and, importantly, she has a lot of range. I have many contradictory and bizarre aspects to my personality, so that would be incredibly important.

If someone wrote a biography about you, what do you think the title should be – please explain?
Fiercely, and With Passion. It may sound cheesy, but I try to apply that philosophy to everything in my life, from my career, to my friendships and relationships, to my hobbies, to my sleep time!

How would you describe yourself/life in seven words?
Always evolving. Trouble, in a good way. ;)


Bonus:

**Is there any additional info you would like to share with your readers about what’s next for you and your books?**
As for additional things I’d like to share…look for a second book from me in 2011! (And many more to follow that one, I hope!).

Thanks Lauren for stopping by!

For more information about Lauren Oliver and her books, please visit her website here.