Ask the Author: Deborah Copaken

“My new memoir, LADYPARTS, comes out on August 3. Happy to answer any and all questions you have about that or, well, about anything. Except chemistry. Never understood chemistry. My secret shame.” Deborah Copaken

Answered Questions (9)

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Will there be an audiobook version of LADYPARTS? Thanks.
Deborah Copaken Yes! And thanks for asking. I recorded it myself last month in New York, going in and out of the studio wearing a mask, but it's done! And though I hate the sound of my own voice, I'm proud of it. xx
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Where did you get the idea for your most recent book?
Deborah Copaken I'm sounding like a broken record but...THE SHOWER!!! I was gazing down at my scar covered body, realizing each excised body part had a story to impart and a metaphor to share.
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How do you get inspired to write?
Deborah Copaken I don't wait for inspiration. I get up every day at 5 AM, have my coffee, water my plants, and force myself to sit in front of the blank screen until I words come out. A lot of times they're bad and get erased, but they always lead down some path I hadn't expected. Also? I take breaks. I go on walks. I take long showers. Something always hits me in the shower.
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What are you currently working on?
Deborah Copaken I'm turning Ladyparts into a TV series! I can't say more than that right now. Also, I'm doing all the annoying things one has to do before a book goes out in the word: a book trailer; sending out emails; writing essays; etc. I also am mulling over an idea for a novel. More on that soon.
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What’s your advice for aspiring writers?
Deborah Copaken This is so cliché, but it's true: write the book you want to read but can't find in the bookstore. Also, a day job is a good hedge against disaster. I had a full-time tech job, a TV writing job, and a magazine job while writing Ladyparts, which I wrote in the wee hours of the morning. In other words, don't count on writing as your sole source of income. Do count on writing as income for your soul.
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What’s the best thing about being a writer?
Deborah Copaken The intimate conversation with the reader. It's just your mind and my mind, hanging out asynchronously at some future moment (or past moment) in time.
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How do you deal with writer’s block?
Deborah Copaken I go for a walk or take a shower. They usually work. If that doesn't work, I realize I'm doing internal work for the book that is not making it onto the page, and I don't beat myself up. A lot of writing is staring off into the mid-distance, thinking.
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If you could travel to any fictional book world, where would you go and what would you do there?
Deborah Copaken I'd love to visit the house in To the Lighthouse. But not in the present day. Back then, when Virginia Woolf wrote it. What would I do? I'd shoot photos of it and take a swim.
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What books are on your summer reading list this year?
Deborah Copaken I'm currently reading All The Light We Cannot See because my daughter read it and is insisting I read it, too, as––weirdly!––we are taking a mother/daughter trip this summer before she heads to medical school in August (our first since she was ten plus my first real vacation in YEARS) to St. Malo, to hang with an old friend of mine from Paris whose mom has a house in the area. And St. Malo, as everyone who's read All the Light knows, is the city in the opening scene of the book. How crazy is that? Completely coincidental.
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