I’ve Got Questions for Louise Marburg

Editor’s Note: This exchange is part of a series of brief interviews with emerging writers of recent or forthcoming books. If you enjoyed it, please visit other interviews in the I’ve Got Questions feature.

• What’s the title of your book? Fiction? Nonfiction? Poetry? Who is the publisher and what’s the publication date?

No Diving Allowed, fiction, short stories, Regal House Publishing, October 6^th 2021

• In a couple of sentences, what’s the book about?

It’s about the complexities of relationships, be they between friends, siblings, spouses, parents and children.  Each story contains a swimming pool.

• What’s the book’s genre (for fiction and nonfiction) or primary style (for poetry)?

Literary fiction

• What’s the nicest thing anyone has said about the book so far?

That it’s “brilliant.”

• What book or books is yours comparable to or a cross between? [Is your book like Moby Dick or maybe it’s more like Frankenstein meets Peter Pan?]

I’ll say a cross between The Stories of John Cheever and Your Duck is My Duck by Deborah Eisenberg though not as good as either.

• Why this book? Why now?

I write stories and sometimes they grow into a collection.  I don’t think anyone “needs” to read the book or that it’s somehow important in our time.  It’s important to me, and with any luck, some people will like it.

• Other than writing this book, what’s the best job you’ve ever had?

Art Director at a weekly magazine.

• What do you want readers to take away from the book?

I’d like readers to feel refreshed by the book, having felt mirth to sadness, a world of emotions.

• What food and/or music do you associate with the book?

Coffee cream and snack bar food; classic rock

• What book(s) are you reading currently?

The Outline Trilogy by Rachel Cusk and her newest, Second Place.  Also a terrific collection by Chris Stuck called Give My Love to the Savages.

Learn more about Louise at her website.

Buy the book from the publisher or Bookshop.org.