Can you share a little about your recent book?
The Marriage of Innis Wilkinson is another contemporary cozy set in the idyllic town of Coraloo. It’s a standalone novel, however, follows the antics of characters introduced in my first novel, The Death of Mungo Blackwell. It centers around the impending marriage of Margarette Toft to Roy Blackwell – super controversial as the families have been feuding since before the town was founded. The real chaos ensues as the families attempt to plan the wedding amidst a month-long festival and a town secret involving an actor with a severe case of kleptomania and the mysterious marriage of Innis Wilkinson. It’s a quirky modern-day tale of love and family with a heavy dose of absolutely loveable side characters.
Why do you write? Do you have a theme, message, or goal for your books?
You know how sometimes you get to the end of a movie or book and it’s kind of like you exhale when it’s over – suddenly you want to tell everyone you know about it because it was just… lovely. That’s the only word for it. I find it most in children’s film and literature – creative storylines, maybe a bit of adventure, the out of the ordinary, a dose of imagination, and characters you remember forever. That’s my goal, to create something full of childlike wonder for grown-ups.
How long have you been writing?
I’ve been writing for ten years. My first adventure was with an indie-pubbed middle-grade series (that I still play with a occasionally) called The Books of the Gardener. I currently have six of the ten books complete and probably would have at least three more finished by now had I not taken a bit of a break to write for grown-ups, a venture that continues to surprise me.
And how long did it take you to get your first major book contract? Or are you published non-traditionally? How did that come about?
Seven years! I had always hoped my middle-grade books would find a traditional publishing home, but alas it was not to be. At the time my agent felt the market was just not acquiring middle-grade – it was during the social media boom when middle-graders hadn’t quite found their place and publishers didn’t know how to market to them.
So, she suggested I continue to indie-pub my MG series and write that “thing” – that quirky thing I had been talking about writing for two years but kept insisting I had to finish my ten book middle-grade series before I started on it. She had another idea. Hit pause on the MG series and write “that thing about the man who has his funeral before he died”. She knew I needed some refreshing and thought this might be good for me, especially since I talked about it all the time!
I wrote it in six months, pitched it at a conference to several houses, and had three requests for full manuscripts by the end of the day. Long story short… two years later after a bit of rewrites, I signed a two-book contract with Lion Hudson in England for The Death of Mungo Blackwell and The Marriage of Innis Wilkinson.
Which of your books is your favorite?
The Death of Mungo Blackwell is absolutely my most favorite thing I have ever written! While there is this quirky side story about a man named Mungo Blackwell who sailed with pirates, married the maharaja’s daughter, and had his funeral before he died, the real story is of a husband and wife who go through a major financial loss. So, this is a very personal book for me as well – my husband and I felt every inch of the financial crash of 2008, losing our home, selling our belongings, and doing our best to find contentment as we dug (and sold) our way out of it. It’s our story… just really exaggerated.
Do you have a favorite character or scene in one of your books?
Granny Blackwell will forever be my most favorite character, she’ll just have to make an appearance in one way or another in each of my books set in Coraloo. She has a bit of both my grandmother’s in her. She’s witty, funny, insightful, and has no problem speaking her mind. She also has an absolutely lovely backstory that I can’t wait to share with my readers.
Tell us about an award you won that was particularly meaningful.
Oh this just makes me all swoony to even thing about! I still can’t believe it! The Death of Mungo Blackwell recently won the American Christian Fiction Writer’s (ACFW) Carol Award for Contemporary Fiction. I’ve attended this conference for years – even before the book was a thought. It’s where I first pitched the novel. I’ve sat at the awards banquet so many times watching friends and fellow writer’s accept awards. I wondered so often what it would be like, and now I am just absolutely beyond grateful.
How long does it take you to write a book?
It usually takes me about four months to get the first good draft on paper and then I have several layers of editing before I let anyone read it. So… I’d say around six months before it goes to my editor or agent.
What’s your writing work schedule like?
I’ve fallen into the schedule of writing in the afternoons once all my distractions are out of the way, at least four days a week. Right after lunch and before my kiddos get home from school seems to be my sweet spot. That gives me the morning to tidy up my house, run errands, and do all the grown-up things that need doing. I try to do any marketing, interviews, phone calls, etc. in the morning as well – that’s usually first thing after the kiddos are off to school and my husband has gone to work.
Do you have an interesting writing quirk? If so, what is it?
This is really weird, but I have to have movement around me – a candle burning, a fire flickering in the fireplace, a fan spinning. Stillness is so distracting! It makes me want to just get up and do something else, anything else – usually laundry, dishes. It’s so silly, I know. Maybe it’s because I’m so ridiculously fidgety.
What has been your greatest joy(s) in your writing career? I would have to say (next to winning the Carol Award) was going to England with my family for the UK release of The Death of Mungo Blackwell – visiting my publishing team, radio interviews on BBC radio, seeing my book in a magazine on a grocery store shelf, and chatting with a book club at a library outside of London. It was absolutely magical! As my daughter and I would say, it was “Roses for days!”
Could you tell us about a dark moment in your writing career? Oh… right… there are those. And I had one hit me really hard in the months before the release of The Death of Mungo Blackwell. It’s really easy as a writer to set expectations of how everything is going to look, especially when you have writer friends who are releasing at the same time. On top of that, my children were entering private school after I had homeschooled for ten years, we moved into a new home in a new and unfamiliar community, and I was working on my second book that I just couldn’t seem to get right.
I felt like I had lost my identity as a homeschool mom (which had been a huge platform for me marketing my middle-grades), and I was not seeing my “launch” go as well as I had intended. Or let me be honest, I didn’t have as much to post on social media as my friends who were launching their books around the same time. That spirit of comparison is a beast! It all seems so selfish looking back on it, but I had found myself in a really dark place. I was sad, just really sad. It was hard for me to find joy in anything.
The trip to England changed everything and it really had nothing to do with the book – it had everything to do with reminding me who I was and that my identity isn’t defined by book sales or how I choose to educate my children. I had to find contentment in other areas of my life before I could find contentment in my author life. I feel like I found myself in England and was happy to bring her back home.
How many times in your career have you experienced rejection? How did they shape you?
I’ve seriously lost count. I think there were five rejections on Mungo before he found a home. And dozens on my middle-grade series. I learned to be patient and that if you pray for the right fit, you just have to be willing to wait for it. Every rejection was absolutely worth finding my publishing home with Lion Hudson. I’ve always been in love with England—all things England! So having a British publisher was truly worth the wait.
Where do you get your ideas?
Dead people. I’m just kidding! Sort of… Mungo Blackwell was originally inspired by an actual man in my family who had his funeral before he died. But mostly I’m inspired by life, real people, and that bit of oddness in all of us. I find that people tell me a lot about their quirky family members. And while my characters aren’t directly based on any of these stories, I do like to document tendencies, mannerisms, and uniqueness that make us so fun.
For example, when I was teaching… years ago… I had a co-teacher who had a great grandmother who kept misplacing her letters. I twisted it a bit and created a grandmother in one of my middle-grade novels who kept losing another kind of letters – A, B, C. I could people watch for days! We’re just a fascinating creation.
Who is your favorite author to read?
Roald Dahl. I know… children’s author. But he’s usually my go to when I’m starting one of my novels for grown-ups. I just love how far he reaches into the imagination, his use of language, and words. He has a tone that is so lovely it bounces. I’m a huge fan of story, and he was an amazing storyteller. Grown-up novels shouldn’t have to be so heavy. We live heavy lives. Our reading should allow us to escape into those same worlds we lived in as children.
What advice can you give aspiring writers that you wished you had gotten, or that you wished you would have heeded?
Find your people. The author world can be a lonely world filled with unnecessary anxiety. It helps to have people in your life who know exactly how you’re feeling when your spouse has no idea why you are melting down over a self-inflicted deadline. Find people to join you on the journey – those who have published and those who haven’t put the first word on paper but have a really good idea. Glean from the experience and be willing to share what you learn – at all levels of your writing career. I truly wish I had found my people sooner, but now that I have them… I don’t want to ever let them go.
What are common mistakes you see aspiring writer’s make?
Rushing. It seems that a lot of aspiring writer’s (my early writer self included) find themselves on self-inflicted timelines. They set goals for when the story will be done, when they will get an agent, and when they will publish. And when these goals aren’t met, they rush into indie-publishing. Indie-publishing is great, but it is really hard work! There are no short cuts. Most of the successful indie-authors know their audience and how to market to them. They stay on top of the trends, keep spreadsheets and are as good at the business end of the industry as they are at writing. The road to publication whether indie or traditional is long and hard. Don’t rush into either one. Take your time. Get it right.
Where/How do you recommend writers try to break into the market?
Network! Network! Network! Online is great, but it’s not the same as meeting face to face. So find a local writer’s group and attend at least one writing conference a year. It’s where the industry hangs out – authors, editors, agents, publishers. We’re all there for one purpose – books. It’s where you build relationships, learn the trends, hone your craft, and most often have the opportunity to have real conversation with editors and agents. My agent once told me that I had to be the one to pitch my book because nobody knows my story like I do… and I tend to get really excited and passionate about what I write. I imagine my wide-eyes and flailing arms are a bit amusing. Apparently, it worked – not sure I really could have been myself in front of a computer screen.
Lauren H. Brandenburg is an author and storyteller who happily blurs the lines between traditional genres in both middle grade and cozy fiction. She was longlisted for the People’s Book Prize in the United Kingdom and recipient of the ACFW Carol Award in contemporary fiction for The Death of Mungo Blackwell, as well as a two time Selah Award finalist.
Lauren is a former junior high and high school English teacher who stepped away from her profession to raise and homeschool her two children. She currently lives with her husband and their two children in a lovely little town just south of Nashville, Tennessee where they cook, play games, and laugh a lot.
- Website: www.LaurenHBrandenburg.com
- Instagram: www.Instagram.com/LHBrandenburg
- Goodreads: www.Goodreads.com/LHBrandenburg
- Facebook: www.Facebook.com/LHBrandenburg
- Twitter: www.Twitter.com/LHBrandenburg
Books are Available online wherever books are sold in the US and UK:
- Amazon US – https://amzn.to/3ptdAfH
- Amazon UK – https://amzn.to/3t0lAY1
- Barnes and Noble – https://bit.ly/3ad3qcT
- Waterstones UK – https://bit.ly/3iV02qU
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