Author’s Choice with Gail Lukasik

Please welcome Gail to Author’s Choice.

Dear readers, here’s where you get to play along. The author will tell us two truths and one lie (ed comment –I randomized the order). At the end of the questions, we’ll reveal what really happened. Remember, we write crime fiction, so lying is in our nature . . .

Two Truths, One Lie

Truth or Lie? At the age of fifteen I was a ballerina with The Cleveland Civic Ballet Company. 

Truth or Lie? I was a featured guest on NBC’s Today Show.

Truth or Lie?  I auditioned for the Radio City Rockettes.

Eight Quick Questions

Now for some fun insight into today’s author. Here are eight forced choice questions.

1.          First draft: longhand, keyboard, or dictation? Keyboard.

2.          Plotter, pantser, or plantser (that chaotic middle ground)? I’m an organic writer. A term that Tony Hillerman used to describe how he writes. To me panster doesn’t accurately describe my process.

3.          Editing as you go, or vomit draft first and fix it later? Editing as I go.

4.       Character names: meticulously researched, stolen from real life, or whatever sounds right? It depends on the character and the book. Sometimes I choose a character’s name that goes against stereotypes, in terms of appearance and/or time periods. Other times, I research which names were most popular during a specific decade and their meanings. Names are very important in characterization. I once worked with a woman who disliked her given name Karen so much, she had it legally changed to Klarin. That says a great deal about this person.

5.       Writing space: coffee shop chaos, library quiet, or home sweet home? My writing space is a converted upstairs bedroom that overlooks the backyard.  Two of the walls are covered in floor to ceiling bookcases. Over my computer desk is an Edward Curtis photograph of a Native American man sitting in a canoe among tall grasses looking out at the water. The photo inspires me to be patient, to sit and believe that that words will come.

6.       Social media for authors: necessary evil, genuine fun, or absolutely not? Social media is a necessary evil. I’ve gotten better at it over the years.

7.       Reading your own work aloud: love it, tolerate it, or would rather eat glass? I love reading my own work aloud.

8.       Book launch day: celebrate big, feel quiet relief, or hide under the covers? Without question, celebrate big!!

About the Book

Enough about you, let’s turn to three questions about your book.

Q: If your main character in this novel showed up at your door right now, what would be the first thing they'd say to you (and would it be a complaint)?

A. When I escaped to the remote island, why did you have the ghost of my dead mother follow me there?

Q: What's one thing you hope readers take away from this book?

A. I hope readers will sympathize with Nellie’s fears and  frustrations as she tries to uncover her mother’s secrets, her father’s identity, and discover what happened to the mysterious community that disappeared from the island two decades ago.

Q: What question did you want me to ask, and what is your answer? 

A. You’ve been a traditionally published author for over twenty years in various genres from poetry to memoir to mystery. What keeps you writing? I write for the pure pleasure of creating worlds and people from my imagination, putting them in difficult situations and seeing what they do. I also write to keep honing my craft.

The Big Reveal

Now let’s see how good a sleuth (or guesser) our readers are. Please reveal all.

The lie is I never auditioned for the Radio City Rockettes. Though I wish I had. I would have loved to be a Rockette.

Truth: From the age of four, I took ballet and tap lessons at a suburban dance studio. My mother felt it was important for a young girl to have poise and an appreciation of the arts. When I turned 15 my mother encouraged me to audition for The Cleveland Civic Ballet Company. I auditioned and was accepted. I danced with the company for several years.

Truth: After the publication of my memoir, White Like Her: My Family’s Story of Race and Racial Passing, I wrote an article for The Washington Post about discovering my mother had been passing as white. The Post named my story one of the most inspiring of 2017. The producer of The Today Show saw the article and invited me and two members of my newly discovered mixed-race family to the show.

Here’s a blurb  and some links for Gail's book:

Book Blurb

A Ghostly Window Into the Past

Nurse Nellie Lester can’t escape death. Fleeing Chicago at the height of the 1918 Spanish flu, she takes a nursing job at a decrepit mansion on a desolate Michigan island.  She’s convinced the island holds the key to her mother’s murky past. The only problem? Her dead mother seems to have followed her there. Nightly she’s haunted by a ghostly presence that appears in her bedroom. But is it her mother or something more sinister?

When the frozen body of the prior nurse is unearthed, Nellie suspects her family’s history and the nurse’s death are connected to a mysterious group that disappeared from the island twenty-four years earlier. 

As winter closes in, past and present collide resurrecting a lurid killer, hell-bent on keeping the island’s secrets. Will Nellie uncover her mother’s shocking past before the killer enacts his final revenge? 

[Amazon]       [Barnes & Noble]       [About Time Bookstore]

Want to know more?

For more information about Gail Lukasik www.gaillukasik.com