Author Interview - LISA & LAURA ROECKER

Very special guests today, everyone! Lisa and Laura Roecker are exuberant sisters writing YA mysteries together. They are represented by Catherine Drayton. Their novel, A KATE LOWRY MYSTERY: THE HAUNTING OF PEMBERLY BROWN, is currently on submission.

The illustration featured here is a drawing of Kate Lowry, the mystery-solving main character herself! She is a confidant fifteen-year-old girl and loves her pearls (both her necklace and wisdom). For Kate, I thought her drawing would look best in fresh, clean colors.  

1) What is your novel about? 

When Kate Lowry gets an e-mail from her dead best friend she's forced to play detective and prove once and for all that Grace’s death was more than a tragic accident. Along for the ride are a couple of knights- in (not so) –shining armor - the dangerously attractive, bad boy, Liam and her love-struck neighbor, Seth. Together they discover a secret lurking in the halls of their elite private school that threatens to destroy them all.

 

2) What inspired you both to work together and write the book? 

We decided to write together mostly because we were bored. We love our lives and families, but we wanted to do something that was just for us, so we decided to take a stab at writing. Kate Lowry was born after our first book was rejected by almost every YA agent in the country. Seriously. We thought it would be fun to write a series of books about a reluctant teen detective who gets e-mails from dead people.

 

3) What are some of your favorite mysteries and what made them stand out? 

We loved Lois Duncan and Christopher Pike as kids. We inhaled those books, usually by nightlight or flashlight. What made them stand out for us was the mix of paranormal and high school drama. We loved reading about the lives of teenagers. There's just something about prom, parties and cliques that we've always found fascinating.

 

4) What's it like to write a novel as a team? 

Awesome. Writing together is so much fun. We both have very different strengths and together we create the perfect author. Or at least that's what we tell ourselves. I think the best part about writing together is that there's never any writer's block. The second one of us gets stuck they just ship the manuscript off to the other sister and let them figure it out.

 

5) Got any advise for other writers on submission? 

Be patient, don't lose hope and keep writing. And yeah, we need to follow our own advice.

Thank you, Lisa and Laura! I look forward to seeing Kate's adventures!

--Realm

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Enjoyed this interview? If you're an author, editor, agent, or illustrator and would like a five question interview and a drawing of your character (or of yourself), email me at rtlovejoy (at) yahoo (dot) com.