Authors Are Rock Stars Blog Tour: April Lindner

Hi! I am very excited to be a part of this awesome tour! I mean...Where would us as readers be if all of these amazing authors didn't write all these amazing books for us to read!!! I am excited to get the chance to spotlight them and recognize them for their awesomeness!!!! My Author today is April Lindner!

Welcome to my web page. I'm the author of Catherine, a contemporary retelling of Wuthering Heights, and of Jane, a retelling of Jane Eyre, both published by Poppy. I'm also a poet. My new poetry collection, This Bed Our Bodies Shaped, was just published by Able Muse Press, and my first collection, Skin, will be coming back into print in early 2013. I also write literary criticism and edit poetry anthologies. Last but far from least, I'm a professor of English at Saint Joseph's University in Philadelphia. 

Here are a few things to know about me:

I was born in North Merrick, NY, and though I've lived many places since then, I will always be a New Yorker at heart. 

I've been writing stories and poems ever since I could hold a pen. 

I started out majoring in art but soon realized my talents lay elsewhere. But I'm still a champion doodler.

My sister is a roller derby queen and one of my best friends.

Jane Eyre is my favorite novel of all times, with Wuthering Heights a close second.

I love rock and roll, so put another dime in the juke box, baby. (Apologies to Joan Jett.)

I teach creative writing, freshman composition, and literature at St. Joe's. 

My favorite color is electric blue. 

I'm seriously addicted to Facebook and Instagram.

I love to cook, especially Italian food. 

I'm mom to two lab mix dogs--Reuben and Ophelia--and two little rescued guinea pig girls, Tootsie Roll and Leeloo Dallas Multipass. 

I play acoustic guitar (badly) and attend way too many rock concerts.

I met my husband at the University of New Hampshire where we both lived in a dorm for the creative arts.

I'm secretly shy but I work hard to hide it.

When I was 22, I backpacked solo around Europe and had all kinds of fun and misadventures.

In high school I wrote a rock opera about the tragic love between punk rocker Sid Vicious and his girlfriend Nancy Spungeon.

My current favorite t.v. show is Glee. Old favorites are Northern Exposure, Six Feet Under, The West Wing, andMoonlighting.

Jane has a Facebook page of its own, and I hope you'll consider "liking" it. Here's a link.

Coffee, dark chocolate, Bruce Springsteen, thunderstorms, exploring cities I've never been to before: these are a few of my favorite things.

What gave you the inspiration to write this book?

After writing my first novel, Jane, a contemporary retelling of Jane Eyre, I knew I wanted to try my hand at another modernization. I’ve always been obsessed with Wuthering Heights—all that intense love entwined with passionate hate—so that was the obvious choice. But figuring out how to bring the story into the 21st century took a bit longer. Then one night I was at a rock concert at the Stone Pony, a legendary night club in Asbury Park, New Jersey, and I felt suddenly more inspired than I’d been in weeks. Suddenly I knew I had to set Catherine in a punk-rock night club. After that, the plot started to fall into place. I did transplant the club to New York’s Lower East Side, though, because that felt to me in its own way almost as untamed and atmospheric as Emily Bronte’s Yorkshire Moors. 

Who is your favorite character in the book?

I cannot tell a lie: I have a giant crush on Hence, the book’s Heathcliff character. He’s not the nicest guy in the world, but he’s always absolutely genuine, and—without giving too much away, I hope—he turns out to be a better human being than he seems on the surface. Despite my darkest intentions, Hence grew to be more basically decent than Heathcliff. I turned out that I just didn’t have it in me to write a character quite that brutal.

Which came first, the title or the novel? 

Definitely the novel.

What do you like most about the cover of the book?

I love pretty much everything about the cover of CATHERINE, but my favorite part is the flatiron building in the backroom, a little obscured by mist but still identifiable. And I love how the purple letters of the title manage to be bold and pretty and punk all at once.

What new release book are you looking most forward to in 2013?

My to-be-read pile of YA books is taller than I am, so instead of eagerly awaiting books that haven’t been released yet, I’m looking forward to finding time to read the books I’ve already got. At the top of the pile: Diana Peterfreund’s For Darkness Shows the Stars, a dystopian retelling of Jane Austen’s Persuasion. It came out in 2012, so in my world it’s a new release. 

What was your favorite book in 2012?

This is an easy one: John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars. It’s funny, smart, quirky, heartbreaking, and a very quick read. I assigned it to my Young Adult Fiction Writing class at Saint Joseph’s University, and the whole class adored it with maybe only one holdout—which almost never happens. 

What’s up next for you?

I’ve been working on a novel, tentatively titled Lucy—a retelling of E. M. Forster’s A Room With a View. In it a young girl’s parents send her on the trip of a lifetime, backpacking across Europe, but the gift comes with strings attached; in exchange Lucy has to promise to give up her dreams of becoming an actress and do what her Dad wants her to do instead—become a business major. In Italy, Lucy falls for a free-spirited American street musician, and starts to question the life that awaits her back home.

Is there anything that you would like to add?

I just want to say thanks for the great questions, and for hosting me.

MY REVIEW OF CATHERINE

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