Brooke Lea Foster

Brooke Lea Foster is an award-winning journalist whose articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post Magazine, The Atlantic, The Boston Globe Sunday Magazine, and HuffPost, among others. An alumna of The Writing Institute at Sarah Lawrence College, she is the author of three nonfiction books and the novels Summer Darlings and On Gin Lane.

Twitter: @BrookeLeaFoster

Instagram: @brookeleafoster/

Is there a genre of music that influences your writing/thinking? Do you listen to music while you write?

I write historical fiction set in the 1950s and 1960s so when I was writing On Gin Lane, I immersed myself in all aspects of that time period. I watched Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Roman Holiday and The Talented Mr. Ripley. I took a deep dive into old fashion magazines photos. I read books my characters would be reading, like On the Road by Jack Kerouac.

But it’s the music of the time period that I rely on to get my head in the times. Since On Gin Lane was set in the summer of 1957, I had certain songs I’d listen to on repeat, like “All Shook Up” by Elvis, “Bye Bye Love” by the Everly Brothers, “Little Darlin’” by the Diamonds. I find that writing along to music pulls me deeper into the scene because I can imagine the cadence of my characters, how their moods change based on what song is playing, and of course, the scene or tension is heightened if I’m writing to a particularly emotive song.  

Not all books are for all readers… when you start a book and you just don’t like it, how long do you read until you bail?

Maybe I shouldn’t admit this but if I’m not hooked after the first five chapters, I typically don’t force myself to keep going. I have friends that push themselves to finish every single book, even if they aren’t enjoying it, but I cannot do that. There are too many books that I want to read and never have enough time so if the book isn’t capturing my imagination, I move on and find one that does. It doesn’t happen all that often – but I don’t allow myself to feel any guilt before moving on. Reading is entertainment and it’s meant to be enjoyed, not endured.

Favorite non-reading activity?

I write summer historical beach reads, and there’s a reason why: I’m a beach girl. I have a charm on a bracelet that says, “It’s always summer somewhere,” and I use my writing to escape the cold snowy New York winters. No matter what is happening outside my writing studio’s windows, I am deeply immersed in a sparkly summer sipping refreshing cocktails in a vintage bathing suit on the beach.

I always get the ideas for my novels in summer, too. We live near the beach and I often pack up a beach bag with lunch and enough to keep my kids busy for the day. I pull out a notebook while they swim and splash and sketch out plot ideas or character arcs while sitting in a lounge chair with the my toes in the sand. I decided to set my first novel Summer Darlings in Martha’s Vineyard because I had the idea for the book while vacationing there. On Gin Lane, set in the Hamptons, takes place on an ocean beach in Southampton, a setting I became committed to after a beautiful walk there one afternoon. I turned my back to the ocean and stared up at the dunes and thought: What if there was a grand hotel here in the summer of 1957?