Marianne C. Bohr

Marianne C. Bohr, published author and award-winning essayist, married her high school sweetheart and travel partner. She has two grown children and is the eldest of 11. She follows her own advice and hits the road at every opportunity. Marianne lives in Park City, Utah, where, after decades in publishing, and many years of teaching middle school French, she skis, hikes, and writes.

 Instagram: @MarianneCBohr

Favorite non-reading activity?

If I’m not reading or writing, I’m hiking. My husband and I retired to Park City, UT where we’re surrounded by mountains. I ski in the winter but hike all year long. And though my ski instructor spouse hates to hear me say it, hiking is my favorite, especially in the fall when the aspens are spectacularly yellow. Hiking with my dog helps clear my head and I often get new ideas while hiking, so I always carry a tiny notebook with me. If I’m really stuck on a plot point or piece of dialog, it’s time for a hike.

Is your go to comfort food sweet or savory? Is it something you make yourself? Does food inspire your writing?

I’m definitely a salty, savory girl. This may sound terribly boring, but I’ll take a huge salad topped with goat cheese or grilled salmon (especially if it’s at a French café) over a wedge of chocolate cake any day. I eat at home a lot, even though I don’t particularly like to cook, so going out is a real treat. Food definitely plays an important role in my writing. Travel is my muse (my first two books are travel memoirs and I’ve just finished a novel that takes place in France) and one of my favorite things about traveling is the food. I often set scenes around a meal and love to give lots of detail. The smells and tastes and the ambience all take me right back to what happened when I write nonfiction and inspire what happens in my fiction.

Is there a work of art that you love. Why? Have you ever visited it in person?

Las Meninas by Velázquez in the Prado just blows me away. I took an art survey course in college and that painting was one we studied in depth. I got to see it in Madrid on a backpacking trip during college and was amazed at the size of the canvas. It’s enormous and makes you feel like you’re actualy in the painting. The experience really taught me that often, the more you know about a work of art, the more you appreciate it, and I so appreciate Las Meninas.

What’s the difference (at least for you!) between being a writer and an author? How do you shift gears between the two?

For me, being a writer is what I do for myself and being an author is what I create (hopefully) for others to read. I try to write daily and it’s often just me scribbling at my desk, be it journaling or adding to whatever it is I’m working on at the moment. It’s draft writing that is only for my eye, to get my ideas on the page, and isn’t very pretty. When I make the switch to polishing my journaling notes and expanding and editing my rough sketches, that’s when I think of potential readers and envision myself as an author.

Do you speak a second language? Do you think differently in that language? Does it influence your writing?

I do. I speak French and have studied Spanish. I was a French major in college and then did graduate work in the Loire Valley in Tours, France for a year. When I’m in France I do think differently, trying to look at the world through a French person’s eyes and I often talk to myself in French. Being able to speak another language does influence my writing in that I love exploring all things French--culture, food, history, the language, the countryside and the cities. I’m definitely a hopeless Francophile. I would also say that knowing another language fuels my imagination and makes me analyze how we say things in English more closely. There’s often an idiom or a saying in French that says exactly what I want to express but that we don’t have in English, so I have to try to translate it.