LB Gschwandtner

LB Gschwandtner has attended numerous fiction-writing workshops―the Iowa Writers Workshop and others―studied with Fred Leebron, Bob Bausch, Richard Bausch, Lary Bloom, Joyce Maynard, Sue Levine, and Wally Lamb, and published five adult novels, one middle-grade novel, and one collection of quirky short stories. She began her professional career as an artist, became a magazine editor in 1980, and began writing fiction in 1986. She’s won awards in literary contests and independent publishing contests, and been published in literary digests and magazines. A Place Called Zamora is her eighth book.

Twitter: @LBGwriter

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?  

Books are like people you meet at a certain time in your life. You might be friends for a day or a week or a year or forever. But friendships change over time. Some friendships can adapt to the life changes you go through and some just fall away. Of all the books I’ve read, some have stayed with me since I finished them and some just fade away like an old friendship that no longer works.  

If I’m about a third of the way through a book, even if I know it’s a good book, and it somehow doesn’t reach me and stick with me, if it doesn’t engage me, I’ll bag it. And not feel bad about it either. But if a book really annoys me, I’ll bag it sooner. And then there are a few books that I know are pure trash that have kept me reading to the end. I kind of hate to admit that but there it is. 

Here are just three books that have stayed with me forever and why. Dr. Zhivago is the only book that made me cry. The Life Of Pi because the scenes with the tiger and the island where he had to sleep in a tree or get consumed just wowed me. Rebecca because the main character has no name in the whole book. I want to know her name still, after all these years. 

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

Writing is what you do when you’re alone and not thinking about anything but the story you’re telling, how you’re telling it, how it reverberates within your own head, where it’s taking you, what the characters are all about, how the scenes unfold, and what language you’re using to tell that story. To me that’s being a writer. 

An author is a writer who has moved from that very private, intimate space to a more public arena where sharing the written work with others – whether through publishing, reading aloud, attending conferences or workshops for feedback – allows the story to interact with the world. 

Then there’s marketing the work. An author has to be ready to do some heavy lifting that has everything to do with moving the story through the world once the writer has retreated away from creating it. 

Do you have another artistic outlet in addition to your writing? Do you sew? Paint? Draw? Knit? Dance? 

I began my working life as a visual artist. I studied drawing, painting, sculpture and ceramics. I worked as a professional potter for years until I began to experiment with liquid plastic resins. I was always drawing. When I began to write, attending workshops and conferences, I painted less and less and spent more time writing until I stopped painting altogether. 

But I missed it. I drew and colored the cover image for my first published book, The Naked Gardener. Over the years, I’ve gone back to painting from time to time. I find it relaxing and clarifying in a way that informs my writing. 

I still write initially from a visual perspective. I see each scene as if I were about to paint it. So painting and the ability to draw what I see has become an integral part of my writing process. 

Someone just commissioned me to do a painting for his home. I did a commission last year also. I don’t think painting and drawing will ever be over for me. 

What brings you great joy? 

Clouds. 

I mean who couldn’t feel joyful watching a wild cloud formation on a windy day or right after a thunderstorm as the sky is changing and the sun breaks through? Everyone should see a sunset with clouds over West Palm Beach, Florida in July or August. And Arizona sunsets… just wow. No matter what’s going on inn the world or in my life, I can watch clouds above the earth constantly moving and shifting with the wind and change colors with the sun. I take comfort in this ever adjusting cloudscape knowing there will always be stormy clouds and bright cheerful clouds and wispy romantic clouds. There is constancy in their changes. 

A good table cloud formation can make you feel the awesome energy of nature and take your breath away with its perfection as you await the inevitable storm it will unleash. 

Sometimes you get to see double or even triple cloud formations at the same time. Some clouds are soft, some are harsh, some gray, some all the color you can imagine. I have never seen the same clouds more than once. They’re like jazz. Fleeting moments of beauty. 

A friend recently gifted me a year’s inclusion in the Cloud Appreciation Society. I get an email with a cloud photo every day. Usually it has a poem or a description or some other text that goes with the cloud image. Very cool. 

And of course my family and especially my grandchildren. They are a delight and give me enormous joy. 

Have you ever experienced Imposter Syndrome? 

Imposter syndrome is described by psychologists as a “psychological pattern in which an individual doubts their accomplishments or talents and has a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as a ‘fraud.’" I only know this because I googled and read up on it. Apparently it’s also called “imposter phenomenon” and is not all that uncommon. However, I don’t think I have it. However #2, as a writer and an editor, I have written under quite a few “imposter” names. 

When my husband and I started a magazine publishing company I was the Editor-in-Chief with no one reporting to me. So I was in reality the Chief of Nothing. I either wrote all the articles we published or rewrote what my husband wrote. Not wanting to tip off our quickly burgeoning subscriber list that we were a two-person operation, I started making up bylines for myself. Here they are, finally out in the open now that the statute of limitations has run out on my imposter status. Each name has at least some basis in reality from somewhere. 

Abner Littel – a French Canadian writer, accent on the “el” of the last name. (Maybe you are a comics fan? Lil Abner anyone?) 

Anne E. Oakley (self explanatory, think old westerns) 

Captain Lawrence J. Tuttle, Ret. (from the Coast Guard Auxiliary in case anyone wants to know what branch … and BTW learn more about Tuttle by watching a very old episode of M.A.S.H.) 

Since I was already used to assigning other names to my work, when I started writing fiction, I used my grandmother’s maiden name, Bea Alexander. I think I should have stuck with that. Maybe I’ll go back to it one day.