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I was born, which is a great start to any life, in Montgomery, Alabama, but without a banjo on my knee, for which my mother was most grateful. Yes, Libba Bray is my real name, and yes, I realize that it sounds a lot like “Library,” which I think is pretty cool. At least it doesn’t sound like “Weasel Fart.” Libba is short for Elizabeth. In the interest of world peace, I was named “Martha Elizabeth” after both grandmothers. I agree: It would have made more sense to name me “Elizabeth Martha.” I asked about this once and my father answered that “Martha Elizabeth” was more euphonious. Euphonious is a fancy word for “sounds better.” I come from twenty-five-cent word people. Now you know. |
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We moved to Corpus Christi, Texas, when I was three. I was pretty sure I was going to grow up to be a veterinarian-astronaut-figure-skating Julie Andrews in the “Sound of Music.” Or Queen of England. My brother planned to be Batman since he already had the cape (1). We did not temper our ambitions in the Bray household. I was an odd little kid with a Linus-style security blanket in one hand and a plastic elephant puppet on my right. (It did all my talking for me, like a government lobbyist, or something out of a Stephen King novel.) My mother cut my hair just like Mia Farrow’s in “Rosemary’s Baby.” This did not help. Nor did statements like, “Will you teach me to do laundry, in case you die soon?”
I grew up in the church. Not literally, like I was hiding under the pews to bite the ankles of the devout or washing my pits in the baptismal font (2). My father was a Presbyterian minister with a razor-sharp wit who liked to sing from “Fiddler on the Roof” in answer to basic questions like, “But why can’t I get a dolphin tattoo/camp out for Led Zeppelin tickets/go to boarding school in England?” He was also gay. This gave me a sense that God was Fabulous!™, all people were loved and wanted, and heaven had a disco ball. I stand by that; my heaven will always have a disco ball. My mother was a high school English teacher. If there were a “Jeopardy” for Romeo & Juliet, she would be the reigning champ. Mom was fond of serving us red Jello while talking in great detail about one of her favorite topics: Leprosy. To this day, I can’t even look at red Jello without automatically thinking “leper colony.” Please do not ask me again why I am so odd. When I was eleven, we moved from Corpus Christi all the way up to the northern plains of Denton, Texas. We made the two-day trek twenty-four hours after my brother had been shot in the head by a high-powered BB gun. We would stop to eat at Denny’s and let my hallucinating brother vomit in the parking lot. It was kind of like Faulkner. Only funnier and with AM radio. He spent the first week of our move in a Dallas neurosurgery unit, getting all the attention—just like the Batman cape all over again. I self-medicated with my mother’s purloined (3) copy of Helter Skelter, which is about the Manson Family murders. Self-care comes in many forms. By the time I was a rebellious adolescent with some spiffy wardrobe choices to show for it, I was heavily into rock ‘n’ roll, punk, Monty Python, “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”, and New Wave videos on MTV. My favorite book was Catcher in the Rye, the preferred tome of serial killers and dysfunctional stalkers, and I watched a lot of old Hammer Horror movies because I like my horror served up with anachronistic beehive hairdos and a hint of Carnaby Street (5). My plans were to run away with an English rock star and live in the Cotswolds (6)–a place I’d never been but which sounded terribly glamorous—where we would wear lots of eyeliner and write songs about hats. This was not to be. Three weeks after high school graduation, I had a serious car accident. I demolished my face and lost my left eye. For those of you wondering what this was like, I can tell you: It sucked. A lot. Also, the doctors did not replace my lost eye with a laser, which I think is just stingy. It took many years and surgeries plus a bone graft to put me back together again, but most of the pieces seem to be in the right places, and anyway, that’s when I discovered how powerful writing can be, because writing everything down kept me alive. I know from experience that writing can save your life because it saved mine. So, should you ever find yourself in a bad, hopeless-feeling place, please know that you can write your way out of that dark space and into something better and, just possibly, into something wonderful. And I still haven’t given up hope on that laser eye. I went to college at the University of Texas at Austin (7), which is nowhere near the Cotswolds but where I did date one too many drummers and made lots of mistakes. (Free advice: Do NOT drop acid and go see the movie “Aliens.” You’re welcome.) From there, I moved to New York City in a vintage 50s dress with cowboy boots on my feet, my grandmother’s crystal punch bowl tucked under one arm and six hundred dollars stuffed into the heel of one of those boots. I read somewhere that muggers would never look in your shoes for money. Having been mugged at gunpoint, I can tell you that muggers will look in your ear canals if they think there’s money there. My New York City plan was to become the next great American playwright. I wrote five-and-a-half plays. Three of them got produced. One received an award. The others line the bottom of a drawer. I used the punchbowl box as an end table for years. I worked in publishing, advertising (Despair! Now with the power of baking soda!) and entertainment. I wrote copy for fitness guru Richard Simmons and for romance novels, including one about sexy unicorn love. That was a low moment. I am giving you truth here, people. My first book, A Great and Terrible Beauty, was published in 2003 and the rest, as they say, is history. I have a lovely grown son who is a terrific concept artist, which is a solid rebuke to the times I said, “Honey, you can’t just doodle monsters in your workbooks. You have to actually do the math problems.” He showed me but good. When I am not scribbling words and lying to my editors about missing deadlines, I spend time with my partner, Simon, and our dog, Wendell, who I’m convinced is the reincarnated soul of a French existentialist whose interior monologue is focused on the cruel impermanence of treats. Things I like: Writing, books, music, theater, film, history, museums, pedicures, having my teeth cleaned, cursing, snacks, my friends, my friends with snacks, karaoke, good horror movies, coffee, train rides, long walks, Central Park, the color turquoise, spiral notebooks, Paris, emotional bravery, road trips, democracy, subversive humor, autumn, the smell of Cinnabons, people-watching, dogs, daydreaming. Things I do not like: Dolls, doughnuts, clowns, humidity, doing math, thong underwear, bad horror movies, sweet potatoes or anything vaguely yammy, vomiting, being late (except on deadlines when it’s totally okay) a lack of empathy/compassion, junk mail that makes you think somebody sent you a check, small elevators, the violation of human rights, bra shopping. I am pretty sure that when the Zombie Apocalypse comes, I will be food. Unless I get that laser eye first. Then, party at my house, y’all. Now you know everything about me. Really. That’s all I got. No, really. Click another link. There’s more stuff to look at. Go! (1) He always got to be Batman. I was always Robin. I have worked through this in therapy. Mostly (2) Now I have guaranteed that baptismal fonts will forever = my pits in your mind. You’re welcome. (3) I told you I come from twenty-five-cent word people. (4) I said approximately. I don’t do math. You should know that about me if we are going to be anonymous Internet friends. (5) Carnaby Street was the ultimate in 1960’s London Hipsterville. You should spend some time looking it up. Procrastination = fun. (6) You should look this up, too. See? This biography is teaching you all the things! (7) Hook ’em, Horns! |
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Sometimes people ask me questions. Sometimes I answer them with another question. Example: Q: “Were the characters in The Gemma Doyle trilogy inspired by real people?” A: “Are you going to eat that?” Anyway, ask me! I will answer…ish! ... |
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Q: What was your inspiration for writing the Gemma Doyle Trilogy?
I wanted to save the whales. I feel that if my writing can save even one large sea creature, then by golly, let me at that laptop. Q: You’re kind of weird, aren’t you? Yes. It’s only going to get weirder from here. You are warned. Q: Seriously, what was your inspiration? It wasn’t the whales? They’ll be so disappointed. (Such fragile egos for such large mammals.) I wanted to write a gothic creepfest of a Victorian story with a heroine who could kick butt and take names all in a crinoline and corset—sort of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” meets Henry James and Charlotte Brontë. Whales don’t wear corsets by the way. Just in case that comes up on a test. Q: Where do your ideas come from? From Ideaworld! It’s the big mega-idea mart on the edge of town. I take my cart and roll down the aisles picking up plot, metaphor, simile, character, theme, whatever I need. Sadly, they are almost always out of stock on everything except the Enormo-Box of 100% Unworkable Ideas, which I seem to have plenty of. So then I am forced to pull ideas from everywhere—books/newspapers/magazines/cereal boxes, random light pole stickers, long walks, people watching, dogs, art museums, a picture of a llama in a party hat, everyday human interaction, everyday alien interaction, etc. Inspiration is everywhere, and I love that about it. Q: Will you make your books into movies? I can barely work my phone. But somebody might perhaps make movies of the books someday. In the meantime, they seem to really enjoy being books. They’re kind of self-actualized that way, really. That therapy really paid off. Q: If they make movies of your books, can you make sure they don’t screw it up? If it will make you happy, I will promise to suck the marrow from the bones of anyone who adds a hot-oil girl-fight in slow-mo. Q: Will you ever write another Gemma book? Never say never. Unless it’s skydiving or heroin. Then, never. Q: What do you like most about writing? The panic. I like to know that my fight-or-flight response is primed and ready for the eventual zombie apocalypse. Q: What do you like least about writing? The zombies never show up. Q: What is your writing process? Get up early, around 5:00 a.m. Drink coffee (please see previous sentence). Open laptop. Read the news. Counter news by Googling pictures of dogs in sweaters. Sigh and groan. Count that as cardio. Plunge in with absolutely no plan whatsoever. Read over words just written. Rearrange words. Delete words. Start over. Vow to organize thoughts in outline. Feel taunted by outline, which tells me I dress funny. Remember that my brain doesn’t do linear thought. Abandon outline. Turn outline into origami one-winged swan-bear-teapot…thing. Stop to empty a dog. Give dog treat. Plunge in again. Stare at bookshelves containing works from good writers. Weep silently in envy. Decide I absolutely CANNOT continue until I research that one weird, arcane thing that probably won’t make the final book anyway. Realize I’ve spent two hours down the arcane-research rabbit hole. Start over with the writing thing. Manage to barf up words without stopping for several hours or until thoughts turn toward food. Reward self with cookie. Lather, rinse, repeat. Q: What do you do when you’re not writing? Sadly, I think about the writing—both the doing and the not-doing. Q: What’s the best advice you can give an aspiring writer? Read widely. And write like yourself. You are the only one who can create that thing you’re creating and the world would like to read it. ☺ Q: Do you ever doubt yourself when you’re writing? At least once every fifteen minutes. That’s what the cookies are for. Q: What is the first book you remember falling in love with? I was an avid reader as a child and have very fond memories of going to the library in Corpus Christi, Texas, which felt like church. But the book that really did it for me was Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White. From the opening sentence: “Where’s Papa going with that ax?” to the heartache of an ending, I was completely captivated. It sure did make enduring the Chicken Pox a lot easier. Q: Can you please please PLEASE write a fourth Gemma book? I was actually thinking of just skipping ahead and writing a sixth Gemma novel. Do you think that would be confusing? Q: Who do you hope they cast in the movie and/or TV show of your books? Trained, singing meerkats who are making the leap from a teen meerkat TV show. Because above all, I admire a teen meerkat with ambition. Q: What’s next for you? I was thinking about making a sandwich. Oh, you meant writing-wise. I have four future books I’m working on plus a musical. I may never sleep again. Q: Why do people put up with you? I honestly have no idea. |
