I’m so thrilled that the talented author, Cathy Lamb, is joining us this month! Cathy and I go way back, having had our first books published at about the same time and by the same publisher back in the early 2000s. Cathy is known for crafting insightful, empowering works of women’s fiction featuring complex, relatable characters with strong voices who overcome big problems, but without ever losing their sense of humor or appreciation for life’s absurdities. Her most recent book, TEN KIDS, TWO LOVEBIRDS, AND SINGING MERMAID, is a feel-good story set in California in the 1970’s, told through the eyes of Jesse, a lovable eleven-year-old protagonist. Welcome, Cathy! I understand that your new book, TEN KIDS, TWO LOVEBIRDS, AND  SINGING MERMAID, was inspired by events and settings in your childhood. Can you tell us more about that? As well as how the plot developed from there? TEN KIDS, TWO LOVEBIRDS, AND SINGING MERMAID was inspired by my childhood on Deauville Drive in Huntington Beach, California. I lived there until I was 10. The families in the book are not my family. The first scene in the book, where Annie, the mother, finds out her husband is cheating on her…

Before I started writing SUCH A PRETTY FACE, I asked myself, ‘What would it be like to lose 170 pounds?’ For years I was a freelance writer for The Oregonian. I wrote about homes, home décor, people, events, and fashion. When I started freelancing I had three kids under the age of five. I was buried in diapers, the housework was crushing, and I rarely slept like a normal human. I tried to remember to brush my hair. My most glorious of days occurred when I realized I did not have spit up on my shirt. My three little sweethearts were dear and wonderful, and oh, how I loved them and their sweet smiles, but the Role Of Mommy was all encompassing. I felt myself, I felt Cathy, slipping away, down a rocky cliff, out into the shark-filled ocean, no life raft or calm and serene, pineapple – filled deserted island in sight. Until I started working as a freelance writer. Freelance writing gave me something else to think about. It gave me an identity. It gave me something to do that I loved doing – write. I had a new, part – time job, complete with interviewing and photo…

I have 15 days to go. Fifteen days until my deadline for my next book, Henry’s Sisters. This means that – except for a short jaunt to drop a kid off at school on the east coast – I will spend most of my other days muttering to myself, half-crazed, almost sleepless, and teetering on desperate. I will talk to my characters out loud. They will talk back. They will throw things in my mind and screech and use poor language and make me laugh. I will laugh out loud at inappropriate times at my characters. I will try to avoid this inappropriate laughter during church. It is most likely I will be in pajamas until 4:00. I won’t wash my hair much and I’ll probably smell stale. I will eat too much and gain weight, that is a given. I will be edgy and mentally hyperventilating. This is typical for deadline time and I am almost used to this rollicking insanity. When the book is turned in I will go and drink. No, not bottles of rum, you silly. We’re talkin’ decaffeinated mochas with piled up whip cream. I love to write and I love to read. If my…