LITTLE VOICES by Vanessa Lillie - Marie Claire "Let's Stop Prying Into the Personal Lives of Women Writers, Shall We?"
Marie Claire | June 30, 2020
“To say it was the moment I’d been waiting for all my life would be a lie. Rather, it was a pivotal career turning point I’d never allowed myself to dream of in more than a decade of trying to make it as a writer. My first novel for adults, All the Broken People, suddenly had multiple publishing houses vying for it, and hardest to believe of all—film and TV offers had also begun rolling in.
So like all fancy people waiting to speak to Hollywood bigwigs, I was hiding out in an emergency-exit stairwell in a loft space in SoHo, a beat-up notebook in my hand, the producer’s printed-out IMDB pages littering the steps. At the ad agency where I was working, it was the only place where the Venn diagram of personal privacy and quality cell reception made sense (curse you, open-plan offices). The call was going great—my fingers might have been shaking the whole time, but I kept my voice smooth (and bonus: no one burst into my stairwell)—but then the question came: ‘I love how you handled the issue of abuse…is this based on real life?’
I froze. I’d been ready to talk about my training as a journalist, my five published YA novels, my interest in potentially adapting the book into a screenplay myself. I was not prepared to answer such a deeply personal question on a professional phone call. What’s more, All the Broken People, which follows Lucy, a young woman who escapes a dangerous boyfriend but gets more than she bargained for when she befriends her new neighbors, isn’t entirely about domestic abuse. It is one part of Lucy’s story, yes, but her relationship with modern femme-fatale, Vera, who convinces Lucy to help her fake her husband’s death, is more central to the novel. Shaking away my surprise, I muttered a quick ‘no,’ and the call went on.”
Vanessa Lillie, author of Little Voices, was quoted in this article from Marie Claire. Follow the link above to read more!