Rocking Around The Holidays - Day 3 - Luanne Rice

Behind the Scenes with Luanne Rice

My favorite place to write is the summer cottage my grandparents built in 1938.  It’s on a rocky ledge overlooking Long Island Sound on the Connecticut Shoreline, and I have been lucky enough to go there year every year of my life.  When I was a child my mother would have writing workshops for my sisters and me, have us sit at the old oak table and encourage us to write stories about the beach, fishing, crabbing, star-gazing, the things we’d done that day.   That was great training to pay attention to what was around us, to find the extraordinary in the ordinary, to write it down, to write every day.

I’ve written many novels set in an imaginary beach town called “Hubbard’s Point,” but it is really that beautiful place where I grew up and still visit today.  I write on the same table I did long ago, where my mother held her workshops, and I look out at the same view.  Family ghosts swirl around, and I’m filled with memories.

One year I built a book loft in the attic; I like to climb up there to do research and revisions.  There is a basket on my desk, and I feel most inspired when it is occupied by one or more of my three cats.   They keep me company when I write.

I also love to write in hotel rooms.  Writing on the road—far from home and all that is familiar—unlocks something inside, and room service doesn’t hurt either.   There is one hotel I’ve returned to often; I’ve written a screenplay and most of two novels in its lobby.

Over the years I have trained myself to not be very particular about where I write.   If I waited for the perfect place, I might miss the opportunity to write the story at hand.  But I do have favorite places, and I return to them again and again.  Mainly I live by writing every day, wherever I am.  I’m just happiest when there are cats and salt air.

A Look Inside Luanne’s Office: 



Holiday Cheer with Luanne Rice (pick your own questions!)

Favorite Holiday memory as an adult:

Living in Paris, buying a Christmas tree in the 7th arrondissement, snow starting to fall as I

dragged the tree home.  (I did it myself; part of the happy memory was my self-sufficiency,

my determination to get things done, chasing the homesickness I felt for my family.  Snow

falling as I carried that tree across the Seine made the rest of it magical.)

Favorite Holiday memory as a child:

My mother used to tell us we could hear the angels sing at midnight on Christmas Eve.  My

sisters and I shared a room, and once we heard singing—all three of us at the same time.  It

might have been my mother and grandmother, but it sounded like angels.  It really did.

Best gift you’ve ever received:

A friend donated in my name to NRDC, an environmental group I support.

Favorite holiday song:

Peace at Last by Hem.  Also Lucinda Williams’ new version of Have Yourself a Merry Little

Christmas.

Favorite holiday books:

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, A Child’s Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas, and

Holly and Ivy by Rumer Godden.

Favorite holiday story:

The Gift of the Magi by O Henry

Favorite holiday movie:

Is it wrong of me to say Silver Bells, the Hallmark Hall of Fame movie based on my novel?  

The tree sellers that inspired the novel still come to Chelsea every year.  Tate Donovan

played the father of the clan.

Favorite holiday dessert:

Bûche de Noel from La Bergamote Patisserie in NYC.

Do you dress your pets up for the holidays?

I tried, but my cats tell me they are too dignified for antlers.

Follow Along with Rocking the Holidays tomorrow, December 5th where author Avery Flynn

will be featured on the sites listed below, plus there will be ways to enter the contest daily!

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About Luanne Rice

Luanne Rice is the author of thirty-one novels including many New York Times bestsellers.

Five of her books have been made into movies and mini-series, and her work has been

featured at Hartford Stage in Hartford, Connecticut, the Geffen Playhouse in Los Angeles,

California, and in several off-Broadway theatre productions.  She divides her time between

New York City and the Connecticut shoreline.

Want to know more about Luanne’s books? Have a look at The Complete Collection!

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