On Writing | The Big Shuffle interview | Interview Archive

Julie Sciandra and Laura Pedersen have been friends for years and worked together at various times. They recently sat down to talk about life and Laura's book Beginner's Luck after bowling. (Julie won, but only by a few pins, and there will definitely be a rematch.)


JS: You shouldn't have asked me to do this. I know too much.
LP: That's the reason I can't get rid of you.

JS: Let's start with the cooking. There's a picture of you in the kitchen with a big red X through it. You're the one who blew up the potato because you didn't know enough to poke holes in it!
LP: You should talk, Miss Lipton Cup-a-Soup. Anyway, that's why it's called fiction. I can write about food even if I can't cook it myself. Nothing bad ever happens to a writer. It's all material.

JS: Same with the flowers. You're allergic to almost anything outside.
LP: But I love to look at them. Pictures are best. However, feel free to bring me chocolate anytime. The Irish have a saying: "You can't eat flowers."

JS: I've noticed that all your stories involve these large families and yet you grew up as an only child. Are you stealing from the Pyne family again?
LP: Mostly. They lived behind me and had two parents, nine kids, two dogs, and a cat. I spent a lot of time over there when I was growing up. It was a predominantly Catholic neighborhood, and several families had enough kids for their own football teams.

JS: And what about these Christian families? Your parents divorced when you were a teenager and are so liberal that they probably vote left-handed.
LP: Buffalo, where I grew up, is a melting pot of every ethnicity and religion. When immigrants came to New York from Europe, many headed upstate to work in the grain elevators and steel mills. At my public high school we had everything--Baptist, Jewish, Catholic, Presbyterian, Greek Orthodox. I believe that truth can be found in almost all religions but that no one religion holds all the truth.

JS: But you're Unitarian. Aren't the people at your church going to burn you on a question mark for making fun of them in the book?
LP: They laugh at themselves more than anyone else does. Worst case is that I'll get hit over the head with a clipboard. The real reason they're going to be mad is that the official name is "Unitarian Universalist," and they're sticklers about that. But with ten syllables and twenty-one letters it would take up the entire book.

JS: Two of the main characters, Olivia and Bernard Stockton, are rather eccentric. Are they based on real people?
LP: Not specifically. I've had several terrific teachers and mentors throughout my life. I've also known many type A personalities, gamblers, bohemians, and oddballs, especially having worked on Wall Street in the 1980s and then in journalism and television. And I must confess that for the most part I'm charmed by them all--their terrific energy, idealism, creative vocabulary, and love of life. Also, growing up in the Unitarian Universalist Church exposed me to a large number of protesters, peaceniks, petitioners, and so forth.

JS: What did you steal from yourself? Give me one similarity between you and Hallie and one difference.
LP: I gambled as a kid. I'm an only child. My dad is an only child. His father was an only child. My mom has a brother and sister, but they don't have any children. So it was all these grown-ups and me. They weren't about to start playing Chutes and Ladders and Barrel of Monkeys. When I was five my mom taught me poker, and later I learned to count cards at blackjack. But I can only do math when I'm betting or there's a dollar sign in front of the numbers. Otherwise I'm a disaster. The major difference between Hallie and me is that I always knew what I wanted to do with my life, and if my parents had any expectations they kept them so well hidden that they haven't surfaced to this day.

JS: So what happens to Hallie after the book ends?
LP: She grows up and one day there's a cousin, niece, nephew, or neighbor's kid who can't talk to his or her parents and so she returns the favor of lending a sympathetic ear. Then they all join hands and sing "Will the Circle Be Unbroken" in a round.

JS: Yeah, sure they do. I can ask you anything and you have to answer, right?
LP: Yes, there are electrodes attached to my fingertips.

JS: What's the one thing you wouldn't want readers to know about you?
LP: As a teenager I didn't exactly volunteer the information that my father was a folksinger. But now I don't mind. I suppose I wouldn't want people to know about the shoes, the pigs, and the Knicks.

JS: I know about the shoes. When no one is around you have some of the worst shoes. The boxes they came in would look better on your feet than the shoes themselves. And I know about the pigs. You took care of the pigs on a farm when you were a kid, became emotionally over-involved, and now everyone gives you pig paraphernalia (except bacon!). But what's with the New York Knicks? They're the local basketball team.
LP: I wrote a story for The New York Times and spelled it "Nicks." Of course, my editor fixed it before we went to print, but it became clear how little I knew about sports.

JS: But you played soccer in high school.
LP: That's why Hallie plays soccer. It's the only game I know how to play. Though she's much better than I was.

JS: I believe your claim to fame is never having scored a goal in four years.
LP: I was a fullback. We're just supposed to stand tall near the goal, more like security guards than athletes. However, I did score once. Though it was for the other team. My heel caught the ball and chucked it into our own goal.

JS: I was curious as to why there wasn't a dog in Beginner's Luck. You love dogs.
LP: The Stocktons had a dog named Buster, but he's dead by the time Hallie arrives, though he's still listed in the phone book. I think in the movie version the town will be the setting for a fight between two rival gangs of dogs, corgis and Chihuahuas, and it will be choreographed as a dance sequence like in West Side Story.

JS: I've seen you wandering around with scraps of paper falling out of your pockets, which means you're working on another book. Spill the beans.
LP: Last Call is a surprising romantic comedy about a somewhat alcoholic dying Scotsman who falls in love with a cloistered nun who also happens to be terminally ill.

JS: It doesn't sound romantic or comedic.
LP: That's the surprise.


© Copyright 2003, Laura Pedersen. All rights reserved.