Please welcome Leslie E. Owen!
- Pick one of your characters. What are the last three tweets he or she sent?
Character is Sir Hugh Ross, MC of The Mortal Part:
@sirhughdross The Queen of England made me an honest man today.
@sirhughdross (picture included) Jonno took me sailing. I saw harbor seals! @jonathancweir
@sirhughdross Tickets for Man of La Mancha Benefit Gala on sale now. Helen Hayes Theatre October 18 & 20. #BandsForKids
- Pick a politician and give him or her one piece of really good advice.
Mr Trump: Resign.
- Which of your characters would send you screaming out into the blizzard before the week was up?
Probably Sir Francis Chisholm, Hughie Ross’s best friend. He’s a little arch for me. Best to take him in small doses. Still, he’s been good to Hughie since Jonno died.
- What were your favorite childhood books?
The Long Secret, the sequel to Harriet the Spy, Louise Fitzhugh.
National Velvet, Enid Bagnold.
The Snow Goose, Paul Gallico.
The Kitchen Madonna, Rumer Godden.
The Ark, by Margot Benary Isbert.
5. Describe your ideal writing environment.
My family home in Friendship, Maine, out on the porch, overlooking Friendship Long Island and Friendship Harbor. The fog’s rolling in. My grandfather’s in the kitchen, making Manhattans. My grandmother’s in her wicker chair, reading the NY Times. I’m at the table, writing….
6. What’s one piece of advice you would give to an aspiring author?
Don’t listen to any of the silly advice given to you on the internet or by internet writer’s groups. Write the book you want to write. Use the words you need to use.
7. What is your superpower?
The power of observation. I see and hear everything. It comes out in my stories.
8. What is your worst habit? Your best one?
Not taking my anti-anxiety medication.
I clean up after myself. Always.
Book blurb:
From 1985-1995, Scottish stage and film actor, Hugh Ross, starred in the multi-million dollar television fantasy series, The Fallen, which made him a household name and opened the doors to life as a celebrity. In 2000, an actor from the spinoff series to The Fallen “outed” the decade-long romance that Hugh had with his married and presumably straight co-star, Jonathan Weir, and in 2004, Hugh and Jonathan become one of the first celebrity couples to marry in Massachusetts….They live in New York; Hugh continues to work in film and on stage; Jonathan directs and has a supporting role in a TV series, and occasionally returns to musical theatre where his career began.
At 72, having survived one mild heart attack, Hugh has no illusions about their life together. Jonathan is fourteen years younger. Hugh accepts that as he ages Jonathan’s role will be that of the caretaking spouse, and of course, Hugh will die first. After all, that’s the natural order of things.
But on October 22, 2012, Hugh leaves their flat early for the gym and the market, and when he returns, he finds Jonathan has died in his sleep, aged 58.
What do you do, when your much younger spouse dies? How do you go on, when you are 72 and alone? Do you even bother? There are plenty of ways that our society acknowledges a husband’s loss of his wife — but what about a husband’s loss of his husband?
The Mortal Part follows the life of Sir Hugh Ross through that first year of mourning in Jewish culture, from sitting shiva to the unveiling.
Book buy links: (the latest one is with my agent.) My children’s book, Pacific Tree Frogs, published by Tradewind Books (Vancouver, London, Sydney), is sometimes available on Amazon, but it is OP. Illustrated by George Juhascz, published in 2003. It was published by Crocodile Books in the US in 2004.
Author bio:
Leslie E Owen is a literary agent, writer, journalist, and teacher who has been a fan of Star Trek since September 8, 1966, when she was eight years old and sitting in front of the family television in Milford, Connecticut. She started writing professionally at sixteen as a sports stringer for three Connecticut newspapers, but started university as a physics major before graduating from the University of Arizona in 1980 with a degree in Creative Writing and English Lit. In her career in publishing, which has spanned three decades, she has been an agent, an editor, a director of foreign rights, an international publishing representative, a film scout, and a trade reviewer and journalist, having published articles in Publishers Weekly, The Horn Book, etc. She began teaching creative writing at Duke University in 1989, and has taught various writing courses and seminars in the US and Canada. Her children’s science book, Pacific Tree Frogs, was published by Tradewind Books (Vancouver, London, Sydney) in 2003, and was a Top Ten Pick in Canada; it was published by Crocodile Books in the US in 2004. Currently she is the agent/owner of the Leslie E Owen Literary Agency while continuing to teach high school exceptional education students. She has been writing as a journalist about the world that is Star Trek for the past four years. She is the cohost, with film producer Troy Bernier, of the livestreaming radio show Tribbles and Trilobites. Her recent publications include a flash fiction piece, “I’ll Be Seeing You,” in Queer SF’s anthology Renewal, the short story, “Act of Subversion,” to be published in the Emerald Coast Review, and a one-act play, On the Doorstep, which will be performed May 2018 in Pensacola, Florida. She has just completed her first literary novel, The Mortal Part.
Author contacts:
- Website: http://www.leslieeowenagency.com/
- Blog: http://www.leslieeowenagency.com/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1114255875266303/
- Twitter: @simeyowen
- Email: miloowen@yahoo.com