Q&A with Amy Lorowitz

  

 

 

Amy Lorowitz is the author of the new novel Summer Husband. She lives in New York. 

 

Q: What inspired you to write Summer Husband, and how did you create your character Lori?

 

A: I always felt that I had a book inside of me, but it wasn’t until my youngest daughter went off to college that I had the time to try writing a book. I joined the writing workshop of bestselling author Jennifer Belle in 2013 not knowing how to go about writing a book. I like to say that Jennifer skillfully and patiently guided Summer Husband into existence.

 

Lori is a mixture of my bungalow colony girlfriends, and the BFF’s I made later in life when I followed my two daughters to sleepaway camp for seven summers. She was easy to bring to life on paper because I hear all their voices in my head laughing about our experiences together in those collective hot summer days and nights.

 

Other than following my daughters to camp Summer Husband is entirely fictional.

 

Q: As you noted, the novel is set at a summer camp--how important is setting to you in your writing?

 

A: I remember reading an article about the television show Sex and the City. The article pointed out that New York City was one of the characters. That stuck with me. I look at the camp Woodlands as one of the characters in Summer Husband.

 

Relationships, whether friends or romance, are heightened at a sleepaway camp because you are living and working together in a bubble that is 24 hours a day for eight consecutive weeks.

 

Q: How was the book’s title chosen, and what does it signify to you?

 

A: Originally, I wanted the book to be titled Camp Fires - two words - because of the underlying fires throughout the book: Lori can’t build a fire, she almost sets her room on fire, campfire karaoke and the fireplace scene and the heat between Teddy and Lori.

 

But I was told that Summer Husband places the book directly into the romance genre, whereas Camp Fires would be confusing and misspelled.

 

But I’m extremely happy that I chose Summer Husband. I thought it was relatable; many people have had someone they work with that they become close to and consider their work wife/husband.

 

Q: The author Nicola Harrison called the book a “warm, hopeful story of friendship, love, and rediscovery...” What do you think of that description?

 

A: Let me start with how flattered I am that Nicola agreed to read Summer Husband and give that spot-on blurb. She’s talented storyteller and blurb writer. Her fourth book, The Island Club, came out in April.

 

Sleepaway camp is when you discover yourself. For the first time your parents aren’t with you. You have to figure out who you are by yourself and during those eight weeks you make friendship that will stick with you for the rest of your life. It’s also a time for exploring your sexuality, it’s not unusual to have your first kiss at camp.

 

This is all happening to Lori, but as an adult who had never went to sleepaway camp. She rediscovers the person she lost when she became a wife and mother. She finally gets to have camp BFFs, and she gets her first camp kiss at the age of 39.

 

Q: What are you working on now?

 

A: I am up to my neck in lake water finishing a sequel to Summer Husband with the hope that one day my books will become a television series. I can picture it easily. I hope the reader will be able to also.

 

Q: Anything else we should know?

 

A: I am enjoying this chapter in my life. Being retired. Writing. Playing with my grandchildren. And being part of the writing community.

 

--Interview with Deborah Kalb