Connie Briscoe Presents–
Author Karen Siplin

Karen Siplin is the author of His Insignificant Other, Such a Girl and Whiskey Road. She also contributed a short story (”Nice Jewish Boy”) to the anthology This Is Chick Lit, edited by Lauren Baratz-Logsted. His Insignificant Other was a 2002 Borders Original Voices selection and named one of Cosmopolitan magazine’s sexy summer reads. Such a Girl was a main selection of Black Expressions Book Club. Karen has a degree in film production from CUNY’s Hunter College.

Connie Briscoe: How do you come up with your story ideas?

Karen Siplin: I like to write about issues that are significant to me in some way, issues I want to explore. Whiskey Road, for example, is about the relationship that develops between a black female celebrity photographer and a white small town contractor when she ends up spending some time in his rural New York town. I’ve traveled through a lot of provincial towns in the United States with my husband, and we were always aware of the way white people stared at me. Sometimes, we weren’t sure if the looks were unwelcoming or just curious. With Whiskey Road, I wanted to explore this idea that black people can’t just pick up and move anywhere in the United States without this uncertainty following them.

CB: How do you come up with your characters?

Karen Siplin: My characters come from my imagination. But pieces of them (especially my secondary characters) come from people I know or strangers who catch my attention either because they have an interesting look or enormous personalities. Sometimes my main characters come to me through a line of dialogue or a thought that pops into my head while I’m walking or taking a shower. They sound a certain way in my mind, and I try to create a character around that voice.

CB: Sounds like you draw from your real life quite a bit.

Karen Siplin: I try not to write autobiographically, but some aspect of my life always makes its way into my books. Either a retelling of a single experience I’ve had, or someone I know has had, or a quirky personality trait I find endearing or maddening. The main character in my second novel, Such a Girl, is a hotel telephone operator. I was a hotel telephone operator for a while.

CB: Do you think that you are strongest in developing plots, creating characters, writing dialog or something else?

Karen Siplin: I’ve been told writing dialogue is my strength and I agree. I have a degree in film production and my main interest was in screenwriting. I think that may be how that strength was developed.

CB: Interesting, because your descriptions are very visual. As you described the plot in your first response, I actually saw it as a film in my mind’s eye. When and where do you write best?

Karen Siplin: I write best at the New York Public Library but I rarely go there! I’ve become so dependent on my computer and all of my various notes that I can’t work without them for long periods of time. After spending a few years lugging my laptop everywhere, I’ve done some damage to my shoulders, so I can no longer carry my “writing stuff” everywhere. I’m most inspired during the quietest time of the day—early morning.

CB: I think most of us women end up damaging our shoulders or coming close at some point in our lives by carrying laptops and heavy shoulder bags.

You contributed to a chick lit anthology. Do you consider your novels chick lit? Is chick lit a dying breed?

Karen Siplin: I considered my first two novels chick lit. My third novel isn’t chick lit, and I’m not sure there’s a suitable label for it. I don’t like labels anyway, even though I understand they can make life easier when trying to market books.

I don’t believe chick lit is disappearing completely. It’s been around for ages but it was just called something else and there was a lot less of it. I think the market became oversaturated and I think books that weren’t really chick lit were getting chick lit type covers just because. Now that publishers are toning down the number of chick lit books that they’re publishing and it’s being referred to as commercial women’s fiction instead, it seems as if it’s dying out.

CB: What’s your favorite thing to do when you’re not writing?

Karen Siplin: I love reading books in almost every genre and watching good TV. I’ve also rekindled a passion I’ve had much of my life for 19^th century and early 20^th century architecture. My husband just gave me two wonderful coffee table books on mansions in New York City and North Shore Long Island, and I spend hours perusing them. I’ve been wondering whether I’m too old to seriously consider a second career in architecture, and I daydream about buying land somewhere to build a modest Beaux Arts style mansion. I think that would be a very time-consuming (not to mention expensive) hobby, so it’s still just a daydream.

For more about Karen Siplin, visit her website.