Writer Series: Interview with Lori Lansens

Laura Starks

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If you ask bestselling author Lori Lansens where she finds her muse she will tell you, “My muse is the ON switch on my computer.”

“I’m a Cinderella story,” Lori told me. “I have to admit that I have a fabulous lucky life. I’m an ‘overnight success’ that took 20 years and a roller coaster of ups and downs to get here.”

Yes Lori does seem to have a fabulous lucky life, but that doesn’t mean it’s always been easy or that she has always been successful.

“The first short story I ever wrote was published, the first screenplay I wrote was made into a movie, and my first novel was published. I’ve been very lucky with my firsts. But certainly not everything I’ve written has been an accomplishment. The dozen short stories I wrote after that first one were all rejected. For 5 years I put everything I had into a screenplay that went nowhere. And I chucked 129 manuscript pages of a novel into the garbage.”

When Lori talks about the successes of both herself and her husband, a producer/director in the television industry, she says, “Our family motto is: We’ve been up and we’ve been down. Our happiness, both individually and as a couple, has never been measured by our success. We’ve suffered some big failures together and have lost our entire life savings several times. We’ve been fortunate that our arc has been up for the last several years, but we know that could end at any time. And that’s okay.”

Lansens grew up in the rural community of Chatham, Ontario the middle child of an auto worker and a homemaker. She loved English and in the 9th grade discovered Alice Munro who lived close to her hometown. She wanted to be a writer, but given her background it seemed unlikely to her. After college her plan was to become a copy writer. She figured that way she could make a decent living without giving up her passion of writing.

Through a college friend she met her husband of twenty-five years, Milan Cheylov when he was a young actor. When she told him her dream was to be a writer he encouraged her to quit her job in the classified advertising department of The Globe and Mail and write.  "He inspired me to write then and still inspires me to write today."  She took on a waitressing job to support herself and started tapping out short stories. The first short story she wrote was published in The Wascana Review.

After many short stories were rejected and a stab at acting that netted her a trip to the cutting room floor in a big Hollywood movie, Lori moved on to writing screenplays. Her first one, “South of Wawa” was sold and made into a movie. Her husband had moved from acting to directing and Lori decided she wanted to try her hand at directing as well. She wrote a screenplay called “Jesus Freaks” that she wanted to see to completion. After 5 years of meetings in Los Angeles and New York and deals that only seemed to fall apart, Lori realized it was time to pull the plug.

Milan suggested she write the novel she’d been dreaming of for so many years. While her husband worked long hours on films, Lori hermitted herself in their home and sat long hours writing her first novel, Rush Home Road about an old black woman living in a trailer park in the fictional town of Leaford, Ontario who takes charge of a 5-year-old mixed race girl. She finished the first draft weeks before her first child was born and signed her book deal on his first birthday.

Her next book, The Girls, a story told from the first person perspectives of conjoined twins, was inspired by often nursing her daughter while her son was sitting on ‘what was left of her lap.’ “That experience certainly directly inspired me to write The Girls – to be so physically bound to two little humans that I loved so much and certainly didn’t consider a burden, it made me wonder what would it be like, if this were a real, literal, physical connection that I had to deal with for the rest of my life.”

Shortly after the release of The Girls, Lori and Milan made the difficult decision of leaving their beloved Canada for the Golden Hills of sunny Southern California due to Milan’s opportunities in the television industry. He is now a producer/director on the hit TV show 24.

Lori’s new book, The Wife’s Tale, is the heartwarming story of Mary Gooch, a 300 pound woman whose husband disappears on the eve of their 25th wedding anniversary. Mary travels from Leaford to Southern California to find him and in that journey finds herself. Mid-life, body image, and reinvention are certainly all themes that any woman over 40 can relate to and all play a part in Lansen’s latest novel.

In the past Lori’s children have been young enough to travel with her when she has gone on book tours. Now that they are 7 & 9 I asked who would watch them when she toured for this book. She told me that she has decided not to go on a book tour for The Wife’s Tale. With her husband working incredibly long hours, she has decided it’s best for her to be home with her family. She doesn’t want help with her house or her children – she wants to be the one to take them to and from school, to take them to sports practices 4 nights a week, and to tuck them into bed at night.

“When people tell you that you can have it all…no, you can’t,” she says as she shakes her head. “I feel like for 10 years I tried to have it all and when I got to the end of writing this book I felt depleted. Literally depleted. Right now my focus is on my family.”

When I asked her if she had started her next book yet she told me that she hasn’t, but she definitely has some ideas. “My current obsession is family. I think that familial relationships are incredibly interesting. So all I will say is that it will definitely be about a family.”

With Lansen’s gift of writing richly vivid characters in wonderfully beautiful prose, that is one family I will be incredibly anxious to meet.

The Wife’s Tale is in stores now.