Welcome back to AuthorHouse Author’s Digest, and the second part of our discussion with award-winning, self-published writer and poet Lois Swann. In part one, Lois told us about her background and early days as a writer.
In addition to three novels (the first of which, The Mists of Manittoo, won the Ohioana Library Association Award for First Novels), Lois’ poetry has received the Bohem Memorial Prize and been published by The Great American Poetry Show. The Painter is her most recent novel.
Lois, do you have any literary influences that helped you develop your style or choice of genre?
My literary influences in the traditional sense were, principally, Robert Frost, Eugene O’Neal, Sean O’Casey, Somerset Maugham, Arthur Miller, clearly masters of dialogue and layered meaning. A different sort of encounter mandated that I write at all. While living in Woodbridge, Connecticut a vision of a young woman in plain eighteenth century garb being observed by a tall, quiet, native man incited the work of my adult life, a trilogy of the Northeast. This woodland apparition of forty years ago impelled me to follow that image to a myth of national origin. I was young and not cowed by the Olympian scope of the project only now concluding. I can say that ghosts influenced my literary career but did not prevent my entry into contemporary fiction with The Painter.
Please tell us a little about your book.
The Painter is my most recent novel. Inspired by the life of an artist who emigrated from Italy in the closing days of World War II, it delves artistic formation, cruelty, madness, selfless love, and the stuff of masterworks.
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We’ll present the conclusion of our interview with Lois Swann this weekend. Her third novel, The Painter is available in the AuthorHouse Bookstore.
Have a great week, and thanks for visiting Author’s Digest!
