Eva Laurenson interview

AUTHOR INTERVIEW

A little introduction:

I’m Eva Laurenson, born in Berlin, Germany (West, as I still get the question about East or West a lot). Over the past fifteen years I have worked and lived in the Netherlands, Scotland and Australia; and have recently moved back to my hometown of Berlin. My previous day job was in academia as an agricultural scientist, but alongside my location change also came the decision to give writing a fulltime shot. How else will I know if I could make it as a writer…

When did your love of books begin?

I would not describe myself as an avid reader growing up, but I was fortunate enough to have had a father who read to me a lot and never gave up pushing me towards reading. I fondly remember him bringing me along to our local library to pick out books. One of the first things after returning from Australia was to join back up with the same library, which had undergone a full refurbishment and modernization while I was gone. I also remember being quite good at creative writing tasks at school (but hating analyses and interpretations of texts).

In conclusion, I guess I was always surrounded by books and writing, even though I was never fully aware of it.

When did you start to have the wish to become an author & how have you found the process for becoming an author?

Remarkably easy. As I said, I was always surrounded by books and stories, and one day – after I finished The Physician by Noah Gordon, and during the time that the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie came out – I had this loopy idea that I could also write a book. Germany had a great historic pirate (Klaus Störtebeker) whose story would lend itself to be a great historical novel, though in the end, I decided to keep the real pirate on the fringes of my story and invented my own pirate crew with new adventures from scratch. I finished the story in my early twenties only for it to collect dust whilst a lot of life happened. I carried the idea of writing with me for a long time. When I grew frustrated with my day job as a scientist and was told that I had to take more of my annual leave, I sat down for two weeks and finally edited this first pirate book and self-published it six months later. This experience gave me the final push to pursue writing as a more serious endeavour. I wrote another two books in the following year and translated my pirate book from German to English. Since I moved back to Germany, I have set aside a couple of years to write full time to see where it will take me.

What would you say to those wanting to become an author?

Everyone has stories in them but only few have the tenacity to see it through to the end, and only a fraction of those can repeat the entire process again and again. Just sit down and write, don’t think about whether anyone will love your story, write for yourself and worry about others later.

Tell us about your book/books:

I found out that I am a mood writer, so most of my stories have some connections to stuff that is happening around me. The idea for my pirate book (The Mariner’s Legacy) came from the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie and the memories that my father and I always imagined stories about ships when we visited harbours.

The concept for my sci-fi (or speculative fiction) XX – The History of Mankind began during the first year of my PhD in animal breeding and genetics. I sat on a roof-top in Edinburgh jotting down main

character arcs. This story was first a screenplay before I transformed it into a book, as it was difficult to keep within standard film times for a multi-character story set all around the world.

My third book is an urban fantasy set in the afterlife. It was sparked by the death of my father and three words that my husband gave me as inspiration (Plain – Baker – Coin). It took me two or three years of carrying my emotions and ideas with me before I sat down and wrote most of the book during NaNoWriMo in 2021.

I am currently writing the second book for my XX trilogy as well as five novelettes also in the sci-fi/fantasy genre and have plenty more story ideas that are still growing in my heart.

What do you love about the writing/reading community?

The writing community is a great free source of information, stimulus, and motivation that writing is something worthwhile.

If you could say anything to your readers what would it be?

Thank you for giving my books a chance even though I am a small self-publisher.

Where can people connect with you?

I am on all major social media platforms (@EMSLaurenson) and have a website with a newsletter and contact form (www.evalaurenson.weeble.com).