An interview with Natasha Lester
On drawing her characters into being, what makes readers want to live in a novel, & her advice to young writers
Hello, Substack readers! Liz here - I’ve been working with Kerri since the launch of The Paris Bookseller, posting on social media, cooking up giveaways, and more. As a writer myself, I’ve loved getting a behind the scenes look at how a published author operates, from answering fan mail to scheduling interviews and book launches. My hope with this series is for book lovers and emerging writers alike to glean some insight about the writing life, and get a peek into the creative processes of some of our favorite artists.
I’m excited to kick off the series with New York Times bestselling author,
. Natasha is the author of seven books. Her most recent, The Three Lives of Alix St. Pierre, is the story of an orphan turned WWII spy turned fashion icon in Paris. Natasha also loves collecting vintage fashion, and practicing the art of fashion illustration (more on that later!) She’s also got an excellent Substack! I’d recommend starting with her series, From Unpublished Author to New York Times Bestselling Author - How it Happened.
Sample of one of Natasha’s fashion paintings! You can find more on her Instagram.
Q: I love the fashion paintings you make and post on Instagram and Substack! Tell us more about how you started painting and why. How does the visual feed your writing, and visa versa?
A: I started during COVID lockdowns. Other people made sourdough bread, but I’m a terrible cook, so I decided to do something I’d have more chance of enjoying! I’d always believed I couldn’t draw, but I love looking at fashion illustrations. So when an online course from Australian illustrator Kerrie Hess popped up in my Instagram feed I thought, why not – it might pass a few hours of my time and no one ever has to see the pictures. But then I decided to stared posting them on Instagram because I realised we never see an author’s early drafts of their books and maybe that gives aspiring writers the impression that we don’t have awful first drafts – that we came to our craft with the ability to write books of a publishable standard. I had to write a lot of words before I wrote anything publishable. So I posted all of my early illustrations to show people what it’s like to be a beginner at something, and how you improve if you keep working on it. My first illustrations were truly bad! Once I finished the course, I just kept drawing. I still have a long way to go, but I love it so I’ll keep doing it! And it’s nice to decorate your office with your own art, and to try to bring to life your novel’s characters in another way than just with words.
Q: What’s it like to be an Australian author who is well known in North America? Where do your books come out first? What’s it like to juggle the dual releases, and how are the audiences similar/different?
A: I love it, but I’m very naive about the American market, simply because I’m not there. So I have an American agent (the amazing Kevan Lyon) to help me with that. My books always come out first in Australia, as that’s home, and it’s a huge buzz to also be published on the other side of the world. To be frank, being published in North America as well as Australia is essential to make money – we just don’t have the population size here in Australia to allow writers to make a living based on book sales alone. The audiences are similar in that they want a good story. They want to feel transported, as if they’ve entered another world and that these characters they’re reading about are so real that they cry for them and laugh with them too. I’ve discovered that Americans are much more sensitive to swearing than Australians. There are words we use here that aren’t considered curse words at all, but readers in America let me know in emails that they are the worst words possible! So that’s been a learning curve!Â
Q: What’s one piece of writing advice you’d give to your younger, pre-published self?
A: Everything happens for a reason, even the rejections and the lows. You learn valuable lessons from them and as you navigate through all of those moments, you will become a better writer – and a stronger person.
Q: I saw on Instagram that you teach a plotting master class - what are some common obstacles your students run into when beginning to write/craft stories?
A: I think the biggest thing is they just don’t dig deep enough. They write scenes that tell the reader what is going on and what characters are doing but they haven’t deeply explored the motivations of their characters, why they’re behaving the way they do, nor what’s truly at stake for them. So the story feels flat and you don’t become engaged with the characters. It takes grit and the courage to rewrite more times than you think is possible to layer in the kind of depth you need to make readers want to live in the novel for the duration of the reading experience.
Thanks for joining us, Natasha, can’t wait for your next one!
Pre-order here!
Thank you for chatting to me Kerri and Liz!