Louise Marburg
Author Interview - Louise Marburg
Author of You Have Reached Your Destination and Fancy Meeting You
About Fancy Meeting You:
Fancy Meeting You is narrated by Laura Harrigan, middle-aged and involuntarily unmarried, who is profane and reprehensible and deeply hilarious. To quote her: "I’ve been called an alcoholic, dishonest, crazy, a narcissist, shallow, irresponsible, a slut, and once—my favorite—'too smart.’" Laura has a snotty sister she abhors, a Latino best friend, and a regular hang-out called the Chicken Box where the bartender knows when to call her an Uber. She is a graduate of Harvard who works a job far beneath her capabilities, though it is daily enlivened by the mood swings of her hapless bipolar boss. The story follows Laura from her fiftieth birthday to her fifty-first and is primarily set in the city of Baltimore. She meets someone new in every chapter, and through those encounters she gathers bits and pieces of the self-knowledge she initially lacks.
About You Have Reached Your Destination
In her award-winning collection, YOU HAVE REACHED YOUR DESTINATION, author Louise Marburg captures turning points in the lives of twelve disparate women. Marburg's crisp, clear-eyed prose, infused with dark humor, reveals the inevitable collapse of pretension beneath the struggles of loneliness, death, and the all too human need to be seen. From a pre-teen attempting to understand her father's suicide to a ninety-year-old caught in shadows of past marital abuse, each of these women is made to confront the reality that change is the only certainty. This collection, Marburg's finest yet, invites us to face ourselves and our own life journeys with sympathy, humor, and courage.
Author Interview - Louise Marburg
Author I draw inspiration from:
2026: Alice Munro, Carol Shields, Katherine Heiny, Elinor Lippmann. All of Alice Munro’s books, Carol Shields’ The Stone Diaries, Katherine Heiny’s Games and Rituals, Elinor Lipman’s And Then She Found Her.
2022: Alice Munro among so many others. She is the queen of short fiction.
Author Interview - Louise Marburg | Author I Draw Inspiration From
Favorite place to read a book:
2026: In bed.
2022: In bed, at the beach, by a pool, at the breakfast table, in the car, on a train or airplane...
Book character I’d like to be stuck in an elevator with:
2026: My own character in Fancy Meeting You, Laura Harrigan. She’d tell me a hilarious, and obvious, lie.
2022: Dill from To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee. He wouldn't be scared, he'd have a lot of stories to tell—true or not—and since he's a kid he wouldn't try to "take charge."
Author Interview - Louise Marburg | Book Character I’d Like to be Stuck in an Elevator With
The moment I knew I wanted to become an author:
2026: When I read Alice Munro’s The Moons of Jupiter in a creepy old hotel on the Rhode Island shore.
2022: I was at an old fashioned hotel on the beach in Rhode Island perusing a shelf of paperbacks left behind by former guests. The weather was bad and I'd finished my own book. I picked out The Moons of Jupiter by the master story author Alice Munro and after reading that book I knew I wanted to write short stories.
Hardback, paperback, ebook or audiobook:
2026: I like them all! As long as I can read it/listen to it, I am happy.
2022: Hardback! So luxurious. Though I read paperbacks and ebooks, too. Never audio.
The last book I read:
2026: The Imagined Life by Andrew Porter. LOVED it.
2022: Caste by Isabel Wilkerson (non-fiction) A history of racism in America that every single person in this country should read.
Author Interview - Louise Marburg | The Last Book I Read
Pen & paper or computer:
2026: Computer! I’ve never written on paper—my handwriting is atrocious, even I can hardly read it. I love the ability to edit on the spot that a computer affords. I am a rewrite-as-I-write author.
2022: Computer always. I've never used pen and paper.
Book character I think I’d be best friends with:
2026: Honestly, I don’t know. There are so many characters I’ve read and loved, I don’t think I can choose.
2022: Eve Mozell in Hanging Up by Delia Ephron. One of the funniest characters I've ever read. I could never be friends with a character who wasn't funny!
Author Interview - Louise Marburg | Book Character I’d be Best Friends With
If I weren’t an author, I’d be a:
2026: Painter. Before I was an author I was a visual artist. Art is art. I love all kinds!
2022: Visual artist, which I was for many years before becoming a writer. Art is art, no matter what the medium.
Favorite decade in fashion history:
2026: I always love the fashions of the moment, then years later I think, ugh! How awful! Why did I love that?
2022: It's always the decade I'm in at the moment! That's true of my books, as well: the book I'm writing is always more interesting to me than any I've published, I always think it's the best one...until the next one. I'm a now person.
Place I’d most like to travel:
2026: India. I’d love to see a tiger in the wild.
2022: Israel
My signature drink:
2026: Sapphire gin and diet tonic.
2022: Bombay Sapphire gin and diet tonic. MUST be Bombay Sapphire and the tonic must be diet.
Favorite artist:
2026: William DeKooning, the abstract expressionist painter.
2022: My husband, the painter Charles Marburg.
Number one on my bucket list:
2026: I’d love to hear an actor read one of my short stories.
2022: Number one? Hard to choose. I'll say swim in the Dead Sea.
Anything else you’d like to add:
2026: My novel is hilarious!
Find more from the author:
Facebook: Louise Marburg
IG: @louisemarburg
About Louise Marburg:
Louise Marburg
Louise Marburg is the author of three collections of stories, The Truth About Me, No Diving Allowed, and You Have Reached Your Destination, as well as the novel, Fancy Meeting You. Her work has appeared in such journals as Story, The Missouri Review, Ploughshares, and many others. She lives in New York City with her husband and her French bulldog, Delphine.
