Priya Parmar
Author Interview - Priya Parmar
Author of The Original
The Original reimagines Katharine Hepburn’s early years—a grieving, fiercely independent young woman who arrives in Hollywood determined to control her own destiny. When a private crisis threatens her ascent, she refuses to be undone, determined to decide for herself who she will become.
Author Interview - Priya Parmar
Author I draw inspiration from:
I am fascinated by writers who are not afraid to keep information back. They are not scrambling to win over the reader but make us work a bit for the good stuff. Daphne Du Maurier does it so well in Rebecca, EM Forster does it beautifully in Howard's End. I am also fascinated by broken chronology. I marvel at the structure of novels such as Emily St John Mandel's Station Eleven and Claire Leslie Hall's Broken Country. That piecing together is one of my favorite aspects of reading.
Author Interview - Priya Parmar | Author I Draw Inspiration From
Favorite place to read a book:
My very favorite would be standing in a swimming pool while wearing a comedy huge sunhat on a blazing summer day, but really I am delighted to read anywhere. I could not read fluently until nearly third grade and since then I have carried a book with me everywhere I go. I love arriving early to something and realizing I have ten or fifteen stolen minutes to spend with my book.
Book character I’d like to be stuck in an elevator with:
The narrator/protagonist in Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca. I would ask her first name. The first time I read it, I only realized that I did not know her name once I got to the end. I immediately read it again in case I had missed it. My second choice would be a young Sebastian Flyte from Brideshead Revisited. I would love to meet his teddy bear Aloysius. In terms of more recent novels, I would love to meet Hilary Mantel's Cromwell from Wolf Hall. By Bring up the Bodies he is more powerful and guarded but I would love to meet him when he is young and does not know what is ahead of him.
Author Interview - Priya Parmar | Book Character I’d Like to be Stuck in an Elevator With
The moment I knew I wanted to become an author:
It was not so much a decisive moment but more a creeping recognition. A memorable turning point was when I was in the swampy, endless footnotes of my graduate work and realized that creative writing would be so much more fun than critical writing. But, I had invested so much time into my PhD and I felt locked into a track. And then I was in New York City and I ate my lunch in the park one day and was bitten by a mosquito. I got West Nile Virus and had a terrible, terrible fever for more than a month. After I recovered, I had several serious post viral heart issues that are still with me today. It was essentially a version of severe Long Covid. It was a scary time. I was adjusting to my new normal and all bets were off. I was no longer locked into my trajectory. So, I decided to take a risk, a huge swing and do the thing I had always secretly wanted to do.
Hardback, paperback, ebook or audiobook:
With hardback, the permanence is lovely, the heft and the solidity. You can re read and re read the same hardback. I love that they last. But, reading a hardback in a swimming pool is dicy stuff. Paperbacks are more delicate but they have a wonderful easy, limber quality. A paperback is also less formal. I am just starting audio books and to be able to fold laundry or drive and read at the same time is magical. That said, I love to write in books. I take notes and underline and that tangible, physical component feels missing with audiobooks.
The last book I read:
I just read The Wedding People by Alison Espach and loved it. Really unexpected and the dialogue snapped along so naturally, untethered by conventional identification tags. It is a novel that trusts the reader in a way I really enjoy.
Author Interview - Priya Parmar | The Last Book I Read
Pen & paper or computer:
Laptop for writing, pen, paper and a zillion notes in books and on paper for researching. It is weird but I cannot take notes on a computer and I cannot draft the story longhand. My writing rules for myself are that I have to:
1)Start a manuscript before I feel ready. If I wait to feel ready I will never start.
2)Write a sentence before I even take the dogs out morning because returning to something is easier than starting.
3)Write four pages a day.
4)Stop work for the day in the middle of a sentence--again, the returning to something is easier than starting new.
5)Follow the story wherever it goes.
Book character I think I’d be best friends with:
Nick Carraway from The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. He accepts people as they are and he seems to observe so much more that he articulates. I am so interested in that quiet discrepancy. Or Linda Radlett from Pursuit of Love because she would make everything zesty and fun.
Author Interview - Priya Parmar | Book Character I’d be Best Friends With
If I weren’t an author, I’d be a:
I would love to work in animal rescue and rehabilitation. I am a huge believer in rescue and promised my husband I would stop at four rescue dogs but I am already trying to talk him into a fifth...
Favorite decade in fashion history:
The regency period for the dress/boots combos and after researching Katharine Hepburn, the 1930's for the slinky elegant dresses and beautifully cut trousers.
Place I’d most like to travel:
I love Gassin in the South of France. It reminds me of films like To Catch a Thief and The Red Shoes. I would love to spend a season writing there, in an old house with a red tiled floor, creaky doors, faded shutters on the huge windows and vines growing all over it. I spent a week in a house like that once and I have always wanted to go back. After researching this novel, spending time in 1930's Hollywood also sounds spectacular. The old, curvy cars, the parties, the studios, Katharine Hepburn, George Cukor and Cary Grant sitting on a patio next to a sparkling blue pool drinking lemonade.
My signature drink:
Hibiscus lemonade. I grew up living part of the year in Hawaii and the hibiscus just makes it perfect and taste like sunshine.
Favorite artist:
Vanessa Bell, the painter. My last novel was about Bell and her sister, Virginia Woolf and her paintings are haunt me. Her home, Charleston Farmhouse in Sussex is open to the public and is a magical house. She and the other members of the Bloomsbury Group who lived there painted on every surface. Being there makes you want to come home and start painting on your walls and fireplaces and furniture.
Number one on my bucket list:
I would love to take my mother back to where she grew up in Carmel by the Sea, California. My mother is quite frail now and we would have to take all the dogs and probably drive as she could not quite manage to fly but it would be a wonderful adventure. My husband would have to drive and it would likely be mayhem but such good mayhem. I would love my mother to show me where she grew up and went to school and walked to the fudge shop in town and rode her bike. That is the kind of adventure I want to have. One I can give to her.
Anything else you'd like to add:
Thank you so much for allowing me to participate! These questions have been so much fun!
Find more from the author:
https://www.instagram.com/priyaparmarwriting/
https://www.facebook.com/priya.parmar.583/
https://substack.com/@priyaparmarwriting
Author Bio:
Priya Parmar
Priya Parmar is the author of Vanessa and Her Sister, a New York Times Notable book and co-author of the musical, Sylvia (London Old Vic). Her forthcoming novel, The Original, will be published in the US on April 28, 2026. She lives between Hawaii and Connecticut with her family and four rescue dogs.
