You can visit her website at https://www.marylawlor.net/ or connect with her on Twitter or Facebook.
Interview:
Tell us about your book! What inspired you to write it?
All my life I’ve wanted to put together the list of places where my family lived and link each one to the issues in the headlines of the time, particularly regarding what the US government was up to in its military movements. We were a Marine Corps, then Army family, and we moved every two years. I went to 14 different schools by the time I was ready for college, and it all felt like a confusing, exciting, bewildering experience. Where are from, people would ask, and I would have to say too much to answer. But where
are your roots, they’d ask, and I was never sure how to answer the question until I was old enough to understand that they were in suburban New Jersey and more distantly, in Ireland.
By the time I was teaching courses at Muhlenberg College on literature and film of the Cold War, I was thinking seriously of compiling this list and the events of the times into a narrative. My students had so many questions about those times, and though we didn’t talk about my own life in the classroom, they got me thinking about what my family went through and what effects all that moving had on me. I finally sat down and started a draft; and a few years later, there it was, a full manuscript of Fighter Pilot’s Daughter.
How did you choose the title for your book? Did it come to you right away, before you started writing it, or did it come later?
The title came later, after I’d written the entire first draft. I had planned on calling it “The Pilot’s House,” but my editor at Rowman & Littlefield (now part of Bloomsbury Press), suggested it was too obscure and novelistic-sounding for a memoir. He convinced me to give the book a title that spoke more directly to what it was about. A friend helped me come up with Fighter Pilot’s Daughter, and I used “The Pilot’s House” as the name of the first chapter.
Tell us about the cover design process. Did you have a basic idea of what your book cover would be like?
Yes, I thought it would feature a photo of my father climbing into one of his planes or of my parents out together dancing at the Officer’s Club. The graphic designers at the press had the Daughter part of my title in mind and came up with a couple of ideas for me to choose from, both of which included images of my sisters and me. I chose the one with the clouds and the plane and the snapshot of my sisters and me in our fathers helmets at Halloween. I thought it was more appealing than what I’d had in mind and spoke to the larger story of the book quite effectively.
Who is your cover designer and how did you find him/her?
Rowman & Littlefield had some people on staff in their graphics department who came up with the sketches for the cover. I don’t have their names, but they’re likely working for Bloomsbury Press now, since it has taken over Rowman & Littlefield.
What has been the readers’ response to your cover?
They’ve loved it! Many people have written to ask which one is me (I’m the one on the far right, with the cape) and expressed their delight with the playfulness of the cover, especially given the seriousness of the family dramas addressed in the book and of the effects of US foreign policy on the moods of our domestic scene.
What tips would you give to authors who are looking for a cover designer?
I would say listen respectfully to suggestions by the professionals working for your publisher or to independent visual PR specialists. I’d also say you should trust your own ideas but make sure to vet them with others.
Anything else you’d like to say about your book?
I’d like to say I’m very grateful for all the wonderful responses and feedback I’ve gotten from so many readers of my generation who resonated with the story and saw themselves and their lives reflected in it. I learned a great deal about myself, my parents and sisters, and my relationships with them as I was writing the book. It was a process of self-analysis, in a sense, and became quite an emotional experience. I feel passionately about my feeling regarding the sixties and the Cold War as expressed in the book and still enjoy reading it.
Fighter Pilot’s Daughter is available at Amazon.
