I am excited to have Courtney Lux on the Book Blog today!
Hi and thank you for having me! I am a
Minnesotan-turned-New Yorker, and I am actually a part-time writer. I got my
B.S. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and I’m finishing an M.S. at New
York University in Communication Sciences and Disorders, so I live a bit of a
double life. While working my way through graduate school, through a series of
a lot of late nights and days spent in coffee shops, I wrote my first novel, Small Wonders.
Small Wonders is the story of Trip Morgan, an individual who ran
away to New York City from a hard home life in the south when he was only
sixteen. Trip is living with an eclectic band of roommates and he makes a
meager living working as a busker, and, at times, as a casual sex worker in
order to keep surviving in the city. Trip entertains himself pickpocketing
inconsequential items off people, but when he “accidentally” lifts a wallet off
of Nate Mackey, a 26-year-old working in finance, he is struck by the uncanny
resemblance of this man to a child in a photograph he found years before. Trip
and Nate meet and form a sort of unconventional relationship and really work to
navigate both themselves and one another.
1)
Do you have pictures that you use for
your characters? Can you share them with us?
Trip
has a fairly unique set of features in terms of his hair and eyes, but overall,
I think he has a bit of a young River Phoenix look to him, something like how
he looks here:
Nate
was always just someone who existed in my head and I could never quite pinpoint
who it was I sort of pictured him looking like, but my sister read through part
of my manuscript and immediately said, “All I see is Ryan Gosling”, and now
that’s all I can see, too!
2)
What kind of book would you like to write
that people would see as a huge departure for you?
I’m
not sure that I would call it a “huge departure”, but I would love to write a
YA novel. I read so many amazing books as a teenager, so I’d love to write
toward that audience.
3)
Have you ever killed a character? Was it
traumatic for you? If you haven’t killed one, would you ever consider it?
Yes,
but surprisingly, it wasn’t all that traumatic. It was sad and it was heavy
material, but I also tend to kind of enjoy working with heavier material. For
me, it was a really great exercise in terms of exploring some really big
emotions and reactions, so the payoff seemed worth it in a lot of ways.
4)
Favorite location you’ve ever written
about?
Writing
New York for Small Wonders was so
much fun. I always loved visiting the city when I was younger, but getting to
live here and write it at the same time was such a special experience.
5)
What’s your favorite season and favorite
activity for that season?
I’m
torn. I absolutely love going to the lakes in northern Minnesota in the summer
to spend time at our family cabin, but I’m also a total sucker for autumn in
New York. My favorite fall activity is just adventuring around the city in a
cute jacket with a cup of coffee enjoying the colors of the park and the cooler
weather and just everything about it feels kind of special.
Blurb:
A pickpocket who
finds value in things others do not want, Trip Morgan meets and becomes
involved with Nate Mackey, a down-and-out former Wall Street professional who
looks eerily like a child in a photograph Trip found years before.
It’s part of a collection of stolen trinkets he’s collected
since he arrived in New York. He keeps it all close and works out a life he
could have if he could ever let someone keep him long enough for him to build
up a treasure trove of small wonders all his own.
In confronting
their own demons and finding value in each other, Trip and Nate may find that
their relationship is a wonder of its own.
Pages or Words: 282 pages
Categories: Contemporary, Fiction, Gay
Fiction, M/M Romance, New Adult, Romance
Excerpt:
Today, he has encountered
no southerners and only a few tourists from elsewhere, and he'd be okay with
that if it weren't for the rain. It comes fast. One minute it's sunny and
lovely and easy pickings, and the next the sky's gone black and people are
running from the park with street-vendor umbrellas popping open over their
heads or shopping bags held up as makeshift shields. Trip switches to catchy
pop numbers and more recent music, but it's no use.
Some
days this works. People take pity on a not-quite-twenty-something singing in
the rain. Older women especially seem to take in the auburn hair stuck to his
forehead and his relatively petite stature and read hungry young desperation in
him. They offer him sympathetic smiles and a few soggy dollars.
Other
times, playing in the rain has the opposite of his intended effect—strange boy
with strange eyes playing his guitar as if he doesn't know the rain is there.
Those people see the darkness in him: a boy with a chip on his shoulder that
makes them nervous. Those people give him wary looks and a wide berth. Trip's
not sure he blames them.
He's
a little put out and a lot cold, so he sells his umbrella for a few dollars
before shouldering his guitar and closing the lid on his coffee can to set to
work at his other favorite occupation.
He'd
been a decent pickpocket in his younger years, but now, after a lot of
practice, he's a better thief and a good runner when he needs to be. Not that
he steals anything of particular worth. He finds value in treasures scrounged
from the bottoms of pockets.
Loose
change, hair binders, halves of Vicodin, broken cigarettes, crumpled
matchbooks. All of it has a purpose, a certain sense of importance. He envies
women and their big purses. They've got whole bags of riches waiting to be
exhumed. Though, more likely than not, those little trinkets will remain
forgotten and neglected in the bottoms of Marc Jacobs clutches and Target sale
hobo bags.
Other
people don't see it—the value in these things. Maybe that's why he steals from
them. Nothing they'd miss: a worn dollar here, a business card there. He keeps
it all close and works out a life he could have if he could ever let someone
keep him long enough for him to build up a treasure trove of small wonders all
his own.
For
now, he will live with worn shopping lists, broken crayons and ticket stubs he
lifts off of others. He keeps them in a beaten-up bag that is more duct tape
than canvas and lets them build up stardust. Then, in those lonely hours of the
night, he scatters them across the floor and works them into constellations to
which he assigns stories. Some he writes down; others, he forgets before the
next day. It's not a financially savvy task, but it's his favorite, and it
passes the time as well as anything else.
Buy the book:
About the
author:
Courtney
Lux is a Minnesotan-turned-New Yorker whose love for the city is rivaled only
by her love for wide, open spaces. She is a graduate of University of
Wisconsin-Madison and a soon-to-be graduate of New York University. When not
playing writer, Courtney is an avid reader, constant dreamer, and lover of
dogs, wine and being barefoot. Small Wonders is her first novel, and is
the recipient of a Publishers Weekly starred review.
Publisher: Interlude Press
Cover
Artist: Cover and Interior Illustrations by Elizabeth Vest
Tour Dates & Stops:
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copy of ‘Small Wonders’
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