Ask the Author: Lisa Weldon
Answered Questions (9)
Lisa Weldon
Oh, no, I haven’t but I’m headed over to look it up now. Thanks for the suggestion!
Lisa Weldon
Back in 2011, I enrolled in a 30-day course at the New School/Parsons in NYC, one that would help me reinvent my career in advertising (I was 58 at the time). Just ten days before I was to leave for NY, the course was cancelled so I tore a map of Manhattan into 20 pieces and set out to walk one piece per day until I covered the entire island. Those 30 days, walking the streets of NY, inspired my book.
Lisa Weldon
While walking New York City in 2011, I came across an article in the New York Times about an underground subway station where 100 graffiti artists spent a year paining. I have spent years trying to find it... and if you read my book you'll understand why finding it is so important to me.
Lisa Weldon
Oh, how funny! I didn't even have to think about this one. I would absolutely go with 85-year-old Lillian Boxfish on her walk through Manhattan in the 1930s. Lillian, like me, was in advertising, which made even more relatable. I would've loved seeing NY in the 30s. Lillian Boxfish Talks a Walk by Kathleen Rooney. LOVED, LOVED, LOVED this book.
Lisa Weldon
Writing has opened up a whole new world for me. I started writing at age 58, and after a 35-year career in advertising. Now, at 69, I feel like I've embarked on a new career and it's exciting, challenging, and I've met so many new people who are also writing. So the best thing, you ask? The learning...
Lisa Weldon
I am six chapters into my second book. It's a story of two little girls who became fast friends one summer. It's set in the late 60s in Mobile, Alabama. One girl is white and lives in County Club Estates, and the other girl is black, and is the maid's granddaughter. Their friendship was taboo, of course.
Lisa Weldon
Funny, but I never dreamed of being a writer. I didn't grow up reading books. But in 2011 when I went to walk NY, I started blogging. Blogging was one of the tools I needed to learn in order to reinvent my career in advertising. So, I walked one neighborhood during the day, then came back to my apartment and did video tutorials on how to write a blog post. A few months later I attended a blogging conference and a literary agent told me I needed to write my story of walking Manhattan. I told her that I wasn't a writer. "I don't even read," I continued. "Then get a ghost writer," she insisted, convincing me that my story needed to be told. A few months later I started to write ...and here I am, then years later, finally publishing it!
Lisa Weldon
Learn. Learn. Learn. Take any class you can get your hands on. I started writing at age 58 after taking a 6-week community continuing education class at Emory University. I've taken several other classes around town (Atlanta). I would also highly recommend joining a writing club if you have one nearby, or even virtually. I"m a member of the Atlanta Writers Club. Apply for writing residencies. I highly recommend Hambidge Center. And keep trying to get in. I got in on my 3rd try. Then form a writing community. If there's any way possible, look into Haven Writing Retreats.
Lisa Weldon
I walk 2-4 miles and listen to George Winston music. It works every time.
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