Ask the Author: Dianne Liuzzi Hagan
Answered Questions (7)
Dianne Liuzzi Hagan
Though I am retired now, I was a corporate librarian, records manager, and archivist during my career. I always said I would write a mystery novel where the answer to the mystery was hidden in the archives. My just completed manuscript titled The Rightful Future, proves what I used to tell my company: "When things get dire, turn to the records." In my new book, librarian Marian Greene uses her research skills and races against the clock to find out who left a desecrated body in the library. When she uncovers a hidden archive, she discovers the 100-year-old town secret and that her husband, Lester, is next on the killer's list.
Dianne Liuzzi Hagan
That's a hard question. I think it is partly the satisfaction of capturing my story in an authentic and compelling way. It is also cathartic: a way to immerse myself in the emotions I felt at the time of different events and to sort through them and share them. It's a way to feel connected to humanity. Mostly it is my way of giving voice to the things that matter and the things that need attention and change.
Dianne Liuzzi Hagan
Usually I feel writer's block when I've written a passage and it doesn't feel right, but I'm not sure how to fix it. I leave it and work on another passage or revisions, and sometimes, the solution comes to me when I have given the passage some space and let my subconscious think on it. There has been a time or two when I've woken up and remember a dream in which the solution has presented itself. The mind works in mysterious ways, but not if you are trying to force it.
Dianne Liuzzi Hagan
Keep writing. Let others read your writing and be open to constructive feedback. Feel passion for your subject. Don't give up.
Dianne Liuzzi Hagan
I have at least one more memoir I'd like to write but I also want to start writing fiction. There are so many issues and relationships I'd like to explore and fiction is the place to do that.
Dianne Liuzzi Hagan
I've always written to gain understanding or to problem solve or to share experiences that I think will be compelling or interesting to others. For my first book, which had two editions, it was the murder of Trayvon Martin. For American Dreaming, my new memoir, it was the political division, the pandemic, and more Black men, women, and children being killed at the hands of the police or vigilantes. I needed to write to feel a part of the solution.
Dianne Liuzzi Hagan
I knew after I published Another Day in Post-Racial America that the conversation about race in America was still just a conversation. We need systemic and institutional change, and racism will be present and affect people economically, socially, and sometimes fatally, until we make those changes. I also wanted to write about our relationship from the beginning, when we met freshman year of college in January 1976, and how my husband was received and treated by my family. But I also wanted to address what happened in my parents' generation, too, and how being a bi-ethnic family was difficult for my parents.
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