AUTHOR INTERVIEW

Welcome Lilianne Milgrom. It is so nice to have you on fundinmental, sharing your thoughts. So, without further adieu…take it away:

How long have you been writing?

Aside from my work as a professional studio artist, I have been a regular contributor to numerous arts publications over the years. I love reading and I love writing. I think that penning my debut novel L’Origine was a natural progression, especially since the book marries my three passions – art, literature and history.

How did you come up with this idea?

This could well be a chicken-or-the-egg type of question, but in this case, it is definitely the chicken. I did not start writing L’Origine because I had an idea to write about the remarkable adventures of a 19^th century painting. It was the painting that found me! I stumbled on Gustave Courbet’s irreverent and shocking painting at the Orsay Museum during an artist’s residency in Paris a decade ago. As I learned more and more about it, I became obsessed with exposing its remarkable story of survival against the odds to readers outside of the confines of the art world. Art history is not some dry subject you have to take in college–it’s vibrant, exciting and often scandalous!

Which was the hardest character to write? The easiest?

The book spans a century and a half, and introduces the reader to multiple eccentric characters through whose hands the painting passed. The ‘easiest’ character was Gustave Courbet himself because he was a prolific letter writer and I could visualize the way he spoke, the way the thought. The hardest characters to write about were those collectors whom history largely overlooked and about whom so little is known. On the other hand, this allowed me to exercise more artistic license and rely more on my imagination to flesh them out. 

If you could put yourself as a character in your book, who would you be?

Oh, that’s easy to answer because I make a significant appearance both in the prologue and towards the end of the novel. I play myself as the artist authorized by the Orsay Museum to copy Courbet’s masterpiece. My intimate encounter with Gustave Courbet’s painting L’Origine du monde (The Origin of the World) plays a significant role in the novel.

What is your next project?

Receiving six literary honors for my debut novel gave me the validation and the motivation to embark on a second novel whose working title is The Boudoir Princess. It is another historical fiction largely taking place in Paris towards the end of the 19^th and early 20^th century. The protagonist is a woman by the name of Marguerite Alibert whose checkered past leads her to commit murder. I want to encourage the reader to decide whether Mme Alibert was a victim of circumstance or a scheming murderess….

What advice would you give budding writers?

Stay the course. Writing is hard work and when you finish your manuscript, that’s when the really hard work begins! Don’t give up. 

Name a quirky thing you like to do.

To let off steam, I belly dance–something I picked up while living in the Middle East!