Erica Bauermeister Biography, Books, and Similar Authors

Interview

Erica Bauermeister talks about her first novel, The School of Essential Ingredients, romantic meals on cold nights, the satisfaction of buying locally grown foods and much more.

When did you decide to be a writer? Was it your dream since you were a child, or did it happen 'by accident'? What made you feel you were ready to write?

I have always loved books and reading, and I wanted to be a writer from the time I was small.  I read constantly and studied literature in college, and then graduate school.  I taught literature, I wrote reader's guides to books (which meant I read thousands of books to select a far smaller number).  All of that taught me a great deal about the beautiful machines that are books – their parts, the connections between them, the stroke of magic or imagination that brings them alive.

I think the reason I waited until I was 43 to start writing fiction, however, was that I knew from the time I was in college the kind of book I wanted to write – and that I wasn't mature enough to write it yet.  I wanted to write books about the small, "unimportant" things in life – the ways we interact with each other as parents and friends and lovers and spouses, those subtle moments of miscommunication and grace – and I knew it took a lot of life experience to see those things with a perspective that could ...