Author Snapshot: Elizabeth Kelly

Elizabeth Kelly’s overnight sensation status need not come as a surprise: a magazine editor and award-winning journalist, Kelly has spent a lifetime wrangling words. That shows in her debut novel, Apologize, Apologize!, an in-depth visit with the dysfunctional Flanagans, an old money Massachusetts family with many branches and quite a lot of dogs. Apologize, Apologize! is charming, funny, accomplished and oddly muscular.

And it seems likely that Apologize, Apologize! will only be the beginning for this Ontario, Canada-based author. The book has thus far been sold to five countries and the film rights have been optioned by Daryl Roth and Richard Gladstein who produced Finding Neverland, The Bourne Identity, The Cider House Rules and others.

In her Author Snapshot, Kelly tells January Magazine that the easiest thing about being a writer is... writing, something she can’t imagine not doing.



Most recent book: Apologize, Apologize!
Born: Brantford, Ontario

What’s your favorite city?
I’m too untraveled to have a favorite city unless you count Hamilton [Ontario]. My favorite place isn’t a city but a beach town in southwestern Ontario called Long Point, miles and miles of practically deserted sand and surf. The poor man’s Malibu.

You only have six hours to spend there what do you do?
Sit on the beach and drink tea.

What food do you love?
Chocolate.

What food have you vowed never to touch again?
Chocolate.

What inspires you?
Other people’s courage.

What are you working on now?
The screen adaptation of Apologize, Apologize!

Tell us about your process.
Computer, computer, computer. I can’t remember how to write in longhand. Morning, noon and night, when I’m on a roll.

When did you know you wanted to be a writer?
When I was too little to formulate any sort of proper plan for my life -- eight, nine years of age, I knew I was going to be a writer.

If you couldn’t write books what would you be doing?
Probably not much of anything. Daydreaming and hoping someone else would do the healthy lifting. So, nothing -- or I would be a wildly celebrated performer in the musical theater.

What’s the easiest thing about being a writer?
Writing.

What’s the most difficult?
Getting paid.

What question do you get asked about your writing most often?
What’s your book about?

What’s the question you’d like to be asked?
Has anyone ever told you that you look like Annette Bening?

What question would you like never to be asked again?
Has anyone ever told you that you look like Broderick Crawford?