I’m from Maine, and my thoughts are often there, though my heart (and the rest of me) resides in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts. I’m interested in the stories that get covered up, perhaps from living in woodsy places and noticing old stone walls, abandoned gravestones. New Englanders are famously stoic. I like to dig underneath (at least on the page) and see what’s really going on.
Like most writers, I’ve held odd jobs: clambake waiter, cruise ship entertainer, creative writing instructor, yogi, hotel lounge singer, book reviewer, music booker, chicken wrangler. I’ve had the good fortune to travel widely, and my fiction reflects this. (I like to start with setting. I’m often thinking about place and how it shapes a person.) During my stint as a singer/dancer on a cruise ship – see my first novel, A Thousand and One Nights – I spent the summer months in Mediterranean ports and winter months in the Caribbean. This did not get old. (I was 22.) I’ve lived and performed in China, Japan, Thailand, the UAE and the UK. Think Lost in Translation and the fancy hotels where no one listens to the lounge act. That was me for six years. I cowrote a screenplay for A Thousand and One Nights and enjoy fantasizing about who would play the aloof protagonist form Maine.
I got “serious” and enrolled in the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College, where I met encouraging mentors and peers. In August of 2001, I moved to New York City and stayed, despite pleas to return from Maine friends and relatives. I taught creative writing at Rutgers University for nine years and became a professional commuter. (Expert juggler of coffee and everything bagels while grading papers on New Jersey Transit.) In this way I also wrote my second novel, Off Island, about the frustrations of Mette Gad Gauguin, wife of Paul Gauguin. I set part of this novel in Maine. (What if Gauguin sailed to Monhegan Island instead of the Marquesas?) It’s a murder mystery too.
My third book, Amphibians, a story collection set in cities around the world, won the Leapfrog Global Fiction Prize. It’s about flitting between land and sea – feeling out of sorts in all habitats. Perhaps you can relate.
During the pandemic, I launched Swift Ink Stories, a small business (manuscript development and book coaching). Now I happily travel closer to home to lead writing workshops in libraries and schools. I still perform (with my husband, singer-songwriter Bobby Sweet). Singing is an antidote to writing. I know right away if I’ve hit the mark or not.
I’m often distracted by five pet hens, who have names and distinct personalities. (I’ll resist the urge to list them here.) When I need a break from my writing desk, I open the coop and speak to them. I’m always heartened by what they have to say.
For more, please visit https://www.laratupper.com/
Regal House Publishing is proud to bring you Lara Tupper’s At the Center in the spring of 2027.
