This month I will be checking in with some very busy authors to see how they are doing during this Covid-19 health crisis. Today the spotlight is on Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke.
Liz Fenton and Lisa Steinke
Liz Fenton & Lisa Steinke are the authors of five novels, including Girls’ Night Out, the Two Lila Bennetts and the Amazon Charts bestselling novel, The Good Widow. They have a new novel coming out this Summer! It’s a dark, heart pounding love story with a magical twist. How to Save A Life will publish on July 14th, 2020. Pre-order it here.
Liz and Lisa have been best friends for 30 years. They created this website to celebrate books women (and men!) love and to have a place to talk shit about reality TV stars. They have also published three novels with Simon & Schuster/Atria Books. Your Perfect Life is a hilarious and heartwarming story of two childhood best friends who switch bodies at their twenty-year high school reunion. The Status of All Things, is a cautionary tale of a woman who realizes she can change the course of her entire life by what she writes in her Facebook status. And The Year We Turned Forty follows three women who get the chance to relive the year they turned forty, a year they each made decisions that altered the course of their lives. But a lot happened before their first publishing deal…visit their website to uncover their history!
Q & A with Liz and Lisa
Q: Who are you quarantined with and how is it going?
Liz: My husband, two teens, five dogs and one cat!
Lisa: My husband, stepdaughter home from college, nine year old daughter, our two dogs and me!
Q: Have you learned a new skill, accomplished something unexpected, tried a new recipe, cleaned your closets?
Liz: I love to cook, but have always disliked baking. In quarantine, I’ve discovered the secret baker inside! Banana bread (of course!), cookies and biscuits! I’ve made them all!
Lisa: I made scones for the first time. (Thank you for the recipe, Kate Quinn!) I planted a garden—herbs, peppers and tomatoes. I’ve also cleaned EVERYTHING—including all of the baseboards in my house.
Q: How has this social distancing impacted your world when it comes to book marketing, writing?
Liz and Lisa: We’ve been hosting virtual events with Warwick’s, an independent bookstore in San Diego, to help authors who have books coming out during this time. We also held virtual Sunday brunches with other authors and readers to give readers intimate time with their favorite authors. Our next book, HOW TO SAVE A LIFE, is coming out in July and we’ve been shifting our in-person plans to virtual. As for writing, we just finished our eighth book! The quarantine actually inspired us to focus on finishing the book faster because we had all the time in the world to do so!
Q: Do you think this odd time will show up in book settings moving forward?
Liz and Lisa: Absolutely. In fact, there is a hint of it in the book we just finished.
Q: What is the silver lining for all of us and specifically for authors when it comes to the Covid-19 shut down?
Liz and Lisa: We are a strong community and it’s shown how we can band together in hard times.
Q: What do you have going on right now?
Liz and Lisa: How to Save a Life is out July 14th! You can pre-order it here: shorturl.at/guwV8
We have more events coming with Warwick’s where we will be talking to tons of amazing authors with books coming out in general next few months. Check our website: Lizandlisa.com/events for details. And you can find us on Instagram at @lisaandliz and Facebook at LizFentonandLisaSteinke
