Interview with Bobbie Pyron

Bobbie Pyron is the author of LUCKY STRIKE, which was released last month.  She currently lives in Park City with her husband and her animals (two dogs and two cats).  Fun Fact: she's the great-great-great niece of author Harriet Beecher Stowe.  I asked her five questions about LUCKY STRIKE and her life; her answers are below.

For more, visit other stops on her blog tour.

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1. Have you ever been particularly lucky?

Not to sound predictable, but I DO feel I was so very lucky when I met my husband, Todd. I’d been divorced for ten years and had some rather “interesting” relationships during that time. I’d gotten to the point where I’d decided I’d never meet a man that I could enjoy living with as much as I loved living with my dog—and then I did! He’s incredibly funny and supportive; he’s handsome AND handy!

2. You grew up in Florida. Did you use anything from your own childhood to develop the setting?

Oh yes, that was part of the fun in writing this book. Although the town of Paradise Beach is fictional, it’s a mash-up of several different town in the Florida Panhandle I lived in as a child: Okaloosa Island, Ft. Walton Beach, Destin. In Ft. Walton there is, in fact, a miniature golf place called Goofy Golf. We went there to play often when I was a kid. It’s still there, T-Rex and all! In Destin, which used to be a little fishing village, we had the Blessing of The Fleet every year, and in Ft. Walton, we had the annual Billy Bowlegs Festival.

3. Dogs are one of your passions in life and at the center of your last two books. Did it feel strange to move away from dog stories with LUCKY STRIKE?

That’s a great question. In some ways, it did feel strange, but I have a horror of getting pigeon-holed as a particular type of writer, even if that’s being boxed in as a “dog writer.” I want to surprise myself and my readers, and stretch myself as a writer. However, I’ll always have a dog in my books.

4. Which of the characters is least like yourself?

Oh wow, that’s a hard question! There’s a lot of Nate and Gen in me, and even Chum Bailey. Perhaps the Reverend Beam is least like me. He is so very sure of everything and is a commanding presence. I’m neither of those things. I’m always seeing the gray area, always the observer.

5. Can you share a favorite sentence from LUCKY STRIKE?

Gen looked up from her book on theoretical physics and sighed. “Nathaniel, a toaster cannot have a ‘plan’ because a toaster does not have a brain.”