Interview: Lesley M.M. Blume

Lesley M.M. Blume's debut novel, Cornelia and the Audacious Escapades of the Somerset Sisters, is absolutely adorable. If it had been released fifteen years ago and I had found it at my local library, it would have become one of the titles checked it out and read repeatedly. When young Cornelia Street first meets her elderly neighbor, Virginia Somerset, she has no idea what fabulous stories await her. ( Read my full review here. )

I recently got in touch with Lesley, and we talked about her story, the art of storytelling, and her favorite stories.

When you were little, did you enjoy being read to or would you rather be the storyteller? Who are the biggest storytellers in your family?

That's an interesting question. I actually loved being read to. My father read everything to me - from Winnie the Pooh to Sherlock Holmes. He also made up a ton of wonderful stories. My favorite was his version of that story about the king who wishes that everything he touched turned to gold, and then it all goes terribly wrong. Well, in my dad's version, there was a dog named Vivo, and everything that he peed on turned to gold. I've always had an insanely juvenile sense of humor, so this story went over very well.

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Visit Lesley M.M. Blume's official website. Make sure to visit the Absolutely Necessitous Links to follow the sisters' travels and check out a mugshot (make that a pugshot!) of the real Mister Kinyatta.

Read my 2008 interview with the author.

Read my reviews of Lesley's novels:
Cornelia and the Audacious Escapades of the Somerset Sisters
The Rising Star of Rusty Nail (review to come)
Tennyson