Lisa Steinke: What three words would you use to describe your book?

Alice Eve Cohen: Funny, honest, suspenseful

LS: What’s one word to describe how a reader will feel when he/she finishes the book?

AEC: Moved

LS: How did you feel when you finished writing your book?

AEC: Cathartic relief. Euphoric. Hopeful.

LS: Your book reads like a diary- so intimate and honest. How did you feel when those in the publishing industry began to read it?

AEC: Thrilled at the positive response, but very exposed. Mostly thrilled.

LS: It’s amazing that you were able to pack so much into so few pages. Did very much hit the cutting room floor?

AEC: I edited my book to the bone before showing it to anyone, trimming about a hundred pages from my first draft. When Penguin bought the book they asked me to expand it. With guidance from my brilliant editor, Carol DeSanti, I wrote fifty pages of new material, which strengthened the book tremendously.

LS: Book or Nook?

AEC: Book. I love the feel of the paper and the suspense of turning the page.

LS: What’s your guilty pleasure?

AEC: Napping in the middle of the day.

LS: What’s one thing your readers don’t know about you?  

AEC: I’m a card-carrying member of the United Auto Workers, which is very strange, since I don’t own a car and barely know how to change a tire. But the UAW unionized the part-time faculty at The New School, where I teach playwriting and solo theatre. So if you want your car to learn how to write plays and perform monologues, just call on me.

LS: Where is your favorite place in the world?

AEC: Costa Rica, Florence, Mount Desert Island, Paris, Isle of Inishmaan, Yosemite, Central Park... So many places, so little time.

LS: Are you planning to write another book? If so, any hints as to what it’s about?

AEC: I’m currently writing a new memoir—working title, My Left Eye—, which is in some ways a sequel to What I Thought I Knew. Set several years after the events of What I Though I Knew, my new book is about a year from hell, a family odyssey that turned our world upside-down. A story of three generations of mothers and daughters, I peel away the onion skin, traveling back and forth in time to explore resonances between my family’s tumultuous year and events from my childhood.

To find out more about Alice Eve Cohen, visit her website, become a fan on Facebook and follow her on Twitter.