Cel's Big 4 Interview: Lauren Oliver

Lauren says: I was born in Queens and raised in Westchester, New York, in a small town very similar to the one depicted in Before I Fall. My parents are both literature professors, and from a very early age, my sister and I were encouraged to make up stories, draw, paint, dance around in costumes, and essentially spend much of our time living imaginatively. Our house was old and full of art and towers and towers of books, and that’s still the kind of house I like best. Read more…

Cels:

Thank you so much for dropping by Burn Bright as part of your Australian release tour and congrats on “Pandemonium” hitting the shelves.  This is the second in the “Delirium” trilogy, for those who haven’t yet entered the world, what can they expect?

Lauren:

Delirium takes place in a world in which love has been declared a contagious disease (known as “amor deliria nervosa”). Scientists have mandated a cure. In Pandemonium, we see a society on the verge of revolution, as both sides–the proponents and resistors of the cure–come into head-to-head conflict.

Cels:

Delirium has haunted me ever since I read it and the idea of a society without love is truly frightening. If you were forced by societies leaders to forfeit one emotion for life, which one do you think you could live without?

Lauren:

Guilt, definitely! If I were forced to do without a positive emotion? I’m not sure. I could never do without joy. I might be able to exist without contentment, as long as I could have love and passion.

Cels:

You’ve also branched out into the younger market with your fairy-tale adventure, Liesl and Po and soon to be released “The Splinders”. Did you have a favourite fairy-tale world as a child you wished you belonged too?

Lauren:

I loved The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe. I would have gladly moved to Narnia as a child.

Cels:

Which of your fictional characters burns brightest in your mind and why?

Lauren:

Hmmm. That’s a great question. I really think it changes. It evolves as I begin work on something new; I become completely wrapped up in my newest characters, and they tend to displace the old ones. But I do love Po, from Liesl & Po. I think the ghost is one of my favorite literary inventions. I’m not sure why. I just find Po’s existence comforting.