Episode 329: Writing the Ensemble Cast — Interview with Laura Jamison

by Gabriela Pereira
published in Podcast

Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing Laura Jamison.

Laura Jamison is an attorney from Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin, where she lives with her husband and their four children. When she is not practicing law or writing, she is driving her kids to one of their many activities in her minivan. Laura is a graduate of Dartmouth College and the University of Michigan Law School. All the Right Mistakes is her debut novel and what we will be talking about today.

In this episode Laura and I discuss:

  • How the pressure to compete on social media inspired a character in her book All the Right Mistakes.
  • Why having a clear, mathematical structure to her multiple POV story was refreshing to her readers and keeps her on track as a writer.
  • What she did to land an agent and her journey to being published through She Writes Press.

Plus, her #1 tip for writers.

About the Author

Laura Jamison is an attorney from Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin, where she lives with her husband and their four children. When she is not practicing law or writing, she is driving her kids to one of their many activities in her minivan. Laura is a graduate of Dartmouth College and the University of Michigan Law School. All the Right Mistakes: A Novel (She Writes Press) is her first book. She currently resides in Whitefish Bay, WI.

You can follow Laura on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

All the Right Mistakes

ALL THE RIGHT MISTAKES (on sale 8/4, She Writes Press) is an uplit novel about the relatable messiness of adult friendship and life ambitions by Laura Jamison, in the vein of Camille Pagán’s I’m Fine and Neither Are You and Allison Pearson’s I Don’t Know How She Does It. I’d be happy to send you a physical copy or you can also access the digital copy by requesting via Edelweiss (Netgalley to come in June).

Five Dartmouth college friends are all approaching forty at various points in their relationships and careers. With humor and heart, Jamison unfolds each woman’s individual circumstances: work stress, parenting, infertility, racism, sexism, financial burdens, marital woes, and sudden loss. But when Heather, the most ambitious and successful of the five (think Yahoo’s Marissa Mayer), writes a bestselling “tell-all” advice book exposing each of her friend’s big “mistakes” that have set them back in life, these women begin to question what success looks like.

All The Right Mistakes addresses the absurdity in trying to plan your way out of the realities of life; it is complex, disappointing, and joyful, often all at once. A perceptive and highly entertaining read about petty jealousies, quick judgments, and the absolute joy and necessity of true friendship and acceptance, I hope that you consider this novel for book coverage late this summer.

If you decide to check out the book, we hope you’ll do so via this Amazon affiliate link, where if you choose to purchase via the link DIY MFA gets a referral fee at no cost to you. As always, thank you for supporting DIY MFA!

Link to Episode #329

(Right-click to download.)

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Until next week, keep writing and keep being awesome!

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