Please join us for a Q&A with Lauren J.A. Bear, the author of the BookBrowse Book Club selection, Aphrodite in Pieces, as well as the novels Mother of Rome and Medusa’s Sisters. Lauren will be here to take your questions from June 15 through June 17. Please stop by!
Please help me welcome Lauren J.A. Bear to the BookBrowse Community Forum.
According to her website, Lauren is a reader and writer, an educator, a troublemaker, and a fierce mama bear.
She was born in Boston and raised in Long Beach. After studying English at UCLA and education at Loyola Marymount University, worked for a decade as a middle-school teacher focused on literacy and humanities. Lauren lives in Seattle with her husband and three young children where she enjoys crossword puzzles and being on or near the water without getting wet. She is the author or Medusa’s Sisters, Mother of Rome, and Aphrodite in Pieces (which was a recent BookBrowse Book Club pick).
Please use this space to ask Lauren questions about her work. As a reminder, to reply to an existing comment, click the grey Reply on the right side under the comment. To ask a new question, click the blue Reply button a little lower down.
Lauren: Thank you so much for agreeing to chat with us. Before we jump into the Q&A, is there anything you’d like to share about yourself that hasn’t been covered in the bio above?
I loved learning about Aphrodite while reading your book, and now I’m looking forward to reading your other books. What made you interested in the Roman and Greek myths, and what kind of research did you do in preparation?
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I very much enjoyed Aphrodite in Pieces. I have just ordered your other two books. I am so pleased that women of mythology are finding a voice. Are you currently working on any new stories?
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Thank you for the beautiful intro, Kim! Other fun facts about me: I’m currently watching “Widow’s Bay,” currently reading Robin Hobb’s Farseer triology, and currently dreaming about Haagen Dazs peanut butter chocolate ice cream! 
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I really enjoyed this book, I have always been fascinated by the Greek Myths,
I really enjoyed the way you portrayed all ther Gods. I particullary liked your characteration of Hera. She was the jelous woman I always pictured as I read the Myths.
I think each of the gods had the personality they had in the myths, Will you write more of there stories. I would particularly love more about Athena
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Thank you for the great question, Jacqueline! In 3rd grade my class did the cursory mythology unit and I came home from school with stars in my eyes. I begged my dad for more info so he went out to Walden Books (remember those?) and bought me Edith Hamilton’s Mythology. Hardly 9 year old appropriate, but that’s my dad! I read that thing cover to cover, over and over again (I still have it!). A world with magic – with such possibility! – absolutely bewitched me. These were my Avengers!
I love the research phase; sometimes so much that I forget I’m writing a novel, not a thesis. Researching Mother of Rome was particularly difficult/eye-opening because the information on Latium – not the Roman empire – is much more niche. I thought I knew “Rome",” but quickly realized I wouldn’t be writing a book about gladiators and empresses. Rhea Silvia belongs to an early Italian confederation of city-states, a legacy mixed with the Trojan blood of Aeneas. It was fascinating, but after weeks and weeks getting lost in translated primary sources, I knew I needed to get back to the story.
I have such a love-hate relationship with technology, but we are so lucky to have such immediate access to library materials. 
The Fareer Trilogy is a classic! I loved it. I read in various other interviews that you enjoy fantasy and speculative fiction. Where did your love of those genres come from? At first it seemed like an odd combo to me - Greek/Roman mythology and speculative - but as I thought about it I can see a lot of crossover.
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Did you find Mother of Rome more difficult to write? It seems like with Medusa’s Sisters and Aphrodite in Pieces you had more latitude to use your imagination, while the story about the founding of Rome has less variation. I really enjoyed the way you worked within the myth to tell Rhea Silvia’s story.
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Regarding your research, was most of it internet-based, or did you have to do any traveling - either for material or to get “eyes on” the land? Seems like a trip to Italy would be a tax deduction! 
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Thank you, Karen! Women will always be the inspiration for my work, as women are the backbone of my life. I think one of the best things to come out of the last 10+ years is the awareness of perspective. We aren’t just accepting the stories we are given anymore. People want to hear other points of view, especially from communities that have been marginalized, from those that have been silenced or ignored or simply misunderstood. Some of the characters I’ve written have no voice in the mythological record (ie. Stheno and Euryale, the other Gorgons). Aphrodite, on the other hand, is given dialogue, but I believe she is misrepresented.
I’m currently at work on a new project – my 4th novel! – which will be a feminist retelling but it’s not set in the classical world. I adore the ancients, but it was time for me to step into a new space. (I would tell you more but my agent might kill me!) Hopefully I can share more in the fall. 
I read that your middle child is a daughter. Did you have her in mind when you wrote your novels? When she’s old enough to read your books, what do you hope she takes away from each heroine?
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Thank you, Renee, and SAME. I’ve been fascinated with these stories for almost my entire reading life! I didn’t include Hera in Medusa’s Sisters, but she was a necessary part of Aphrodite’s story. With Hera, I was really able to touch upon the internalized misogyny some women hold. She’s not particularly likeable, but I believe she’s authentic. And I hoped she could serve as a mirror, an opportunity for us all to examine our own behaviors and biases.
Athena, on the other hand, has played major roles in both of my Greek retellings. When I was a little girl, she might have been my favorite goddess, so it kind of makes me laugh that I’ve made her such a villain in both of these works!
I think the Olympians have gotten good coverage in recent work, so it’s the lesser gods and goddesses that intrigue me now. Nike, for instance, especially with her modern revelance. Or Iris, goddess of the rainbow.
lol! I agree! Should I only set my novels in places I want to visit? Machu Picchu, the Taj Mahal, Carnival in Rio?!
I’ve been to Rome but it was so long ago and I was so young. My focus was more on my next glass of wine than indigenous shrubbery! And I was able to go to Greece, but not until I had finished Medusa’s Sisters. I was almost terrified – what if I go it all wrong?
What helped me the most in writing these settings was reading travel guides – thank you, Rick Steves! Also, a good imagination is a writer’s most powerful tool.
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It’s been done! Many years ago (long before BookBrowse was a glimmer in the eyes of its founder) I was communicating with a very well-respected author about her latest novel, set in Egypt. She flat-out admitted that she wanted to visit the country, and that she wrote the book as an excuse to do so. (It wasn’t one of her better works, to be honest, but the setting was vivid!)
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I LOVE this question! Yes, I think I keep my daughter constantly in mind as I write my female characters. From the Gorgons, I want her to learn the importance of communication. From Rhea Silvia, resilience. And as for Aphrodite, I hope my daughter doesn’t take quite so many lifetimes to learn how to love herself!
And I have two boys, as well. When I finally allow them to read my work, I hope they come awy with more compassion and empathy for a woman’s experience in this world.
Thank you! And yes, Mother of Rome was my most Herculean labor and perhaps that’s also why I hold it so dearly in my heart. I think I ended up rewriting it three times before it was in a decent place for editing. It was particularly difficult because of the setting and the amount of research I needed to do to understand it, but also because I kept changing my mind on how I wanted to deconstruct her myth. I don’t want to reveal any spoilers, but I played around with multiple Rhea-wolf ideas before I found the right one.