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Local Author Showcase spotlights Skokie-area writers and their work. This month we’re talking to Elizabeth Blackwell, a former Skokie resident and longtime library patron who’s written the fabulous historical novel While Beauty Slept.

Tell us a bit about yourself.

I’m from Washington DC originally, but I came to Northwestern for college and basically never left the area. Like many others my age, I had that fun stage of living in Chicago near the lakefront when I was in my 20s, then moved out to the suburbs once I had kids. Although I now live in Glenview, I lived in Skokie for more than 10 years and went to the Skokie Public Library all the time. The children’s department was an absolute lifesaver when my three children were little—we hung out there at least once a week.

How would you describe your book?

I like to describe While Beauty Slept as a cross between Game of Thrones and Downton Abbey. It’s a reimagining of the Sleeping Beauty legend as if it really happened, taking a historical fiction rather than a fantasy approach. I wanted to create a world that felt real, where things happened because of human actions rather than magic. By telling the story through the eyes of a royal servant, I was able to fill in a lot of that world beyond the castle walls.

When did you start writing? What inspired you to start?

I have always been a voracious reader, and I started writing stories when I was about 8 or 9. They were pretty bad—the main one I remember was about a lonely girl who makes a new friend who turns out to be a ghost. I thought it was very eerie and dramatic! I worked for years as a journalist, first as a magazine editor and then as a magazine writer, but it wasn’t until my 30s that I started writing fiction seriously. I really enjoyed being able to use a different, more creative part of my “writing” brain.

What’s your writing routine?

Great question! I wish I could say I had a fail-safe routine—I think any writer who is also a parent is constantly shifting back and forth between their writing and their family obligations. Basically, I write whenever the house is quiet: when my children were little, I wrote during their naps; now, I write in the late morning and early afternoon, before they come home from school. I’m also a firm believer in understanding your own energy level: I am not a morning person, so I’m never going to produce my best work at 6am. As a night owl, I end up writing a fair amount after everyone else is in bed.

What books are on your nightstand now?

Depending on my mood, I like to switch between well-written thrillers, historical fiction, and commercial literary fiction. Next up, I’m planning to read Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life, which I’m excited about because it’s gotten such rave reviews. I think she’s a wonderful writer. I recently finished two great suspense novels: Lisa Unger’s In the Blood and The Three by Sarah Lotz. Both of them were the type of book that kept me up way too late!

What is your favorite book of all time?

Well, this is a nearly impossible question, because there are so many books I love. But I will say that I’ve read Donna Tartt’s The Secret History about six times, and I get caught up in it every time, racing to finish even though I know what’s going to happen. It’s one of those books I know I’ll be returning to again and again.

Which book or author do you think is criminally underrated or overlooked?

Because I love historical fiction, I have to make a case for Susan Howatch, who very popular in the 1970s and 1980s but isn’t talked about much now. She wrote wonderful, sweeping family sagas, including Penmarric and Wheel of Fortune, where you follow a certain character for a while, then see everything that happened from some else’s perspective in the next section. Her ability to switch between different viewpoints had a big influence on me as a writer. If you like a big, juicy, immersive read, give Howatch a try!

What’s the last book that made you laugh?

I am going to give a huge thumbs-up to the Skokie Public Library staff here. You know those “staff recommends” shelves on the main floor? I happened to be scanning those not too long ago, and I noticed a book called Sh*tty Mom: The Parenting Guide for the Rest of Us. I picked it up, and started laughing just from reading the table of contents. I checked it out, took it home, and laughed the whole way through. I ended up buying copies for myself, my sister and my mom. This is why librarians are awesome: because they point us to books we might not have discovered otherwise.