Drop by Western Academy of Beijing (WAB) tonight to meet a bestselling author – who began writing her first novel when she was at high school herself.
Livia Blackburne was born in Taiwan, and grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She says that she began writing The Midnight Thief to get out of a mandatory camping requirement at school. “I finished about 60 pages,” she says. “They were 60 awful, awful pages.”
Fortunately she returned to the novel 12 years later, when she was researching her doctoral thesis. “This time, I got to 370 pages, and they were much less awful than the initial 60,” she says. So much less awful that she was snapped up by a major publisher, and The Midnight Thief hit the bestseller lists.
Since then she’s written two sequels and a prequel to The Midnight Thief, and is currently editing Umbertouched, the second in a new series, which she says was “written in fifteen minute increments at 3am while breastfeeding.”
Blackburne will be talking about her journey as part of WAB’s Distinguished Speakers series. The event, which starts at 6pm, is free and open to all: book via WAB here.
Photo: liviablackburne.com
