JuliaBefore we start I’d like you to know I love lots of things, so this is going to include the word “love” approximately one hundred times.

How long have you worked at Lemuria?  Almost two months.

What do you do at Lemuria? I am currently working in the fiction room. I am also starting to learn about the First Editions Club at Lemuria.

Talk to us what you’re reading right now.  I just finished Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi, and, just as everyone else has, I absolutely LOVED it. I also read the June First Editions Pick, Miss Jane by Brad Watson. I’m working on three books right now: Mothering Sunday by Graham Swift, We Come to Our Senses by Odie Lindsey, and Dispatches from Pluto by Richard Grant. So far, I’m loving We Come to Our Senses and Mothering Sunday. My dad and I are passing Dispatches back and forth, so there’s no telling when I’ll finish, but so far it is a hilarious read and living up to its reputation for me.

18387c20-0252-0133-501f-0ec273752cbdWhat’s currently on your bedside table (book purgatory)? Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut (which apparently will never get finished), A Thousand Miles From Nowhere by John Gregory Brown, and The After Party by Anton Disclafani. Also, candy. Because I love candy.

How many books do you usually read at a time?  Usually no more than two, but I’m being ambitious this summer and trying for three to four.

I know it’s difficult, but give us your current top five books.  Oh, man…
Homegoing – Yaa Gyasi
The Descendants – Kaui Hart Hemmings
The Revolution of Little Girls – Blanche McCrary Boyd
Giovanni’s Room – James Baldwin (I had to include an all-time favorite)
Sleeping on Jupiter – Anuradha Roy

Favorite authors?  I have so many… I love them all…
Edgar Allen Poe, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jane Austen, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Blanche McCrary Boyd, James Baldwin, Maya Angelou, Kate Chopin, Edwidge Danticat, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Robert Frost, Dylan Thomas, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Tennyson, T.S. Eliot, J.K. Rowling, Anuradha Roy, Suheir Hammad…
I love every author I’ve ever read, honestly. These are just some of my top favorites. We’d be here all day if I kept listing them!

Any particular genre that you’re especially in love with? Generally speaking, fiction is my favorite. More specifically, it’s a toss up between Southern Lit and Expats.

What did you do before you worked at Lemuria?  I graduated from LSU in May, and my parents took my siblings and I to Hawaii, so basically I was crying on my couch because we couldn’t stay there forever.

If you could share lasagna with any author, dead or alive, who would it be? What would you ask them?  This is also a hard question… I think right now I’d like to meet J.K. Rowling and ask, “what’s your secret?”

Why do you like working at Lemuria?  I really love literature. I love talking about literature, reading it, and writing about it.

If we could have any living author visit the store and do a reading, who would you want to come?  There’s quite a few authors I’d like to hear read, but I’d probably go with Suheir Hammad, because listening to her read her poetry is life-changing.

If Lemuria could have ANY pet (mythical or real), what do you think it should be?  A phoenix because they are awesome and Dumbledore had one.

If you had the ability to teleport, where would you go first?  Probably Paris, France, and then Hawaii. Then back and forth until I decided which I loved more.

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