I’m talking with friend and fellow author, Lichen Craig today. Often the interviewer, but rarely the interviewee, I thought it was time we switched the chairs around and found out a little more about her. ~B

 Can you tell us a little about your writing background?

I have been writing for many years – nonfiction up until 2012.  Sometimes I had other professions at the same time.  It all amounts to a lot of experience that helps in setting a scene!  I wrote on wildlife, environment, current events, and politics. I was fortunate to have a stellar education for it: I stumbled into the University of Iowa and the renowned Writers Workshop there. I actually double majored, with journalism, and that was great: the journalism school taught me to write tight and edit.

Where did the idea for Gentlemen’s Game come from?

I don’t really know. I was in a place in my life where several things were haunting my mind. Chiefly was bisexuality. I had a few friends who seemed to be so lost . . . torn between two worlds: on the one hand was the straight community questioning and rejecting them, and on the other was the gay community looking down their noses at them. The idea that, because they were attracted to both sexes they were somehow in denial about their sexuality seemed awfully simplistic, judgmental, and condescending to me. I contacted a national expert on the subject, a psychologist, and learned a lot that was absolutely fascinating.  I had also been thinking about bisexual people in the closet – in heterosexual marriages, and perhaps never giving themselves permission to explore their own sexual orientations. So those things fed into it.  As I wrote, some of my own background in working with crime and abuse victims came into it. [Read more...]