A. Born in North Carolina, raised in Virginia, I have strong roots in the Appalachian mountain region, and have lived in West Virginia and Tennessee. I’m proud of that heritage dating back to mostly European settlers in the late 1600s in the United States, and even further in North America with my Native American ancestry, which brings a rich diversity to the mix. As a former newspaper, radio, and television journalist, I also worked in Ohio and Kentucky covering stories. Now in the communications consulting business, I live with my husband, the self-styled Agent Provocateur, JonRe Pell, in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C. As connoisseurs of well-told stories, rock ‘n’ roll music, impressionist art, golf, tennis, oysters, and fun people, we stay active. When chillin’ we stream a lot of movies and television shows, eat a bit of fresh-popped popcorn, and read a wide range of books, newspapers, and magazines, everything from the latest investigative and political intrigue shows and spy stories, to recorded late night comedy, dystopian adventures, and historical and alternative fiction. The lovable JonRe inspired some of the hotter scenes in Dystortions: 100 Hues of Purple, which is warmer and more colorful than any shades of grey.
Q. Tell us about your book.
A. Dystortions: 100 Hues of Purple is a tale of mystery, murder, and love in a parallel universe, with a bit of humor. The protagonist, Addy O’Malibul, is a former journalist who is convicted of murder and imprisoned on a planet called Malaprop, strikingly similar to Earth, but with a few twists and many Dystortions in translations of data transmissions from a planet known as Hearth. Glitched up radio communications are bombarding Malaprop – a world where fearful national security analysts, politicians, and P.R. flacks re-write history and distort facts to recreate their reality in Hearth’s image. The Dystortions in those radio communications sometimes appear to twist words backwards and create opposite meanings, but maybe also reveal underlying truths. There’s just enough good science and wacked-out myth-busting to make the story hauntingly credible – and enough saucy romance to keep things hot.
Q. What inspired you to write Dystortions: 100 Hues of Purple?
A. Just before Christmas on December 23, 2002, it was the anniversary of my late mother’s death. My husband had open heart surgery that turned out to be more harrowing than expected, I was recovering from a miscarriage, my business was a shambles due to the recession, and I was deeply in debt, making mortgage payments for my townhouse with credit cards. I was distracting myself from my troubles by watching late-night comedy and listening to the Beatles’ Magical Mystery Tour during the commercials. After Paul McCartney’s “Your Mother Should Know,” which always makes me think of my mother, comes John Lennon’s “I am the Walrus,” with its trippy otherworldly swirl of crazy lyrics and juxtapositions. Then, back to late-night comedy, came a joke about a politician speaking in amusing malapropisms. I thought, wonder what it would be like to be someone else, in a different world where malapropisms rained, er, reigned, on a planet named Malaprop? So, with a few mal-appropriate thoughts in mind, I decided to escape down that rabbit hole, feverishly writing all the way. I hint at, but wildly exaggerate the situation and those feelings in Chapter 24, entitled “December 23, 2502,” but delve deeper into the rock ‘n’ roll music angle in my next novel in the series, Dystortions: Purple Haze. It’s a rock ‘n’ roll mystery in a parallel universe.
Q. How much time per week do you spend writing/editing your work?
A. Probably at least 30 hours. During the work week, my day job involves quite a bit of writing and editing, and then I play with social media during my 50-minute train commute each way to and from work. Sometimes I’ll spend an hour or so writing in the evenings. Most of my personal writing happens on weekends and holidays, about four hours each day, sometimes more if I’m on a deadline or particularly engrossed in a subject.
Q. What are you working on at the moment?
A. Currently I’m reviewing and finalizing the manuscripts for my next two novels, Dystortions: Purple Haze (a rock ‘n’ roll mystery in a parallel universe) and Dystortions: Purple Reigns (the mystery of celebrity in a parallel universe). I’m hoping to get them out in the next year or so. Once I complete those projects I’ll turn back to working on a fourth in the series, Dystortions: The Spy Who Wooed Me, as well as outlines for two more: Dystortions: The Tweet Bounced ‘Round the Universe, and Dystortions: Game of Bones. Then I may move on to something else – or just keep going with possible morphs of Dystortions. With recent and ongoing news of space missions to observe Mars, Jupiter, Pluto, asteroids, and other celestial bodies, the discoveries of water and other elements that could support life, and the increasing attention to commercial space travel and complications posed by space junk, the Dystortions series continues to feed my curiosities. I get such a kick out of writing these stories and feel passionately about the subject matter – the vagaries of language, the value of history, the nature and intensity of hot and hurtful relationships, and how personal freedoms are constrained or set free.
Title: Dystortions: 100 Hues of Purple
Author: Lisa Pell
Genre: Scifi / Mystery
Dystortions: 100 Hues of Purple is a tale of mystery, murder, and love in a parallel universe, with a bit of humor. Addy O’Malibul is a former journalist who is convicted of murder and imprisoned on a planet called Malaprop, strikingly similar to Earth, but with a few twists and many Dystortions in translations of data transmissions from a planet known as Hearth. Glitched up radio communications are bombarding Malaprop – a world where fearful national security analysts, politicians, and P.R. flacks re-write history and distort facts to recreate their reality in Hearth’s image. The Dystortions in those radio communications sometimes appear to twist words backwards and create opposite meanings, but maybe also reveal underlying truths.
There’s just enough good science and wacked-out myth-busting to make the story hauntingly credible – and enough saucy romance to keep things hot. It’s much warmer and more colorful than any shades of grey.
ABOUT LISA PELL: An award-winning former newspaper, radio, and television journalist, Pell has spent most of her career in the communications business. Her critically acclaimed first novel, Who’s Your Daddy, Baby? (Aberdeen Bay, 2012), was selected for a Virginia Federation of Press Women award. Born in North Carolina, Pell was raised in Virginia, is a graduate of George Mason University, and attended Harvard Business School. She has strong roots in the Appalachian mountains of Virginia, and has lived in Tennessee and West Virginia, where she covered news stories in Kentucky and southern Ohio. Connoisseurs of well-told stories, rock ‘n’ roll music, impressionist art, golf, tennis, oysters, and fun people, Pell and her husband, the self-styled Agent Provocateur, JonRe Pell, live in the Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C.
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