When Art Imitates Life, with Liz Lazarus
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Who is Liz Lazarus and what inspired her to become a writer?
I said the other day, um I I write for myself but I edit for the reader.
Hello and welcome to Uncorking a Story. I'm your host, Mike Carlin, and today I'm joined by Liz Lazarus. Dawn Before Darkness is your fourth novel following Free of Malice, Plea for Justice and Shades of Silence. Welcome to Uncorking a Story, Liz. Thank you. Glad to be with you. Uh Liz, I'm excited to have you here. I'm curious, where does your story as an author begin?
Well, I would say it's began as trying not to be an author. Um I have an engine really and how many people can say that? Um I have an engineering degree, I got my MBA. I spent most of my career at General Electric in the healthcare division and my first novel would not leave me alone. It was based on real events in college and uh it really started as my journal and uh it evolved from my journal to actually become And it was it was a calling is the only way I can describe it.
When you were growing up, I mean, before you had, you know, uh your sights on being an engineer or a healthcare um or you know, sort of GE Health executive, did you ever did you ever know that you had a knack for writing? Did that ever enter into your thought process at all?
Well, it it came to me naturally and uh I did think about getting a journalism degree and then my father said I'll pay for Georgia Tech and I'm like, Okay or going to engineering school Um but I scored the same on the SATs in math as I did in in English. So I I guess I could have gone either way. And um my father or my grandfather was an author. He wrote children's books and so maybe it's somehow running in the family, I don't know, but um It was not a profession I thought about. This has only become my second career after
Interesting. Well let's let's go back to that first book if we can. You mentioned it was kind of based on something that happened to you. In um in college, what what can you share? What do you feel comfortable sharing about that?
Yeah, no, I I share quite a bit and I'll I guess I'll start by saying I'm I'm okay. Um but what happened was a a guy broke into our house. I was living off campus at Georgia Tech, and a guy broke into our house in the middle of the night. I was living with two other girls and for whatever reason he chose my room. kicked open the door in the middle of the night and um I remember, you know, waking up with a jolt and seeing him in the doorway and thinking, Is this real? And my second reaction was, This is real, you've got to deal with it. And um I didn't freeze, I fought him off and at at one point I guess he decided I was too too loud or too much trouble and and he left. And I chased after him to the door and watched him disappear in the night.
And uh I started to journal about it. And the police showed up, I called my neighbor, um, they they couldn't really figure out who it was. Um, you know, back then they didn't have the DNA type of uh expertise that we have today. So I I started to journal about it in the PTSD that I didn't even know I had. Um I was afraid to go in the house. I was afraid of the dark. And uh at one point I'd said to a relative, if I had had a gun, I would have shot him. And he said, Well, that's not self defense the way you described it. He was retreating off your property, would have shot him in the back. And so that just got me really curious as to to where's that line between self defense and vigilanteism. And then my mother of all people asked this question out of left field.
And it was like, What made you think of that? Why did you ask me that? And I thought, and that will make a killer ending for a book. Then I put it away for years and years and years. You know, I did all these other things on my bucket list. I went and worked for GE and I lived overseas and I could got my MBA and the book just wasn't going away. And so that's when I finally decided to write it.
So what I'm I'm curious, what prompted you to start journaling about it? What was it was it something that um was suggested to you or was it something that that again you kind of just kind of stumbled into?
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Who is Liz Lazarus and what inspired her to become a writer?
0:00–5:14
2
How did a traumatic break‑in and journaling turn into Liz’s first novel?
5:14–10:38
3
What four elements does Liz lock in before she starts a new novel?
10:38–15:40
4
How does Liz craft earned twist endings without relying on clichés?
15:40–21:20
5
What real‑life guardianship battle inspired the plot of *Dawn Before Darkness*?
21:20–25:55
6
Why did Liz choose self‑publishing and how did she build her own publishing company?
25:55–31:30
7
What practical advice does Liz give to writers about research, interviewing, and editing?
31:30–34:29
8
Where can listeners find Liz’s books, audio samples, and more information?
34:29–39:36