Tell us about The League for the Suppression of Celery

It’s a quirky, but poignant story about a 20-something college grad who meets a celebrity chef who offers her a job and himself if she will relocate across the country. Except things go wrong. Terribly wrong!

What genre is it?
Chick Lit / Contemporary Fiction. It might be tempting for someone to slot it into the “Romance” genre, but it’s definitely more “coming of age” than Romance.

What kind of readers will it appeal to?
Anyone who loves a fast-paced read that’s fun and quirky. I used to think the book would appeal only to women, but I’ve actually had several men who said they loved the book as well. That delights me since, to me, it’s more of a story about the quest to discover our place in the world. And that’s universal.

The League for the Suppression of Celery is one of the most inventive titles we’ve heard in ages. Be honest, did the title come first and then you built the story around it?
My initial reaction is to say “yes” but the real answer is that it was really a fun blend of two things going on at once.  For years I have had a blog also called “The League for the Suppression of Celery” that was for all this crazy anti-celery propaganda.  And I wanted to do the story I wrote – I wanted it to be a fun, quirky road-trip adventure, so after brainstorming with my crit partner it just kind of ended up being a wacky anti-celery mash-up.  Which is also an apt description of my life, so it works!

You say the book is a road trip adventure. Of all the incidents that happen to your heroine Kate Pearson along the way, which was your favourite?
There are a lot of fun parts, but I love the chaos Kate experiences in Vegas as she enters the firestorm of being in a relationship with a celebrity. She tries to hard to be cool and suave and she’s so… not.   It’s also the time in her life she takes back her power and figures out she can be in control of her own life, finally.  But the characters in the book were so much fun to create and develop that it’s hard to choose – the Hillbilly Love Doctor, crazy Luther, Cheeto-eating sidekicks… it’s a tough choice!

Sounds like you must have had a blast writing the book. How long did it take?
The writing didn’t take long at all. I did an 83,000 word first draft in about three months and then spent the next nine months revising.

What was the most challenging part of your creative process?
For this book, definitely revisions. The book pulled together easy at the beginning because it is a very linear story on a pretty strict timeline. Because the protagonist is traveling across the country and she has a particular goal in mind it was easy to pinpoint her progress on a map and I could line out what was happening and when. So, I found going back through was tough, because I had to change a few things based on feedback from beta readers and it had a bit of domino effect. And it’s hard to do revisions when you love your book and you’re excited to get it out there. I had to keep reminding myself that there was no hurry and that I needed to take my time to get it right because once it’s out there it’s there forever.

Tell us about yourself.
Southern girl who loves to tell stories! The taller the tale the better. I’m a mom, love reading, have a passion for writing and learning old-fashioned “domestic arts” like soap-making, spinning, kitting, etc.

You said something about a blog earlier, didn’t you?
I did. www.wendyruss.com. Twitter: @wendybythesea.

Where can we buy your book?
I’m available in print and ebook on Amazon ( US, UK )

What’s next?
Working on the next book, a slightly more serious one. We’ll see where it takes me.

We’ve saved our toughest question for last, Ms. Russ: where do you stand on celery?
Preferably ON it.  With big, whopping platform stilettos.