Liza Palmer is somebody to us....plus a book giveaway

Photo by Edwin Santiago

Today we welcome Liza Palmer to the CLC stage. Her latest novel, The Nobodies, publishes next week. It sounds really interesting and we're excited to check it out. Her answers to our interview questions were a lot of fun, so we hope you will enjoy reading them. Thanks to Flatiron, we have one copy of The Nobodies to give away!

Liza Palmer is the internationally bestselling author of Conversations with the Fat Girl and several other novels. An Emmy-nominated writer, she lives in Los Angeles and works for BuzzFeed. Like Joan in The Nobodies, she never went to college. Visit Liza at her website and on Twitter and Instagram.

“Liza Palmer's voice is fresh, exciting, and necessary. She's a must-read author.”
―Taylor Jenkins Reid, author of Daisy Jones & the Six

Wunderkind journalist Joan Dixon took an internship at the Los Angeles Times straight out of high school and never looked back. That is, until the newspaper business collapsed, leaving her to patch together soulless freelance gigs and live with her parents. Desperate to get back on her feet, Joan takes a job as a junior copywriter at the tech startup Bloom, where her bosses are all a decade younger and snacks and cans of fizzy water flow freely. But once a journalist, always a journalist. As Joan starts to poke beneath Bloom’s bright surface, she realizes that she may have accidentally stumbled onto the scoop of her lifetime. Is it worth risking everything for the sake of the story?


What is a favorite compliment you have received on your writing?
Oh man.. I have a teeeensy bit of an issue taking compliments. I tend to get so embarrassed? That I go into this black out fugue state when it’s happening - which works out well because then I can wake up at and obsess about how weird I was in that moment (instead of, you know, absorbing to the compliment.) BUT… I like that people think my writing sounds real. That people act like that and talk like that. That they see themselves in my characters. It’s the highest praise.

How is Joan similar to or different from you?
Joan and I are quite similar…. In that we both failed and then both had some* (*way too much) time to think about said failure. That feeling of being so aware of yourself as you try something new and are, to your horror, actually quite bad at it (reasonably bad at it as you are… in fact, NEW to it – aargh, but why aren’t you perfect!?) It all happened to me as I started at BuzzFeed back in 2015. I’m endlessly grateful to those who patiently shepherded me – and Joan – through it all.

If The Nobodies was made into a movie, who would you cast in the lead roles?
For Joan… I’m obsessed with Natasha Rothwell right now. Emily Blunt maybe? She’s a delight. I mean, if Phoebe Waller-Bridge got anywhere near this I’d die… and YES, somehow we’d work in a hot priest FOR SCIENCE.

What do you enjoy most about the fall?
Literally everything. I love fall THE MOST – the smell of fireplaces in the air (I just sighed so loud)… tea just tastes better. Everything. Literally everything.

What is the last book you read that you would recommend?
I just finished Sally Rooney’s Conversations with Friends and I loved it. I also just finished Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine… and man… that’s another good one. I read that on a train from England to France and it was the perfect companion. I also? Listened to Brené Brown’s, Dare to Lead and think everyone – especially women – needs to read it. It’s so good and she’s a national treasure.

What is the funniest thing that has happened to you recently?
My mom and I spend our Saturdays having lunch and then driving around looking at the houses that are being renovated. While doing so, we saw a peacock - as you do – see, Pasadena has peacocks just roaming free as well as wild parrots, but that’s a whole other story. So mom says, “They just have to be on their own once in awhile.” And she said it so seriously – like this peacock was on some thoughtful vision quest or a rumspringa. Well, once I said that the peacock was on a rumspringa – we almost wet our pants.

Thanks to Liza for visiting with us and to Flatiron for sharing her book with our readers.

How to win: Use Rafflecopter to enter the giveaway. If you have any questions, feel free to contact us. If you have trouble using Rafflecopter on our blog, enter the giveaway here. 

a Rafflecopter giveaway


Giveaway ends September 10th at midnight EST.