Five Things You Didn't Know About Me: A Guest Post by Lisa Roe
I’m on maternity leave! During this time, a few of my favorite authors offered to step up and write guest posts so that this blog would remain active while I adjust to my new role as a mother. I may also be a bit slower to respond. Thanks for understanding and for being so supportive of me, my family, and my blog. Want to donate a few dollars to keep this blog running or perhaps contribute to my diaper fund? You can do so on Venmo or Paypal.
Five Things You Didn't Know About Me: A Guest Post by Lisa Roe
1. I stalked John Irving. Ok, not in the illegal, restraining order kind of way. I’d been working in Manhattan for a year or two and I was taking the subway home. In those days (maybe still?) it was nothing to be pressed up against a stranger, maneuvering for a grip on the metal pole as the train swung back and forth and you fought to stay on your feet. That particular evening, I was precariously close to a man who looked familiar. Suddenly, I realized where I knew him from…the inside back jacket photo of Cider House Rules, the book I was reading at the time! Still, I had to be sure. While I was discreetly (was I, though?) studying him and deciding what I’d do if it were indeed him, I saw a leather-bound folder tucked under his arm. In the top corner, stamped in gold, it read J.I. It was him! Now, what to do? A few stops before mine the doors opened, and he got off. I had to act! I jumped off the train and started following him up the stairs. When we got to the street, I had one of those now or never moments and I spoke up. “Excuse me, sir. Are you John Irving?” He smiled and said he was. We walked a few blocks together and God knows what I said to him—I was not writing at the time and didn’t know a thing about writers and barely anything about books—but whatever silly thing I blurted out, he was kind and gracious. We parted ways and I hoofed it the twenty blocks home (remember I’d gotten off before my stop) delighted with my first New York City celebrity sighting (and the only one when I actually stopped the person on the street).
Five Things You Didn't Know About Me: A Guest Post by Lisa Roe
2. I went to an uber progressive “free school” called Erehwon—which was Nowhere spelled backwards. That was exactly where my seventh-grade year of learning went—nowhere. As I understand it, the “free” in free school meant children were in charge of their own learning, free to choose what to study, encouraged to follow their own interests. The teachers were on hand to help. But you had to ask. Guess what? I spent the year taking photos and developing them in the dark room and playing soccer on the big field behind the school. I painted a mural on the bathroom walls. Oh, it was a blast. All very cool experiences to be sure. But I didn’t pick up a book or add a column of numbers. And when the school shut down after a short time and I went back to regular junior high the next year—after missing an entire grade—I wasn’t even a beat behind the class. Which says a lot about what was going on in the public school system back in the day. But that’s another story…
Five Things You Didn't Know About Me: A Guest Post by Lisa Roe
3. I grew up in a political family—well, my father was political, the rest of us got dragged along for the ride. Campaigning was always part of my life growing up. My father worked on campaigns, always on the phone after dinner, off to meetings. He sometimes had my siblings and me stuffing envelopes and wearing buttons for people we didn’t know, didn’t understand, and whose policies we were too young to care about. My favorite part was when he’d bring home the candidates’ extra stationary after the campaign was over and give it to us to use as “scrap paper.” I wrote poems and stories, drew pictures and cartoons on the back of some failed candidate’s letterhead. Then one day my father announced he was running for US Senate and if he won, we’d be moving to Washington DC. That sounded terrible! So, as we followed him from campaign stop to campaign stop, standing behind him as he gave speeches and shook hands, I’d crossed my fingers behind my back and wished that he would lose. I got my wish. He was beaten in the primary by a guy who was beaten in the general. Did I feel guilty about jinxing my Dad? Not one bit. I really didn’t want to go to DC, so it seemed like fair political maneuvering to me.
Five Things You Didn't Know About Me: A Guest Post by Lisa Roe
4. I was a horse girl. I lived and breathed horses. I drew them, made pony puppets, built horse stalls out of popsicle sticks, made feed buckets from plastic creamer cups. I took riding lessons once a week, coveted (but didn’t get until I was over 50 and my daughter gave me a set for Christmas) the Breyer horses, and I put Secretariat’s poster up on my bedroom wall instead of Rick Springfield’s. By some miracle, I eventually convinced my parents to get me a horse—a real horse. I became a barn rat. Every day after school I went to the stable, rode Robespierre (I know, I know, but he came with that name), brushed him, cleaned up after him, washed and polished my tack. I went to horse shows on the weekends, waking up at four in the morning to get to the stable before the van left, became BFFs with the other horse crazy girls, the trainers, and the old, grizzled stable hands. Got manure stuck in the soles of my boots and offended my family with my equine aroma at the dinner table. It. Was. Heaven.
Five Things You Didn't Know About Me: A Guest Post by Lisa Roe
5. I avoided getting eaten by a bear by climbing an ice wall in Alaska. A few years ago, my husband and I took a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Alaska. David is so much more adventurous than I am, but this was my Year of Yes. I decided it was time to agree to try things outside my comfort zone—as long as they didn’t include my three mortal fears: heights, ice, and small aircraft. Suffice to say, my conditions were not met on this trip. After white-knuckling it through a number of two-seater plane rides, my husband booked us for a day on a glacier. I should have turned and ran when the tour guide handed me the crampons and ice picks. Instead, I just mumbled, “Year of Yes. Year of Yes,” under my breath. We hiked for about two hours until we got to a twenty-five-foot wall of ice. I looked up. I looked at my husband. I looked at our guide. “Go ahead without me,” I said. “I’ll just park myself on this ice block until you get back.” Then my guide said this: “I can’t leave you here alone. It’s the law. You can’t be out here without a gun to fend off the bears. And I’ve got the only gun. If you don’t come with us, we all have to turn back.” I forgot to mention my fourth mortal fear— everyone mad at me because I ruined the adventure. As I continued to mumble, “Year of Yes. Year of Yes,” I grabbed my ice picks and hauled myself up that wall, my arms shaking, my feet slipping, tears in my eyes, calculating how much life insurance I’d get after I killed my husband. But you know what? I got to the top. I crawled over that edge of that wall, flopped belly first onto the glacial ice, and all I could say in-between gasps for breath was, “YES!”
Five Things You Didn't Know About Me: A Guest Post by Lisa Roe
About Welcome to the Neighborhood
Moving to a new town is hard enough to navigate even without the challenges of the tween years, the mean girls, and the helicopter neighbors.
After years of struggling to make ends meet, Ginny, a single mom from Queens, falls for sweet, divorced Jeff, and relishes the idea of moving with her quirky eleven-year-old daughter Harri to his home in an upscale New Jersey suburb. Though she's never been impressed by material things, she is thrilled that getting a second chance at love comes with the added bonus of finally giving Harri everything she never could before.
And then she meets the neighbors.
"We need Lisa Roe's side-eye on a fresh start for everyone, with neighbors who put it all at risk." —ANN GARVIN, USA Today bestselling author of I Thought You Said This Would Work
"A story about keeping one's feet firmly planted while simultaneously dreaming big." —KATHLEEN WEST, author of Are We There Yet?
About Lisa
Lisa Roe graduated from the S. I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University and spent many years as an advertising creative director and copywriter in New York City until she accepted the tougher job of stay-at-home mom and turned to writing fiction — mostly to entertain her kids, but then to tell her own stories. A classic first born, reluctant empty nester, Dr. Doolittle wannabe, and the author of WELCOME TO THE NEIGHBORHOOD, Lisa lives in New Jersey with her husband and three incorrigible dogs. She’d love you to visit her at lisaroe.com and on Instagram at @lisaroewrites.
Five Things You Didn't Know About Me: A Guest Post by Lisa Roe
