On November 24, the Friends of the Orange County Public Library will host its first ever Hillsborough Local Author Book Fair! You can read more about the event here. Leading up, we’ll be posting short interviews with some of our author guests. Today we feature Dori Ann Dupre! (Who has an accent over the last “e” in her name I don’t know how to insert on a blogpost! Sorry!)
Who did you dedicate your first book to and why?
When I first wrote my book dedication, I dedicated it to my two college aged daughters, not realizing that a year and a half after its release, the #MeToo Movement would sweep the United States and bring attention to the kinds of issues raised in Scout’s Honor. It’s also dedicated to my mother, as a bit of a joke; however, it was written for my daughters, for your daughters and for women everywhere throughout time, who have been taken advantage of and then tossed aside by a trusted adult in a position of trust, and who have stayed quiet about their experiences due to shame and a culture that does not believe them anyway. It’s just one small story of quiet resilience, which hopes to inspire women to understand that no matter what has happened to them, or what kind of poor choices they have made, they can take back their own honor and build their lives again.
About 60 days before the release of my novel, my husband Eric was diagnosed with terminal Colon Cancer at the age of 47, which would tragically claim his life 9 months later. At the Eleventh Hour prior to its release, I added a second book dedication…to him and his fight to live. He was very supportive of my efforts to write this book, so when he read it and told me he was proud of me, I was grateful that he experienced this first publishing journey with me before it was too late. My second book, Good Buddy (still not released), was written for him.
If we were to tweet one sentence from one of your books, which sentence would you choose?
“The whole time she was waiting for her honor to show up in a box, wrapped with a pretty bow, left on her doorstep by an unnamed suitor or the UPS guy or God Himself — or, hell, even Brother Doug. But that’s not how honor works.”
What’s your biggest motivation for wanting to be a writer?
I write for several reasons. One is because I like to make sense of my own life experiences. It is therapeutic to work through my own complexities or the unsolved mysterious within. I also write to rewrite some experiences of my own – make them better somehow or new and fresh. I write to raise the dead and have unsaid conversations. Lastly, I am inspired to write by the people who come in and out of my life, to create a friend I never had or an experience I wish I had. Writing allows me to live several lives I couldn’t otherwise experience, much like reading does this for me.
