I would love if you all took a look at our author Bio.. We have some good questions and answer for him to answer. Please also I had the opportunity to read his latest book called Botticelli's Bastard. I have a review on it here and we also got a giveaway as for all of you as well. Botticelli's Bastard Review But here is the author Bio for before we enter the interview. We welcome Stephen to our community. #Interviews, #Interviewsaroundtheglobe, #NRC, #Giveaways, #historicalfiction #ArtHeist @BotticelliBook and @Nouveauwriter, +Joyce DiPastena, +Laura Fabiani iRead Book Tours, +Laura Fabiani
Stephen Maitland-Lewis is an award-winning author, a British attorney, and a former international investment banker. He held senior positions in the City of London, Kuwait, and on Wall Street before moving to California in 1991. He owned a luxury hotel and a world-renowned restaurant and was also the Director of Marketing of a Los Angeles daily newspaper. Maitland-Lewis is a jazz aficionado and a Board Trustee of the Louis Armstrong House Museum in New York. A member of PEN and the Author’s Guild, Maitland-Lewis is also on the Executive Committee of the International Mystery Writers Festival.
His novel Hero on Three Continents received numerous accolades, and Emeralds Never Fade won the 2012 Benjamin Franklin Award for Historical Fiction and the 2011 Written Arts Award for Best Fiction. His novel Ambition was a 2013 USA Best Book Awards and 2014 International Book Awards finalist and won first place for General Fiction in the 2013 Rebecca’s Reads Choice Awards. Maitland-Lewis and his wife, Joni Berry, divide their time between their homes in Beverly Hills and New Orleans.
Connect with Stephen: Website ~ Facebook ~ Twitter
How did you do research for your book?
The internet is my primary source for research, but one has to be very disciplined so as not to go off in tangents in reading material with is irrelevant to the topic in hand. For that reason, visits to local libraries are ideal, although more time consuming. With regard to Botticelli’s Bastard, the research covered many different periods of European history, which made the project enjoyable and it did not at any time feel onerous.If you could put yourself as a character in your book, who would you be?
Unquestionably, Giovanni Fabrizzi, the art restorer. He was burdened with sadness and later on was faced with the dilemma of Satan on one shoulder and the good angel on the other in determining his course of action. But there is a moral tale for all of us and I found myself inspired by his ultimate decision.What made you write a book about a talking painting?
A painting that has survived 500 years, has traveled across continents, and has hung on many different walls, has a life of its own. Just as Oscar Wilde’s Dorian Grey had a painting that aged, my painting in Botticelli’s Bastard talks to the restorer. Just as a writer or an actor can get totally immersed in his character, so can a restorer working over a long period of time and in the minutest detail, become overtaken by the painting on which he is working.Your book is set in London, Florence, Munich, Paris, New York, and Zurich. Have you ever been there?
I was born and raised in London, and I have also lived in Munich, Paris, and New York. In my former professional life, I made frequent trips to Zurich and I spent a week once on vacation in Florence.What is the last great book you’ve read?
Sophie’s Choice by William Styron. This novel is superb on every level – character, plot, language, and overall style. I first read the book many years ago, at a time when I was not writing professionally, so I didn’t appreciate the subtlety and brilliance of Mr. Styron. Reading it again recently, I realized that the author was one of the major world’s literary geniuses. His writing is so fine that I have to resist the temptation of never writing another word.Do you write every day?
I try to do so. Even if I am not writing a novel, I think it is important to write something on a daily basis, whether it be a journal entry, or a complex social or business letter. The great piano virtuoso Arturo Rubenstein remarked once that “the first day I do not practice, I notice. The second day I miss a practice, the critics notice. The third day – the audience notices.”How long have you been writing?
When I was still a teenager in London, I was a contributing columnist to Melody Maker, a weekly musical journal, and I also freelanced in writing liner notes for record albums and reviews of jazz concerts. During my days as an international investment banker, I wrote regularly articles for various professional journals. I spent a few years writing for a daily newspaper, and have now written fiction full time for sixteen years.Thank you for stopping by Stephen Maitland-Lewis. I happy for you have stop by Nighttime Reading Center. Your book a good read. I liked it. I hope you come back again.
Art and history - who can't be excited about this!
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