Emerging Writers Series: Laura Picklesimer
Hailed as a contemporary feminist American Psycho, Laura Picklesimer’s debut novel, Kill For Love, is a heady satirical thrill into the depths of how far one woman will go to fill the void. Read our review here!
Winner of Book Pipeline’s Unpublished Content for Best Mystery/Thriller, I loved meeting the book’s deadpan narrator, Tiffany Ames, and was even more excited to have the opportunity to catch up with Laura to learn more about her publication journey, influences behind her novel, and top recommended reads!
Thanks for joining us, Laura! It would be great to learn a little about yourself and your writing journey so far?
I’m a fiction writer and English instructor based in Pasadena, CA. I enrolled in my first writing workshop back as an undergrad at UCLA. I graduated during the recession and freelanced a bunch, along with a whole host of side jobs that included nanny, film digitiser, Blockbuster video store clerk and Hollywood apartment manager.
I went back to grad school for my MFA at Cal State Long Beach in 2014, and it was there that I began work on my debut novel Kill for Love. I wrote half of it during the program and the remaining half during the evening hours when I wasn’t teaching at various colleges. The novel, from inception to publication, has been a 10-year journey!
Kill for Love is a rich, darkly comic thrill ride of a read! Where did you first get the idea for the book?
The character of my killer protagonist Tiffany came about during a workshop activity back in 2013. I was completing an exercise to write in the voice of a memorable literary character.
I had recently finished American Psycho and thought about what the voice of Patrick Bateman might sound like if channelled through a young L.A. woman. Tiffany’s personality came quite quickly, and then an original narrative began to write itself in my head.
I developed that exercise into a short story that covered the span of Tiffany’s first murder. And then I just kept writing.
I’m seeing lots of early readers already dubbing it the ‘Feminist American Psycho’ - how do you feel about such comparisons?
That book was one of my first influences for this project, so I feel quite fine with the comparisons. The satirical tone is the facet of the novel I most sought to emulate. The privileged world of West L.A. sororities was ripe for satire and, in many ways, similar but also starkly different from the rich boys club of Wall Street and the Ivy Leagues.
There are so many differences, too, of course, due to the time period, perspective and the way that a woman would internalise the misogyny of the world in unique ways.
Tiffany is a great narrator, albeit quite a strong female antihero. What drew you to writing such a character? I’m especially curious about her uber-wealthy background and the role this plays in her perspective of the world, and how she gets to behave in it.
Her carnality and lack of a filter were what initially drew me to Tiffany. She can be a challenging character to follow at times since she doesn’t have a lot of awareness and empathy (I mean, she’s a serial killer). But she does go on a journey of self-discovery through the course of the book.
As a rich sorority girl whose mother basically bought her way into her college, she comes from a place of incredible privilege while also being subject to toxic gender norms and predatory behaviours from the men around her. I thought that contrast was really intriguing and ripe for commentary. She notices early on after she begins murdering, “The cops were looking for somebody else, someone who didn’t wear pale pink sundresses and ballet flats.” At the same time, she has to be careful and must recognise her vulnerability at the frat houses and on night-time streets.
I also was really drawn to the transgressive element of such a stereotypically feminine character “going feral” as some reviewers have called it. Readers can think of Kill for Love as if Barbie went on a murder bender and killed all the Kens.
Hunger is a really strong theme throughout the novel, which I think is something many young women will feel an affinity towards. Why was this an important vice to accentuate for you in Tiffany?
There’s a lot of animal energy in Tiffany. So much of being a woman in her world is about deprivation, putting on a mask, following norms, saying you’re comfortable and satiated when you’re really anything but.
She’s secretly nothing like how she presents herself, but the facade cracks through the course of the book, and the first place it does so is with her hunger and her growing refusal to follow the regimented diet she and others have placed on her.
Many of our readers are budding writers themselves and curious about the many different roads that can be taken to getting published. Can you share a little about your journey to publication and your experiences in this process?
The road to publication was a long one, but in the end, I feel like things worked out as they were intended to. After completing the book, I began the process of querying agents for representation at the very end of 2019. Although I received initial interest, everything quickly halted in 2020 with the pandemic, and it was mentally taxing to keep chugging along with submissions.
Throughout, though, I continued to send the manuscript to both agents and contests. It was a wonderful surprise when I heard back from Book Pipeline. The novel was a finalist in their Unpublished Contest and went on to win grand prize for best thriller/mystery. They’ve been incredible and were the ones who introduced me to my agent, Nat Kimber, who is amazing. Then we went on submission.
Unnamed Press was a publisher that has always been on my radar, and I knew they’d be a great fit for the sensibilities of the book.
Who have been some of the biggest influences on your writing - tell us a bit about who’s on your bookshelves that we should be reading?
I have so many literary influences - and who I’m reading at any given moment really depends on the project. For Kill for Love, Bret Easton Ellis was of course an influence, as well as Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl and Alissa Nutting’s Tampa, which both came out right before I started the novel.
As for classics, Joan Didion has been such a huge touchpoint, along with Patricia Highsmith and Dorothy Hughes (add In a Lonely Place to your shelf, if you haven’t read it!).
For new book recs, I absolutely devoured Mona Awad’s new release Rouge. It’s mesmerising. Other books that I loved and that capture a similar sensibility and tone to Kill for Love are Oyinkan Braithwaite’s My Sister, the Serial Killer, Julia May Jonas’s Vladimir and Ruth Madievsky’s All-Night Pharmacy.
Another question I like to ask is about creative practice and process. What does creativity mean to you, and do you have any particular creative philosophies that lead your work as a writer?
Creativity is something that’s deeply personal and different for everyone. I’m always in awe of the vast ways we show creativity: through music, food, and even our daily jobs.
My creative philosophy as a writer is just to absorb and observe as much around me as I can: reading is huge, but I include any form of storytelling, whether it be movies, film, video, art and watching the world around me.
And lastly, what’s next for you? Are you working on anything you can tell us about, and where might readers be able to find more of your work?
I’m currently writing a collection of interconnected stories set in an increasingly near future of climate change that tracks a female android workforce and their subsequent uprising.
The project (working title Synthetic Girls) blends literary, sci fi, horror and thriller genres. The first batch of these stories has or will appear in the Kenyon Review, Rougarou Journal and Arkansas International. I’ve also started outlining a sequel to Kill for Love.
Laura Picklesimer is the author of the debut novel Kill for Love by Unnamed Press. The book was the winner of the Launch Pad Prose Competition Top Book Prize and the Book Pipeline Grand Prize for Best Thriller/Mystery. Laura’s writing has appeared or is forthcoming in the Kenyon Review, Electric Literature, Arkansas International, and the Santa Ana River Review, among other publications. She holds a B.A. in Creative Writing from UCLA and an MFA in Fiction from Cal State Long Beach. She lives in Pasadena, CA.
Website: storywellproductions.com/laura-picklesimer
Follow the book on Instagram: @killforlovethebook
Elaine Chennatt is a writer, educator and psychology student currently residing in nipaluna. She has a special interest in bibliotherapy (how we use literature to make sense of our lives) and is endlessly curious about the creative philosophies of others. She lives with her husband and two bossy dachshunds on the not-so-sunny side of the river (IYKYK). Find her online at wordswithelaine.com.
