It’s time again for our monthly Author Roundup Interview, where we ask our authors with books out this month to have fun answering a question designed to tell us something we didn’t know about their book’s protagonist.

This month we spoke with L.T. Smith, author of Driving Me Mad and Blythe Rippon, author of Stowe Away. The question we asked was: If your protagonist could meet any personage from history, who would she meet and what would she do upon meeting them? 

L.T.’s and Blythe’s answers were creative, quirky, and even a little bit funny. Read on to find out what they had to say:

L.T. Smith, author of Driving Me Mad

One historical personage I believe Rebecca Gibson (my protagonist from Driving Me Mad) would love to meet would be someone like one of the Brontes. I could lie and say it is because she is an avid fan of their work, but that would not be the case.  Yes. There is reference to Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights in the story, and yes, again, certain ideas – ghosts in particular – are clear throughout. But, this is not the reason my protagonist would like to meet with one of them.

Rebecca would not want to sit and chat about things that go bump in the night, whether it be from the attic above or the from outside the window.  She’s had enough of mysteries ranging sixty years, enough of the gothic darkness, enough of ending up battered, bruised and completely confused.

So, why choose the Brontes if not to get inside their fantastic literary brains? Simple.  Rebecca is a business woman.  Her job is to sell stationery – good, quality stationery.   Most people are aware of the little notebooks the Brontes made as children. Hand stitched and containing stories, songs, drawings and even maps (Rebecca could do with one of these in the novel).  Imagine if Ms. Gibson could have cut the family a deal for buying notebooks in bulk? Would this have caused a writing explosion from the talented siblings? Would we have had more literary gems on our bookshelves thanks to the innovation of one sassy business woman who loves to get her sale?

Who knows? But I would have loved to have seen Charlotte’s face when Rebecca effed and jeffed for the first time.  Now THAT would be ‘classic’ literature.

Blythe Rippon, author of Stowe Away 

If the protagonist of Stowe Away, Sam Latham, could meet anyone in history, she’d meet Marie Curie. Sam’s both a feminist and a scientist, and meeting the embodiment of feminist scientist might just make her head explode.

If she can get past her awe and do more than stammer about how impressive Curie is to have accomplished what she did an a world even more patriarchal than today, Sam would sit down with her to talk about where we stand on a cure for cancer. She would update Curie on how radiation is being used to treat cancer, and engage in an epic brainstorming session about new research methods.

And when she got home that night, she’d probably pinch herself a lot, before getting started on applying Curie’s ideas.