Episode 127

Explore One Writer’s Fascinating Journey From Legal Eagle to Literary Fiction -127

In this episode of Author Express, host Kristi Leonard sits down with Croatian novelist and certified book coach Lidija Hilje for a rich conversation filled with unique insights. Discover what makes Croatia’s laid-back “pomalo” lifestyle so memorable, and get a glimpse of how Lidija’s coastal upbringing shaped her creative voice. Lidija shares the intriguing premise of her literary novel, inviting listeners to explore themes of longing, complicated relationships, and the nuanced lines between personal preference and craft in fiction. Plus, get a sneak peek into her innovative craft-focused book club that’s become a haven for nearly a hundred writers.

If you’re passionate about literary fiction, book coaching, and understanding a writer’s journey from courtroom to the written page, this episode is a must-listen.

Lidija Hilje is a Croatian writer and certified book coach. After earning a law degree, she spent a decade practicing in Croatian courts before transitioning to book coaching and writing in English as her second language. She lives in Zadar, Croatia, with her husband and two daughters. Slanting Towards the Sea is her first novel.

You can connect with her at https://lidijahilje.com or on Instagram @lidijahilje.

Support your local bookstore & this podcast by getting your copy of Slanting Towards the Sea  at Bookshop.org

A little about today's host-

Kristi Leonard is a modern Renaissance woman deeply rooted in the book world. When she's not immersed in crafting novels, she's orchestrating writing retreats through her business, Writers in the Wild, or lending her voice to non-fiction audiobooks. She leads the Women’s Fiction Writers Association as the president of the board, and interviews her writer pals as one of the hosts of the Author Express Podcast. She will start querying her first book in 2024.

Beyond the realm of words, Kristi embraces the Florida sunshine by hiking with her writer-hiker group and leisurely walks on the beach. She and her husband juggle a couple side businesses and take turns sharing the couch with their goofy Golden-doodle, Maddie. Kristi enjoys travel adventures with her twin sister and living vicariously through her grown children. You can learn more about her and connect at: https://linktr.ee/kristileonard.

Be sure to follow or subscribe to Author Express wherever you listen to podcasts and to follow us on Instagram @AuthorExpressPodcast

Learn more about our hosts, the guests we've had, and their books -

https://linktr.ee/AuthorExpressPodcast

Transcript

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Kristi Leonard [:

Welcome to Author Express. Thanks for checking us out. This is the podcast where you give us 15 minutes of your time and we give you a chance to hear the voice behind the pages and get to know some of your favorite writers in a new light. I'm one of your hosts, Kristi Leonard, owner and host of Writers in the Wild Retreats, nonfiction voiceover artist and president of WFWA.

Kristi Leonard [:

I'm excited to share with you a little about today's guest.

Kristi Leonard [:

I am thrilled to welcome Lidija Hilje, Croatian novelist, certified book coach, and former courtroom attorney. After 10 years arguing cases, she traded legal briefs for literary ones and now crafts her fiction and guides other writers entirely in English, her second language. Her essays have appeared in the New York Times, and she runs a craft focused book Club that's nearly 100 writer strong. Welcome, Lidija.

Lidija Hilje [:

Thank you so much for having me. It's lovely to be here.

Kristi Leonard [:

Oh, my gosh. I think I've known you the entire time you've been writing this book.

Lidija Hilje [:

Yes, yes, I think that's. I think that's correct. Yeah.

Kristi Leonard [:

Well, and you even helped me with my book a little bit right at the beginning. Just. I didn't hire you, but I used a little of, you know, your knowledge.

====

Lidija Hilje [:

We did a little bit of a sneak peek of the, you know, like the mini blueprint thing. Yeah, I remember that now.

Kristi Leonard [:

It's totally different, but I'm about to go out on submission. I hope so. Cross your fingers.

Lidija Hilje [:

I'm crossing fingers for you. Yeah.

Kristi Leonard [:

At the top, we had the introduction and it said Croatian. So everybody can probably tell by your accent that you are from Croatia. And we always ask this question. Tell me the most interesting thing about where you're from.

Lidija Hilje [:

It's a really hard question because I think there's a lot of things that I could say. I think one of the most interesting things is that the mentality here is very laid back. I don't think that most Americans would expect that to be, you know, the way it is. So, for instance, when we go out for coffee, which is often every day, sometimes two or three times a day, we take coffee for a very long time. So our coffees come in small cups, but we take at least one, one and a half hour to drink them. So when Americans come here and they, you know, first they're shocked by seeing, like, how small our coffees are, like small espresso demitasses, you know, or. Or like small mugs. And then they will shoot up the.

Lidija Hilje [:

The espresso and, like, we're done. And it's like, no, no, no, no. Like, wait for an hour and a half or. Or something like that.

Kristi Leonard [:

So, yes, it's not a problem for the Croatians.

Lidija Hilje [:

No, we drink a lot of coffee and we have a really laid back lifestyle. We have this word that can be translated as taking it easy. Or in Croatian, it's "pomalo", which really kind of describes the lifestyle here, which is, you know, whenever you're in rush, someone will tell you, pomalo, pomalo, you know, and people keep slowing you down. So it's an interesting thing, I think, to experience for the outsiders.

Kristi Leonard [:

Oh, my God. So is that generally over Croatia or just the part of Croatia where you're from because you're by the sea? I tend to think, yeah, I'm in America. We tend to think of like by the ocean, like beach bum, kind of laid back. So is that like Croatia, all of Croatia, or just where you are?

Lidija Hilje [:

I think a part of that mentality is, you know, present throughout Croatia, although it's mostly like. Like the core of it is here in Dalmatia, which is the coastal part of Croatia where I'm from. The south of our coast here, it's really like, you know, these parts of Croatia were under Italy for a long time as well. So, you know, so we do have a lot of similarities in food and in mentality with Italians. So, yeah, it's really laid back, but I think to an extent, it applies to the entirety of Croatia.

Kristi Leonard [:

Okay, awesome. Well, I also live by the ocean and I am curious. So we like to try to get to know you as a person. So you were born where you are, so you, like, grew up. You grew up on the coast. So my question to you, are you a beach person?

Lidija Hilje [:

Oh, yeah, most definitely. I mean, I'm a beach person in the way that my grandma had a house right next to the sea. It's now my mom inherited the house on a small island. So I grew, basically grew up in that house. Like there were, you know, all my summers were spent there. I lived there like for the better part of the war when it was unsafe to live in my hometown. So it's a house where you will go out the garden door and you're on the beach. So it's like more easier to, you know, to go, you know, wash your face in sea than like go to the bathroom.

Lidija Hilje [:

So it's just like, it's a very special place to me. And I'm spoiled in the way that I'm. It's tough for me to go to the beaches where tourists are. Because I'm used to this, this beach that's like basically almost like a private beach for our family. Yeah. So. And people we know and people from the village, but yeah, definitely a beach person.

Kristi Leonard [:

That's a lot. Having read your book, I can totally see that in your book. I would have pro that you were, but you know, I just thought I'd ask.

Lidija Hilje [:

You can see from the cover of my book that it's a, it's a thing.

Kristi Leonard [:

Yes, big time. So let's dive into the book. We challenge our guests to do the impossible and tell us about your book in one sentence. Hard to do.

Lidija Hilje [:

That's a really tough challenge. But I'll try. I'll do my best. So a 38 year old woman clings to the remnants of a past love while quietly battling the suffocating limits of life in post transition Croatia. But when the prospect of a new relationship upends the fragile peace she shares with her ex-husband and his wife, she's forced to confront the gap between the life she wants and the life she has.

Kristi Leonard [:

Ooh, okay. I'm sitting with you.

Lidija Hilje [:

I really worked at it.

Kristi Leonard [:

You did it. You did it. Wow. Yeah. This book is so interesting to me because it could have gone. So the whole idea of like a woman in the life of like being the godmother of one of the children of her ex husband and how that could have been so dramatic and. Well, first of all, this is a literary, we should say this is a literary novel. It is beautifully, beautifully written.

Kristi Leonard [:

So thank you. It's a quiet novel, it's introspective, it's, it's just beautiful. But when you think about, when you listen to the description of the book and you, you hear about this, you're like, that could be like on a TV show. Like it could be really. Yeah. Like, how did you balance all that? Like, you have tension, you have tenderness, like you're rooting for everybody. So how, how did you do that and how did you even come up with this idea? This is like brilliant. It's so unique.

Lidija Hilje [:

Oh, thank you so much. Because I, I never thought about, about it that way, but I started with this like character that's longing for her ex husband. That, that was the scene that came to me. Basically the first scene that I wrote in this book came to me as it is. Like it just poured out on me onto the paper. And this was what I had to work with, like developing the story further. And so I knew she was in contact with this ex husband and that she did have Some sort of connection to him. Because quite honestly, like, nine years is a long time, too long for someone if you're not in contact with them.

Lidija Hilje [:

So I knew that them being together, like, spending time together, really needed to be there to feed her love of him and this longing. And so I put them in that situation. And then when I was writing one scene, it just came up, you know, that she was also the godmother of his daughter. And I was as shocked as you were. It was not something that I imagined up front. It just came up in the writing. It's an interesting dynamic. The thing that I played with is going against the grain, I guess, of the jealousy between her and the new wife.

Lidija Hilje [:

So the new wife and the protagonist are friends. And in many ways, you know, some readers are saying that that's actually one of the, you know, strongest relationships in the whole novel. And I do see it that way myself. So that was also interesting to me to see how that could have happened and also to plant that seed of curiosity for the readers to really, like, turn the pages and find out how that could have come about. Right.

Kristi Leonard [:

It's brilliant. It's really, really cool. I think any book that can surprise you when you start reading it and get, you know, get halfway through and be like, oh, you know, you think it's going one way, and, you know, this, like I said, it's a literary novel, but yet still there are these little surprises that, you know, keep you going, and it makes you turn pages and all the things.

Lidija Hilje [:

Thank you.

Kristi Leonard [:

Obviously, everybody needs to go out to read this book, but there is a whole lot more to you than just this book. And we, as we say, like to get to know the authors behind the book. So I want to talk about something that I happen to personally know about, because I am part of your book club, although I don't make it very often.

Lidija Hilje [:

Yeah, that's.

Kristi Leonard [:

I need to get better at doing that once I am no longer doing all the WFWA things that I do. But you have, like, a hundred people now. Like, that's crazy to me. So. So one of the things that I want you to explain to people is what is different about this book club than most books?

Lidija Hilje [:

So that's a really good question. The story behind how this book club came to be, which is now it's in June, it was five years since its inception, was actually by another author who, you know and hang out with, Sheila Athens. She was reading a book and she posted about it, and she was talking about that book with a client of hers, who was also, at the time, my critique partner. And so we met as this, like, small book club. And Sheila was actually a veteran book coach at the time. And I really loved the discussion because we really. It was the first book club that I ever. Book club, impromptu book club session that I ever went to that.

Lidija Hilje [:

That discussed the book from the writer's perspective. It was not about, you know, whether you liked what the character did or whether you, you know, like the character or where the book was, you know, heading. It was like, was it well executed? Where was it lacking? How did the, you know, author manage to thread different pieces of the, you know, of the plot or whatever? And so when that was done, I really. When I was reading my next book, I just invited people to join me. And people did, and then they kept coming, to much to my surprise. And it grew and it grew. And the only thing that I really, really lament is that as my book, you know, deal started and got off, I really couldn't do it monthly. So I'm doing it, like, every six weeks now until the, you know, the whole publishing part of my story settles down.

Lidija Hilje [:

But I love it so much because it really. It not only trains you to read as a writer and to learn craft that way, which is super effective. It also shows you something that I think writers sorely miss. It really shows you when 15 people or 20 people show up for any given discussion, you will always have people who love the book, who hated the book, and then the nitpickers. We kind of position ourselves in these different three groups, and it tells you, as a writer, exactly where the line is between personal preference versus a craft mistake. That's what I love the most about the book club. I learned so much about. Okay, this is a personal preference, and this is a craft mistake.

Lidija Hilje [:

Oh, so, yeah, that's interesting.

Kristi Leonard [:

Yeah, that's really excellent. Excellent. Do you think that this book club helped you do a better job in writing your own book?

Lidija Hilje [:

Absolutely. It taught me, I think, almost as much as my training for book coach. Like, it taught me a lot. Yeah. Especially in determining what literary fiction is and how it differs from genre fiction. Most of my members are as am I, you know, on a, you know, in the. In this spectrum of woman's fiction from anywhere from commercial to, you know, over upmarket toward literary. And so being in this book club and reading different books from this spectrum really taught us how each of these different categories is executed.

Kristi Leonard [:

That's amazing. We are actually at 15 minutes, if you can believe it, so. So don't Want to leave without knowing where to find you. I assume you have a website. Is that the best place to find you?

Lidija Hilje [:

Yes, I have a website, but I'm also on Instagram. And so you can find me. You can find me there as well. I will refrain from spelling my name. We spell it differently. Croatian. That. It's really hard for me.

Kristi Leonard [:

So people can find you.

Lidija Hilje [:

Absolutely.

Kristi Leonard [:

So then we always end with the same question. What book or story inspires you the most?

Lidija Hilje [:

Okay, so this is going to be a little bit of. A little bit controversial, maybe. It's not a fiction book. It's a memoir. The reason why it stayed with me is because I read it in the. In the phase of my life when I was deeply anxious and I was turning to books where people had gone through difficult things just to see, you know, how they overcame, like, impossible odds. And that made it feel, you know, grapple with my smaller ones. And there was this memoir that I read.

Lidija Hilje [:

I was still reading in Croatian then, and it's Immaculaee Ilibagiza's Left to Tell. And it's a story about this woman who survived the Rwandan genocide by hiding in a small bathroom with seven other women for three months and who. I got chills. And who ended up, you know, manifesting this job in UN In New York just by standing there in this. You know, it was such a small bathroom that they couldn't actually sit for three months. Imagine that. And then from then on, she forgave the perpetrators, and she went on to have this beautiful life. And I thought, like, it always stayed with me.

Lidija Hilje [:

I will never forget that story. Yeah, it's. It's like whatever I'm dealing in with life feels, like, super manageable since then. So that's my book.

Kristi Leonard [:

Wow. That is. That is a great one. I'm going to have to check that one out for sure. Well, it has been absolutely delightful chatting with you, and we are so excited for your book. Hopefully you will just continue to write great books and we'll have you back on the show.

Lidija Hilje [:

Thank you so much for having me. I would love to be here again with my new book when and if that happens.

Kristi Leonard [:

Thanks for joining us. We hope you take a second to give us stars or a review on your favorite podcasting platform. And we'll be here again next Wednesday. Follow us on Instagram at Author Express Podcast to see who's coming up next. Don't forget, keep it express, but keep it interesting.

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