Bookpleasures.com welcomes
as our guest author and ghostwriter Lisa Dickey who has helped write
seventeen published nonfiction books, including eight New York Times
bestsellers. Dickey began her career in St. Petersburg, Russia,
writing articles for The Moscow Times and USA Today.
She is an accomplished storyteller, appearing at live events such as
the Moth Grand Slam. Lisa has just published Bears In The
Streets: Three Journeys Across a Changing Russia.

Norm: Good day Lisa and
thanks for participating in our interview.

How
did you get started in writing? What keeps you going? As a follow
up, how long did it take you to get your first major book contract
and what was the book about?

Lisa:
I’d always wanted to be a writer, but wasn’t sure how to start.
In my twenties, I had a series of admin assistant jobs in Washington,
DC and was bored to death, so in 1994, at age 26, I decided to move
to Russia and start trying to write freelance stories.

I’d
studied Russian in college, and lived in Moscow for seven months in
the late 1980s, so this wasn’t completely insane. But it was close.

I wrote
freelance feature articles for a while, then returned to DC, where a
friend who received a contract with Random House asked me to help
write her book.

That
book led to another, and soon I had a thriving career as a
ghostwriter and collaborator. I always wanted to do my own book, but
it took twenty years to finally hit on something that I wanted to
write—and could sell to a publisher. That’s
Bears in the Streets, which just came
out in January.

Norm:
What has been your greatest challenge (professionally) that you’ve
overcome in getting to where you’re at today?

Lisa:
My greatest challenge was finally transitioning from writing other
people’s books to writing my own. I had some fantastic clients and
amazing experiences being a collaborator—and it also paid well—so
it was easy to just keep taking those jobs.

Norm:
Many people have the skills and drive to write a book, but failure to
market and sell the book the right way is probably what keep a lot of
people from finding success. Can you give us 2-3 strategies that have
been effective for you in promoting your books?

Lisa:
The best advice I can give is: Don’t be shy. Call people who might
have useful media contacts for you. Take people to coffee and pick
their brains. Don’t be afraid to ask your friends, colleagues and
even acquaintances for help, because so much of the promotion game
depends on connections.

Norm:
In your opinion, what is the most difficult part of the writing
process?

Lisa:
When I first started writing for a living, my house was never
cleaner. This is because I’d no sooner sit down at the computer
than suddenly I’d think, “I should really get some laundry done,”
or “The kitchen’s kind of a mess.” You have to keep yourself
from succumbing to distractions that feel important but are really
just an excuse not to focus.

Norm:
What advice can you give aspiring writers that you wished you had
received, or that you wished you would have listened to?

Lisa: I
wish I’d realized how important it is not to take “no” for an
answer. And the corollary would be: to realize that if an editor says
“no” to your work, it doesn’t necessarily mean your work isn’t
good or worthy of being published.

I mean,
look at J.K. Rowling’s experience: her first Harry Potter book got
turned down by dozens of publishing houses. She could have given up,
but she didn’t. If you believe in your book, stick with it.
Perseverance pays off.

Norm:
What is the most important thing that people don't know about your
the subject of your book, Bears In The
Streets: Three Journeys Across a Changing Russia that
they need to know?

Lisa: Many Americans have
a preconception that Russian people are cold and unfriendly, but
nothing could be further from the truth. While it’s true that
they’re not particularly friendly to strangers, they are
unbelievably warm, welcoming and generous to anyone who they have
even a sliver of a connection to.

Norm: What motivated
you to write the book and what purpose do you
believe your story serves? What matters to you about the book?

Lisa:
I wanted to show the human side of the Russian people. The only two
things Americans talk about when we talk about Russia are 1. Putin
and 2. Putin. There are 140-plus million other Russians, and it
behoves us to get an idea of who they are, what motivates them, what
matters to them. By interviewing the same people over a 20-year
period, I wanted to give a deeper and more nuanced view of who the
Russian people are.

Norm:
Will you share a little bit about your book
with us?

Lisa:
In 1995, I traveled across the whole of Russia with an American
photographer named Gary Matoso. We started in Vladivostok and made
our way west, stopping in 11 cities along the way, with the goal of
painting a portrait—in words and pictures—of how the Russian were
living four years after the collapse of the USSR.

We
talked to some fascinating people, from a farmer, to a group of gay
friends, to the research scientists of Lake Baikal, to a rap star,
and many more. It felt like a once-in-a-lifetime trip.

Ten
years later, in 2005, I decided it would be fun to do that
once-in-a-lifetime trip a second time. Gary couldn’t come, so I
brought along another photographer, David Hillegas, and he and I did
the whole journey over again. I was able to track down almost
everyone we’d profiled in 1995, and I blogged about it for eleven
weeks on Washingtonpost.com.

Ten
years after that, in 2015, I did the whole trip a third time—this
time alone. It was amazing to see all these same people again, to
find out how their lives had changed. And Russia itself had changed
dramatically in those two decades, socially, economically and
otherwise. Bears in the Streets
is my account of those three trips, the people I interviewed, and the
changes I witnessed.

Norm:
Why did you entitle your book Bears In
The Streets: Three Journeys Across a Changing Russia?

Lisa:
On the second day of my 2015 trip, a Russian woman said to me, “You
Americans all think we just have bears wandering in the streets
here.” I laughed but didn’t think much about it—until a week
later, in another city, someone else said the same exact thing. And
then it happened again… and again… and again. Six times in six
different cities, Russians said this to me.

So…
why do Russians think Americans think this? That’s one of the
themes I explore in the book. Essentially, they believe we don’t
respect post-Soviet Russia as a powerful nation in its own right.

Norm:
As a traveler and fact/story-gatherer, what was your biggest
challenge on the road with your book?

Lisa:
One of the big challenges for me was trying to capture conversations
and events as they happened, without carrying around a recorder or
taking simultaneous notes. I wanted people to feel comfortable, and
for events to unfold naturally—not for them to feel like I was a
reporter, even though they all knew I was gathering material for a
book.

So at
some point each day, I’d hurry to make notes on my phone or
computer, putting down everything I could remember from
conversations. Sometimes I wished I could just record everything, but
I think it would have changed the dynamic too much.

Norm:
What was one of the most surprising things you learned in writing
Bears In The Streets: Three Journeys
Across a Changing Russia?

Lisa:
Well, I’ve written (or helped write) so many other books that
nothing surprised me all that much. But I will say that it was
eye-opening to finally be writing in my own voice instead of someone
else’s. It took a little while to get comfortable doing that, but
once I did I really enjoyed it.

Norm:
Are you working on any books/projects that you would like to share
with us? (We would love to hear all about them!)

Lisa:
I love the notion of revisiting people after long periods of time, as
I did in Bears in the Streets,
so I’m kicking around another idea that revolves around that theme.
It would explore the question of whether the close relationships we
develop early in life can be sustained over many years—even when we
haven’t been in regular touch with those people.

Norm:
Where can our readers find out more about you and Bears
In The Streets: Three Journeys Across a Changing Russia?