Interview with Author Leslie K. Siegel

 

Leslie K. Siegel, my one reader or readers depending on the day will not know you. Tell them about yourself.

I have been know as the Blogger Queen since I've been on the net back in 1984 when I was the only blogger and was writing my books and doing my art and music. I've been writing true to life novels about my exciting life for over 30 years and have various journals and manuscripts to draw from, plus my family knew lots of famous celeb types and lived at an exclusive building in New York City called The UN Plaza. I love painting, writing, poetry, music, and crazy stories of true life. I have been writing many novels about my life: Living Life At The UN Plaza, Locked Universe County Jail, , Bullies of Caroltown, Karte-Blanche Kurse and other titles. I've also been in 3 Janis Joplin Tribute bands due to my resemblance to Janis Joplin. I have been keeping accurate journals since being a little kid and used to write lots of other people's term papers in school as well. I've been all over the world with a famous songwriter named Irving Gordon who wrote UNFORGETTABLE by Nat King Cole and he always told me that I write good fiction. I'm also a musician and have played many instruments, recorded original music, been in many bands and started many bands.

                        

Leslie, what one story do you wish everyone knew about you. That makes you. Well, you?

The times I went out of my way to meet actor David Carradine (Kung Fu series, Kill Bill). He was my hero since I was 11 years old and I had always wanted to meet him. I finally did and we got along so well. He liked me and that was not an easy thing for him. He either liked you or hated you. And how I met him is a story in itself that I wrote a novel about called CULT FIGURE IN MY MIND! It's my whole saga since I was 11 years old and wanted to meet him. I even started a cartoon series years before we met, and when I met him finally in 1988, it was just like the cartoon series I drew of it in 1981. I videotaped all of it, each meeting, followed him around his various homes and am starting a YOUTUBE channel and putting all that video up. I started my saga of meeting him when I turned 19 and was home from college. A friend of mine in L.A. said that if I wrote two term papers for him, he'd give me David Carradine's private phone number and take me to his house. I did the term papers, got the number and called there. It really was his house and I got friendly with his then wife Linda. I would call all the time until I told her I was coming out to CA. She wanted to meet me. We met and it was so exciting. But before we met, the year before, my friend took me to David's house and I knocked on the door and told them I was lost, could I use the phone. They l let me in but David was not there. I even used his bathroom and sat with his friends who were wondering who I was. Finally I left. Years later I finally met David at his own father's funeral. When they took his dad's body up to his house, they had a huge party and opened the coffin and took his dead father out and set him up on the couch with a pipe in his mouth and everyone said their goodbyes all drunk and crazy. I also got a chance to interview him and made sure all his favorite foods and drinks were on the table and he brought his then wife Gale Jensen and his mother Gayle McCool. I played guitar for him and he played for me. Then I went to a few parties at his home through those years. He liked me, you could tell in the video footage. It was so cool. No one ever thought I'd meet him, but I did. I have videos, audio and photos of us together.

                

Leslie, as an author and music director/producer what was the funnest job you did?

In 1984, it seemed I was the only one with a video camera in my neighborhood. I worked with my partner Jorge Diez who was a chemist with the Los Angeles Air Quality Control Department and we'd do these fabulous rock videos of my original songs. We went all over town and videotaped all the scenes and lip synced it and brought all footage to an editing place and got the video up and running. We did 3 videos:

1. David Carradine, I want to meet you!

2. Soon I'll Fly Back

3. Vermin in L.A.

Later I met musicians at the rehearsal hall we would practice in. I would ask them if they wanted me to do a rock video of their band. I would write the rock video of any song they wanted and we'd go shoot it. It was a blast, seeing as no one was really doing it non professionally. MTV was only 2 years old. I would videotape me playing in lots of bands doing my own music too. I did videos of the city, people and all sorts of fun stock footage. In fact, I started to be known as Video Lady to people. But doing the rock videos and then the other stuff I did, like Treasure Hunter of Valley Village video series, gave me such a kick. I had so much fun doing them. All of it funnelled into my other strong spots of writing, art, music and blogging. I was one of the first bloggers ever. I was doing the videos all over Los Angeles. People couldn't get how I got to do it. No one really did that back then. Now it's like nothing. But I was the innovator of it. With the videos I did, I was writing them, directing them and producing them. Even starring in them. Then editing them and duplicating them and putting them on something called back then ... An FTP Site. It was complicated to get it up on a website back then. Now it's a cinch.

As an author what would you recommend authors or writers to do?

This is how it is done. You think of what you want to write about, usually a real experience. You start by pretending you are writing a letter to someone and keep going until you have 100 pages of the story. Stay on target, but don't get caught up looking back until you reach 100 pages. Then go back and start to mold that story, add things and dialogue, etc. Don't let anyone read it or see it, or you lose momentum and just lose your joy, because most people will say it's not good or something to make you stop. Once you get the 100 pages, work with a title from that. Then, just when you are going to read it, you reverse everything so that what you wrote last comes up first. Then you start to add to the story, fit in things, etc. It starts to turn into a real book. Once you get started, keep going. Add whatever comes to mind. Don't waste time on spelling errors or fixing anything. When you are getting to the end of the book, then you go back and fix stuff. The best way to write is not to look back in the middle of writing. Keep going forward. That goes for anything creative. I used to do videos for all sorts of people and occasions, especially rock videos for unknown bands. You have to stick to what you wrote for them and make sure they don't take it away from you. And don't show anyone the video until you show the important friends who will be honest, not jealous of it. I made the mistake of showing my first video SOON I'LL FLY Back to my roommates at the time back in June of 1984 and they didn't appreciate it, and so for awhile I stopped because I felt I didn't have what it takes. You can tell the story in first person like writing in a diary. It works.

What have you been reading? What is your favorite book or series?

My favorite book series were Roseanne Bittner's historical romance novels that I gobbled up and learned from. Also love Danielle Steel's novels about the entertainment business. But my ever favorite that really got me writing was Erica Jong (Fear of Flying, Fear of Fifty, Parachutes and Kisses). She was fantastic. I used her format to write my books and it works. She wrote them in first person. That's the easiest way, although I have written many of my books in 3rd person so the audience reading could see what all characters were thinking.

                    

Leslie, can you talk about your future project with Netflix?

I wrote a wonderful novel called WHERE THE WOODS WERE, it's about two sisters in a big band during the 1940's. It's very historical and I use real people in the book. It was Donna & Gloria Wood who I wrote about, but I go back in time and meet them, their family and friends and the book is half in the present and half in the past and ends in the past. In the book I wake up after hitting my head and I'm in the 1940s. I meet this family called The St. Johns. I meet their son Brad St. John and we fall in love in the past. The reader sees the past and present throughout the book. It's a really well written book and sells online nicely. I have a Facebook pal who works with Netflix and asked if I'd ever consider turning the book into an animated story, so I began to do that. I met with the person on the lot of Netflixs here in Albuquerque, New Mexico where I live. She loved it and we began to entertain the idea of doing it. I went on Facebook and picked 12 actors that would like to do a podcast version of chapters from Where The Woods Were and was going strong. Met with Netflix again and they liked the idea of the podcast. They gave me a "deal memo" and are interested, then the virus hit and everhone scattered. They are all still my Facebook friends, but waiting. Time has flown by and now I have to think about re energizing it again. I still have all the actors who were going to do it. We were rehearsing everyday and just about the time I was going to record episodes and such, the virus hit. So all is on hold. The book is real. The people in the book are real people that really existed, some famous. My present is real, with real people who were in my life. So I'm waiting for things to calm down and try again. Wish me luck. I'll keep you posted.

 Leslie K Siegel appearance on Inside Edition with Lara Spencer. Ms. Spencer is now on God Morning America anchor.

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=3984717654875154&id=100000108758022

                     

What has made you happy in this life?

That I have this energy and creativity that has stuck with me all my life. I am easily able to put stuff together. What makes me happy in this life is the people I've met and hung out with, written about and joked around with, especially David Carradine and other celebs of the Seventies. I have fond memories of living at the UN PLAZA in NYC on the 23rd floor. So many famous folks lived there in the Seventies. Truman Capote said I had dirty toenails, Robert F. Kennedy said he had a bet going and wondering if I was a boy or a girl, the nanny of Anderson Cooper (news guy on CNN) thought for years I was a boy named Bobby but my dad made me knock on Anderson Cooper's door (he was just 5) and tell that Nanny that I was not a boy. I did and got to meet Gloria Vanderbilt who thought the whole thing was hilarious. The next day the nanny saw me and came up to me and said, "HELLO LESLIE!" LOL. So what's made me happy is actually meeting famous people that liked me and joked with me. I wrote stories and books and did videos on it all. It makes me happy to be able to read back or see an old interview of me talking about it. It makes me happy that I've had the luck to be able to be on many movie sets and have been in many movies. One that made me very happy was ROBIN HOOD MEN IN TIGHTS where I was the featured serving wench and Mel Brooks was doing the movie and took a liking to me. He let me hang with him and I got to watch the "rushes" with him and he wrote a little scene just for me in the movie. I became friends with David Chappelle (comedy guy) who was playing one of the Merry Men in the movie, and I met all the cast and everyone thought I was starring in the movie. Even Amy Yasback who played Maid Marion commented that I should have a bigger role and I had bigger breasts than her and nicer curly hair than her. I love to make people go "WOW, that was cool, how did you get that?"

What are you writing about now? Along with what is your dream project or who you would like to work with?

I'm working on re tooling WHERE THE WOODS WERE to make it more easy to do on podcasts and retooling a lot of the chapters in the book and adding other characters like Josh White, who was a black guitar playing singer of folk music in the 30's, 40's and 50's. I am in touch with his grandson Josh White III and he wants to do the monologue on his own grandfather that I wrote. He thinks it is fantastic and wants to do it when the time is right. He was fascinated with how I knew so much, but my mother was an oprea singer and concert pianist and toured all over the world with Josh White, Eartha Kitt and her and even met FDR and his wife Elenore Roosevelt. I have also been writing in a new diary based on the virus and how it has effected me and my family and husband. As for the dream project, I would love to work with new actors to make WHERE THE WOODS WERE better and I can get a lot of celebs interested. Especially if I tack on the Josh White chapter I wrote last year.

LIVING LIFE AT THE UN PLAZA: is a true story of my life as a child at the UN Plaza apartment building where there were celebs and all sorts of things going on there. It shows my meetings with Truman Capote, Robert F. Kennedy, Johnny Carson and many more celeb types. It tells of my life living there and how privileged we were to be there. http://asphodelband.blogspot.com/

LOCKED UNIVERSE COUNTY JAIL is a real story about a woman that meets the love of her life and all the drama it caused for her and him. I call it "STAR CROSSED LOVE GONE BAD" Very interesting look inside being in the County Jail and how the woman beats the rap and meets another guy that saves her. All true. http://lockeduniversecountyjail.blogspot.com/

BULLIES OF CAROLTOWN - A PRIVATE NOVEL is about all the bullying I received during my lifetime as a child, a kid and a grown woman. It starts with my family, then goes into the bullying and why there was bullying done on me. In 1977 my own mother was interviewed for the town paper of our town Barrington RI, and she called the town "A bunch of Stepford Wives!" It caused such a stir that people were driving on our lawn, braking windows, raising hell on our lawn and throwing rocks at the house and bashing in our mailbox. It caused all the newspapers and news outlets to put out articles on it and ended with LENORE SIEGEL VS. THE TOWN OF BARRINGTON. My father made us all wear white and fwe sat in the front row. We were getting death threats and in the auditorium at the school a man got up to speak and my dad wrote a note on the back of a business card and passed it to each of it, and it read: "That's the man who has been calling in death threats to our house, that's Dr. Matthews!!!!" Finally, after almost 2 years of hell with that, my dad committed suicide and the bullying stopped.

Site for books: site

SITE WHERE THE BOOKS ARE SOLD IN HARDCOVER: Lulu Press in my publisher. I've made a lot of money with these. https://www.lulu.com/spotlight/LeslieSiegelNovels

HOW TO GET WHATEVER YOU WANT BY USING YOUR FORESIGHT MUSIC: Wrote it with a famous reality star named Jonathan Baker who was on Amazing Race and slapped his wife, which made them go from 1st place to last place. He was on a bunch of them and did well, but was a hot head. He and I wrote the book together, but it's not on my site anymore. We had a falling out. But the book is very interesting and gives you things you can do to make your dreams come true. One was to take your tongue and place it on a designated tooth and think of the most wonderful thing you love and say "I am a success, I am going to make it, I am going to be great!" It works.

The classic question is what is your charity and please talk about it along with sharing a link to the charity.

I do not have a charity at this time. But if I did, it would be Genetic Genes of Cancer. I carry a cancer gene that has killed a lot of my family. Had to get a full mastectomy and hysterectomy to NOT get cancer and so far, after 11 years, NO CANCER. I was one of the first women to get that operation back in 2009.

"LOCKED UNIVERSE COUNTY JAIL" NOVEL ABOUT STAR-CROSSED LOVE GONE BAD!!! LOCKED UNIVERSE COUNTY JAIL is about star crossed love gone bad, a tragic romance between a doctor's son and his first lover, a hippie girl neighbor up the street from him. Albert was a mama's boy, quiet & reserved, a virgin. They met, not knowing it would send them spiraling on a sexual... lockeduniversecountyjail.blogspot.com THIS DIDN'T SEND, but rest did. You will have to cut and paste some of this. But it should all go in. Thanks...Take off the numbers and then it will be easier to insert in blog interview.

"LIVING LIFE AT THE UN PLAZA" LIFE AT THE "UNITED NATIONS PLAZA" BY LESLIE SIEGEL! UNITED NATIONS PLAZA "LIVING LIFE AT THE UN PLAZA" NOVELIST LESLIE SIEGEL WROTE LIVING LIFE AT THE UN PLAZA ABOUT LIFE AT THE UNITED NATIONS PLAZA APARTMENTS WHERE HER FAMILY LIVED IN NYC DURING THE 60's & 70's! LESLIE SIEGEL WRITES HEAVILY ABOUT THE UN PLAZA & THE MANY CHI.