Suzie Plakson has been in love with faerie tale and myth ever since she was a young lass growing up in the wilds of suburbia.  The idea for The Return of King Lillian first came to her when she was a struggling actor in New York City, doing odd jobs, improv comedy, and various off-off-Broadway plays. She eventually landed a lead in a national tour which dropped her off in Hollywood, and since that time she has appeared in such films and TV shows as Mad About You, Love and War, Wag the Dog, Dinosaurs, Everybody Loves Raymond, How I Met Your Mother, and Star Trek. She has also worked as a voiceover artist, written short stories and poetry, written and recorded an alternative country album, created an allegorical solo show, and produced sculptures large and small in her otherwise unused oven. The Return of King Lillian is her debut novel.

THE BACKSTORY

The idea for The Return of King Lillian first came to me when I was a struggling actor in New York City, doing odd jobs, improv comedy, and appearing in various off-off-Broadway theatre fiascos.

I had this dream in which I saw a red-headed woman in white poet-sleeves, a scarlet velvet cape and a purple Musketeers-type hat galloping off and away on a huge, powerful chestnut horse, riding up a wide dirt road and disappearing under a canopy of gigantic trees.  I tell you, the colors of this dreamworld were straight out of a Maxfield Parrish painting – so saturated, so glowing, so vibrant they took my breath away!  That vision imprinted itself upon my psyche forevermore. 

So, every once in a great while I’d see this same character and this same lush, gorgeous world in another flash-dream. Those dream images felt so absolutely real, so vibrating with life, that they just harpooned my heart.  There was nothing for it but to find a way to bring that world into this one.I began to take notes, to play, to invent, to write scenes and snippets of dialogue, to dream up more characters, and the more I wrote the bigger the thing grew. I kept trying to corral all of it into what it most wanted to be, but it was too overwhelming. It felt as if I’d bitten into a cookie that had morphed into a continent.

So, there I was, waddling about, massively pregnant with this Whirld inside of me, still unable to bring it into reality, try, try as I might.  I mean, I’d written songs and scenes and skits and such, but never a novel or a screenplay, for pity’s sake! I shook my fist at the heavens for so obviously picking the wrong person for the job.

One day, I stumbled across this quote by Mark Twain:

“There are some books that refuse to be written. They stand their ground year after year and will not be persuaded. It isn’t because the book is not there and worth being written – it is only because the right form for the story does not present itself. There is only one right form for a story and if you fail to find that form the story will not tell itself. You may try a dozen wrong forms but in each case you will not get very far before you discover that you have not found the right one – then that story will always stop and decline to go any further.”

These words brought me such comfort and hope, especially coming from him. 

Well, the decades flew by (as decades will, though you never expect them to) and the story of King Lillian refused to leave me in peace. Over and over I’d return to it, add to it, play with it, searching for that “right form,” but it always proved elusive.

Enter Kristin Overn, a dear old college buddy of mine from Northwestern University.  By the time we ran into each other in Los Angeles, she had become an accomplished producer, writer and director, a script consultant for Hollywood producers and production companies, and the founder and executive director of the PAGE International Screenwriting Awards, one of the world’s most prestigious screenwriting competitions. 

Well, we found out that we lived literally five minutes away from each other (which if you know Los Angeles is, in itself, a miracle), and by this and that turn of events she ended up directing a music video of mine, during which we had an absolutely fabulous time working together. 

So, immediately after we wrapped – and by that time keenly aware of her formidable skill set – I began to whine loudly and relentlessly in her direction that I was in desperate need of an expert story-midwife to get this sprawling King Lillian thing birthed already, but she always had way too much on her plate to even look sideways at such a task.

Then, one fine day, two beloved projects of hers hit the skids and she asked to see King Lillian. (Yes, sometimes in life, when you hear the sound of a door closing you may well also hear the sound of a window opening.) I, of course, like a happy puppy, presented her with all the ideas and the stories and the scenes and the characters and the style and the whole haunting, vivid vision of this King Lillian creature that I’d been gestating all those years. 

And that’s how the journey began that brought forth The Return of King Lillian.

I do hope it brings you joy.