Louise Marburg started writing a short story that turned into a novel, her first. Photo courtesy of Louise Marburg

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Award-winning short story writer Louise Marburg was born and raised in Baltimore. Although she moved away after college, she returns to the city in her first novel, which was published in June.

“It was fun to set it in Baltimore and revisit the neighborhoods — Roland Park and Guilford and Towson and Timonium, Fells Point,” said Marburg, 65, who grew up in Roland Park.

In the novel, Fancy Meeting You, the main character, a middle-aged woman, spends a lot of time in a dive bar called the Chicken Box.

Marburg says she modeled the bar after a real one on Cold Spring Lane in Baltimore, where her father used to stop to get cigarettes.

“I think it’s been there since the ‘50s. I’d be in the car watching him go in,” said Marburg.

The book’s saucy protagonist, Laura Harrigan, who turns 50 in the first chapter and 51 in the last chapter, is no saint.

“She is a drunk, a liar, kind of slutty and she’s a lot of fun. It’s a comedy,” Marburg explained.

Marburg said humor plays a big part in her novel and the short stories she has published. “Dark and funny is my thing,” she said.

Roland Park childhood

Marburg grew up on St. Georges Road, off Roland Avenue, and has fond memories of her old neighborhood.

“I lived on a street with a whole bunch of kids my age, so some of my oldest friends are from there,” Marburg said.

Her husband, the artist Charles Marburg, also grew up in Baltimore. The couple has lived in New York City since 1978.

Growing up, Marburg was always interested in art. She studied design at the Kansas City Art Institute before moving to New York City, where she worked as a magazine designer and an art director.

“The now-defunct Business Week was the last magazine I worked for and was my favorite,” Marburg recalled.

A new path

But Marburg was also what she describes as “a voracious reader,” and reading a book of short stories while on vacation in Rhode Island changed her path.

When the electricity went out at the hotel where she was staying, Marburg found an Alice Munro collection of short stories called The Moons of Jupiter on the bookcase.

“I read it and I thought, ‘Oh, that’s what I’m meant to be doing,’ so then I went to Columbia for my writing MFA [master of fine arts]. And the rest was history,” Marburg said.

Since then, Marburg has published three short story collections: The Truth About Me, No Diving Allowed and You Have Reached Your Destination. She received several awards for them, including the 2019 W.S. Porter Prize for Short Story Collections for No Diving Allowed.

Marburg spends much of her time reading and writing short stories. “I just love the artistry of stories, [which] are somewhere between poems and novels.”

She doesn’t have a strict, daily writing schedule; instead, she writes whenever she feels inspired, usually on an iPad.

“I have hyperfocus, and I really could write in the middle of the street. I just write when I feel like it,” she said. She estimates she writes one story a month.

Marburg says she never planned to write a novel.

“I wrote a story, and I thought, ‘I love this character. I can’t let go of this character.’ So I wrote another story and then another, and then a chapter and a chapter and you know, by mistake, my God, I’m writing a novel,” said Marburg, who’s now working on a second novel.

That kind of transformation can happen when you’re writing, she said — if you’re lucky. “[You] start writing one thing, and suddenly it turns into something else. That’s the beauty of writing — the magic of it, really.”

For a full list of Louise Marburg’s books, visit louisemarburg.com.