For many authors, writing is a lifelong love affair. Author and recent Newburgh transplant Elizabeth Crane is no different. “I started writing when I was around eight,” she recalls. “I was an avid reader, and I’ve been writing ever since.”

Crane — who was born in Binghamton, spent her childhood on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, and moved to Newburgh in 2014 —  holds that fiction has always been the genre most suited to her. And with five published works of fiction under her belt (three short story collections and two novels) she certainly has found success with the form.

Though she’s a veteran of the publishing world now, she still vividly remembers the moment she broke into the business when her first story was accepted by a literary magazine in 2000. “You know it was one of those unforgettable moments,” she remembers. “I’d been submitting stories pretty diligently for a year or so and getting numerous rejections — though many were kind — and [the one to accept me] actually called me on the phone.”

Another great memory is the first time she saw her work on the shelves of a bookstore. “I went to Borders the to buy a copy. It was exciting,” she says. “You want to turn around and say ‘Hey, everyone, look, that’s me!’ When I went to the counter and handed them my credit card and they didn’t connect the name on the card to the book. Ha!”

Crane’s latest novel, The History of Great Things, hit shelves in April. The story features a mother-daughter relationship and who each woman becomes over the course of her life. So far it has been well received by readers, and it even garnered a starred review from Booklist. Though one of the principal characters is a writer named Elizabeth, Crane swears that “the autobiography ends with the bullet points that match my bio. The two main characters are very much based on me and my mom. But the circumstances are by necessity fictional.”

Another upcoming project is a feature film adaptation of her first novel We Only Know So Much, which earned praise from the Los Angeles Times, Kirkus, and Publishers Weekly. Centered around a multi-generational family living under one roof, this story explores how people connect, or disconnect, with each other. Crane had a hand in writing the screenplay, a first in that genre for her, and she describes it as “funny and weird and sweet and a little sad.” The film stars Jeanne Tripplehorn and Damian Young and is slated for release later this year.

Ready to jump right to the next endeavor, Crane currently teaches the UCR-Palm Desert low-residency MFA creative writing program and is dilligently working on another short story collection (“I really, really love reading and writing short stories,” she asserts) with sneak peaks debuting on her website soon. Though the Hudson Valley has yet to make an appearance in her stories, Crane isn’t ruling out the possibility. “I do tend to end up writing about places where I live,” she says. “I don’t anticipate moving again, thankfully. We love it here.”

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