Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Liz Derr. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Liz, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. If you could go back in time do you wish you had started your creative career sooner or later?

The very first time I got on stage to perform stand up comedy was at the ripe age of nineteen in New Jersey. I showed up to a bar that I couldn’t drive at and I got up and tried my absolute best after writing for four weeks straight. I continued doing stand-up at this same bar every week for about six months. I started going to a few more, but not many. This was while I was going to college full time for Business and Information Systems and working full time at a tech start up. The farthest thing you could get from stage performing. I ended up getting a huge opportunity, It was a show catered to sororities and fraternities. The Stress Factory had booked some guy from a popular bro-y podcast and Pete Davidson as the headliner before he was known as The Pete Davidson he is today. Mind you, this was well over a decade ago. I performed on the show and I quit that night. I would occasionally show back up and try my hand at it but I told myself that I was never going to make it ‘big’ and that I already peaked. So I quit. I stopped performing entirely by the age of 22. I had graduated and job hopped by this time and kept job hopping for a bit.

I ended up deciding that I was going to move to Atlanta in September of 2019. I got down here and I still was not performing. About two years into living in Atlanta, I decided I would try it again and I ended up being on stage every single night. Working as hard as I could to practice and get booked. This is also when I decided I needed to get sober. It took a few tries but my current sobriety date is 2/22/22. This helped me chase my dream of performing. I started to branch out a bit, by doing a movie, Blood Mountain Massacre, now streaming on Amazon and a few other platforms, and a play called Relationship Autopsy where I got the lead. Being on stage was like nothing I ever experienced and I couldn’t get enough.

Then, a little over a year ago, I started to get really sick. I ended up with a few surgeries and hospitalizations. I’m still, currently, trying to find what’s causing all my ailments and am immunocompromised. So it’s next to impossible for me to go out and perform. I needed to take all of this intense energy and channel it into something else. So that brings me to today, I’ve just finished my first draft of my manuscript for a novel. It’s a five person POV coming of age story about a bunch of kids who were put in the psych ward. When they get out, they’re faced with the same issues that put them there in the first place. I am exploring the idea of: Will people change even if their environments don’t. I hope I can move into revision with an editor that gets me and I can go through the pitch process and hopefully sell my book.

So, the question – do I wish I started sooner? No, I don’t think I wasn’t ready, emotionally or financially, to take a risk like chasing a comedy dream at nineteen years old. Even when I started again at twenty-eight, I don’t think I was really quite ready, until I decided to get sober. If I chased it while I was younger, I think it would have led me to an early grave.

Through my comedy and medical journey, I’ve realized just how wonderful it is to write. I don’t think I would have gotten here if it weren’t for the path I took. I wish I knew myself better, when I was younger, so that I could have understood what I wanted in my life, but with how my life shook out, I got to a place I never envisioned.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I’m a New Jersey transplant in Atlanta, currently chasing my author dreams after a very difficult, long, and ongoing medical journey, I found what I really enjoy.

Currently, my book’s working title is Flipside. I hope to continue to write after I finish this one and I think I can only get better the longer I do it. With my very complex life, I think I bring a different perspective to the table. My absolute favorite thing is to make people laugh. Truly inspiring joy is what I think my purpose in this life is and whether I do that through performing on stage, screen, or writing, I just want to make people laugh and think about the things that maybe they haven’t before.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

The biggest lesson I had to unlearn was that I do not ever need to apologize for existing. I was raised, and I think many others were too, to say sorry obsessively. I’ve said sorry to someone who walked into me; that’s ridiculous. I have a large personality and I am confrontational and those things can cause people to not like me. I used to hate that people didn’t like me and I felt a deep sense of insecurity about it. Now, I know not everyone could possibly like me. Even if someone doesn’t like me, I can still be a nice and kind person. That’s who I believe I am and what I stand by. So, no I’m no longer sorry for being here or for being who I am.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.

The time commitment to chasing your dreams is just as much, if not more, of a commitment as it is to a day job (regular 9-5). So If someone has a day job and then they also are chasing their dreams, they’re working 80+ hours every week. They will use all the time they possibly can to do what they want to do. So, sometimes, other things fall to the back of the line. I don’t see my friends as much as I would like to, but they know it isn’t because I don’t love and cherish their time, it’s because I’m chasing something that requires so much of my time and focus.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://lizloganslibrary.blogspot.com/ https://www.lizderrcomedy.com/
• Instagram: @lizderbator @lloganlibrary

Image Credits

Lola Scot
Robert Wolfgang
Southern Silos Photography