Tag: new fiction for women

The Writer’s Corner..Interview with author Jo-Ann Mapson (part 3)

writers, authors, blogs, interviews, best selling authors    Part III ** Interview with Jo-Ann Mapson** This has been a terrific interview with Jo-Ann.  She has generously shared her writing world with us and she always inspires me to be a better writer.

Q. Have you? Or do you want to write in another genre`?

A. I write some nonfiction, essays, and have been tinkering with a kind of memoir for decades. Occasionally I am moved to write a poem, such as one for my agent, when her beloved dog died, but I’m not very good at it because I don’t practice the habit.

Something that I find compelling these days is the issue of writing and aging. I’m not sure if anyone has written about this yet. John Updike died, Philip Roth retired, Rosamund Pilcher died, Evan Connell died, and it becomes a kind of reckoning; your name will be on that list sooner rather than later. Somehow it makes the act of writing seem authors, writing, writers, interviewsmore important, to get things right, to write something of substance rather than fluff, or “phoning it in,” as they say nowadays. At the same time, I sense myself detaching from it a tiny bit, but it isn’t frightening, it feels natural. Like a part of aging. You cannot beat Father Time.

Here’s another thing: Every writer I know started out as a reader, and still reads. That’s what drew us to the habit in the first place. So when a new writer shows up on the scene and is so uncommonly great, why should there be jealousy or disgruntlement? It’s all being deposited in the great body of literature. This year I reread several books that I recall making me want to write, just to see if they held up. I was so thrilled to discover that they did! Mary Stewart, Rumer Godden, Henry James, even Danielle Steel’s first romance. I was delighted to discover that sense of timelessness that came with the reading.

I also read some new writers I really like: Tana French, who wrote Faithful Place and Broken Harbor, just plain WOW, that woman is brilliant, and I hope I live a long time so I can read all her books because she is just getting started. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce, those are a few writers I am keeping my eye on.

I recently hired Carolyn Turgeon to teach in the MFA Program in Writing at the University of Alaska Anchorage where I am core fiction faculty. She is an unassuming genius who takes fairy tales and wrenches them into strange and wonderful parables of women’s issues. She reinvents the core stories, which is what writing is, taking the old and telling it new. I’m all for new writers succeeding, pushing the boundaries of the form, and pushing me eventually out of a job. I absolutely love to work with budding writers. It is so satisfying to watch them succeed. I am standing there teary on the sidelines saying, “You go, Girl!” What a joy to be even a sliver of a part of that.

interviews, authors, writers, bloggersI am so blessed. I have a wonderful writing life, but there was much gritty scrambling to arrive where I am, and I know there’s more ahead. And I think that is the way it ought to be, earned rather than given, never taken for granted, so that when success happens, you realize the importance of it and relish your hard work coming to fruition.new fiction, authors, writers, interviews

 

http://www.joannmapson.com/

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Start your month off right!! DON’T MISS UPCOMING BLOGS. the NEW SERIES, “The Writer’s Corner” INTERVIEWS with other  best-selling AUTHORS!

I have had a wonderful response from other authors and plan on featuring an interview once a month .  I have invited such luminaries as:  Ann Purser, Susan Elia MacNeal, Robert McCammon, Rhys Bowen, Dean Koontz, Sheryl Woods, Jo-Ann Mapson, Jeffrey Deaver, Elizabeth Gilbert, Maya Angelou, Walter Mosley, Nora Roberts, and many others.

So come along with me; we shall sneak into these writers’ special places, be a fly on the wall and watch them create!
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To receive my posts sign up for my blog, blogs, blogger, writer, author, playwright, books, plays,fiction Go to the home page; On the right side you’ll see a box where you can enter your email address. Click on “join my blog“.  You need to confirm in an email from ‘Writer at Play’ .  Thanks!

The Writer’s Corner… Interview with author Jo-Ann Mapson (part 2)

authors, writing, writers, interviews Part II ** Interview with Jo-Ann Mapson

writers, best sellers, Owen's Daughter, Finding Casey

  Q. ‘What does the process look like…?’(continued)

A. Editing on the computer screen is entirely different than one the page. I realize that maybe due to the relative newness of computers. I wrote my first (unpublished) novel on a typewriter. It can take me a year or two to finish a book, but strangely I am writing much faster now that I am older. No reason to count the hours and the earnings, it’s never going to be profitable in all ways.

In other ways it probably looks like an older woman who is sitting on her butt, typing at the desk, frowning at the writers, authors, best sellers, blogs, createscreen while the floor could really use some sweeping and dogs are racing through the house alerting the world that a bird has flown by or some such shattering news. I go what my husband calls “inward,” and everything else falls away. Once I came directly from the shower wrapped in a towel to write something important down, and hours later, there I was, starkers. Skype, you know? I am clothed these days.

The strangest part is that click of a computer key that sends it to my editor. It’s such a small thing compared to the year of work. This massive effort reduced to an electronic ping! When my editorial letter arrives, it begins to feel a little more real, on it’s way to becoming a book. I love rewriting. Just thank God for it every single day, because that is where good writing pokes its head up. Receiving cover art is another favorite stage for me. I love to see how professional people who cherish images the way I love words come up with the visual equivalent of my story.

It’s truly intoxicating seeing the transformation. I’ve been extremely lucky with my covers, haven’t I? When galley proofs arrive, I just am giddy with the thought that “that thing is done!” Yet I am generally in the middle of another book, so that moment is fleeting.

Q. Where/when do you first discover your characters ?writers, blogs, interviews, authors, writing

A. They come to me in brief images initially. I can’t quite see their faces, but I know their feelings. I see them in a place—say, in a Western bar, plain wrap rehab, sleeping under the stars, walking a greyhound, dying, arguing, crying, wherever—and I write toward that image because I absolutely, empirically have to know how they got there and what they are going to do next.

Q. What inspired your stories ?

A. I think I am most intrigued with the question: How do people go on after something tragic or life-changing occurs? I should confess, my husband is the one who actually told me this, quite recently. Had you asked me last year, I wouldn’t have been able to answer. He said, “Your life is that story, of how to go on, so it’s natural to me that you would write about that notion endlessly.” Stephen Dobyns has the most amazing poem called “How to Like It,” in the collection Cemetery Nights that for me is a perfect explanation for why anyone writes……..JoAnn.dog2

Join us to read the final part III of this riveting interview with best-seller author Jo-Ann Mapson.
 http://www.joannmapson.com/
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Start your month off right!! DON’T MISS UPCOMING BLOGS. A NEW SERIES, “The Writer’s Corner” INTERVIEWS with other  best-selling AUTHORS!

I have had a wonderful response from other authors and plan on featuring an interview once a month .  I have invited such luminaries as:  Anne Purser, Susan Elia MacNeal, Rhys Bowen, Robert McCammon, Dean Koontz, Sheryl Woods, Jo-Ann Mapson, Jeffrey Deaver, Elizabeth Gilbert, Walter Mosley, Nora Roberts, and many others.

So come along with me; we shall sneak into these writers’ special places, be a fly on the wall and watch them create!
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To receive my posts sign up for my blog, blogs, blogger, writer, author, playwright, books, plays,fiction Go to the home page; On the right side you’ll see a box where you can enter your email address. Click on “join my blog“.  You need to confirm in an email from ‘Writer at Play’ .  Thanks!

The Writer’s Corner… an Interview with author Jo-Ann Mapson (part 1)

authors, writers, writing, best sellers, Interview              Do other writers sometimes find themselves  at 4 in the afternoon still in their pajamas, writing furiously?  Do all of their #2 pencils have to be sharpened before they can begin?

I thought my readers might enjoy hearing about other authors‘ writing processes.  So I created a Question & Answer-type Interview.  The response has been wonderful and I can’t wait to share it with you.

  In this three-part post, my second interview is with best-selling author, Jo-Ann Mapson.  She is one of my favorites and I always wait with bated breath until her next book comes out.  Her characters, (men, women, dogs, horses), are vivid and believable and they often return in a new book.  Jo-Ann takes them down the same roads we have all traveled….love, loss, grief, death, friendship; stumbling along through life, gathering what wisdom we can.
I hope that you enjoy her insights, humor and thoughts…….writing, authors, interview, best seller,writers

Q. Where do you write? Do you have a special room, shed, barn, closet, a special space for your writing?

A. I have an office in the smallest bedroom of our house. My desk is small. Objects that inspire me surround me. A felted greyhound statue, my cowboy boots, a photo of my great aunt, this wonderful print “The Land of Make Believe” that is a kind of map of childhood stories hangs above my desk. A writer needs to be able to write anywhere, though. Those kinds of constraints such as special places, complete silences, bingo tchochkees, can cripple, so I find it best to force myself to write anywhere.

Q. Do you have a set time each day to write or do you write only when you are feeling creative?

A. Oh, my gosh, waiting for creativity to visit would never get a page, let alone a book written. I work everyday, mid-morning to dinnertime. This timetable is subject to change, but not the number of hours. I’m not sure why. Some books, like The Wilder Sisters, get written in special circumstances; that particular California summer was so hot that I wrote lying down in bed with my laptop, shades drawn, fan running.

Q. Do you have any special rituals when you sit down to write?

A. No rituals other than a cool drink and fan blowing. I usually warm up to writing by answering a few emails. Pre-Internet, I liked to start my writing day by writing a letter to a friend. I miss that. I worry what will happen to history if letter writing goes away forever. It’s such a revealing art.

Q. What is your mode of writing?

A. I write on an iMac. Arthritis (and probably lack of use!) limits how much writing by hand I can do. I have strange handwriting, half-cursive, half-print, very hard even for me to read. Writing on the computer makes things so much easier for me. What works for you is the way to go.

Q. Do you ‘get lost’ in your writing and for how long?

A. The “zone,” that wonderful, addictive, “I am but a vessel” kind of feeling only comes when it wishes, doggone it, but I always write in pursuit of it. It’s writer cocaine.

Q. When did you begin to write seriously?

A. From the moment I could hold a pencil, I was reporting on things, writing to understand things that happened, and in my head, whole stories were forming. All writing is serious.

Q. How long after that were you published?writers, authors, interviews, best sellers

A. Thirty plus years, with the occasional poem, short story published here and there in a journal, or newspaper. Really, for most writers, you’ve got to live a little life in order to have anything worthwhile to write about. You can’t fake the kinds of issues it takes to write a book that compels a reader. Take for instance grief. Or the highest moment of happiness you can imagine. Or something as small as a minor injustice that doesn’t sit right with you gathers weight, momentum. If you want to say anything of worth about those topics, you either have to have experienced them, pursued them, or watched them happen to someone else.

Q. …..and the all important: What does the process of going from “no book” to “finished book” look like?

A. I suppose it looks like a messy, disorganized pile of research books, empty coffee cups, talismans, doodles, distractions at the start. Strangely, because writing is so ephemeral these days, it’s kind of invisible. It lives in “The Cloud,” or Carbonite, rarely in concrete pages until it’s fashioned into a book. I print out to edit by hand because I need to have that concrete format………

 Biography  Jo-Ann Mapson lives and writes in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with her husband and three Italian greyhounds. Her 11 novels can best be described as slightly Southwestern in setting, character-oriented in execution, and edgy with humor that sometimes goes awry. Among her favorite things are dogs, Old Gringo cowboy boots, reading, making jam, green chile, and laughter with friends and family. Her second novel, Blue Rodeo, was made into a CBS television movie starring Kris Kristofferson. Several of her books have been bestsellers. Many of her books have been Indie bound and Booksense picks. She won the American Library Association’s RUSA award for Solomon’s Oak, and has been honored with awards for research and creativity at the University of Alaska Anchorage, where she is core fiction faculty in the low residency MFA Program that she created with her colleagues. Forthcoming from Bloomsbury is Owen’s Daughter, which features some of her characters from Blue Rodeo as well as the family in Finding Casey (2012). She is currently at work on a new novel.

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Part II will be featured in the February  7th blog and Part III February 12th . Don’t miss this fascinating look into a best-selling author’s writing life.

http://www.joannmapson.com/

To go to other interviews: click here

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Don’t miss an Interview with Jo-Ann Mapson Tuesday

writing, authors, interview, best seller,writers                              Next Tuesday the second in my series of Interviews will be with Jo-Ann Mapson.     I thought my readers might enjoy hearing about other authors’ writing processes.  So I created a Question & Answer-type Interview and then began contacting some of my favorite authors to ask them to take part.

  In this three-part blog, we will chat with best-selling author, Jo-Ann Mapson.  She is one of my favorites and I always wait with bated breath until her next book comes out.  Her characters, (men, women, dogs, horses), are vivid and believable and they often return in one of her new books.

I hope that you enjoy her insights, humor and really great stories….  writers, interviews, best selling authors, blogs

In the coming months:  Authors, Susan Elia MacNeal,  Rhys Bowen, Walter Mosley, Tasha Alexander, and many more will share their writing life with us!

The Writer’s Corner….an interview with author, Ann Purser (part 2)

authors, writing, writers, interviews(continued from January 15th)    **An interview with Ann Purser**

Anyway, to resume: My husband was asked to write a TV critic column in a show biz paper, and he said how much? and they said thirty bob, and he said “My old woman would do it for that!” And they said, “would she?” So I did, for several years, until SHE popped up again and said would I like to do a page each month, an interview with a lovely show biz person. So I did it for six years, and loved it.

Skipping lightly over a job in the village school, running an art gallery, and harbouring many pet animals, including a donkey – Now, to my first novel, this was a story of village life, and Orion took it on, and gave me a commission for six more. So I did those, and then wrote a murder mystery called Murder on Monday, which nobody wanted to publish. Then luckily, a very nice man called Edwin at Severn House Publishing, said he would do it, and that started my career as a mystery novelist. Six of these were slotted by those who like pigeon-holing, into a category called Cozies. Nuff said.

writers, authors, interviews, best sellersActually, with the music playing, I am quite able to shut out extraneous other noises. I can usually work fast and have never (crossing all fingers) had writers` block. There is no telephone in Harriet`s House, and my husband (same one) keeps callers at bay.

One of your questions, about `no book` to `finished book`, had me thinking. By now, I have evolved a habit of starting a new book immediately after finishing the last. Then it gets a bit mixed up when I have copy editing etc. to do. But my present publisher, Berkley Prime Crime, Penguin US, is expert and wonderful, and so everything slots into place. At the moment I am writing two books a year.

Inspiration? There`s a thing. Who knows where it comes from? A fevered imagination in my case, probably. But with Lois Meade, there was a specific point when the wheels began to turn. My cleaning lady (with us for thirty years) said one day, half way down the stairs, “I`ve often thought I`d like to be a detective. I get to hear and see a lot of things in my job.” And there it was, handed to me on a plate.mysteries, authors, new fiction

Ivy Beasley, the elderly detective in my second series, is the only person based on a real one. She was a single lady of some years who was awkward, independent and once asked the parish council to investigate the theft of her knickers from the washing line. She is sadly now deceased, and I hope her heavenly knickers are left undisturbed.

So that`s enough about me, Trish! Apologies if I have not answered vital questions. All the best, and carry on the good work. Ann.  **********

Start your month off right!! DON’T MISS UPCOMING BLOGS continuing A NEW SERIES, “The Writer’s Corner” INTERVIEWS with other  best selling AUTHORS!

I have had a wonderful response from other authors and plan on featuring an interview at least once a month .  I have invited such luminaries as:  Dean Koontz, Sheryl Woods, Jo-Ann Mapson, Elizabeth Gilbert, Walter Mosley, Nora Roberts, and many others.

So come along with me; we shall sneak into these writers’ special places, be a fly on the wall and watch them create!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To receive my posts sign up for my blog.  Go to the home page; On the right side you’ll see a box where you can enter your email blog, blogs, blogger, writer, author, playwright, books, plays,fictionaddress. Click on “join my blog“.  You need to confirm in an email from ‘Writer at Play’ .  Thanks!

The Writer’s Corner…an interview with author, Ann Purser (part 1)

authors, writing, writers, interviews                  Do other writers (like me)  sometimes find themselves  at 4 in the afternoon still in their pajamas, writing furiously?  Do all of their #2 pencils have to be sharpened before they can begin?

I thought my readers might enjoy hearing about other authors‘ writing processes.  So I created a Question & Answer-type Interview and then began contacting some of my favorite authors to ask them to participate.  The response has been wonderful and I can’t wait to share it with you.

My first interview was with British author, Ann Purser. www.annpurser.com She is best known for her witty and charming (and beautifully written) mysteries in a small English village.  The main character, Lois Meade and her band of ‘cleaners’ make for a sometimes hilarious but cunning read.  Ann was so generous with her answers that I have made this interview into a two-parter.  I hope you enjoy her fascinating journey as much as I did!

I asked questions like:   Do you have a special room, shed, barn, special space for your writing?  Do you have any special rituals when you sit down to write?  What is your mode of writing?  Do you have a set time each day to write or do you write only when you are feeling creative?  Do you ‘get lost’ in your writing and for how long?   When did you begin to write seriously?

and the all important: What does the process of going from “no book” to “finished book” look like?

                                                   **An Interview with author, Ann Purser**

Hi Trish! Nice of you to invite me – so here goes.

You ask me lots of questions which I will try to answer: I write in an annexe originally built for disabled daughter and called Harriet`s House. All switches at wheelchair height, and handy loo and shower. Five mornings a week, I am in there pounding away at the keyboard and blessing whoever it was who invented the computer, since the Delete button is so much quicker than a grubby pink typewriter rubber. First thing to do is find a cd – I have music playing always, since we live next to the village school, and the deafening noise the little dears make is quite remarkable!

English, born in Leicestershire.  Tried my hand at many things, details of which are boringly on my website, but eventually was driven to write a book. I say driven, because at that time my eight year old daughter, born prematurely, was struggling with cerebral palsy, and I was struggling with managing her, plus two subsequent energetic little ones. My husband – a writer and critic – once Critic of the Year – got so fed up with listening to my moans that he said “Why don`t you write down how you feel, and we`ll send it to SHE magazine.”   

NOW, it so happens that the editor at that time was an ex-girlfriend of said husband, and she very nicely featured my burblings on a couple of pages. There were pictures of my daughter, very delicate and heart-breakingly pretty, and of me looking vacant.

It was a start, and although I didn’t follow it up for some time, I was asked by the Spastics Society to help write a book for parents. Not technical, not preachy, just based on our experiences. Did this, and it came in pink hard covers, and some good reviews. You and Your Handicapped Child was followed by a school book with the snappy title, Looking Back at Popular Entertainment, 1901-1931. Writing this taught me a lot about research, and the nicest part was finding old photos of show biz stars from the Hulton Picture Library.

“We don`t want to know all this,” I hear you say. But the fact is, and I`m sure other writers will bear me out on this, nothing in one`s experience, whether years ago or yesterday, should be wasted. Tiny things, like Ivy Beasley`s mother`s fiction, village life, authors, writersvoice in her head, float up to be remembered and used.

.……..to be continued on January 17th.  Hope you’ll join us!

 

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Hope that your story doesn’t come out the way that you had planned!

Lillian Hellman once said, “Nothing you write, if you hope to be any good, will ever come out as you first hoped.”

As a writer, that has happened to me over and over.  At first, in the early days of writing, I was appalled that the story was going somewhere that I had not planned for.   The characters would lead me down paths that I had no intention of going down or writing about.  Now I accept this strange phenomenon that happens not just to me but to other writers as well.

 

     A glaring, or perhaps glorious, an example of a story taking an unexpected turn was when I was writing “Women Outside the Walls”.  My plan for the storyline was that this would be a cozy little story of three very different women coming together while visiting their men in prison.

A third of the way through this project, Charlie, while sitting in the visiting room of the prison, jumps up, grabs Kitty and holding a shiv (knife) to her throat,  takes her hostage.  I  sat at my keyboard and literally wailed aloud, “No!  No, you can’t!  I don’t know anything about hostages……or hostage negotiations!” Too late! He’d already dragged Kitty to the back wall and pandemonium had broken out.  The prison went on emergency lockdown and there was nothing I could do! There I sat at my keyboard, dead in my tracks.

It took me four months of research on hostage negotiations before I could resume working on my novel.  I had not the faintest clue as to how I would finally resolve this room being taken, hostage.  And I want to stop here and thank the federal and state hostage negotiators who assisted me in my research. While they would not share any of their techniques, they agreed to look over my story and tell me where I was off base. They allowed me to send them this segment of my novel for them to critique and assisted in keeping my portrayal accurate.   Before you CO’s jump all over me about the gun, I did take dramatic license with that.

I have learned to anticipate and enjoy it when the story takes on a life of its own.  It’s my fondest wish to become the ‘typist’.  When my characters take control and tell me the story!

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Move Over, ‘Gone with the Wind’, a Review

writing, creating, reviews,fiction, children's books, fiction for adults, women's fictionwriting, creating, reviews,fiction, children's books, fiction for adults, women's fictionwriting, creating, reviews,fiction, children's books, fiction for adults, women's fictionwriting, creating, reviews,fiction, children's books, fiction for adults, women's fictionwriting, creating, reviews,fiction, children's books, fiction for adults, women's fiction Ranking: 5 quills

   “The Kitchen House” ….Kathleen Grissom has written a contemporary story of the old south with a new twist…that of the indentured servant.

White immigrants to this country, indentured for years, were nothing more than white slaves.
An immigrant would contract to work for an employer for several years in exchange for the cost of passage and room and board.  They lived with or near their employer and worked as an unpaid servant.  This was a common occurrence between the 17th and 19th centuries.  They survived beatings, rape, and sometimes were killed by their employers with impunity.

Synopsis:  ‘When a white servant girl violates the order of plantation society, she unleashes a tragedy that exposes the worst and best in the people she has come to call her family. Orphaned while on board a ship from Ireland, seven-year-old Lavinia arrives on the steps of a tobacco plantation where she is to live and work with the slaves in the kitchen house. Under the care of Belle, a slave and the master’s illegitimate daughter, Lavinia becomes deeply bonded to her adopted family, though she is set apart from them by her white skin. Eventually, Lavinia is accepted into the world of the big house, where the master is absent and the mistress battles opium addiction. Lavinia finds herself perilously straddling two very different worlds. Forced to make a choice, loyalties are brought into question, dangerous truths are laid bare, and lives are put at risk.’

The Kitchen House is a tragic story of page-turning suspense, exploring the meaning of family, where love and loyalty prevail.

This is so well written you won’t be able to put it down.  I cannot wait for Grissom’s next novel….I know it will be a good one!

 

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A writer’s gratitude

books, authors, book stores, women writers,Last Saturday was my book signing at the iconic book store, E. Shaver’s Book Sellers. (shaversbooks.com) What a special day!  The staff at Shaver’s made me feel so welcome.  They had a nice spot all set up where the first thing the customer saw when they walked in was my table displaying my books.

The store is a collection of cozy little rooms filled to the rafters with BOOKS!  Old, original hardwood floors that creak when stepped upon.  And outside the occasional clip-clop of horses’ hooves as carriages drove by the front door. I wouldn’t have been half surprised if Charles Dickens and his good friend, Edgar Allan Poe had walked in.

Both  my illustrators stopped by to show support. Lori Smaltz, the photographer, was there with her gorgeous coffee table book of celebrated cemeteries of Savannah (Bone Garden Enchantment).  She has done most of my photo-collage covers for my books.   Jefferson O’Neal, a wonderful artist and the illustrator for all of my children’s books, stayed and signed kiddie books with me.

During the three hour event we enjoyed meeting new people; tourists dropping in, regular customers that shop at Shavers all the time, and a few of my personal friends.  I met a lady from Sri Lanka, in remission with stage four cancer.  What a beautiful spirit she had…her outlook was so loving and positive.  Then there was Celia (a realtor with Sotheby’s) who marched in, came straight to my table and ‘browsed’ my books.  She quickly picked out two; one for her granddaughter, Mimi, and my novel for herself.  The staff told me later that she supports whatever is going on at Shaver’s and is very generous.  What a nice lady!   My hair stylist came by with her son, Cameron, (a sweetie) and they bought all of my children’s books.  Thanks! Andrea!

And then there were the four-legged shoppers!  E. Shaver’s is pet friendly and in they paraded, knowing they would be welcomed. A beautiful springer spaniel with the sweetest face.  An Airedale with a harness that said, ‘service dog’.  But you could hardly take him seriously with his one cocked up ear; making him look like he was always asking you a question.  It was a hoot!  And then little ‘Evie’, a mutt with chihuahua, wire-haired terrier and probably six other ingredients; Evie is a bounding, jumping, bundle of pure joy!

The funny, human observation that I made was that some customers would NOT look at me.  As if they thought,  “Oh no. If I look at her, I’ll have to buy something!”  Very funny,  but that’s just me and my weird sense of humor.  I was just so grateful to the owner and staff at Shaver’s Booksellers.  They have taken me in, supported my work and are willing to share their limited shelf space with my books!  I am blowing them kisses!blowing kisses, grateful, women writers, book stores

Write what you know…..or..

…or research ’till your eye balls fall out.

flappers, roaring 20's, Wild Violets, new fiction, I am working on my second novel, “Wild Violets”. It takes place during a period in roaring 20's, flappers, new fiction, Wild VioletsAmerica’s history that I am somewhat familiar with but not nearly enough as it turns out.

The story is going well, I am happy with the development of my characters.  Suddenly I realized my (sketchy) heroine had a bar during the years of prohibition.  Ops! So I quickly changed it to a speakeasy with illegal booze, which made the story even more interesting. Now Violet had to dodge the coppers and the Mob!

I have two photographs of Violet in the fashion of the day.  Not nearly enough information to write an entire story.  With a few clicks, using the Internet, I can research time lines, facts and fashion.

The fashion of the roaring twenties is fascinating. Women were just coming out of being laced up, tied up, strapped up and cinched up so tight that they often fainted from lack of air!  The tiny waists (even if you didn’t have one naturally)  and the huge bell sleeves were gone.  Suddenly fashion dictated sexy, loose soft fabrics, with a suggestion of revealing more, but still covering up the female form.

The feminist women of the 20’s were called ‘flappers‘.  They worked all day and danced all night! And Violet certainly did that!  Worked a twelve-hour day in her bar and grill, ran upstairs to her apartment, refreshed her makeup, donned her bright red dress with the fringe and piled into a town car to hit her favorite road house.  Seeking the coldest gin and the hottest jazz!