Beacon Street

Okay, Mary Cunningham tagged me to write 6 “book” things about myself. I liked her old-timey photo so added one of my own, taken at Big Bear Lake in 19xx…

1. I took Creative Writing in junior high school because it sounded interesting. That was my first inkling that I might like to write. We wrote mostly short stories. In high school, I took every lit class they offered: American Lit, Modern Lit, World Lit and English Lit. (In retrospect, most of it was pretty boring and I cheated more than once with Cliff’s Notes. Dostoevsky just wasn’t my cup of tea.)

2. During those middle school years, my best friend Jayne and I would create stories and tell them to each other. The rules were that our stories had to be about and for each other, and had to involve the other’s favorite rock star. Most often, they were vignettes about how we would meet George Harrison or Mickey Dolenz in an elevator and fall in love. Simple, right?

3. Because I am now considered a legitimate writer (Ha!), it is always me called upon whenever anything needs writing. Last year, I wrote a wedding ceremony for my nephew and niece. I wrote the announcements for the loud speaker at Relay For Life. I wrote the flyers and announcements and reviews for our school PTA. Household correspondence has always been my job, too, but should that include eulogies for relatives?

4. Sad but true. My first publisher, WAY back in 1998, was a fledgling ebook pub. He accepted my first novel instantly, did very little editing (and I was sap enough to believe it was so perfect he couldn’t find anything) and then published it on CD and diskette. I was as naive as they come. I sat back and waited to get rich and famous. There was an “ebook bestseller list” on the web that claimed to be expert enough to know. One day, my book appeared on that list, alongside successful books being put out by popular and respected publishers. I got a certificate from my local RWA chapter. All exciting. Then one day, with a little digging, I discovered that a large number of copies sold all went to a company purchaser. And lo and behold, that company was owned by my publisher. I was humiliated and shamed. I stuffed the certificate in a drawer and immediately began looking for a new publisher. And he couldn’t understand why I wanted to leave.

5. I have become an ebook snob. Yes, it’s true. I buy only ebooks, unless there is something I absolutely need to have that’s not available for download. Yeah, I “get” all that about the feel (and smell!) of a real book, yada yada yada. But for me, it’s all about the story, convenience, cost, and environment. The story will be good in any format. I love being able to read in bed, lights off, not disturbing the hubby. I can buy 2 or 3 books for the price of one. And don’t you know I just hate the waste of trees. Even with my bad inaugural experience with ebooks, I love them. For the record, I prefer reading in Microsoft Reader on a Pocket PC. Will I buy a Kindle or Sony Digital Reader? Probably. Right now I’m not fond of the price or the non-backlit technology.

6. Something most people don’t know: I have 3 writing personas. One for my romantic mysteries, one for my middle grader readers and one for some experimental, edgier stuff.

And that’s it~! Boring, but all true.

Friday morning I accompanied a good friend to an imaging center as her “bosom buddy.” While waiting for her test, we sat a comfortable waiting room (cookies to die for) and watched, in awe, as Senator McCain announced that Gov. Sarah Palin would be his running mate. Another patient, who’d been waiting longer than us, filled us in:

“She’s 44, has 5 children, the youngest is 4 months old with Down Syndrome.” The smile froze on my face, and I barely heard the rest, about Palin’s pipeline views, Alaskan home state, son being deployed to Iraq, NRA connections, etc. I was stuck on the fact that a woman with 5 kids–one a Down’s baby–would knowingly put herself on the path to the White House. Excuse me, but why does one have a bunch of children and then choose an intense life in politics? I know that I had my precious boys and girl so that I could raise them, not someone else.

Am I being harsh? Does anyone else think this is sad?
I might add that I am not a supporter of either McCain or Obama at this point. I was, at first, gleeful to hear that a woman was in the running, hence the aforementioned smile. But as a mother, I know that being one demands more than I ever expected, so much that I cannot fathom trying to juggle motherhood with the intensity of so high a political position.

Someone mentioned, perhaps her husband is a homebody and will care for them. Maybe so. In Washington, he would likely give up oil working and fishing and stay home with the children.

Maybe I am being sexist. What is different about a woman with children taking a public office position than a man taking a similar post? Maybe nothing, for some.

I’m sure Mrs. Palin and her family gave a great deal of thought to her choice. I have to hope that her teen daughters (Bristol, 17, and Willow, 14) feel competent to help raise their disadvantaged baby sibling, Trig, 4 months, and little sister Piper, 7. After all, they are making it work now, with Governor Palin returning to her job just 3 days after Trig’s birth in April. She’s nothing if not devoted to her work.

Perhaps, like many, she is just trying to have it all. To her credit, she chose not to end her baby’s life when told he had the extra chromosome. She is devoutly pro-life, and while it might have made it easier on her future to terminate the pregnancy, she did not. For this I hold her in high regard.

One other thing. Because I was sitting in a room full of women, I noticed that without exception, Mrs. Palin’s family situation was the first thing that came in to each of our minds. Not one mentioned her qualifications for the job.

Okay, last week I saw someone else doing this and I thought, “she stole my idea!” But the reality of it is, she blogged it first, and she doesn’t know me. I hope it’s working for her.

Probably most of you are authors or aspiring authors. A lot of you are small press folks, working hard to get your books in front of readers. I know I am. My publisher has provided us with distribution through those heralded warehousing giants, Ingram’s and Baker & Taylor, not to mention Partners and Follett. Yet, we all know that distribution by itself is not enough, and books that sit are books that get returned.

My dream is to have one book ordered by a reader in each of the 50 states. Yeah, lofty, I know, but how hard could it be? Ain’t too proud to beg, as the song goes. Order my book from any bookseller, big box or indy, and write me at annecarter @ beaconstreetbooks.com. In return, I’ll promote you and your book, your website, whatever. I’ll write you into my various blogs, put a link to your book on my website. (And if you like my book, I hope you’ll blog about it, too.) Help me fill up my map and show the big guys that small press is alive and kicking.

POINT SURRENDER (Echelon Press, ISBN 978-1-59080-514-5, $12.95 Trade Paperback) is a romantic paranormal lighthouse mystery.

“Point Surrender’s last keeper has been dead for more than 25 years. Will the journal he left behind reveal why he died in the aging white beacon, and what became of his missing family? Amy Winslow is bound and determined to find out. There are those who would just as soon she didn’t.”

If you need more convincing that you’ll love this book, check out my video, reviews and excerpt at www.BeaconStreetBooks.com and then head on out to your local bookseller and ask them to order a copy. You won’t be sorry, and together we just might give small press another leg up! I’ll be posting updates to my project so check in to see what states are buying books.

~Anne

ps – I am also very interested in feedback about how quickly your book arrives…

1. I am very impressed by your bio, and enjoyed the stories about your grandfather (see: www.graceehowell.com.) You’ve been a teacher, a librarian, a quilt maker and a Master Gardener, among other things. And by the way, just what is a “Master Gardener?” It sounds like an official designation.

Master Gardener certainly is an official designation. To become a Master Gardener you have to take a gardening course from the agriculture extension office in your community. The course includes something on just about all aspects of gardening. Then after you are certified, you must give a number of hours work each year to remain part of the Master Gardener Association, continue your gardening education, and educate others in gardening and environmental concerns. I was very active in the association for eight years, but when I began writing full time after TRUE FRIENDS was published, I became inactive and now only work in my own yard, my children’s yards, my church yard, and an occasional Habitat for Humanity home. Most of what I do now is landscape design and advice instead of actually the digging and planting that I love so much.

2. You have taught ESL (English as a Second Language.) What foreign language(s) do you work with?

Both of my teaching experiences in ESL were with adults from various countries who were very motivated to learn English. At the University of Memphis, I was a substitute teacher in their Intensified English Instruction, which was a language-immersion program. I worked with vocabulary and conversational skills. The majority of students were from Korea with some from Japan, Thailand, and several African countries, only one Spanish speaker. At my church, I organized and created the curriculum for Conversational English for adult students and immigrants. This class included Chinese, Afrikaners, Brazilians, Bulgarians, Japanese, Iranians, Haitians, and Spanish speakers from Central and South America. Needless to say, I did not know all those languages. In neither of these classes did I work with any language other than English. What was so amazing to me was that the students quickly bonded with each other in English as that was the only language they had in common.

3. With gardening and quilt making a big part of your life, do you consider yourself more in touch with traditions and history? Talk about how this influenced your writing.

I think everything in a writer’s background has an influence on who the writer is and what he/she has to say. Naturally, people write about what they know or like as that comes to the surface during the writing process. As for me, I’m not sure that I’m more in tune with the past than the present. Currently I’m working on a contemporary series that definitely involves issues facing us today. I believe that human needs and emotions are the same throughout the ages, and that’s mainly what my writing has focused on. Not the differences in past and present, but the similarities.

4. TRUE FRIENDS sounds like a great book for middle grade readers. Tell us about the story, and the various ways you were able to research this time period and its history.

TRUE FRIENDS is a coming of age story in which Annie must give up her tomboy days with the boys and become a young lady. While she searches for girl friends and tries to meet society’s demands, she faces suspicions and accusations stemming from World War I, as well as racial prejudices of the time. During the tragedy of the 1918 flu epidemic, she begins to “grow up” and to know what is valuable to her.

I grew up in old South Memphis where TRUE FRIENDS takes place, and I had been collecting oral history for this story for a long time from people who lived in that time or heard stories from their parents. Then I spent a summer in the library reading 1918 newspapers from Memphis, Nashville, and New York. Newspapers are invaluable to absorb the flavor and feeling of a time. I also read a number of books, fiction and nonfiction, on the time, and some of the novel came from family stories.

5. Are you working on anything now? Will you continue to write for young adults?

I am working on a middle grade contemporary series, UNLIKELY ALLIANCE, in which three seventh grade misfits reluctantly become friends while each battles severe personal and neighborhood problems. I really like middle grade and young adult books, both to read and to write. And I like the people who read those books so, YES, I will continue to write for young people. I keep hoping more people will realize that a good book for young people is good for anybody. Something quite surprising to me is that so many adults have read and like TRUE FRIENDS. Most surprising has been the number of men who keep asking me when my next book will be out. Recently a middle-aged guy told me he liked TF better than Harry Potter. Unbelievable!

6. How did being a librarian help you in your writing? (And, I have to ask: do your local libraries have your book on their shelves??)

I’m not sure that being a librarian has helped me with my writing, but I will certainly say that having all the books in my library to read has definitely helped. I read constantly both books for young readers and for adults. A good number of libraries in Memphis have TRUE FRIENDS on their shelves; some have had it rebound as a hardback. Both the school libraries and the public libraries say money is a major problem for them to get all the books they would like.

7. What has been your biggest obstacle in getting TRUE FRIENDS from concept to royalty check?

I think, as most authors of a first novel will say, simply finding a publisher was the biggest challenge.

8. What has been the most thrilling aspect of being a published author?

After the first thrill when Karen Syed of Echelon Press offered me a contract, the biggest thrill for me has been appearing at several book festivals as a festival author and receiving accolades from the sponsors and the public. Right up there is the reception I’ve received at schools from students and parents.

9. Where can readers find TRUE FRIENDS, and learn more about you?

For more about me and TRUE FRIENDS, you can check out my website at http://www.graceehowell.com/ and my new blog at http://www.graceehwll.blogspot.com/
You can get TRUE FRIENDS from Follett, Amazon.com, bookstores, and Echelon Press.

Thank you, Anne, for giving me the chance to be here with you and talk about my writing. I have truly enjoyed it.

Thanks Grace!
Interview by Anne Carter, author of POINT SURRENDER http://www.beaconstreetbooks.com/.