Now, Julia’s 12-week program is available online:

Through interactive tools, you’ll be able to:

• UNBLOCK yourself with powerful Artist’s Way exercises
• TRACE your creative process in your own personal Artist’s Way Creativity Notebook
• RECEIVE Daily Inspirations, Affirmations, and Artist’s Date ideas from Julia

The kit includes a contract, the artist’s date, artist’s date exercises, creativity pages and creativity notes.

For those of you on the go, there’s an app for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch.

You can learn more about this exciting program at My Artist’s Way Toolkit.

In her fresh and engaging voice, award-winning fashion designer and consultant Moller takes us on a trip through time, from the moment she was a rebel, restless, idealistic teen in rural Canada and decided to leave home and hitchhike to pursue her dreams, to witnessing and experiencing the counter-culture revolution of the 60s and 70s, to San Francisco, New York, London and Paris and working with such celebrities as Allen Ginsberg, Andy Warhol, and The Beatles, to the creation of her successful fashion consulting firm, Trend Union, in 1985.

The memoir starts in present time with Moller having a conversation with her young niece Adele, who wants to postpone her university education in order to travel and see the world. Moller advises her to read a copy of Kerouac’s On the Road, a book that she read back in the 50s and that had an immense influence on her outlook on life. The book offered young Moller courage in her pursue of creative freedom and encouraged her to hitchhiked her way to San Francisco.

“Kerouac had seemed like some kind of God, a sort of prophet sent to liberate us from the conformist middle class lives we were being programmed to live,” writes Moller.

Moller talks about her childhood, dealing with a mother who had no time for a girl and a father who was irrational, self centered and insensitive. Moller’s dreams and creativity made her different in the eyes of her family. “I became a family joke,” she writes.

It wasn’t easy. She had to work herself through school and at times had little food to eat. But she persevered, and her talent and persistence eventually took her from San Francisco to New York to London, during which time she met and worked with many famous people. At the time, London was in the midst of a cultural revolution. The anti-war movement was at full swing and the city was alive with avant-garde art galleries and art centers. It was here that Moller started designing and printing her colorful textiles. She later moved to Paris, where she opened Trend Union.

Full of interesting anecdotes, the memoir is well written and offers an exciting and colorful glimpse into the world of fashion during the hippie revolution. Moller has a light and lively writing style that makes the reading experience engaging. The book is inspirational and proves that dreams can come true if we focus on what we love, work hard, don’t give up, and reach for the stars.

Author: Karen Moller
Book Title: Technicolor Dreamin’ the 1960′s rainbow and beyond
Web site: www.karenmoller.com
Publisher: Trafford Publishing (June 30, 2006)
ISBN-10: 1412080185
ISBN-13: 978-1412080187
Paperback: 332 pages
Price: $24.00, Kindle: 7.99
http://www.amazon.com/Technicolor-Dreamin-1960s-Rainbow-Beyond/dp/1412080185/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_2

How about imagining a young woman, newly residing in just such a small town? She knows no one. Perhaps she’s psychic, or only a bit different than the townspeople, citified maybe. But what if the town is famous, or should I say infamous, for its history of a witch, one their forebears labeled as such, persecuted and killed. And they still see the ghost of that unfortunate young woman.

THE LIFE OF ELLY KEDWARD

While your story might be fictional, there is a very real place with such a history. Burkittsville, Maryland is the town that banished Elly Kedward, an Irish Catholic, from the town in the winter of 1785, labeled her as a witch. “Although her acts of witchcraft were allegedly evil in nature (she had taken small drops of blood from the local children by pricking their fingers with a very small sewing needle possibly to examine a new unidentified illness which she had discovered) the townspeople acted towards her in a way which, if possible, was even more evil than anything Elly could accomplish. They pounced on her, accusing her of being a dirty prostitute and being too reclusive and using her religion as a Catholic (the Blair residents were Protestants).”

BANISHMENT AND DEATH

“After being convicted of witchcraft, the townspeople tied Elly Kedward to a sledge and dragged her out into the woods in what was the harshest winter in human history. The townspeople led her blindfolded into the woods and tied her to a tree. There they set about abusing her, cutting all sorts of signs into her which labeled her as a witch, then the citizens pressed their palms into her wounds, and finally they left her by the tree, but they still kept coming out into the woods to see if she was dead. They kept on physically abusing her until they saw she was alive and set their dogs on her, which tore at her flesh. Then they saw she had survived every form of torture which she could undergo and finally they left her hanging by the neck in the branches of her execution tree.”

I can easily imagine how horrified and frightened Elly must have been. What a horrible death.

“Everyone believed she had died and that the witch had been punished, but her spirit was doomed not to rest: Her ghost returned the following winter and abducted half the town’s children from Blair.

A year later, children were disappearing in the same woods randomly. Afterwards, everyone fled the village of Blair, Maryland thinking Elly Kedward came back to life to haunt the village.”

THE BLAIR WITCH AND THE MOVIE

“Home of the notorious Blair Witch, pretty much no one had ever heard of this tiny town of 180 residents in Montgomery County, Maryland, before the wildly successful 1999 movie, The Blair Witch Project took place there. No one, that is, besides filmmaker Eduardo Sanches, who grew up in Montgomery County.”

FROM WIKIPEDIA – THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT

“The Blair Witch Project is a 1999 American psychological horror film, written and directed by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez. The film was produced by the Haxan Films production company. It was pieced together from amateur footage and relates the story of three student filmmakers (Heather Donahue, Joshua Leonard, and Michael C. Williams) who disappeared while hiking in the Black Hills near Burkittsville, Maryland in 1994 to film a documentary about a local legend known as the Blair Witch. The viewers are told the three were never seen or heard from again, although their video and sound equipment (along with most of the footage they shot) was discovered a year later. This “recovered footage” is presented as the film the viewer is watching.

A studio production film based on the theme of The Blair Witch Project was released on October 27, 2000 titled Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2. Another sequel was planned for the following year, but did not materialize. On September 2, 2009, it was announced that co-directors Eduardo Sanchez and Daniel Myrick were pitching the third film.[2] The same-name video games were released in 2000.

It’s eleven years since the movie but “crazed fans and witch hunters passing through still ask the locals about ‘the film’s token locations’ (such as Coffin Rock and the cemetery), even though most of the film wasn’t shot in Burkittsville. It does have a cemetery and a ‘Spook Hill’ on the outskirts.”The town has capitalized on the fame of the movie but would rather distance itself. It received four wooden welcome signs, which were stolen, given by Artisan Entertainment, who replaced them with heavier metal signs, which rusted, one of them also stolen.”

YOUR STORY

A fictional town similar to Burkittsville could well be the setting for your next story. As I write this, I almost shudder and have to check out the dark corners in my apartment as I envision trying to escape the witch hunters, with perhaps only one person on my side. Of course, that could be the hero, bravely standing for your protagonist and shielding her against an angry mob.

Maybe you should keep a couple lights on tonight.

*****

About the author: J. K. Maze grew up in Chicago, studied voice at Northwestern University, and then moved to Minnesota, where she finished her degree at Metropolitan State University, changing her major to the arts and including anything and everything to help her with her writing. She’s been writing for years, and uses all the arts, music, art and writing, in her books by way of her characters.

She joined RWA and then KOD and Lethaladies in 2005 and since has succeeded in getting three books published as ebooks. Two are part of a cozy mystery series: Murder By Mistake and Murder For Kicks, and Joan is working on the third, Murder By Spook. Murder By Mistake is now in paperback form. She recently created two blogs: http://sleuthingwithmollie.wordpress.com is for my character, Mollie Fenwick, the protagonist in Murder By Mistake and Murder For Kicks. The second blog, http://homicideandmayhem.wordpress.com is for other, more serious mysteries.

Joan credits her recent success to the wonderful members of Lethaladies. Aside from writing, she also enjoy painting, crocheting and singing and being with her two girls, one son and seven grandchildren.

Thanks for this interview and congratulations on the release of your suspense thriller, Hitler’s Silver Box. What compelled you to write this story?

When my father came to America in 1906 at age 16, he had only one distant relative in this country. He left behind in Kovno, Lithuania a large family, including his parents, eight brothers and sisters, cousins, aunts and uncles. They ranged in age from the elderly to babies. 

Dad died of natural causes during the Second World War and immediately following the war, my late brother Lewis and I began to try to track down our father’s European family. I was just 16 when the war ended. We wrote letters to everyone we could think of and after about a year received a detailed reply from the International Red Cross. Nazi records as well as witness reports indicated that all members of dad’s family had been murdered either in or near Kovno or after transfer to a death camp. Every man, woman and child! 

So, one entire side of my family was destroyed by the Nazis. Of course, I became interested in the Holocaust and began reading articles about it even during my high school and college years. During my internship at Chicago’s Cook County Hospital, I read a short book, Doctors of Infamy, which covered many horrendous medical experiments performed on concentration camp prisoners by Nazi physicians. The book was so disturbing that after reading it, I tossed it into a garbage can. My next book on the subject was Elie Weisel’s NIGHT.  I then became occupied with my professional career as well as with my growing family for many years. When I reached the age of forty, I decided I owed it to my dead family members to engage in a real study of that terrible time. I then spent perhaps two or three years of my limited free time reading every book I could find on the Holocaust. 

Years later, I retired from the practice and teaching of internal medicine, and my wife and I moved to Bonita Springs Florida. I noticed in the Naples Daily News an article describing a course in writing fiction being held at the Naples Philharmonic. The teacher was Hollis Alpert a well known novelist, biographer, short story editor as well as a movie critic. 

I took classes with Hollis for a couple of years. He would give us assignments, often listing several subjects that we should use as the basis of a short story. He would critique each story and at the next weekly session read some of them to the class. 

One topic I picked was titled “A Silver Box.” For some reason, I decided to write it about a concentration camp prisoner at the Theresienstadt Concentration Camp who was forced by a Nazi colonel to make a silver box which would be a present for Adolph Hitler. 

After reading the story in class, afterwards, Hollis suggested that this story could be expanded into a novel, and that started the process that eventually lead to Hitler’s Silver Box—A Novel. 

What parts of the novel are actual historical facts? 

While Hitler’s Silver Box—A Novel is a work of fiction, it’s loosely based on the fact that during the Second World War, Nazi scientists worked up to the war’s end on a multitude of secret weapons on which Hitler pinned his hopes for a last ditch victory. 

These weapon systems ranged from very long range rockets that could be fired from underground bases to alternative physics, robotic warriors, new energy sources, radical germ warfare and of course, nuclear weapons. 

In the novel, the facts were modified to suggest that many objects which were later called UFOs were also developed by Nazi scientists in concealed locations, and various secret laboratories were set up around the world including in areas of both Arctic and Antarctic wastes where explorers had never trekked. 

What was your writing process like while working on this novel? Did you have a disciplined schedule? 

Because of various acute and chronic illnesses, I could not keep to a writing schedule. I followed the mantra of “write—rewrite—get it right.” Unlike many expert suggestions, I constantly re-edited my previous work, then edited it again and again.

From conception to typing ‘The End,’ how long did it take you?

About ten years.

The story takes the reader from Chicago to Paris to the Czech Republic. Did you travel to Europe as part of the research?

I have visited many countries in Europe and Paris is my favorite city in the world. I had many plans to visit the Czech Republic, but like Max in the book, health problems kept canceling the plans.

What was the hardest part of writing Hitler’s Silver Box?

Dialogue and careful descriptions were difficult crafts to understand and learn, but the hardest part was describing the conditions that Max went through in the concentration camp using the “particular” silver, the provenance of which nearly drove him and me mad. The dramatic ER scenes were easier because they were based on my personal experiences. Since like Bruce in the novel, I also have claustrophobia in tunnels, writing that scene caused me some discomfort.

What’s in the horizon for Allen Malnak?

If my health holds up, I just might write a sequel to Hitler’s Silver Box. If the Spielberg types come sniffin; around to make the novel into a movie, well I just might be forced to interview Charlize Theron to see if she’s “hot” enough to play Sari.

Any last words to my readers?

The incidents that pushed me to finish Hitler’s Silver Box were linked to the website of one of our local newspapers. Two anonymous neo-Nazis constantly spewed their racist, ant-Semitic slurs, bragging about their continued worship of Adolph Hitler and the murderous Waffen SS, while denying every aspect of the Holocaust.

I’ll close with a quote from a novelist, Jerry Ahern, who reviewed my book for “Gun World Magazine.”  

“Future generations have serious responsibilities, chief among these not to repeat past mistakes. Sadly, these days, there are still those who, out of ignorance or foul intentions, somehow revere the scourge that was National Socialism. That’s why, it’s good for the rest of us to get reminded from time to time, at least, how truly despicable the Nazis were.”

Read more about the author and Hitler’s Silver Box:  

http://naples.floridaweekly.com/news/2012-01-12/PDF/Page_080.pdf

http://naples.floridaweekly.com/news/2012-01-12/PDF/Page_081.pdf

Website: www.hitlerssilverbox.com

Purchase from Amazon.

This article originally appeared in Blogcritics.

Bertena Varney, author of Lure of the Vampire and coauthor of Vampire News 2011 is from Winchester, KY, has lived in Lexington and Mt. Sterling and currently resides in Bowling Green, KY.

While in college she used all of her extra essays, projects and independent study classes to study vampires in pop culture….thus the creation of Lure of the Vampire.

She has been employed as a middle and high school as well as college instructor. Here past employers include Morehead State University, Eastern Kentucky University and National College and she is currently lecturing at Bowling Green Community College.

She found her love for pop culture at an early age and applied her knowledge and love to the recent craze of vampires to create her book, Lure of the Vampire.

She has been the guest star and presenter at the following events: The Witching Hour in Salem, Mass., Sirens Conference in Vail, Co, ScareFest, Dead Winter Con, Fandom Fest, Lexington Comic and Toy Con, Dance After Dark, Mystical Blood Lust, as well as local television and radio interviews. She has had book signings at Joseph Beth, Half Price Books, The Ghost Hunters Shop, National College, The Matrix and more.

She is currently a writer for True Blood on HBOWatch.com, Examiner.com and Yahoo Associated Content. Please read on to learn about the book as well as the programs that she prepared for all ages.

Lure of the Vampire is so fun to have that you will spend hours researching the links as well as the contributors of the various authors.

Sections include the following: Mythology, History, Literature, Movies, Television, Recreation, Children’s Vampires, On the Web, Education, and Real Life Vampires. There are lists, websites, essays, and interviews included in the book.

Lure of the Vampire: A Pop Culture Reference Book of Lists, Websites, and “Very Telling” Personal Essays is a perfect quick to grab reference book for the vampire fan or author. It’s concise enough to assist you in finding links to what you are looking for without our being too cumbersome and confusing.

Lecture and Workshop Tours

Here are options as to programs based on her book as well as her experience as a freelance writer, book reviewer, and book promoter:

Overall lecture and PowerPoint on all sections of the book- history, mythology, movies, books, television, games and more.

Vampires in Literature focusing on Adult Books.

Vampires in Literature focusing on Young Adult Books.

Vampires in Literature focusing on Children’s Books.

How to create your own vampire and paranormal book blog (I can do this for both adults and/or teens)

How to become a paranormal book reviewer ( I can do this for both adults and/or teens)

 Prices for programs

All workshops and lectures will be 1-1 ½ hour long, with a PowerPoint presentation, question and answer time. The library will receive a free print copy of Lure of the Vampire and a free PDF copy of Vampire News. There will also be a drawing for a guest to win a free copy of the Lure of the Vampire. All will receive a PDF copy of Vampire News and bookmarks, etc.

Cost is as follows and is based on travelling from Bowling Green, KY

• Local or within a 1 hour drive- $100.
• Over  1 hour drive – $100 plus transportation

If you would like to book her for a lecture, workshop or book signing please email her at vampireprofessor@gmail.com or call her at 859-437-0082.

You can buy Lure of the Vampire at Amazon.com in print here- http://amzn.to/nwifDw.

Ebooks are available on Kindle and Nook.

Her writing website is www.bertenavarney.com

Her vampire research website is http://searchforthelure.webs.com

Goodreads - http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4837666.Bertena_Varney

To sign up for her newsletter go here.. http://eepurl.com/exZYQ

Book Trailer- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PDi00YAQBxc

Combining elements of drama, historical fiction and science fiction, The Underlying Hand is an original, fascinating novel that explores controversial subjects such as the origins of mankind, the Sons of God, Eden, and The Flood.

The story begins in the Nibiru Space Station 64,000 years before The Flood. Having escaped from near annihilation, the Marduks are now in search of a solar system and habitable planet that can sustain their existence. They must find a new home as soon as possible because they’re being bombarded by cosmic radiation and many of their people are suffering from tumors and cancer. Fortunately, scientists are working on this to find a solution and do so early in the story, with the added advantage of near immortality. Years pass and they finally reach planet earth, a place similar to their own in atmosphere and cellular life. They first land in a valley filled with lush grasslands and berries, a valley they name Eden. When they realize the creatures in this planet are technologically inferior, the Marduks take the arrogant assumption that they’re superior in all aspects and they’ll be looked upon as gods. Most of them don’t consider the possibility that perhaps these primitive-looking, earthly creatures are more advanced in other ways than their own.

The Marduks are a technologically super-advanced society with a dictatorial monarchy. Their original lifespan of 12,000 years has been expanded to near infinite provided they take their radiation bath cure. The king, Jova, has absolute, god-like power. His power is followed by a Council. The novel, however, is mainly told from the perspective of Nin, Jova’s daughter, who acts as a kind of observer to everything that is going on. Through her dialogue with other characters and especially her conversations with her two brothers as well as with Uriel, the royal sage and mentor, the author raises many important issues such as: What is the spiritual cost of a super-advanced society? Is immortality worth pursuing? Is it the law of the universe for the stronger to dominate the weaker? Is there such a thing as a soul or consciousness?

As the Marduks begin colonizing earth, they experience a shift caused by the “eternal polarizer”—that is, God and religion. Jova’s two sons take opposing, conflicting views as they rule over the earthly creatures, causing prosperity and harm to both their own race and mankind. Eventually, they must decide whether or not to sacrifice their identity and genetically mingle with mankind in order to survive and reach their ambitious aspirations.

Written with special attention to detail, The Underlying Hand is an engrossing, fascinating read that will make you think about our origins and wonder about the hierarchies of intelligent societies. Though it has strong science fiction elements, it reads more like serious drama than a regular commercial page-turner. The author uses a lot of dialogue to relay information and advance the plot. The setting is skillfully crafted, making the space station and the world of the Marduks alive with vivid images and detail. There’s also a lot of interesting description relating to biology and genetics. This isn’t a novel easily forgotten and I’m certainly looking forward to the next installment in the chronicles. Recommended. 

Originally published on Blogcritics.

Title: The Underlying Hand – Book One of the Divine Chronicles
Author: Roger P. Koch
Publisher: Xlibris
Publisher’s website: www.Xlibris.com.au
Publication date: November 2011
ISBN 10: Paperback 978-1-4653-0020-1
ISBN 13: Hardback 978-1-4653-0021-8
Number of pages: 330
Price: $29.99 Paperback; $49.99 Hardback
Genre: Visionary Fiction

Also on Amazon.

The story begins when he’s just arrived by ship to New Orleans in the company of his friend Charles, who’s spent the last six years studying in Europe. Charles comes from a prestigious family in the city and he soon invites Andre to stay with them until he can find a place of his own.

From the beginning Andre shows great ambition. He wants to invest his money wisely and prosper, though he doesn’t know how at first. When he decides to become a plantation owner, his friend Charles introduces him to someone how can advise him–a generous, successful man by the name of Jean-Claude. At about this time, Andre meets Gabrielle, a gorgeous yet possessive and selfish young woman who’s set on marrying him at all costs. Like any normal man, Andre is deeply attracted to Gabrielle, even though he knows she’s not the right woman for him. In spite of this, he ends up marrying her, no doubt tempted by her handsome dowry which will help him achieve his dreams. 

As Andre’s plantation grows and he gets wealthier, his marriage becomes increasingly turbulent and Gabrielle more and more unstable. Andre’s pain is deeped by the fact that he’s secretly fallen in love with Jean-Claude’s daughter, a young beauty who’s been infatuated with Andre since the tender age of eleven. Thus, we follow Andre’s ups and downs and his hellish marriage as he becomes the wealthy owner of a plantation.

I have a lot of good things to say about this book. The early 1800′s come to life under the author’s pen. There are many interesting, informative passages about the Creole culture, slave ownership, the running of a plantation, the food, clothes, etc. Though it took me a while to connect with Andre, once I did I really was hooked and wanted to know how the story ended, and whether or not he would at last find happiness. So the plot, though pretty much a love story, kept me turning pages until I finished the book. At times, though, the pace dragged a bit due to redundant phrases, unnecessary description and too much ‘telling’ instead of ‘showing.’ I also think the character of Gabrielle could have used more depth, as she comes across as the stereotype of an ‘evil beauty’ throughout much of the book.

But, as I said, the author made me care for Andre and his situation enough for me to want to keep reading and finish the book. It was an entertaining, interesting read. 

View the original article on blogcritics.org

Title: A World of His Own: In the Land of the Creoles
Author: Arlette Gaffrey
Publisher: Outskirts Press (November 16, 2006)
ISBN-10: 097888910X
http://www.arlettegaffrey.com/
http://www.outskirtspress.com/
Pages: 400 pages
Genre: Historical Fiction
Price: $13.95

Written in first person from the point of view of Angry Wasp, the story begins in 1516, during the era of the Spanish Conquest in Mexico. Angry Wasp, military leader of Tlaxcala, wants to keep his nation safe and search for his lost daughter, Dew, whom he’d lost to one of the leaders of an enemy tribe, a man named Talon. Though Wasp has now captured Talon, the man won’t reveal the whereabouts of Dew. The war with this enemy tribe, the Moonwalk People, is now a personal matter, though Wasp doesn’t want to make this evident to his people.

One of Wasp’s wives, a sorcerer well-educated in the magic arts, teaches him to have out-of-body experiences – that is, to travel in soul and spirit while his body stays in the safety of his village. It is in this “tricky” state, which is hard to fully control, that Wasp makes a twin of himself and meets with Stern Lord, the most powerful man in the world and ruler of the Moonwalk People. Stern Lord is aware that Talon is being kept prisoner by Wasp and isn’t happy about it. Thus begins Wasp’s dance with death as he tries to stay alive and discover what happened to his daughter.

Magic, history, sorcery, mysticism, spirituality, fantasy, and magical realism combine to create an original, intriguing story that will capture your imagination. Briggs writes with attention to detail, making his world come alive. I enjoyed the dialogue and descriptions and especially seeing the world from Wasp’s perspective. My only problem with the story is that in the beginning the issue of finding the daughter seems important but later on it sorts of falls to second place. This didn’t stop me from reading but it did get my attention.

Since the book is self-published, I was also surprised by the quality of the writing: excellent and free of typos or grammatical mistakes. I really appreciate when a self-published book is so well copyedited. In addition, the story seems very well researched and I found interesting all the cultural information, especially the segments on sorcery and sacrifice rituals. Briggs has been researching the Aztec Empire for over 10 years and his knowledge comes through in the writing, without hitting the reader over the head or slowing down the pace with information dumps. In sum, this is a novel worth reading and I recommend it if you’re particularly interested in Aztec history and culture.

Full Name: Austin Briggs
Book Title: Five Dances with Death
Genre: Historical Fantasy
Publisher: Self-published as ebook
ASIN: B005EJGYJ8
Pages: 400 pages
Price: $13.95

About the author:

Donna Shields grew up on romance and scary stories. With her love for suspense and the slightly unusual, she enjoys tying these elements together to create stories full of love, danger, and the paranormal.
She lives in the beautiful upstate of South Carolina with her husband, her children, and some great haunts. She’s a mom, a ‘gramma’, a wife, a friend, an avid reader and writer. When she’s not occupied with all that, she loves traveling to Playa del Carmen and Jamaica.

About the book:

As if the violent murder of Lena Dixon’s fiancé hadn’t been bad enough, now his brother, Nicholas Hunter, is court ordered to live with her for the next thirty days. And to top it off, the murderer’s ghost is asserting his innocence and refuses to leave until Lena and Nicholas prove it.

The skeptic in Nicholas believes Lena has lost her mind until he witnesses some unexplainable events and is forced to believe in her psychic abilities and his heart’s desire.

As their chemistry heats up, so do their guilt levels. Can they make their new found relationship work, or will it be too late when the real killer comes calling for her?

Interview:

Why don’t you start by telling us a little bit about yourself?

I grew up on romance and scary stories. And the more freaky, the better. That’s why my all time favorite author is Stephen King. I love suspense and the slightly unusual. I enjoy tying these elements into my writing to create stories for of love, danger and paranormal activity. I live in the Upstate of South Carolina with my husband, the majority of my children (one daughter lives in CT) and some great haunts still yet to visit. I’m a ‘gramma’ to a wonderful sassy two year old granddaughter and brand new cute grandson.

Do you have another job besides writing?

Yes. I work as a receiving representative in a warehouse close to home. It’s a full time job, so my days are occupied with that. And I just received word that I’m now a contract writer for a local company here in Greenville.

Were you an avid reader as a child? What type of books did you enjoy reading?

I’ve always loved to read. At first, I enjoyed the adventure books such as Huckleberry Finn and Robinson Crusoe. Then, I got into Nancy Drew. High school opened up to more diverse reading.

Agatha Christie got her best ideas while eating green apples in the bathtub. Stephen Spielberg says he gets his best ideas while driving on the highway. When do you get yours and why do you think this is?

My best ideas come while I’m preoccupied doing something else. Usually either while I’m on the treadmill or driving down the road. I think it happens because of the whole right brain, left brain thing. When I’m not thinking of ‘What the heck am I going to write?” it comes to me out of the blue. Then, I have to whip out my phone with my voice recorder on it and record whatever just came to my mind.

How do you divide your time between taking care of the home and the children and writing? Do you plan writing sessions in advance?

I have to laugh here, because unfortunately planning anything never works out for me. The second I plan writing time, it’s derailed quickly. So, I’ve learned not to plan writing sessions. Rather, when I have time in between doing the dishes and cooking supper, or vacuuming and dusting, or even sneaking a few minutes at work, I’ll write.

What is your opinion on critique groups? What are your words of advice to a novice writer who’s joining one? Do you think a wrong critique group can crush a fledgling writer?

I love my critique group. I don’t know what I’d do without my Twinkies. They’ve helped me grow as a writer in so many ways. My advice is that you’ll know you’ve found the right group for you when it’s constructive criticism and not putting you down. If you find a group where all they do is crap on you, run for the hills. Yes, I totally believe a wrong group can crush a new writer. You have to have that ‘fit’, and it really does turn into such a unique friendship.

From the moment that you conceived the idea to the published book, how long did it take?

It was a total of six months from start to finish. And what an exhilarating six months!!

Tell us a bit about your latest book, and what inspired you to write such a story.

As if the violent murder of Lena Dixon’s fiancé hadn’t been bad enough, now his brother, Nicholas Hunter, is court ordered to live with her for the next thirty days. And to top it off, the murderer’s ghost is asserting his innocence and refuses to leave until Lena and Nicholas prove it. The skeptic in Nicholas believes Lena has lost her mind until he witnesses some unexplainable events and is forced to believe in her psychic abilities and his heart’s desire. As their chemistry heats up, so do their guilt levels. Can they make their newfound relationship work, or will it be too late when the real killer comes calling for her?

What inspired me to write this one was a single thought of how it would feel if I were a ghost and what if I died before I got the chance to tell anyone whatever it was I needed to say or I needed them to know? After that, it was a chain reaction of ‘What ifs?’

Do you have another book in the works?

I do. Actually, I have another, Secrets of Jenkins Bridge, that will be released Dec 28th. This one is a romantic suspense.

I’m also working on Boneknapper, another paranormal romantic suspense, involving a Voodoo curse placed upon four innocent men and my heroine needs to find the woman who cursed them before the hero dies.

Do you have a website/blog where readers may learn more about you and your work?

I have an author website: http://donnamshields.wordpress.com/

And my blog: http://donna-realworldwriting.blogspot.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/#%21/pages/Donna-Shields/192982964105589

Twitter: http://twitter.com/#%21/Donna_Shields

And you can find The Swan Cove Murders:

Soul Mate Publishing: http://soulmatepublishing.com/the-swan-cove-murders

Amazon: http://amzn.com/B0065M6GNM

About the book

This volume contains two novels, Living with the Truth and Stranger than Fiction, depicting the three days a world-weary old bookseller gets to spend in the company of Truth, an omniscient being with a wry sense of humour and an interesting agenda. Think Douglas Adams meets Alan Bennett with a touch of Charles Dickens, Franz Kafka, Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett thrown in for good measure.

Interview

Why don’t you begin by telling us a little about yourself?

I am a Scottish writer living just outside Glasgow. I began my writing career as a poet. In the seventies and eighties my poems appeared regularly in the small press magazines that were legion at the time but by the nineties I had allowed myself to become disillusioned and stopped sending stuff out. I didn’t stop writing, however, but in my thirties I moved onto novels and in my forties jumped into short stories. Strange way to go about it, I know.

Were you an avid reader as a child? What type of books did you enjoy reading?

No. Neither of my parents were readers. I don’t think my father ever bought a newspaper and my mother certainly never read any women’s magazines. So although I wasn’t actually discouraged from reading I was never actively encouraged. The books they did buy me when I was very young were mostly Hamlyn’s Enid Blyton books and I still have a special fondness for her retelling of the Brer Rabbit stories. Before I started secondary school (that would place me about twelve) I can only remember reading two proper novels, Kidnapped and Journey to the Centre of the Earth. I’m sure there were more but I could never call myself a voracious reader in fact I find reading hard work much of the time; I bore easily.

I was determined my daughter would not be like me and so before she was born she already had a library of 100 books (including all four Brer Rabbit books) waiting for her and I’m pleased to say she hasn’t taken after her old dad.

Describe your working environment.

Like most people I like to see photos of the rooms writers work in and for years I was desperate to have my own office, so much so that when my wife and I started looking for the flat we’re in just now I placed two preconditions on her (she did most of the looking): firstly, no garden – I hate gardens, can’t stand them – and secondly, that we should each have our own office. I’m pleased to report both conditions were satisfied. The thing is, after a few years of working in my office, once I got a laptop I gravitated to the living room and I’ve worked there ever since. The bottom line is that I can work anywhere. I’ve written by hand, on a manual typewriter, an electric typewriter and on a computer; in trains, on buses, on my lap, standing in the middle of the street and when I should be working. I guess I’m lucky that way. I don’t need much to be able to write. I’ve gotten into the habit of playing music – classical mainly or soundtracks (I can’t write over vocals) – but I don’t need it. I got into the habit as a kid, to drown out my family next door.

When writing, what themes do you feel passionate about?

People. I’m not really interested in nature or politics or big issues like the environment or human rights. I like small, intimate chamber pieces. My novels always have a small set of characters and indeed are character driven; plot doesn’t really interest me. Basically I place a character in a situation, give him, her or them a problem to deal with and watch what follows naturally. The most extreme example of that is my first novel, Living with the Truth, where I literally have Truth in human form knock on some bloke’s door one Tuesday morning.

Have you ever suffered from writer’s block? What seems to work for unleashing your creativity?

I have gone through long periods of not writing (the longest was three years) but I’m not sure I believe in writer’s block per se because I’ve never lost the ability to write; I just found at times I had nothing I particularly wanted to write about. When you’ve only been writing for a few years you don’t really know what’s natural for you. When I hit that three year gap I thought that was me done with writing for good, but the first thing I did when it ended (or that caused it to end) was to sit down and write two novels back to back in the space of about three months, having written nothing bar poetry before then.

What I have come to realise is that writing is more than simply transcribing words onto paper. It’s a way of life. In my novel The More Things Change I write:

Writers don’t have lives. They have ongoing research. Every day is a work in progress. Nothing’s sacrosanct. No one’s exempt. You can’t hand them a note from your mother to leave you alone. It doesn’t work like that.

I believe that. That’s why after a three year gap I had enough material for two novels. I hadn’t frittered it away off a few dozen poems. I still write poetry – poetry has its place and is very important to me – but it also has its limitations.

Tell us a bit about your latest book, and what inspired you to write such a story.

At the moment I’m promoting my ebook, The Whole Truth. It’s an omnibus edition comprising my first two novels, Living with the Truth and Stranger than Fiction. Here’s the basic blurb:

Jonathan Payne is a jaded bookseller at the end of a wasted life which has been spent in a drab north England seaside town. He could be an everyman, but seems to have missed the boat somewhere. He’s both distastefully pathetic and oddly sympathetic. A passive character, he has been happy to read about life without experiencing either great joy or great despair. If Death were to knock on his door it wouldn’t trouble him greatly.

The knock comes. Only it’s not Death. It’s the truth. Literally. The human personification of truth.

Truth proves to be a likeable, if infuriating, character with a novel mode of expression: “glib dipped in eloquence and then rolled in a coating of irony,” to quote one reviewer. He knows everything and has no qualms revealing intimate details of lives of the people who cross his path while he’s with Jonathan. He’s quite indiscriminate. The same reviewer described him as “one of the most endearing antagonists I have come across.” So comparisons with Peter Cook’s devil in Bedazzled are not unreasonable.

Jonathan learns what he’s missed out on in life, what other people think and the true nature of the universe which is nothing like he would have expected it to be. At the end, having learned far more than he ever wanted to know, he finds out that it’s usually never too late to start again. Only sometimes it is: no Ebenezer Scrooge or George Bailey-esque turnaround for poor Jonathan.

Between 1991 and 1994 my life was going through a rough patch. Now normally that would be the sort of thing that I would end up writing about but not this time: nada. In what I suppose one might call a fit of desperation I sat down one day and tried to write something, anything. For the previous twenty years I’d written only poetry. I was a poet. I was happy being a poet. But then I was nothing. And I was afraid I was going to stay nothing for the rest of my life so I imagined a worst case scenario: what might my life be like twenty years down the line? And I sat down and wrote the line:

Now had it been Death that had called that day it would have been all right.

I had been trying to read a novella by Patrick Süskind called The Pigeon. I never got very far through it and the fact is that I only finished the book a couple of years ago. The central image stayed with me, though, a man who was terrified of leaving his apartment because there’s a pigeon blocking his way. Preposterous I know. I imagined my character looking out of his window one morning and seeing, although he doesn’t realise it at first, the personification of truth standing outside. Don’t ask me where that idea came from because I couldn’t tell you.

How would you describe your creative process while writing this book? Was it stream-of-consciousness writing, or did you first write an outline?

I have never plotted. With that first book I simply placed my character in an awkward situation and let things develop naturally. It’s not stream-of-consciousness writing, though, not like Ulysses or Beckett’s trilogy, there is a story. I simply had no idea what that story was. Basically I write in chunks, a chapter at a time. I edit constantly. After I’ve finished a section I’ll go back to the beginning of the book and read right though to where I’ve stopped, tweaking as I go and then I do what feels natural at that point. No big things happen in any of my books (unless you count having Truth knock on your door) but after Truth makes his entrance what happens next? They go to work, have lunch, wander along the esplanade, go back to work, visit a carry-out, entertain Jonathan’s sister, watch an old Carry On film and go to bed; that’s the first half of the book. I just needed some stuff for them to do; it could’ve been anything. To be totally honest the whole book could have taken place in a single room.

In Milligan and Murphy the main action consists of two blokes wandering down a road; in The More Things Change another bloke sits on a park bench for forty years; and in Left a woman wanders around her late father’s flat, watches the neighbours and chats on the Internet.

Who is your target audience?

Me. That’s not as facetious an answer as it sounds. Every book, every story, every poem I have ever written has been for me and me alone. That other people get something out of them is an added bonus. Essentially I write to – exorcise is probably too strong a word – to clear my head, to work things out. Once the words are on the paper I can stand apart from them and view them objectively. Writing is a process I have to go through. The end result is peace of mind.

What is your opinion about critique groups? What words of advice would you offer a novice writer who is joining one? Do you think the wrong critique group can ‘crush’ a fledgling writer?

I’ve never belonged to one, not one where I had to put on my hat and coat and go out of an evening to attend one. I did hang around on Zoetrope’s workshop for a while which was an interesting experience. The rule there is that you have to review poems or stories by five other people to allow you to post one of your own. Some of the comments were interesting but I never changed a word of anything I posted afterwards.

I always keep in mind the fable by Aesop – you’ll know it – about the two men and the donkey – but for those who don’t know it, here’s how it goes:

A man and his son were once going with their donkey to market. As they were walking along by its side a countryman passed them and said: “You fools, what is a donkey for but to ride upon?”

So the man put the boy on the donkey and they went on their way. But soon they passed a group of men, one of whom said: “See that lazy youngster, he lets his father walk while he rides.”

So the man ordered his boy to get off, and got on himself. But they hadn’t gone far when they passed two women, one of whom said to the other: “Shame on that lazy lout to let his poor little son trudge along.”

Well, the man didn’t know what to do, but at last he took his boy up before him on the donkey. By this time they had come to the town, and the passers-by began to jeer and point at them. The man stopped and asked what they were scoffing at. The men said: “Aren’t you ashamed of yourself for overloading that poor donkey of yours with you and your hulking son?”

The man and boy got off and tried to think what to do. They thought and they thought, till at last they cut down a pole, tied the donkey’s feet to it, and raised the pole and the donkey to their shoulders. They went along amid the laughter of all who met them till they came to Market Bridge, when the donkey, getting one of his feet loose, kicked out and caused the boy to drop his end of the pole. In the struggle the donkey fell over the bridge, and his fore-feet being tied together he was drowned.

“That will teach you,” said an old man who had followed them.

The moral of the fable? Please all and you’ll please none. And I’ve always said that I won’t carry a donkey for anyone. Everyone has an opinion which they’re entitled to but they can’t all be right. Listen to them all by all means but make your own mind up.

In some respects I was lucky as a young writer. There was no Internet and where I lived there were no other writers. So I wrote alone and, although I’m glad the Internet exists now, in the midst of all the pluses for writers there are definitely a few negatives and one of those has to be access to immediate feedback – I’m not sure that’s necessarily such a good thing. No one, not even my wife, gets to read anything by me until it is finished. That doesn’t mean I won’t make a minor change or two after she’s read it but I am never in a rush to show anyone anything. I finished Left in January. My wife read it, told me it was good and I’ve not looked at it since. Eventually I’ll get back to it when enough time has passed; I’ll do a final edit once I can look at the book objectively and then it’ll be off to the beta readers.

Do you have a website/blog where readers may learn more about you and your work?

Website: http://www.jimmurdoch.co.uk/
Blog: http://jim-murdoch.blogspot.com/
Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/jmurdoch