Today’s special guest is Lynne Burke, author of a romantic mystery titled In Small Measures.

Welcome to the blog, Lynne! Could you tell us a little bit about your novel?
Thank you for the opportunity, Rachel. I am delighted to be here and look forward to keeping up with your Freelance and Fiction Blog. To give you a quick synopsis of my novel:

Kristen Todd Harrison is the main character of my novel. As the 21-year-old heiress to the largest fortune in Australia, her charmed life appeared to be mapped out. She was to succeed her mother as the leader of the social set and doyen of every charity in town. But she chose to rebel, and a twelve-day love affair with an African American marine on leave from Vietnam in 1965 changed her life forever.  Kristen encounters a hail of prejudice and rejection, following the death of her lover and the birth of their mixed race child. Several wrong choices involve her in a shadowy criminal world which threatens her very survival.  Fear and guilt force her to flee to protect her daughter. This is an intricately drawn novel spanning 16 years and mixes romance, mystery with a twist, and a revealing social history of the 60’s and 70’s.

What led you to write this book?
I have always been a writer since a young child. This idea germinated when, as a young woman working in Sydney, I was aware of the US soldiers, sailors, and airmen who took R&R on our shores during the Vietnam War. I wondered about the families they had left back in America.  It was no more than an idea for many years until I decided to transform it into a book a few years ago.

How do you balance suspense and romance?
Perhaps it is for readers to say whether this is a balance.  I hadn’t really thought about it as life is a complicated enmeshing of love, romance, anger, hurt, fear, dread, and sometimes suspense.  So why couldn’t they be balanced together as one ‘lives’ alongside a main character facing these problems?

You grew up in Australia. How does the setting affect your novel? What special Aussie traits show through in your characters?
I grew up on a farm in the country, but lived my adult life in the city, so I think a lot of my characters and locations I draw from life experience. Australians are generally a friendly, casual, no nonsense, easy going people who tell it like it is, and would go out of their way to help a mate. “Give you the shirt off their back,” is a term often used. I think a few of my characters have depicted that “aussieness,” particularly evident in the trusting country folk.

What is your best advice on writing?
If I have any advice, it is to keep writing.  Write every day, and keep doing it until it becomes second nature.  I was lucky enough at 11 years of age to write to Willard Motley, author of “Knock on Any Door”.  To my thrill and surprise, he answered and we continued a friendship until his death many years later. He became my mentor and advisor on all things writing and this was one of his messages. To be a writer he said you have to have “the persistency of a mosquito, the patience of an elephant, the thick hide of a rhinoceros, and the cunning of a fox, and above all a belief in your own ability, that will never let you give up.”

These are certainly wise words and needed if one is to persist with a professional career in writing and publication.

Bio
To tell you a bit about myself.  I grew up in the country, on a farm, where hard work was the norm. I had years of boarding school, followed by a career as a professional fund raiser for Major Charities. I owned several businesses, including a children’s wear boutique, coffee lounges, and taverns. I am married to a city boy and have two children.  I still live in Sydney on the Harbour.  I am in the throes of writing a ‘how to’ book on fundraising, based on many years of experience. My next novel doesn’t have a name, yet, but so far is shaping up to be an amusing story about a cookie detective.

It has been suggested that I write a sequel to In Small Measures, but that is still in the thinking process. You can be sure I will be writing something!

Thanks so much for stopping by, Lynne!
Thank you Rachel! I do hope your Freelance and Fiction blog is a great success.

Lynne Burke can be found here. You can also reach her via email at lynne@lynneburke.com.

In Small Measures is available at Outskirts Press. It is also available through Book Depository in UK and through Barnes and Noble and Baker and Taylor.

Lynne says she will probably venture into Facebook and Twitter, but these take so much of her precious time that could be spent writing.

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Bill See is the author of 33 Days: Touring in a Van. Sleeping on Floors. Chasing a Dream. His experience in writing literary non-fiction made him the perfect candidate to share some insights about this genre.

My thanks to Rachel for asking me to guest post here and touch on the genre commonly called literary or narrative non-fiction.   

For my new book, “33 Days: Touring In A Van.  Sleeping On Floors.  Chasing A Dream,” I had a decision to make.  Keep the names, dates and places the same, or fictionalize it. Frankly, it would have made things a lot easier had I made it fiction.  Ultimately I chose to keep it non-fiction, but instead of a straight first person autobiography, biography or memoir, I wrote it like a novel – replete with ongoing dialogue and developing characters that evolve and come of age. 

Quick back story: “33 Days” is the true story of my band Divine Weeks’ first tour in a beat up old Ford Econoline van across the U.S. and Canada in the summer of 1987.  At its core, “33 Days” is a coming of age, on the road story.  The tour is one of those now or never experiences.  Take a shot at making the band work or leave it all behind and go your separate ways.  Every one of us has that moment where we have to decide to either live our dreams or give up and regret it for the rest of our lives. 

So, what really is literary non-fiction?  Well, simply put, it’s a form of storytelling that employs literary techniques like narrative arc, character development, scene-setting, dialogue and interior monologue to report on actual persons, places or event.  In literary non-fiction, a writer narrates facts while searching for truth.  It’s a blend of the eye of a journalist with the moral vision of the novelist. 

In “Stein on Writing”, Sol Stein writes, “Sometimes the subject of literary non-fiction may not at the onset be of great interest to the reader, but the character of the writing may lure the reader into that subject.”  My band Divine Weeks only had modest success in indie rock circles back in the 80s, and I never set out to try and make a case that we should have become superstars.  In fact, by the end of the book, the question of whether the band “makes it” is inconsequential.  What makes the book universally appealing, hopefully, is the extraordinary journey by a group of five guys out on their own for the first time in their lives.  What makes the story relatable, again hopefully, are the obstacles we faced (alcoholic upbringing, rigid cultural expectations) before we could even climb in the van and try to leave it all behind. A straightforward band memoir laying out the facts of the tour would not have given life to the characters and our struggles, humorous and otherwise, in the way that literary non-fiction does. 

In Lee Gutkind’s “The Creative Nonfiction Police,” he sets out a kind of checklist for creative non-fiction writers.  “One, strive for the truth…Second, recognize the important distinction between recollected conversation and fabricated dialogue. . .Third, don’t round corners--or compress situations or characters--unnecessarily. . . Fourth, allow your characters to defend themselves--or at least to read what you have written about them.”

Pondering that checklist, in my case, “33 Days” is culled from the journals I kept on tour.  I didn’t have a tape recorder, and it wasn’t my intention to write a book until many years later.  I didn’t make anything up, but I’m sure I missed a lot out there.  My disclaimer makes that clear at the onset of the book.  That is, these were the stories I chose to tell, and if anything I shared was either a breach of confidence or if I misquoted anyone, I really did try to clear it with everyone in the book.  And I did clear it with everyone with one exception despite the fact that I tried to continuously.  For everyone else, I gave them the opportunity to not only defend themselves but weigh in with their own recall and insight which helped distinguish each character’s voice.  I was guilty of compressing some of the story in the interest of sparing the reader too many disparate parts that didn’t fit into the themes I chose to focus on.  Overall, I’d give myself a passing grade.

Learn more at the 33 Days website!

I'm a pretty big fan of post-apocalyptic/dystopian literature. Today's guest, John Nelson, wrote a novel that exemplifies the "end-of-the-world" genre: a thriller titled Against Nature.

Welcome to the blog, John! Could you tell us a little bit about your novel?

The U.S. is ground-zero for a mysterious global pandemic. The disease is highly infectious and kills it’s victims within two weeks of exposure. It’s neither bacteria nor a virus and all traditional treatment regiments have failed.

Serena Salus, a radical scientist, discovers the organism is an extraterrestrial dust mite brought to earth by a shuttle astronaut. The government contends it’s a genetically-engineered organism created on earth by enemies of freedom. Dr. Salus uncovers a vile plan for distributing her experimental antitoxin and finds herself in a deadly confrontation with powerful forces that’ll stop at nothing to control the distribution of her vaccine.

What led you to write this book?

We had a couple of disasters during the last decade with 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina. The response by our government disturbed me. The news was filled with Abu Ghraib, torture, secret prisons, wars built on lies, suspension of habeas corpus at Guantanamo Bay, and so much more. I wondered what would happen if some of that washed up on our shores, or was magnified during an even greater crisis. I created a fictitious catastrophic event and superimposed actual events of the last decade to create a dystopian thriller. I think any good fiction starts with fact. I also believe a good novel uses facts, adds fiction, and if successful, blurs the lines between them.

How did you handle the challenges of creating and explaining a new disease without falling into the trap of info-dumping?

I wanted to captivate the reader’s imagination. It’s a fictitious disease, so I had to make it plausible and understandable to the reader. I didn’t need to overwhelm the reader with too much epidemiology. I think a novel dense in scientific data and jargon tends to be self-serving. It tends to be more about showing the reader how smart the author is, but often at the expense of a well-paced novel. I hope I avoided that trap. It’s a balance. I hope the reader feels I succeeded in finding that balance.

Is it difficult to kill off your characters? How do you make sure the emotions come across to readers?

I think it works if you use it as a vehicle to get to where you want to go. In a global pandemic, for example, death of a character can bring the reader into that tragedy in a more tangible way.

What is your best advice on writing?

Just sit down and write... Edit later. I wrote this book with lots of back story that I trimmed later. Writing large tracts of back story helped me understand my characters very well, even if some of it gets cut.

I actually didn’t know where the story would take me when I started it. It all unfolded during my journey. My advice would be: enjoy the ride and edit to make it a tight, well-crafted story. Perhaps you’ll write 500 pages to get to a 300 page novel, but that’s okay.

Thanks so much for stopping by, John!

About John Nelson

I’m a retired Air Force Master Sergeant and former Special Forces Medic. I work as Director of Quality and Risk Management, Patient Safety, and Infection Control for a community hospital in Utah. I’m now in the editing/ minor re-write stage of my next novel Grey Suits, a story of conspiracy, mystery and intrigue. I hope to have it ready to go by the end of the summer.

John Nelson can be found on:

http://johngnelson.blogspot.com/

Against Nature is available here and here.

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Vampires are currently the hottest trend in movies and books. Depending on the lore, vampires can fly, read minds, sparkle (!), and may or may not have a tinge of evil in their character. Our guest today isn’t content to read the vampire books out there – she writes her own tales of bloodsucking heroes and heroines. Just two days ago, Isabella Kruger published her novel Afterlife: A Discovery of Vampires. Congratulations, Isabella!

Could you tell us a little bit about your novel? A Discovery of Vampires is a trilogy that tells the story about two girls who struggle with their transformation as vampires.

Why do you think vampires are so alluring as characters?

 I honestly think that since the release of Twilight vampires have become a part of pop culture. They really are fascinating beings and there is an ongoing mystery that surrounds them.

How do you balance romance and horror in your novel?

I try to make the characters as believable as possible in the sense that readers can relate to them as they would to a human character. I try and bring a bit of a human element into the process by balancing their immortal traits with human traits.

What led you to write Afterlife?

I read a book by Todd Burpo called Heaven is for real and it led me to ask a lot of questions about the afterlife. My research led me to write a book that not only explores life after death but also a book that explores the topic of immortality.

What is the best advice you can give about writing?

Read A LOT! Read more than you write! There are thousands of books out that there that can help you in the writing process. One of the best books on the market today is A newbie's guide to publishing by J. Koranthand, best of all it’s free on his website!

Isabella Kruger is an indie author and film maker with a love for writing. She calls South Africa and Australia home. She is the author of the Discovery ofVampires trilogy, the Delicious series, Hannah Olivia's most loved things and The language of love. She is currently working on two other books called The importance according to Elishiva and Shadowfeet.

 Isabella Kruger can be found here, here, and here.

Afterlife: A Discovery of Vampires was released on the 25th of April 2011. It will be available on Amazon.com and .co.uk.

Thanks for stopping by, Isabella!

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I have to admit I have a soft spot for comics. Whether in the form of a graphic novel or a superhero movie, this genre really grabs my attention. Today’s guest author is Jim Bernheimer, and his latest novel, Confessions of a D-List Supervillain, fits in nicely with the world of superheroes and supervillains!

Welcome to the blog, Jim! Could you tell us a little bit about your novel?

Confessions of a D-List Supervillain grew out of the five chapter novella of the same name that I first wrote in 2008 and appeared in my 2009 short story collection Horror, Humor, and Heroes Volume One. Of all the reviews that collection has received to date, the majority said that they wanted to see more of Mechani-Cal and his adventures.

The story is that of a low ranking supercriminal and his journey from being a bad guy to being a slightly less bad guy. He wears his own “home built” battlesuit, which is good, but it can’t compete with someone like Ultraweapon (my universe’s rough equivalent of Iron Man). Cal is a bit of an inventor for hire - gun runner, if you will - and hired muscle. When the world gets overrun by a major supervillain’s latest scheme gone awry, Cal is one of the few that’s left unaffected. He’s got one chance to save the world, whether he wants to or not!

I plan to make this into a trilogy. I’ve got more plans for Cal and company and I hope readers will join me for the journey.

What led you to write this book?

I liked the idea of the redemption story, but with a realistic and somewhat gritty take on things. Cal’s metamorphosis is gradual and he “falls off the wagon” several times along the way and reverts to form, because it’s good to be bad. He’s sarcastic and doesn’t worry about offending people too much.

Your story is told from the point of view of a villain. How did you handle the challenge of writing a protagonist who is a bad guy?

One of the things that’s nice about writing things from a bad guy’s perspective is he isn’t limited to the types of actions the other side has. Cal can get a little nasty and vindictive. He can lose his temper and, instead of reasoning with a bunch of rioters and looters, just start tossing around tear gas canisters until the crowd disperses. I didn’t consider this to be a challenge, but an advantage. Still, I needed outside beta readers to make certain I didn’t get too carried away. That was probably the one drawback, making sure that Cal’s actions didn’t go too far.

What comic books inspire you?

One of my favorite trilogies of all time is called Eagleheart by an author named CT Westcott. He wrote an excellent anti-hero named Will Bucko in it. It’s not a comic book, but just the same.

As far as comics go, I stopped collecting them a long time ago. From the plot of Confessions, you’d expect me to say Iron Man, but I was more of a Spiderman or X-Men guy than the Avengers.  I like my heroes to have flaws and hardships. Tony Stark’s flaws hit a little too close to home for a kid growing up in a household where there was someone with alcohol issues.

What is your best advice on writing?

Realism! There is no substitute, even in fiction. Characters influence the plot and the plot influences the characters. For a reader to be able to suspend their disbelief, the character’s actions within the structure of the plot must be believable. Not only does this apply to your main characters, but even minor characters. If someone’s actions make the reader start figuratively scratching their head, then the wheels start coming off. As a writer, view each scene from the perspective of everyone involved and ask if each character behaves in a believable fashion. Authors who can do that will have an advantage over those who don’t.

Thanks so much for stopping by, Jim!

Jim Bernheimer can be found on: www.jimbernheimer.com, on Facebook, his Amazon.com author page, and the Permuted Press message board.

Confessions of a D-List Supervillain is available at: Amazon (as a kindle right now, the paperback will probably be out by the end of the month), soon it will be available for the Nook, and also Smashwords.com

Jim Bernheimer lives in Chesapeake, Virginia with his wife and two daughters. Through Gryphonwood Press, he has published Spirals of Destiny Book One: Rider, Dead Eye: Pennies for the Ferryman, and the soon-to-be released sequel Dead Eye 2: The Skinwalker Conspiracies. Under his own EJB imprint, Jim has published Horror, Humor, and Heroes (Volumes One and Two) and Confessions of a D-List Supervillain. His next project (after Dead Eye 2) will be Spirals of Destiny Book Two: Sorceress.

Hmm, after reading about comics, I want to go watch Kick-Ass again! Or maybe I’ll request The Dark Knight Returns via interlibrary loan… I miss the giant comic book/manga section in my hometown’s library!

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Steve DeWinter has graciously agreed to share his insights on the blog! His most recent novel is a thriller called Inherit The Throne.

Welcome to the blog, Steve! Could you tell us a little bit about your novel?

Thanks for having me. It is a pleasure to be here and tell you a little about my latest novel, Inherit The Throne. I have always loved stories where the average person can stand up against the status quo, or the well connected enemy, and succeed. Inherit The Throne is just such a story. It is an action/thriller that pits the little guy, or gal in my novel’s case, against a larger and more powerful adversary. And despite all the odds against her, she succeeds in saving the United States from falling prey to the desires of a select few. Hooray! Score one for freedom!

What led you to write Inherit The Throne?

It seemed to me that guys dominate the action/thriller genre and any time a girl tries to move in to the genre as the hero, it too often falls into the “sex-as-a-weapon” trap. I love TV shows like La Femme Nikita and Alias (despite their occasional use of sex-as-a-weapon), but why should TV get all the good action heroine’s? I wanted to bring a story to the readers where the main character shows strength, intelligence and perseverance without losing her true self and just becoming another hero in a heroine’s body. One of the readers at Textnovel even stated that my main character was like a female Jason Bourne. As a huge fan of Robert Ludlum and his Bourne novels, this made me cry like a… a big strong guy!

Why do you think political thrillers are so popular?

I think political thrillers are popular in the fiction realm as a form of escapism. Far too often we read or see on the news about violence on a massive scale where there are no clear distinctions between the winners and the losers. Most often in real life, everybody loses. But in fiction, the good guys can, and often do, win. And as readers we get to go along with them as they prevent something from taking place that would have affected thousands or even millions of people.

How do you make time to write? Do you have any writing rituals that help you get words on paper?

Oh boy! That is the big question. It’s not easy, what with the full time job to pay the bills. Despite all the demands on my time, I make an effort to do something each day, no matter how much or how little. The key is to not stop the momentum of writing. I don’t let a single day go by where I am not progressing through one of my stories. As far as rituals, I really don’t have any set method, but I do use an iPod Touch with Bluetooth keyboard for my writing. The portability, and long battery life, has enabled me to turn those “wasted” moments, like while I am waiting for someone, into productive writing time. I am free to write anytime and anywhere. Score another one for freedom!

What was the most important lesson you learned from writing this novel?

Writing is a process. I went through numerous drafts, and a title change, before finally “getting it right” for the published version of Inherit The Throne you see today. The most painful lesson was learning that all criticism is constructive criticism. Don’t get so close to your story that you can’t see the blaring errors that others are so eager to point out. Take a step back and look at your story objectively. Editing is a huge part of the process.

Thanks for stopping by, Steve!

And thanks again for letting me stop by to bare my soul and share my novel. Now where is that craft services table? I could sure use a muffin or cookie right about now.

Steve DeWinter can be found on:

www.stevedw.com

http://www.facebook.com/mythmakersdw

http://www.myspace.com/stevedewinter

Steve is hard at work on his next novel that should be seeing the light of day soon!

Inherit The Throne is available at:

Amazon - $2.99 eBook / $9.99 Print

Today’s special guest author is Judy Dearborn Nill! Her YA novels are available on Amazon and tend to focus on the teenage struggle between being unique and yearning to fit in.

Welcome to the blog, Judy! Could you tell us a little bit about Just for Kicks?

Thank you, Rachel, and thanks for having me here. Just for Kicks is the story of a 16-year-old girl in remission from juvenile rheumatoid arthritis who decides to take up her best friend’s challenge to snag the interest of a fellow high school student who’s totally absorbed in martial arts. She’s been itching to live free of worry about her illness, and she’s quite taken with Chas, the handsome young martial artist. She knows her venture is risky, but she doesn’t anticipate the way things go, either at the dojo or with Chas.

What led you to write this novel?

A number of years ago I got involved in martial arts. The leadership seemed to have little empathy for physical ailments; they pushed students to overcome them by working harder and longer at practice. A few years after that I developed adult rheumatoid arthritis. I think I was eager to write about both those experiences, because one day a storyline presented itself to my imagination in which a teenager with JRA was knocking herself out at martial arts both to prove to herself she could do it and to win the heart of the boy she’s attracted to.

Was it difficult to address the serious theme of Petra’s disease in a YA book?

No. I started the novel shortly after recuperating from the longest, most serious and (ultimately, thank God)  last big flareup of my disease. My memory of physical pain and disability was vivid and fresh. At the same time, my memory of the martial arts school had mellowed enough that I could see how funny some of my experiences there were. I very much enjoyed balancing those two elements in the story—comedy and tragedy. I also loved discovering the strength and determination in my main character.

What makes YA fiction a great genre?

Great question. It’s a genre that clearly appeals across generational lines. In fact, it’s one of the hottest genres at the moment, so it puzzles me that Amazon doesn’t have a separate category for it. If you publish a YA novel with them, it has to be listed in a category such as romance or mystery, or in children’s fiction. However, YA is anything but children’s literature. Most of it involves coming-of-age material—young people confronted with challenges that test their mettle and bring them to realize who they are. And anything goes nowadays. There really are no tabus. At the same time, the length of YA novels is more manageable for those with shorter attention spans. Great plots at about half the word count. So you can read more stories!

What is the best advice you can give to writers?

In the past I’ve answered that question with standard advice. Go into banking, take up basketweaving, do anything but write unless you’re compelled by an inner drive to do so. Persist in spite of rejection and discouragement. Join a good writers group, or start one of your own. Read, read, read the kind of work you want to write. Take classes. Stuff like that. But what I’d like to say now is a little different. I’d like to say that if it’s a genuine dream to write for publication, to see you work in print, it’s more possible now than it ever was before. Blog possibilities, online magazines, Amazon Kindle, CreateSpace, and Smashwords are just a few of the options available to writers nowadays that weren’t there a few short years ago.

Thanks for stopping by, Judy!

Thanks again for having me, Rachel.

Judy can be found online at: www.judydearbornnill.com, www.amazon.com, www.smashwords.com and Facebook.

Judy Dearborn Nill works as a licensed mental health counselor. Before that she  taught journalism part-time at Seattle University and two other colleges based on her experience as a reporter. She has published newspaper, magazine and professional journal articles in addition to three YA novels: Just for Kicks, The Rise and Fall of Bibi Karstad and Simple Twists of Faith. She recently contracted with Guardian Angel Press to publish her first children’s story, Samuel and Sophia: A Tale of Two Teddies.

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This isn't a book post - just me saying Happy Easter to everyone who celebrates this holiday!

Today's featured book is a must-read for those who like Scottish history and heart-pounding fiction! Jeanne Tomlin, author of the historical novel, Freedom’s Sword, is here to share some of her experience.

Thanks for stopping in, Jeanne! Could you tell us a little bit about your novel?

It is set in the early days of the English invasion of Scotland as young Andrew de Moray follows his father into battle only to face defeat and imprisonment for doing their sworn duty. It's about the tremendous bravery Andrew and Caitrina, whom he eventually marries, show fighting for what at first seems a hopeless cause.

What is the best part of being an indie author?

That's a hard one, but I think the best part is being able to take my work directly to readers with no waiting a year or two or more while I sell it to agents and publishers and while they decide whether it will make money for them or not.

Can you tell us about your creative process?

That makes it sound so fancy, and it really isn't. I sit down at my desk and try to tell a story. It takes a lot of self-discipline sometimes, but it's largely just a matter of just sitting one's butt in a chair and doing it. I'm not some high-flown literary writer, after all. I think of myself more in line with a storyteller in the middle of a village square.

What makes historical fiction a great genre?

I think of it kind of like fantasy, except that it's about an age that really happened. Often the people in past ages did things we don't admire. They were anti-Semitic or narrow minded in some other way, but these same people were often brave and faithful and loving. Showing the complexity of the people in an age so different from our own is the challenge and, when you do it, the great triumph of historical fiction.

How did you deal with the difficulties of blending history and fiction?

Well, I had an advantage in this story, in that it such an amazing one that I didn't need much fiction. What confounds me about people who try to improve on history is that often the real story was better than what they make up. But when it came to the fiction part, because so many of records of Scotland were lost in the long wars of invasion, there is a lot of room for filling in blank spaces as well.

Jeanne can be found on: http://jeannetomlin.blogspot.com.

Freedom’s Sword is available at Smashwords.

Can you give us a little autobiography?

I grew up mainly in Texas, although I spent summers with my grandparents who lived in Scotland which probably gives me an both an unusual outlook and accent. I attended university at the University of Texas. My interests are pretty diverse, ranging from writing and reading to Scottish history and politics to horseback riding and hiking. I now live in the Pacific NW which is even rainier than Scotland, so I suppose, in a way, I've come full circle. I'm am currently working on the final edit and cover for a new historical novel set in Scotland set in 1306 titled A Kingdom's Cost. It should be out the first of May.

Thanks for sharing, Jeanne!

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Let’s welcome Teresa Kennedy to the blog! Her book of short stories, In the Country of No Compassion, is available via Amazon.

Could you tell us a little bit about your book? Do you have a favorite story in this collection?

Well, it really is a collection of the stories I’ve been working on over the past few years. I’d published a number of them in little and literary magazines, but traditional publishing tends to frown on short fiction. With the rise of ebooks and self publishing, though, that’s changing. As a matter of fact, I’m a partner in a new publishing venture called Village Green Press LLC, and this is our launch title, along with Lisa Adams’ upcoming The Assassin’s Café, and Bruce Rosenfeld’s Make Every Shot Count. Over time, we hope to offer prospective authors and readers a hybrid publishing concern that makes it possible to have the best of both traditional and self publishing options.

As for my favorite story in this collection, I’d have to say it’s Ex Voto, not just because it speaks to the idea of what America represents to the immigrants who come here, but also because it’s about nurturing your art even under adverse circumstances.

Your stories deal with a number of hot-button political issues. When does a story transform from fiction for its own sake to a political action?

I certainly didn’t start out writing any of these stories as a political action. Rather, they became increasingly political as our political climate heated up and we became more polarized regarding certain issues. But I do think it’s important for a writer to serve in some way as an authentic witness to their times. I wrote what I saw happening around me with as compassionate a vision as I was able.

What special challenges were raised by the political and religious nature of your book?

To keep each of these characters entirely human. To really establish the kind of narrative voice that didn’t take sides, and didn’t judge. The young veteran in Times New Roman was perhaps the greatest challenge, personally. I was the editor of a weekly newspaper in a very Christian, very right wing area of Virginia for awhile, and the folks there were very much in favor of the war in Iraq, and very much in favor of sending their kids off to the military as a career.

I, on the other hand, was very anti-war; my family and I were in NYC during 9/11. Even (or especially) because of that, I couldn’t find any justification for continued violence. But my neighbors in Virginia weren’t bad people, either.  They were good people in a country that was making some bad choices. So I had to be careful not to take a side in creating that character, and to make him someone anybody could feel for, no matter where they stood on the war in Iraq.

What led you to write these stories?

Ultimately, I write to keep myself sane. To me, fiction is a way of making sense of the universe.

What is the best advice you can give about writing?

Ha! Writing is like America. Love it or leave it. No, seriously, I’ve been on both sides of the desk, both as an author and as an editor. I currently work at The Editorial Department, the oldest and largest editorial firm on the web, as a manuscript consultant and developer, helping other authors, and have published over 30 books under my own name and various pseudonyms. I never got rich, I never got famous, but I consider myself really, really fortunate that whatever aspect of this business I’m involved with at the moment, I love what I do. So my best advice to other writers is to love what they do. Not because it will make them a fortune or they’ll become the “ next” whoever, but because their voice is unique and worth the time and effort it takes to perfect their craft.

Thanks for stopping by, Teresa!

Teresa Kennedy can be found on: twitter @editorialgirl53; Facebook Teresa Kennedy!

http://www.editorialdepartment.com/teresa-kennedy.html

In the Country of No Compassion is available here and here.

View the Book Trailer here.

Teresa Kennedy is an author, editor and publisher with more than 25 years experience in the publishing industry. An author or co-author of more than 30 published books, including fiction and non-fiction, she has also run an independent newspaper and published a variety of short stories and articles in publications around the world. Her novel, The Rattlesnake Stradivarius, is currently in production by the Book-it! Theater company of Seattle with plans for a full production in 2012. Her e-book collection of short fiction, In the Country of No Compassion, premieres in March 2011 from Village Green Press, an imprint for authors who seek the benefits of self-publishing without the stigma sometimes associated with it, of which she is co-founder.

She has served as a senior editor, acquisitions editor, and consulting editor for a variety of publishers, agents, and book packagers around the country. A graduate of The University of Wisconsin back in the days when it was a “hotbed of radical unrest,” she has also lived in Texas, Virginia, San Francisco, New York, Chicago, and several cities in France. She currently lives in Tucson, AZ, with her husband and daughter.

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