Q: How many books have you written? How many of those are published?
A: Thirteen books plus three or four children's storybooks. Seven books have been published.
Q: Do you have an upcoming release? If yes, tell me the title and impending release date.
A: Tug of the Wishbone was released on December 8, 2016 at Amazon and Barnes & Noble. It will be available at Ingram's and other outlets in February.
Q: If you could “create” your own genre of what you write, what would you call your books?
A: Fiction in the land of the Midwest (except a book that was set in Alaska and a book about flutes).
Q: Without quoting your back cover synopsis, tell me about the last book you published.
A: Tug of the Wishbone chronicles a child of divorce until she is thirty. The book focuses on how her early experience affects her attitudes about relationships and marriage. I like to think of it as both a psychological anatomy and a book of discovery.
Q: Tell me something about yourself that is separate from writing.
A: I almost made a career of music which is why I wrote a book about flutes.
Q: What is the last book that you read? (Not counting anything you wrote)
A: I just finished A Blithedale Romance by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Another note about myself is that I have worked with used books in the last decade so I often read one of the old books I own. I liked this book much more than I expected however, I previously liked Hawthorne for his mysterious atmospheres.
Q: When writing, do you have a system or something you plan, or do you just write?
A: I usually have main characters, a scenario, and a loose plot at the start. Tug of the Wishbone and three of my juvenile novels began as short fiction.
Q: Why do you write?
A: Places, scenes, experiences that are keepers inspire me to write. Life goes by but fiction can enhance panoramas that one wants to re-visit. Often it is a puzzling panorama and one to explore again.
Q: Do you read your own work a lot? If so, what does it do for you?
A: After my work is published, I don’t re-read it often. I like to read it when I have forgotten the book somewhat. Then I usually enjoy it and especially because it reminds me of my mind frame when I wrote it. Age changes people, they can’t be as young as they were, and I like to feel the moods and the outlook I had.
Q: As an author, I find that the hardest thing to write (for me) is the synopsis that will be on the back cover or book’s description. When you write, what is the hardest line to write, the first line, the last line or the synopsis for the book?
A: Definitely the synopsis. It’s hard to see the book when you’ve been revising the chapters. I usually rewrite the beginning paragraph a number of times but I do not agonize over that. The last sentence falls into place the easiest.