"The Story Behind the Story"--an Author Interviewed: Mary Jo Nickum

Introducing author Mary Jo Nickum...

"The Story Behind the Story, an Author Interviewed" Q & A session is my new measure to help the world of independent authors and publishers. If you have released your own book and are looking for ways to promote your efforts, your book and your soul as the creator of your work, contact me HERE to book your online interview on this blog. 

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Q. Let's start by introducing yourself.
My name is Mary Nickum. I was born in Indiana and grew up on a small farm in northern Wisconsin. “Mom’s Story, A Child Learns About MS” is my first book for children. I’ve had multiple sclerosis (MS) for 30 years.

Q. What genre is Mom’s Story? Who is your ideal audience?
Mom’s Story is a nonfiction chapter book. It is designed for 8 to 11 year olds. But, the ideal audience also includes the entire family of the MS patient, relatives and friends.

Q. In 150 words or less, what’s your book about?
Mom’s Story; A Child Learns About MS tells the story of a young girl who sees her mother with some frightening health problems and learns she has MS but she will not die from it. This book is a compassionate, accessible and easy to understand account of symptoms, search for help, diagnosis and adaptation to this heart-wrenching disease. Amy fears the worst, which is common when one is confronted by the unknown. Her best friend, Kayla, doesn’t quite understand why Amy is so worried. Amy’s older sister, Kelly is concerned and does her best to help, while older brother, Tony, tries to deny the whole situation. Information is the key to allaying much of her fear along with understanding from parents, adult friends and her older sister.

Q: Apart from being an author, who are you in relation to your gifts?
I am first and foremost a reader. I decorate my house with books rather than having just one room, a library, for my books. They’re all over, all around. It follows then, I suppose, that I am a professional librarian and I was an undergraduate English education major in college.

Q: Of all the stories you could have written…why did you choose to write this particular book?
This was my first foray into writing for children. I took the advice of several pieces that I’d read about writing for children, Kathleen Kudlinski, especially. They all say, “Write what you know.” Well, I’ll tell you, having had MS for 30 years, I know about MS. So, I thought, aha! a book for children whose parent and the whole family, is starting down that strange, unknown path. As I began to write, I realized the story had been in my head and waiting to be put into words for years.

Q: How much of your personal psyche, your struggle and your insecurities are hidden within the characters of this particular story? (Please elaborate)
A lot and I’m not sure it’s very well hidden. I think there’s a little bit of me in all of the characters. Mom realizes there’s something wrong but doesn’t want to worry everyone. Dad is trying to be brave and be the pillar of the family. Kelly is caring and nursing. Tony is in denial, a common situation. And, Amy is just scared and is having a hard time getting anyone to comfort her and console her, tell her everything is going to be ok. The first three chapters are right out of my own life as is the trip to the ER. That’s biographical. The rest isn’t. I didn’t get an answer so soon. It was 10 years between my trip to the ER with an “eye problem” and my MS diagnosis.

Q. Apart from writing stories, in which direction do you see your career heading and what will you bring to the literary world outside producing new stories.
I will continue writing and editing. I currently write magazine articles and edit a magazine in the world of aquaculture, fish culture. My main mission, and this includes my children’s writing, is Science for the Public. I will continue to try to make science reader-friendly. I also enjoy working with writers’ critique groups. I currently lead two. One is completely children’s the other is all genres.

Q. What writer influenced you the most?
That’s tough. I’ve been influenced by many. In my children’s writing, I think Kathleen Kudlinski, author of several biographies including Helen Keller and Mother Therese of the Women of our Time Series©, was the most influential. Other authors are Tony Hillerman, Margaret Atwood and Karen Armstrong.

Q. What has been your greatest inner struggle to overcome with relation to your literary career?
Taking criticism, which I think, is true of many writers. I’ve struggled to overcome it and, I think, mostly conquered it, if the criticism is constructive. Each piece of writing is a part of me. Poorly constructed criticism is just as painful as if someone were criticizing my child for the way he’s dressed.

Q. What words would you like to leave the world when you are gone?
“Mary had a unique ability to make complicated scientific subjects understandable to people, especially young children.”

Q. Where can folks learn more about your books and events?
I have a website, www.marynickum.com and three blogs, two on blogspot, www.mnickum.blogspot.com and one on Wordpress, www.mjnickumwordpress.com. I have two facebook pages and I have a page on Jacketflap, www.jacketflap.com/mjnickum, a social network of children’s writers. Mom’s Story is available on my website, at www.chaletpublishers.com, Amazon and kindle, Barnes and Noble and Smashwords, https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/6679.


...supporting the independent arts...

~Bobby Ozuna

Operation eBook Drop: Indie Authors at their Best

Every now and then, something catches me by surprise. That’s how it was when I was promoting a free book on an Amazon Discussion thread on the first Saturday in September. I was reading the thread and following the posts of a soldier in Iraq who was helping another poster through the perils of downloading eBooks through a router to their Kindle. He knew how, because he couldn’t get books through whispernet, Amazon.com’s wifi kindle delivery system. On impulse, I entered the fray and offered this soldier (Joe Terry) all thirteen of my published works for free, if he wanted them. Just email me. He did and I learned just how important reading is to our troops. I should have known, as I’m an Army veteran (1966-67). I recall the lonely hours away from home and overseas (I was stationed in Germany). What a Kindle or any reading device could have done for me then, I couldn’t begin to tell you.

Operation eBook Drop started serendipitously from that simple gift. The troop told me that there was a need and I created a separate Amazon thread to ask if any other deployed troops had Kindles and wanted my books. There were a few nibbles. I then I created a quick survey of Indie authors that hung out at Kindleboards.com, the web’s most devoted Kindle readers discussion site. The survey was positive, but soon I had twenty authors wanting to donate their books — then thirty — then . . . well, the word went out like lightning across the Internet. Within a week I had an email from Mark Coker, CEO of Smashwords.com. Smashwords is a premier on-line eBook distributor, converting Indie books into various eBook formats. Smashwords is also global. Mark Coker decided to back the project, opening up his author network to opt-in if they wanted. This also facilitated the delivery of eBooks, because the actual file would not be sent, but a link to the page on Smashwords and a 100%-Off Discount code. The long of the short of it, after a month we had over 60 authors participating and the troops were lining up also.

Operation eBook Drop is an unstructured beast, and that is the key to its success. There’s no central site, communication blog or layers of organization. It simply replicates my interaction with Joe Terry. I maintain a list of troops and authors. When a new author opts in, I email them the troop list and they are responsible for sending the links and code(s), their own welcome email letter and, in turn, they receive feedback directly from the troops. The troops get what they love most — a library of reading opportunity in a shower of emails. I didn’t want to hog the good feelings and I’m glad I didn’t. Each author takes up the communication gauntlet. They blog, post on websites, networks, discussion groups and even go into print. They volunteer ideas, contact other authors and military points and organizations and even created our logo and now two logos as we have a liaison in the UK.

The program is only twelve weeks old and we have 288 participating authors, 7 publishing site in the US, UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand and over 70 Troop points of light, including families preparing Kindles for their sons and daughters. We have a submarine (yes, we’ve adopted a submarine), the eBook Marine Special Forces program, troops in Iraq, Korea, Afghanistan, Japan, Kuwait, Djibouti, Gitmo and at sea (including the Nimitz). I’m astounded and more than a bit surprised by the success, but why should I be? Independent authors brim with generosity. They know struggle and make their own decisions when it comes to their books and whom they give them to. They are in control. Personally, I’m in awe of them and urge readers to support them by buying their books. It’s my estimate that the Indie authors of Operation eBook Drop have made available 20,160 copies of eBooks to the troops on the program (and that’s a low estimate as some of our authors have multiple titles and offer them all). The troops choose what they want to read and use the coupons as they see fit, downloading the eBooks and porting them into their eReading device.

As for the troops — what can I say? Their sacrifice for our freedom is a better gift than any book I could write. However, because of that freedom, I can author my books as they assure my freedom of speech, as well as the very air I breath. It’s a small donation to fill in their hours away from home and, perhaps in those hours I can provoke a smile or a tear or an escape. Small price to pay for heroism. I salute these brave men and women and hope that no one ever forgets their contribution and sacrifice.

Here are some links for further information on Operation eBook Drop:


For information on joining (authors, deployed troops or their families):
http://blog.smashwords.com/2009/09/smashwords-supports-operation-ebook.html

For information on Operation eBook Drop authors:
http://tinyurl.com/ygk8u5o

For the Operation eBook Drop Kindleboards forum:
http://www.kindleboards.com/index.php/topic,13352.0.html

And come join the Operation eBook Drop Fan club at Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Operation-EBook-Drop/172002003420



Edward C. Patterson
Edwpat@att.net
http://www.dancaster.com/

"The Story Behind the Story"--an Author Interviewed: Pat Bertram

"The Story Behind the Story--an Author Interviewed: Pat Bertram

This week I am featuring author Pat Bertram on my "Story Behind the Story" segment of my blog. Be sure to post some questions, connect with her online and share the interview with others!
Thanks Pat for accepting my invitation!

Q. Let's start by introducing yourself.

My name is Pat Bertram. I was born in Colorado, and I’ve always lived here except for a very brief stay in Wisconsin. Daughter Am I is my third novel to be published by Second Wind Publishing, LLC. Also available are More Deaths Than One and A Spark of Heavenly Fire

Q. What genre is Daughter Am I? Who is your ideal audience?

Daughter Am I is being sold as mainstream, though it could just as easily be considered a mystery. My ideal audience is anyone who loves mysteries, old-time gangsters, and a bit of humor.

Q. In 150 words or less, what’s your book about?

When twenty-five-year-old Mary Stuart learns she inherited a farm from her recently murdered grandparents-grandparents her father claimed had died before she was born-she becomes obsessed with finding out who they were and why someone wanted them dead. Along the way she accumulates a crew of feisty octogenarians-former gangsters and friends of her grandfather. She meets and falls in love Tim Olson, whose grandfather shared a deadly secret with her great-grandfather. Now Mary and Tim need to stay one step ahead of the killer who is desperate to dig up that secret.

Q: Apart from being an author, who are you in relation to your gifts?

I’ve always been creative, and right now I’m focusing that creativity on the internet and promotion. I also have a life-long love of learning. Somehow, between the creativity and the learning, I hope to figure out how to sell a ton of books.

Q: Of all the stories you could have written…why did you choose to write this particular book?

Daughter Am I was the combination of two different stories I wanted to write. I’d read The Writer’s Journey by Christopher Vogler, and the mythic journey so captured my imagination that I knew I had to write my own quest story. I also liked the idea of telling little-known truths about the mob, and I settled on the story of a young woman going in search of her past. As she listens to stories of old-time gangsters and bootleggers -- her mentors and allies -- she gradually discovers the truth of her heritage. I’ve always liked stories within stories.

Q: How much of your personal psyche, your struggle and your insecurities are hidden within the characters of this particular story? (Please elaborate)

To be honest, there is less of me in this book than my other novels, but Daughter Am I does reflect two of my struggles: my journey as a writer and my quest for identity, which perhaps come down to the same thing. My hero Mary isn’t a writer, but she does set out on a journey to discover who she is in relation to her unknown grandparents. I think the quest for identity is one of the strongest themes in books because it reflects two stages of life we all go through -- adolescence and obsolescence.

Q. Apart from writing stories, in which direction do you see your career heading and what will you bring to the literary world outside producing new stories.

I’m involved with several writing groups, and I’m developing a following for my blog. I’d like to think I’m bringing generosity of spirit to the literary world by sharing what I’m learning on my seemingly impossible journey to becoming a self-supporting author.

Q. What writer influenced you the most?

My biggest influence was Taylor Caldwell. She told wonderful stories that showed history in the context of fiction, and I’ve tried to do the same. She also used a hundred words when a single sentence would have sufficed, and I’ve tried to do the opposite.

Q. What has been your greatest inner struggle to overcome with relation to your literary career?

My greatest inner struggle is a reluctance to commit to writing. I have a one-track mind -- I’m not a multi-tasker by any means! Writing a novel is an all-consuming task, one that takes months, even years to complete, and during that time, I really can’t get involved with other mentally demanding activities. Right now, my focus is the internet, and I will have to cut my time online to a bare minimum in order to free up my mind for writing, and I’m not yet ready to make that change.

Q. What words would you like to leave the world when you are gone?

I’ll be leaving the world my books, which are words enough, but besides that, this is how I’d like the world to see me: "Pat Bertram has a marvelous ability to write the longest parables in all of literature. She unglues the world as it is perceived and rebuilds it in a wiser and more beautiful way." -- Lazarus Barnhill, author of The Medicine People and Lacey Took a Holiday

Q. Where can folks learn more about your books and events?

I have a website -- Pat Bertram Homepage--where I post important information, including the first chapters of each of my books, but the best way to keep up with me, my books, and my events on a daily basis is by way of Bertram’s Blog.

All my books are available both in print and in ebook format. You can get them online at Second Wind Publishing, Amazon, and Smashwords. Smashwords is great -- the books are available in all ebook formats, including Kindle, and you can download the first 30% free.

"The Story Behind the Story"--July 19th, 2009

"The Story Behind the Story, an Author Interviewed" Q & A session is my new measure to help the world of independent authors and publishers. If you have released your own book and are looking for ways to promote your efforts, your book and your soul as the creator of your work, contact me HERE to book your online interview on this blog, "Drawing Stories...With Words."

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Introducing author Celia Hayes...

Q. Let's start by introducing yourself...
A.  I am Celia Hayes; I am a retired Air Force radio and television broadcast technician, who lives in San Antonio. I am a long-time blogger, and contribute to a handful of blogs as an essayist and book and movie reviewer … among other things

Q. What is the title of your book?

A.  It’s actually three books – The Adelsverein Trilogy, which tell a continuous story, although all three are self-contained and can be read individually. But they are a bit like potato chips; it seems that readers just can’t stop at one

Q. What genre is your book? Who is your audience?
A.  Historical fiction, although if you bend down and squint sideways in a certain light, they can pass as Westerns, being as they are set on the mid-19th century Texas frontier. The Trilogy is about the German settlements in the Texas Hill Country, so my initial audience is … well, everyone in Gillespie County who will want a copy to see if I have mentioned their ancestors. For the larger audience – anyone who loves a ripping good yarn about adventure on the American frontier.

Q. In 150 words or less, what’s your book about?
A.  About the German-established communities, in the Hill Country, the entrepreneur scheme called the Mainzer Adelsverein, who essentially dumped 7,000 German farmers, small craftsmen and intellectuals onto the Texas frontier, and how those who survived the experience settled Gillespie, Kerr and Kendal Counties, built towns, lives and families, endured through the Civil War, prospered afterwards, and essentially became American. I did not actually have to make up very much out of my imagination – just the family that I wrote about and some of what happened to them – because what is recorded in historical documents about what happened to those settlers was completely fascinating, as dramatic as anything. One of my early fans called it “Barsetshire with cypress trees and lots of sidearms”. Oh, and cows. Lots of cows.

Q: Apart from being an author, who are you in relation to your gifts?

A.  I am a story-teller, if anything; I have an affinity for drama, I can read people well, and then create characters out of thin air, a handful of qualities and my own imagination … and I love history. History gives us hope, reassurance, and a pattern to guide us in dark times and when we are in doubt.

Q: Of all the stories you could have written…why did you choose to write this particular book?

A.  I had finished my first novel, “To Truckee’s Trail”, which was about a wagon train party, the first to bring wagons over the Sierra Nevada. They came two years before the Donner Party, also got lost, stuck in the snow, had to break up into separate groups – but they all survived – a great story, which practically no one has ever heard of. I was casting around for what to write about next, and had narrowed it down to something about the 19th century frontier (I already had all the reference books!) and I was comfortable writing 19th-century speech, and didn’t want to write about something which was already well known. So, I was racking my brains: dramatic story, American frontier, 19th century, and I slapped my forehead and realized I lived just down the road from a great and relatively unknown story – the German settlers, around Fredericksburg, with the Comanche peace treaty and all. It was going to be originally just one book, but I started to find out so much material when I started researching that I just had to go on with it.

Q: How much of your personal psyche, your struggle and your insecurities are hidden within the characters of this particular story? (Please elaborate)

A.  I have been kind of amused by the irony that I have written very movingly about happy and loving marriages, but was never married, myself. Kind of like Jane Austin, I guess – never married, never seriously courted, but wrote so charmingly and endearingly about it all. I also have had a very strong relationship with my father, and with my brothers, so some of that comes through, I think; father-son, father-daughter, and brother-sister relationships are a very strong element in the Trilogy. And I write about strong women, who still have to deal with having responsibility thrown onto them, who sometimes don’t feel quite up to the challenge of it, who do have doubts about themselves, feel their own limitations, or feel a little resentful because they are not conventionally pretty, or perhaps don’t conform to the expectations that they think others have of them.

Q. Apart from writing stories, in which direction do you see your career heading and what will you bring to the literary world outside producing new stories.

A.  Well, I do love telling stories – especially those stories which no one really knows too much about. I think I am pretty well hooked on historical fiction; it’s how most people know about our past – and it’s absolutely essential that people know about where we came from, and how our ancestors (real and metaphorical) coped. So I also try to be absolutely faithful to the historical record – to the point where my books can be sold through historical museum bookstores. All that, and tell a ripping good yarn, too; Which is really not very hard, because real history is full of just straight-up and incredible stories and characters.

Q. Who would you say is your literary mentor?

A.  If anyone – Rudyard Kipling; he told terrific stories, and wrote sympathetically about an incredibly wide range of characters. More recently, I suppose George McDonald Fraser, of the “Flashman” series – ripping good yarns, but seriously researched – to the point of having historical footnotes and notes in the back of the book.

Q. What has been your greatest inner struggle to overcome with relation to your literary career?
A.  To finish stuff; I am, or was, the most awfully lazy person about finishing projects. I would get bored and lose interest and go on to something else. I’m just rather astonished that I’ve been able to finish projects like the Trilogy. It has as many words as the Lord of The Rings. There is another blogger that I read regularly, who speculates that the discipline of blogging regularly, and over a long period of time is good for someone thinking of tackling a bigger project. He may be on to something there; I finished the Trilogy in a little over two years, and now am outlining and researching another series of books…

Q. What words would you like to leave the world when you are gone?
A.  Never forget where you came from. Never


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Celia Hayes Homepage

Celia's Blog

Connect with Celia on Twitter

Connect with Celia on Facebook

Other URL's...

http://www.ncobrief.com/

http://historical-fiction.thedeepening.com/

http://podbram.blogspot.com/




Celia Hayes the Independent Author\'s Guild Bobby Ozuna Ozuna Publications amazon books interviewing authors author interviews book promotion The Gathering The Sowing The Harvesting best-selling books historical fiction Germany German hill country Mainzer Adelsverein Civil War To Truckee’s Trail Jane Austin Rudyard Kipling George McDonald Fraser Flashman series Lord of the Rings Air Force Texas San Antonio

"The Story Behind the Story"--July 12th, 2009

"The Story Behind the Story, an Author Interviewed" Q & A session is my new measure to help the world of independent authors and publishers. If you have released your own book and are looking for ways to promote your efforts, your book and your soul as the creator of your work, contact me HERE to book your online interview on this blog, "Drawing Stories...With Words."

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...Introducing, author Andrew Cort...



Q. What is the title of your book?

A. Return to Meaning: The American Psyche in Search of its Soul

Q. What genre is your book? Who is your audience?
A. Religion/Spirituality/Philosophy/Culture

Q. In 150 words or less, tell us what your book is about.
A. "Return to Meaning" demonstrates the underlying Unity of our western traditions, which all teach the path of spiritual evolution, and it shows how our refusal to recognize this common purpose has led to unnecessary hatred, bigotry, and a tragic sense that life is adversarial, absurd, and meaningless. The book helps restore respect for all religions, as well as restoring a deep sense of sacred meaning in our contemporary secular lives.

Q. Apart from being an author, who are you in relation to your gifts?
A. A long-time student of the traditions (western & eastern), a holistic doctor, a teacher adn an attorney.

Q. Of all the stories you could have written...why did you choose to write this particular book?
A. I wrote this book because the deepest wound to the human soul comes from our lack of appreciation for higher levels of Being and meaning, and this undercurrent of alienation and emptiness is at the root of all our difficulties and miseries as a civilization.

Q. Apart from writing stories, in which direction do you see your career heading adn what will you bring to the literary world outside producing new stories?
A. I hope to continue writing books and articles, present seminary and workshops and perhaps host a cable TV talk show for writers, artists, musicians, and socially advanced scientists and politicians.

Q. Who would you say is your literary mentor?
A. There are far too many to name without leaving many out.

Q. What has been your greatest innter struggle to overcome with relation to your literary career?
A. Actually, I love writing and I love philosophy and theology and history. My biggest struggle has been to make time or all the necesities of life.

Q. What words would you like to leave the world when you are gone?
A. Life is not meaningless, there is only one God, there is only one path 'home' and all the great religious traditions know about this path, and all teh great traditions are True. You simply must work very hard to listen.



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Andrew Cort's Homepage

Andrew Cort's Blog

"The Story Behind the Story"--June 22nd 2009

"The Story Behind the Story, an Author Interviewed" Q & A session is my new measure to help the world of independent authors and publishers. If you have released your own book and are looking for ways to promote your efforts, your book and your soul as the creator of your work, contact me HERE to book your online interview on this blog, "Drawing Stories...With Words."

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To start this segment (of course not knowing whether I would get any interest), I went to my friend, literary companion and kindred soul...Melissa M. Williams of LongTale Publishing.







Q. What is the title of your book?
A. Iggy the Iguana. Oh, and Summer League is my new sequel releasing July 1st, 2009!

Q. What genre is your book? Who would you consider your audience?
A. Juvenile Fiction (Middle Grade Chapter Book) ages 7 ~ 11--male & female


Q. In 50 words or less, tell us what your book is about.
A. Iggy the Iguana is a fun loving story about the challenges and experiences elementary school animals go through while growing up. Whether you are the new lizard at school, the only animal of your kind in class, or have to deal with the stresses of little sisters, secret crushes, and classroom bullies, you will definitely find a character to relate to in this story!


Q. Apart from being an author, who are you in relation to your gifts?
A. I am a giver of insight and knowledge...a promoter of passion and dreams...and a representative of giving back what God has given to me.

Q. Why did you choose to write this particular book?
A. I have been writing this story since I was eight years-old. I had to write this book, because I will never be one of those people who say, "I shoulda, coulda, woulda."

Q. How much of your personal psyche, your struggle and your insecurities are hidden within the characters of this particular story?
A. I definitely show up in all of my fictional (animal) characters. Iggy had an anxiety issue and a fear of public speaking...as I did in the past. he represents my insecurities, yet he is a leader and constantly overcomes challenges. The major influences in my life have shaped me to be this way as well. Molly has a huge imagination and is known for being a brat and showoff...um...guilty as charged! Snap Shell shows my open-minded and philosophical perspective to life and a constant need to have big dreams. Kit Kay is definitely the goofy side of my personality. And Liz, well, she stands for the type of gal and qualities I hope others see in me...caring...accepting...and easy to get along with.

Q. Apart from writing stories, in which direction do you envision your career heading and what do you plan to bring to the literary world outside producing new stories?
A. In the years to come, I will be developing my name as a public speaker, promoting literacy for our youth, encouraging others to listen to their inner intuition and use their God given gifts to follow their passion and dreams. I have always seen myself as a teacher, so eventually the insight gained in the literary world will fuel my desire to write for adults as well.

Q. Who would you say is your literary mentor?
A. An author and dear friend of mine, Elaine Acker.





Q. What has been your greatest inner struggle to overcome with relation to your literary career?
A. The constant inner need to be perfect...the imaginary timeline that is my greatest tool and worst enemy...the balance between being an artist and a business woman while trying to stay sane at the same time. My struggles are often the things that I love one day and hate the next.

Q. What words would you like to leave the world when you are gone?
A. Stand apart and be like no one else. God has made each of us extremely unique, so find what He wants for you and do it...never stopping to settle!

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You can stay connected, meet and greet or connect with our feature author, Melissa M. Williams of LongTale Publishing by following any one of her URL's below.

Melissa M. Williams Homepage

Melissa's blog page

Melissa on Twitter

Melissa on Facebook

Melissa on JacketFlap

Texas Authors Group Page

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If you would like to feature your author's Q & A session or book your own interview, please contact Bobby Ozuna HERE.



...supporting the independent arts...

~Bobby Ozuna

Author | Ghost-Writer | Book Coach | Press Release Services | Internet Radio Talk Show Host

OZUNA PUBLICATIONS