Writer's Voices

Most of us think of Laura as a girl and young woman because her books are written from that perspective, but they were written many years after the fact. She followed in the footsteps of her only daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, to become a published author in her mid-60’s. Earlier in her life, in addition to being a farm wife, she was a farm loan officer and a small-town journalist.

In this interview, we learn more about Laura’s life, how William Anderson assembled the collection of her correspondence, and how he got his start in publishing (at a very young age!)

As she (Laura Ingalls Wilder) said, “I lived all the things I told about in my books but I didn’t tell the whole story.” It was all true to the pioneer experience she had lived as a child and young wife.

The toughest thing about success is that you’ve got to keep on being a success.

She talks about her writing coaches and classes, writing and rewriting, and how her family members reacted to her book which includes memories of childhood trauma. Their reactions were largely supportive. This is an issue that all memoirists must face but as Saeeda says, you can only write your own experience of a situation.

About 4 years ago, I was really at a stuck point and I wasn’t sure this was going to be a book, and I was burning certain copies at the beach….. I just decided to that I was going to use an old composition notebook and I was only going to use pencil, and every night after work I would come home and write from about 5 o’clock to 9 o’clock. The question to myself was “What do you want to tell your niece about our family?” I would just write and write…. that became the skeleton of the book you see before you today.

Be sure you put your feet in the right place, and then stand firm.

With “Salt to the Sea,” Ruta brings to light the worst maritime disaster in history, the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff, filled with German refugees, mostly children, off the coast of Germany. Thousands died – more than in the Titanic and Lusitania combined. Yet few of us have ever heard of it. In this interview, Ruta discusses why this story has been hidden, and how she went about uncovering it, as well as the challenges and opportunities of writing from multiple alternating points of view.

With a background in the music business, Ruta divulges the secrets she learned from the best songwriters of our time that she applies to her writing (“It’s not the amount of words that’s important – but the rhythm that makes it memorable.”) Other topics include her writing group, how she found her agent, and the road to publishing.

Listen in – and then check out 1, 2 or all 3 of Ruta’s books!

History writes my stores. I need research sources, so I’m always anxious to speak about what I’m working on in hopes that someone will be listening and say “I have a source… you should read this book, or talk to this person.”

Who would have thought of giving a literary perspective on the dangers of and damage done by fracking? A subject this dry often provokes apathy in people who aren’t directly impacted, but “Fracture” allows the reader to connect with the subject on an emotional level. The quality of the writing brings the subject to life – it becomes not just interesting but even entertaining, as amazing as that sounds.

Taylor also describes the ISU creative writing program, working with Ice Cube Press, and the process of gathering pieces for an anthology.

This anthology, “Fracture” stays in line with the mission about writers from the Midwest, writing about the Midwest… but it also has a national focus. The issue of hydraulic fracking is a nationwide issue. It’s not just in four states where we know fracking is happening….. Every state is impacted. A week after the book hit bookstores, we are already in a second printing.

At age 12, Doty stumbled into a local magic shop where he met Ruth, the mother of the owner. She took him under her wing and taught him the basic techniques to quiet his mind, open his heart, and control his destiny that he used to fabulous effect to escape the legacy of poverty.

He lost $70 million dollars in the dot.com crash, which virtually bankrupted him, but refused an invitation to go on the Oprah show to talk about it, saying “How could I complain? On my worst day, I was a neurosurgeon, paid more than 99.9% of the people in the world.” In fact, this loss taught him the true meaning (and benefit) of opening his heart.

He wrote this book after prodding by a new friend who turned out to be Desmond Tutu’s literary agent.

The Dalai Lama helped to fund the launch of CCARE and remains a personal friend to Dr. Doty.

Listen in if you could use some inspiration!

When you change how you interact with the world, the world changes how it interacts with you.

Despite the great critical and popular acclaim this first novel received, Kate is determined to keep her feet on the ground because, as she says, she still has to face the blank page every day.

Both books combine real historical characters and situations with historical and modern-day fictional ones. In “I’ll See You in Paris”, the author juggles three time periods and related story lines, and we discuss the challenges presented by such a complex structure.

Michelle credits the Paris connection with helping her break down the “debut novelist” barrier. One of her earlier novels went to auction after multiple publishers indicated interest, but all of them backed out when their marketing departments objected to the difficulty of marketing fiction by new, “no-name” authors. In this interview we cover everything from research to outlining to writing to getting published.

The success of these first two books brought Michelle a multi-book contract, so we can look forward to many more!

Of course, this came after her article about the trip, “The Craziest OKCupid Date Ever” went viral on Salon.com, leading to invitations to be on radio and TV (The View and Fox News) and literary agents calling HER.

“No Baggage: A Minimalist Tale of Love & Wandering” is Clara’s memoir. But in addition to romance and exotic travel, Clara delves into some deep subjects. When she embarked on this adventure, she had only recently recovered from a long battle with severe anxiety, and she is frank and open about the impact this had on her life.

Spoiler alert: Clara and Jeff are still together, and the adventures continue.

I’ve been writing since I was small…that was my dream. That article I published in Salon was the first thing I had ever pitched or published. I think my route to becoming a writer was unexpected and very surprising.

In “52 Small Changes for the Mind” Brett focuses on mental well-being, which she considers the basis of overall health. These small changes cover a lot of ground – from journal writing to aromatherapy! Brett believes that the best way to make a change is to break it up into small pieces.

In this interview Brett talks about her journey from blogger to published author. She says “I don’t find blogging nearly as gratifying as writing books,” but blogging provided the means by which she developed her audience, and that helped sell books. She self-published her first book on Amazon’s Create Space but because she had a following, Amazon Works reached out to her to republish it. For her current book, she decided to go with a traditional publisher that would help promote the print version.

While blogging may not be as important as it once was, Brett emphasizes the value of social media for today’s authors.

It all started with being picked last for gym class.

In business and in family relationships, remember that the most important thing is trust.

While their triumph over the Germans was momentous, the event was largely overshadowed by an even bigger story, one of Jesse Owens and his own incredible success at the Olympic Games. “…the Jesse Owens story was so prominent that summer that it kind of dominated the headlines and this story got a little bit buried because of that… Jesse Owens, the African American track and field star from Ohio, had gone to Berlin and very impressively, he won four straight Gold medals, and because he was African American and this was in front of Hitler, it was an enormous embarrassment to Hitler and his whole white supremacy theory of the world, and it was a sensational story both because of Jesse’s extraordinary accomplishment and also because of the racial implications for the Nazis…” Despite that, the crew team’s victory did make national news at the time, but because there wasn’t a lot of celebration surrounding their win, the story faded from memory over time.

Due to numerous requests from educators, librarians, parents and grandparents who felt that this book would be beneficial to younger audiences, Brown created a separate young readers adaptation of this story. Compared to the adult version, the adaptation is shorter and divided into more chapters, with simplified, age-appropriate language. Additionally, visual elements were incorporated, including a timeline to help young readers keep track of the events, a photo gallery of all the main characters in the book, a diagram of a rowing shell, and more. Brown remarked, “It was very important to me that the heart of the story, through the emotional impact, particularly of General Rantz’s story, the heart of it remained intact, so I worked to make sure that that happened…”

I like the discipline of sticking with the facts… I could make it so much more compelling in this place or that place if I altered the facts, but I like the discipline of having to work within the facts and it’s always a huge challenge, especially when you’re writing about something that happened a long time ago.”