Author Archives: Staff

When did you start writing and what inspired you to start?

I don’t really remember when I ‘started’ writing. Seems I took small steps over the years and finally stumbled down this less travelled road. I wrote for my college newspaper at Florida State University, did book reviews for Ft. Worth Star Telegram (TX), articles and photographs for Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette, The Chronicle of the Horse, Horsemen’s Roundup, American Iron, Covertside, Sidelines, and Ozark Mountaineer among others. With non-fiction, especially when covering an event, you have one opportunity to get it correct, stay within a word count, and come out with something interesting. Then, I moved into fiction which is more flexible in some respects, less so with others. I enjoy and learn from both.

When did you first consider yourself a writer?

I felt the electricity in a pen with my first byline on a magazine article and called myself a journalist wanna’be. With the publication of my first short story in an anthology and two contest wins at a major writers’ conference, I donned my wordsmith cloak and have not looked back.

What inspired you to write your first book?

The Northwest Arkansas Writers Workshop, my critique group, encouraged me to hone writing skills, build an author platform, and publish. The Writers Guild of Northwest Arkansas, another insightful critique group, supported my fiction and non-fiction endeavors. They have pushed me to read widely, attend book fairs, present workshops, work on the craft of writing, and expand all my efforts.

Is there a message in your book that you want readers to grasp?

Life happens in small increments. Finding the good in others and within self is a lifelong endeavor. Redemption is all about finding the best in everyday living.

Are experiences based on someone you know, or events in your own life?

These are events that have happened to me, befallen friends, or have flowed around me. How can a person live and not be part of their community? John Donne said it best: No man is an island, entire unto himself. Each is a part of the whole.

What is the best advice you could give an aspiring author?

Write daily in a disciplined manner. Find a good critique group. Listen to feedback, think about it, and use what works for you. Read. Hone your craft. Enjoy your process.

What is the best advice you’ve received from other authors or anyone else?

Get critical feedback. Write every day.

List your favorite quotation or words you live by.

That’s a tall order. Quotations on writing, life, love, family, joy – abound. There are two poems by Miller Williams – “Compassion” and “How It’s Born in Us to Understand That there Are Two Sides to Every Question” – that I reflect on frequently. I like Mizuta Masakide’s haiku: “Now that my hut has burned down, I have a better view of the moon.”

Who is your favorite author and what is it that really strikes you about their work? Who are some of the authors you particularly admire or who’ve had some influence on your own writing? What is your favorite book by another author?

There are as many good authors out there as there are pebbles on a beach. Colum McCann’s Let the Great World Spin; Louise Erdrich’s Round House and The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse; Cormac McCarthy’s Border Triology, No Country for Old Men, Blood Meridian; Nobel Prize for Literature Alice Munro short stories; nonfiction works of Larry McMurtry and Thomas McGuane; classic southern tales of Lee Smith, Eudora Welty, and Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. I could go on and on. These writers make language visual, create setting, develop characters, and build a story arc. They hook me every time I read them. I’ve been told to write what I enjoy reading. I’d pass that advice along to novice writers also. These are a few of my role models.

What books have most influenced your life?

Probably not single books so much as the bodies of work by authors like William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, Lee Smith, and Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings.

Do you have anything specific that you want to say to your readers?

I love, really love books. I like the way they feel. I enjoy seeing them on shelves. Stacks of books delight me. I don’t have an ebook reading device – yet. They are so handy for travel it’s only a matter of time before I buy a device. Until then, I love the printed page.

Click Here For Books By Nancy Hartney

When did you start writing and what inspired you to start?

I was the little kid writing stories for my younger sister to read. I became serious about getting published five years ago. Reading great stories always inspires me to share some of my own.

When did you first consider yourself a writer?

I’ve always been a writer, but I considered myself an author when strangers read my first published book, THE WAITING BOOTH.

What inspired you to write your first book?

I listen to a lot of science podcasts and heard about synesthesia, an overlapping of sensory perception. My imagination ran with it and I started writing THE WAITING BOOTH (WHISPERING WOODS #1).

Who are some of the authors you particularly admire or who’ve had some influence on your own writing?

Some of my favorite writers are Stephen King, the late Michael Crichton, Kristan Higgins, John Green and Diana Gabaldon. Although I’ll always be a Shakespeare fan, I prefer contemporary authors.

What is the best advice you could give an aspiring author?

Write the types of books that you love to read.

What is the best advice you’ve received from other authors or anyone else?

Don’t do it for the money.

List your favorite quotation or words you live by.

“If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.” ~ Stephen King

Click Here For Books By Brinda Berry

When did you start writing and what inspired you to start?

I was in my twenties, we had moved from Kansas to New York and lived in a tiny upstairs apartment on Staten Island. I began to write short stories and a long involved novel based on my grandparents’ life. There were voices in my head, begging to be heard. Even as a child I would lie in the yard in the summertime and dream up stories which I never wrote down. I thought there might be something wrong with me so I never told anyone that I daydreamed these long stories that might continue for weeks or months. It was only much later that I learned that most writers did the same thing.

When did you first consider yourself a writer?

When I became a member of a small critique group in Arkansas around 1984 and we all wrote something all the time. We attended conferences where I first heard the phrase, “If you write you are a writer.” So I began to tell people who would ask what I did, that I was a writer.

What inspired you to write your first book?

It was in the 80s and I became immersed in news stories about Vietnam vets who were being diagnosed with PTSS. I began to do research to find out what that was all about. Then I grew tired of seeing movies portraying women as weak little things who couldn’t deal with the man they loved when he returned home from the war. I knew then that there were women strong enough to do just that, so I decided to write a novel about one of them. Titled Beyond the Moon and set in Arkansas, the book got me a good agent, but he could never sell it. I’m happy to say that it has been contracted for publication by Oghma, and we are working on edits and a cover. Never get rid of your old manuscripts.

Who are some of the authors you particularly admire or who’ve had some influence on your own writing?

I hate to admit that I had never read a romance prior to writing my six western historical romances, so any influence on my writing there actually comes from western authors. I admire western writer Larry McMurtry and his book Lonesome Dove. Craig Johnson, author of the Longmire series, is another western writer I like. He is a student of one of my favorite authors, James Lee Burke, whose mysteries are so much more than that. To write about sense of place as well as he does is my greatest desire.

What is the best advice you could give an aspiring author?

If you love writing, then never give up. However, if you have to force yourself to sit down and write every day, then find something else to do. It’s a long difficult road to travel with little monetary reward, so you have to love it to truly consider yourself a success.

What is the best advice you’ve received from other authors or anyone else?

I’ve never forgotten what my friend Dusty Richards told me when we first formed our critique group and began our long travels together. The road to success is littered with quitters. And I’ve never forgotten that.

List your favorite quotation or words you live by.

I guess I really answered that with the previous question. I write every day, treat it like a job I go to. I have done this since I first began to write and discovered all the rewards of this career. Never have I considered quitting. And it holds so true in anything I might try to accomplish.

Do you have anything specific that you want to say to your readers?

Yes. Thank you for all your support over the years. I so appreciate each and every one of you for continuing to follow my attempts to entertain and teach you. Please feel free to contact me anytime.

Click Here For Books By Velda Brotherton

When did you start writing and what inspired you to start?

I always liked to write. Even as a child, I would compose little stories and poetry. I always loved it when we had to write essays at school, especially if they could be fictional.

When did you first consider yourself a writer?

After I had written the Blue Door Trilogy (which started life as a short story), I was bitten by the writing bug hook, line and sinker. I realized the urge to write was never going to leave me and it was all I wanted to do. In my opinion, if writing is the first thing you think about on waking and the last thing you think about before bed…and you spend all day doing it, or wanting to do it – you are a writer.

What inspired you to write your first book?

I know it sounds a bit corny, but I had a dream. This particular dream was so vivid, I felt compelled to write it down. I thought it would make a good short story, but as time went on and the ideas kept flowing, it turned into a novel – and then a trilogy.

Is there a message in your book that you want readers to grasp?

Things/people are never quite as they appear on the surface, so one should not judge a book by its cover (so to speak).

Are experiences based on someone you know, or events in your own life?

I always try to write about what I know, or have experienced (first or second hand) as a basis. The rest is research and imagination.

Who are some of the authors you particularly admire or who’ve had some influence on your own writing?

Velda Brotherton has taught me so much, from workshops to introducing me to other writers and writers’ groups. Everyone in the writers’ group I attend with her has been extremely helpful and encouraging to me, giving concrete ideas and suggestions for improvements to my work. Being fairly new in the world of serious writers, I need all the input I can get . I always admired Catherine Cookson’s ability to be grounded in truth with her writing, and I strive for that in my own works. Ever since H.G. Wells introduced me to time travel, through The Time Machine, I have been hooked on that subject matter.
I also admire J.R.R. Tolkien and the way he brought Middle Earth alive for me in the Hobbit and the Lord of The Rings. I would aspire to create such description and detail for my readers.

What is the best advice you could give an aspiring author?

Never give up! Join a writers’ critique group, have faith in your work, research everything, read and most of all, keep writing!
List your favorite quotation or words you live by.

Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the strength to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Do you have anything specific that you want to say to your readers?

Thank you to everyone that has read my books and/or written a review. I appreciate you all more than you know!

Click Here For Books By Alice White

When did you start writing and what inspired you to start?

I began writing as soon as I could form sentences on the page.  Writing stories for me was a form of escapism.  This also explains why I read so much as a child, often a book a day.

When did you first consider yourself a writer?

I think I always considered myself a writer, but only considered myself an author once I actually got paid for a story that was published.

Are experiences based on someone you know, or events in your own life?

Many of my short stories are based on personal experiences or people I have met through life.  My books, not so much, they were just stories in my head that had to come out.

Who are some of the authors you particularly admire or who’ve had some influence on your own writing?

Influences would be John Steinbeck, Harper Lee, Michael McDowell, Robert McCammon and Edgar Allen Poe.  All can tell a great story without the use of flowery language and fluff.

Adding to the admire list would be Billie Sue Mosiman, Stephen King and even Dan Brown.  They all write stories that keep me entertained for hours on end.  That’s a good thing.

What is the best advice you could give an aspiring author

Never give up and never allow anyone to squash your dreams.

 What is the best advice you’ve received from other authors or anyone else?

Just write.  Don’t be afraid of the reactions to your words, just put them on the page and set them free into the world.

List your favorite quotation or words you live by.

Where mediocrity is allowed, competence sinks in the mire.

Who is your favorite author and what is it that really strikes you about their work?

Favorite author of all time would be John Steinbeck.  His brevity of words that pack such an emotional response has kept me rereading his books over and over.

Do you have anything specific that you want to say to your readers?

Thank you for allowing my words to entertain you, even if only for a short while.

Click Here For Books by Kat Yares