Tell us about your latest book?
My agent is currently shopping The Heavenly Heart, which was inspired by an actual CBS news program where a man received his daughter’s heart. It’s mainstream fiction: After a fatal accident, sixteen-year-old Lorelei Goodroe follows the lives of five people who receive her organs, including that of her father, who gets her heart. Lorelei’s untimely demise has left her in turmoil. She finds she is unable to move on without first letting go, and letting go is the last thing on her agenda.
What was the inspiration behind Divorcing Dwayne?
The concept for the series arose almost as an act of defiance, a response to a colleague’s assertion that an author should never try to be funny in a query letter, which is what writer’s use to pitch stories to literary agents. I figured I could write something funny from a character’s point of view that would grab an agent’s attention. The result, which was picked up immediately, is the tumultuous tale of Francine Harper and her comically troubled marriage to a no-good husband named Dwayne. I began the query letter with, “Me and Dwayne met at a pig-pull. I only married him once, but I ended up divorcing him twice. He’s a hard man to get rid of.” This turned out to be the opening lines of the novel. It’s definitely a genre-removed from what I normally write, but provided a nice respite and a lot of laughs. It’s the first in a three book series featuring Francine. Dear Dwayne debuts April 2009 and Dating Dwayne to follow.
Where do you get your ideas to write your books?
I consider myself an organic writer from the start, in that I hear my character's voices when a story first begins and follow it from there. Some of my work is inspired by a news event, or a personal experience from my childhood. Roseflower Creek, my debut novel, was inspired by an actual death-penalty case in Georgia. It follows the short life of ten-year-old Lori Jean, a sensitive dreamer of a child who longs for a normal family life. She discovers a secret that leads to her death.
My second novel Cold Rock River was inspired by the slave narratives I stumbled upon in the library. The novel is the parallel journey of two women born a century a part. In 1963 rural Georgia, with the Vietnam War cranking up, seventeen-year-old Adie Jenkins discovers the diary of seventeen-year-old Tempe Jordan, a slave girl, circa 1863, with the Civil War well under way. Adie is haunted by the death of her baby sister. Tempe is grieving the sale of her three children sired by her white master. What’s buried in the diary could destroy them both.
Article comments