Avalon Books - Author! Author!


	Read some interviews from past editions:
		S.J. Stewart June, 2008
		Zelda Benjamin April, 2008
		Shirley Marks December, 2007
		Donna Wright December, 2007
		Roni Denholtz June, 2007
		Tara Randel April, 2007
		Sydell Voeller February, 2007
		Sheila Robins December, 2006
		Ann Holt October, 2006
		Cynthia Danielewski July, 2006
		Patricia Azeltine May, 2006
		Jane McBride Choate March, 2006
		Kathryn Meyer Griffith January, 2006
		Mel Taylor November, 2005
		Kathleen Fuller September, 2005
		Tracey J. Lyons July, 2005
		Ludima Gus Burton May, 2005
		Holly Jacobs March, 2005
		Sandra D. Bricker January, 2005
		Kathryn Quick November, 2004
		Cheri Jetton September, 2004
		Heather S. Webber July, 2004
		Karl Fieldhouse May, 2004
		Shelley Galloway March, 2004
		Ilsa Mayr January, 2004
		Kathy Carmichael November, 2003
		Dorothy P. O'Neill July, 2003
		Joani Ascher May, 2003
		Patricia DeGroot March, 2003
		Nancy J. Parra January, 2003
		Barbara Meyers November, 2002
		Christine Bush September, 2002
		Debby Mayne July, 2002
		Jean C. Gordon May, 2002
		Charles E. Friend March, 2002
		Norma Seely January, 2002
		Glen Ebisch November, 2001
		Gina Cresse September, 2001
		John Paxson July, 2001
		Terri Alcock May, 2001
		Clifford Blair March, 2001
		Amanda Harte January, 2001
		Kent Conwell November, 2000
		Carolyn Brown September, 2000
		Annette Mahon July, 2000
		Marjorie McGinley May, 2000
		Jack Lewis March, 2000
		Amanda Harte January, 2000
		Joyce and Jim Lavene November, 1999
	Return to the current Author! Author! interview:
		Sherry Lynn Ferguson August, 2008


Author! Author!: August, 2007
Click an image to learn more about this books. An Interview with Carolyn Brown


How long have you been writing and how long did it take to get published?
	I started seriously writing when my third child was born. She was a night owl so I sharpened some pencils and bought a spiral back notebook. That book did not sell but about a million trees lost their lives producing paper for rejection slips on it. When my daughter started sleeping at night, my writing took a back seat to raising three children. When they had flown the nest I started writing again. I collected rejection slips for a few more years then in 1997 I sold two romance books in less than a month. In the past ten years I’ve sold more than thirty books.
Have you ever used real people as characters?
	No, but I’ve used attitudes and bits of personalities. Sometimes a person will walk down the street and that person’s swagger becomes a part of the character I’ve been thinking about. Or maybe I remember the way Great Uncle Jasper smelled like cigars and chuckled down deep in his chest. Or how Granny Gray used to pull her hair back on one side with a bobby pin and always wore an apron when she cooked. Those are bits and pieces that give a story a heart beat.
Where do you get ideas for plots?
	Oh, my. From anything and everything. From places: we were traveling through east Texas and there were all these gorgeous old houses complete with a potential story in every one. A big house with gingerbread trim and a garden out back really took my fancy. There are seven books sitting on my shoulder about what happened in that house in the 1880’s. From songs: Rascal Flatts had a song out a few years ago about broken roads. One line in that song produced a five book series. From a bit of history: The Oregon Trail gave me The Promised Land Romance Series. Ideas are everywhere and pop up at the strangest times.
What’s the hardest part about writing?
	My grandmother once said that success is liking what you do. So I must be the most successful person on the face of this great green earth. I love writing, all of it, from the first paragraph to the end. The hardest part is probably waiting and hoping someone will think my baby is wonderful and makes an offer for it.
When do you find time to write?
	I really like to write in the morning when my brain is uncluttered with the chores of the day. However, I am a pro at ignoring dust bunnies and ironing in the middle of the day if a scene is calling out to me to come and write it. And fast food is a way of life in the evenings if I need to proof read. It goes without saying, I have a very understanding husband.
Do you have any advice for aspiring writers? Or for anyone wanting to submit to Avalon?
	Study the market. Just as you wouldn’t walk into a feed store to buy a silk shantung suit or into the supermarket searching for a new pickup truck, you wouldn’t submit a five hundred page erotica novel to a sweet romance publisher. And READ. If you think you might be interested in submitting to a particular publisher read books that they’ve already published to get a feel for what they are interested in. Check their guidelines. Learn everything you can about them. Then WRITE. I often tell people when I’m speaking that WRITE and WHINE only have two different letters. WHINE has H and N ... H for Ho-hum. And N for Not today. WRITE has R for Right Now this minute and T for Today and everyday. So read and write, everyday if possible. And only allow fifteen minutes to whine around in a pity pool when you get rejection letters. That’s long enough. File it, forget it and go back to writing. Wanting to submit to Avalon? Read their books. Check out their guidelines and good luck. They are a wonderful bunch of folks to work with and for.
What can you tell us about your latest book for Avalon?
	Morning Glory is the first of the Drifters and Dreamers Historical Series. It’s set in Healdton, Oklahoma in 1917 and is the story of Clara Anderson and Briar Nelson. Clara, the town odd-ball, is dead set against preachers and oil men. Preachers because one jilted her; oil men because she doesn’t like the change that the oil boom brought to her part of southern Oklahoma. She owns and operates the Morning Glory Inn, a boarding house, and wouldn’t rent a room to an oil man if it meant she had to stand before a firing squad. Briar Nelson, an oil man, rents a room while she’s gone and refuses to leave when she finds out what he does for a living. The second book, Sweet Tilly, will be out in October and the third one, Evening Star, in December. They are all about the three Anderson cousins the local folks call the dreamers; and the three drifters who come to town and change their way of life.
Are you working on anything else for Avalon?
	Oh, yes! I’m working on a five book series, The Broken Roads Romance Series. The first one, To Trust, will be out in February, 2008. Then there’s that seven book series set in Jefferson, Texas in the late 1880’s, and after that, a contemporary trilogy, and after that ...