I recently caught up with Kimberly Wenzler who shared some very exciting news with me. Congratulations, Kimberly! Follow the link below to visit Kimberly’s website and learn more about her books!
Kimberly Wenzler
Author name: Kimberly Wenzler
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Book: Seasons Out Of Time
News: Winner of the Writer’s Digest 10th Annual Self-Published E-Books Award in Contemporary Fiction
About Kimberly: Kimberly lives on Long Island with her husband and rambunctious, needy puppy, Archie. When not working or writing, she dabbles in gardening (is there anything better tasting than a homegrown cucumber?) or is reading on a beach under an umbrella, by the fire, with wine or spending time with friends and family.
Are you working on a new book? Have you won an award or a writing contest? Did you just update your website? Maybe you just want to tell readers about an experience you’ve had. Book Club Mom’s Author Update is a great way to share news and information about you and your books.
Email Book Club Mom at bvitelli2009@gmail.com for more information.
Open to all authors – self-published, indie, big-time and anything in between
I recently caught up with memoirist Marian Beaman who announced the release of My Checkered Life: A Marriage Memoir. Read more about Marian’s book below:
Marian Beaman
Author name: Marian Beaman
Genre: Memoir/biography
Books: Mennonite Daughter: The Story of a Plain Girl (2019); My Checkered Life: A Marriage Memoir (2023)
News: Take an intimate look into one couple’s fifty-plus-year marriage in author Marian Beaman’s My Checkered Life: A Marriage Memoir. Using a quilt motif, the author stitches together stories that make up the fabric of their daily lives: the clash of cultures, crisis in a travel trailer, surviving a robbery, and enduring financial hardship.
Discover how the author and her husband learn the art of the argument with explosions both literal and metaphorical. Observe how they find common ground through their shared faith and commitment.
This volume contains excerpts from autograph books and diaries of the early 1900s, treasured family recipes, original artwork, and restored photographs—the legacy of multiple generations as two American families merge, one from the East, the other from the West. The author connects the dots of her life backwards, with detailed reverse engineering of events to discover meaning in her life as a wife.
Readers of Marian’s first memoir, Mennonite Daughter: The Story of a Plain Girl can especially relate to her insider narrative, a closeup of one couple’s companionable union.
Are you working on a new book? Have you won an award or a writing contest? Did you just update your website? Maybe you just want to tell readers about an experience you’ve had. Book Club Mom’s Author Update is a great way to share news and information about you and your books.
Email Book Club Mom at bvitelli2009@gmail.com for more information.
Open to all authors – self-published, indie, big-time and anything in between
Are you working on a new writing project or are you about to publish your very first book? Have you won an award or a writing contest? Did you just update your website? Maybe you just want to tell readers about an experience you’ve had. Book Club Mom’s Author Update is a great way to share news and information about you and your books.
Open to all authors – self-published, indie, hybrid and anything in between. Even if you’ve submitted updates in the past – we want to hear your news and share your excitement!
Hi Everyone, I had an email incident last week and lost some replies to this post. If you emailed me about being featured and you haven’t heard back, can you email me again? Thank you!
Are you working on a new or your very first book? Have you won an award or a writing contest? Did you just update your website? Maybe you just want to tell readers about an experience you’ve had. Book Club Mom’s Author Update is a great way to share news and information about you and your books.
Are you working on a new or your very first book? Have you won an award or a writing contest? Did you just update your website? Maybe you just want to tell readers about an experience you’ve had. Book Club Mom’s Author Update is a great way to share news and information about you and your books.
Genre: Primarily literary, but a little bit of everything, including a legal drama (my first novel), and a domestic thriller (my current WIP)
Books: One Night in Bridgeport; Shady Acres and Other Stories; The Marfa Lights and Other Stories; Deviation; The Irrepairable Past; and The Dime
Bio: A semi-retired government attorney, I live in California. Two adult sons, two dogs, a wife, and a whole bunch of interests like painting, writing, cycling, hiking, gardening, cooking and baking that keep me motivated to keep exploring.
What got you started as a writer? I’ve always been a voracious reader but didn’t believe I could write, although I spent years imagining writing a novel. One day, almost 20 years ago, I outlined a story in my head on my drive home and I’ve been writing ever since.
What is your writing routine? I have a bit of a block that has lasted for a number of years and I allow all of life’s distractions to deprive me of a writing routine. But … these days, I write when I can and am making a little bit of headway. Typically Saturday or Sunday afternoons when I’m simply worn out by all of the distractions.
What route did you take to get published? With my first novel, I tried a little bit to get an agent. Without success there, I turned to what was then CreateSpace to publish a paperback and used KDP to publish the eBook. That’s what I’ve been doing ever since. With my last novel, The Dime, I tried again to get an agent without any success. I apparently don’t know the secret handshake.
What things do you do to promote your books? I have two blogs that I use to share news about my writing and publishing. I also use Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook but not relentlessly like some authors. When I publish something, I post and tweet about it. And occasionally when I get a good review, I’ll use that to remind people that I’ve got books out there. I also try some of the promo sites, but have found almost no success with them lately.
What is your favorite genre to read and why? This may be the most difficult question to answer. I’ll read anything. The books that have the most meaning to me are the ones that make me feel something deeply. I’m not ashamed to cry while I’m reading.
Do you prefer to write dialogue or description? Dialogue. I’m not a fan of a lot of description when I’m reading and I think that comes across in my writing as well. I want to leave things to the reader’s imagination and just tell the story. If the description isn’t relevant to the story, I try to avoid it.
Have any of your characters ever surprised you? Did this change the plot of your book? I’m a pantser so I’d have to say that my characters don’t surprise me. I generally start with an idea, a concept, and then I start writing. The entire thing is somewhat of a surprise for me as a result, which is what helps me write. It’s when I figure out the “rest of the story” when the block settles in because the surprises are over.
What is the most difficult thing you have accomplished in your life? Raising two boys to adulthood. Nothing else compares.
What three events or people have most influenced how you live your life? I can’t deny the influence my parents had. My dad was (still is at the age of 89) a writer. My parents gifted to me a love of reading and my mom has always been one of the biggest fans of my writing. And then there is the birth of those two boys—two little munchkins who changed my life forever.
What would you tell your younger self? Be bolder, don’t be so scared.
Have you ever met up with a bear on a hike? If so, what did you do? If not, are you looking up what to do right now? Great question. No and I hope I never do. Where I hike, I’m more concerned with mountain lions. All I know is “make yourself as large as possible!”
You’re locked in your local library for the night with no dinner. Thank goodness you have water, but you only have enough change to buy one item from the vending machine. Choices are limited to Fudge Pop Tarts, Snickers or Doritos. Which would you choose and why? Totally a Snickers. Brown Sugar Cinnamon Pop Tarts are the only ones worth eating. Doritos are meh. Snickers has everything that makes a candy bar a candy bar.
What’s the largest number of people you’ve had in your kitchen at one time? Probably around 10-12. I make pizza and occasionally have pizza parties. Instead of hanging out elsewhere, most of the attendees like to hang out in the kitchen while I make the pizza.
Closing thoughts: Thanks for giving me this opportunity to share my writing. I’m a big fan of indie writers and think we need to do everything we can to support each other.
Genres: magical realism, mystery, relationship, thriller, comedy/coming of age, poetry, anthologies of short fiction, contemporary/ gritty urban and a memoir
Selected Books: Life Sentences (2022); The Art of Spirit Capture (2021); Booms and Busts (2020); Walking into Trouble (2020); Buster and Moo (2017). For more titles visit: geofflepard.com.
Bio: I started writing to entertain in 2006. I haven’t left the keyboard since. When I’m not churning out novels, I write some maudlin self-indulgent poetry, short fiction and blog, I walk the dog for mutual inspiration and most of my best ideas come out of these strolls. I also cook with passion if not precision.
What got you started as a writer? My wife suggested I join her at a summer school where she was taking a printing class. We ballroom danced in the morning and, in the afternoon, while she printed I took a creative writing class.
What is your writing routine? Mostly I start writing from about 4 pm, stop to cook dinner and begin again ending at any time between 9.30 pm and 1.00 am. I try and write daily
What route did you take to get your books published? I briefly flirted with approaching agents but thought better of it. I didn’t want to delay; I didn’t want to be told to make major revisions that I might well not agree with. Self-publishing is so straightforward these days I thought, why not go that route. Publishing has not been about kudos or sales but to stop myself tinkering with the latest book. Once it is published I leave it alone. Before that I’m always nibbling away at it.
What things do you do to promote your books? A bit on the blog I write. Occasional guest posts and pieces like this.
What is your favorite genre to read and why? Probably crime fiction. I like well plotted books with good characters and intriguing stories. After that it is comic fantasy.
Do you prefer to write dialogue or description? Dialogue
Have any of your characters ever surprised you? Did this change the plot of your book? Every time. It’s true they take over. If you let them into your subconscious they work away at you until you do what you’re told.
What is the most difficult thing you have accomplished in your life? Staying in the same job for thirty-five years—a quite extraordinary example of patience, determination and a supreme lack of imagining alternatives.
What three events or people have most influenced how you live your life? My wife is (and has been since we met in 1976) a constant source of guidance, surprise and ruthless criticism; being able to obtain a high quality and free education right through to my degree that allowed me to become a lawyer in the City of London just when the need for financial legal services exploded in the 1980s; and the example of my parents who combined humour, old fashioned manners, a love of literature and the spoken word, a deep affection, an utterly surreal take on some aspects of life, kindness and a love of cake and gardening.
What would you tell your younger self? Stop worrying and yes, your nose will always look too big.
Have you ever met up with a bear on a hike? If so, what did you do? If not, are you looking up what to do right now? I read A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson who has a section on human-ursus interfaces and what to do. My main take away was not to eat Snickers. The nearest bear to me right now is a small statue of my ursine hero Paddington at the station he is name after.
You’re locked in your local library for the night with no dinner. Thank goodness you have water, but you only have enough change to buy one item from the vending machine. Choices are limited to: Fudge Pop Tarts, Snickers or Doritos. Which would you choose and why? Doritos. Pop Tarts are merely jam that has not had the packaging removed; fudge can only be eaten with tea or coffee or my fillings rebel at the excess of sugar and Snickers remind me of Bryson’s advice.
What’s the largest number of people you’ve had in your kitchen at one time? We have had several parties here so we’ve squeezed in a fair number but probably something like the seventy-two teenagers.
Closing thoughts: Having lived to be three score years and five, I have reached a few tentative conclusions about living life well: try most everything once; look up more than down or you will buy too many shoes; outdoors is better than in so long as you wear the right clothing; instant coffee never gets any better; failure is a myth—it’s just another example of ‘not yet’; everything will be alright in the end and if it’s not yet alright, it’s not yet the end; and there’s good in everyone.
Bio: Christina Consolino is a writer and editor whose debut novel, Rewrite the Stars, placed as a finalist for the Ohio Writers’ Association Great Novel Contest 2020 and the 2021 Best Book Awards. She serves as senior editor at the online journal Literary Mama, freelance edits both fiction and nonfiction, and teaches writing classes at Word’s Worth Writing Center. She lives in Ohio with her husband, four children, and a rotating cast of pets.
What got you started as a writer? Writing is something I have always wanted to do, and when my children were little, I blogged (mostly to appease the little voice inside that kept telling me to write). When that voice changed to a character prodding me to tell their story, I took up the call to write. That was a decade ago.
What is your writing routine? After the alarm rings at 5:15 a.m., I grab my computer, coffee, and water, and I sit with my cats in the dining room as I work. I can get about an hour of work in before my obligations for the day begin, but I try to squeeze in fifteen-minute chunks of writing time in my day. And sometimes, I block off entire days for writing (those seem like gifts!).
What route did you take to get your book published? This book took so long to become the book it is today (eight years), and during that time, my outlook on publishing and what I wanted changed. In the end, I pursued a small publisher because that model would work best for me, my goals, and my family.
What things do you do to promote your book? I can cheerlead anyone else, but when it comes time to cheerlead for myself—I just hate it. But no one will support your work if you don’t, so I do what I can with my limited time, primarily using Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter for posts, and I have been featured on podcasts or in written interviews like this one (thank you so much!).
What is your favorite genre to read and why? I’d have to say women’s fiction with romantic elements (which makes sense, since that’s what I write!). However, with the thriller genre back in favor (or maybe it never left), I’ve realized that I do enjoy a good thriller.
Do you prefer to write dialogue or description? Dialogue!
Have any of your characters ever surprised you? Did this change the plot of your book? I won’t go into the whole story (if you’re interested, you can read about it here), but at one point, Theo (now a POV character in Rewrite the Stars), said to me, “Excuse me? I need to tell my side of the story.” The fact that he wanted to tell his story really surprised me, and I had to perform an entire structural rewrite of the book.
What is the most difficult thing you have accomplished in your life? I got married, got pregnant, and gave birth to twins while in graduate school. That meant that I needed to write a dissertation and defend that dissertation with two infants at home. It took a village, but I did it! Come to find out, that was only slightly more difficult than birthing a book.
What three events or people have most influenced how you live your life? My husband—he’s far more chill than I am, and I’ve learned that there’s no need to worry about most things. My parents—every day I apply what they did or didn’t do to my own situation. My children—they are far wiser about many things, and they teach me something new every day.
What would you tell your younger self? Be confident, be kind, believe in yourself.
Have you ever met up with a bear on a hike? If so, what did you do? If not, are you looking up what to do right now? No. When I visited Sequoia National Park, I was warned of bears, but I did not encounter one. And no, I’m not looking up what to do right now. But I probably should!
You’re locked in your local library for the night with no dinner. Thank goodness you have water, but you only have enough change to buy one item from the vending machine. Choices are limited to: Fudge Pop Tarts, Snickers or Doritos. Which would you choose and why? Being locked in a library sounds divine! And I’d go for the Snickers. That little bit of protein from the peanuts would keep me more satisfied than the others!
What’s the largest number of people you’ve had in your kitchen at one time? Twenty.
Closing thoughts: Thank you so much for having me! I love hearing from readers and writers, so feel free to reach out to me via any of the venues listed below!
Books: Sugar and Snails (novel, 2015); Underneath (novel, 2017); Becoming Someone (short stories, 2018); Matilda Windsor Is Coming Home (novel, 2021)
Brief bio: Anne Goodwin writes entertaining fiction about identity, mental health and social justice and is the author of three novels and a short story collection published by small independent press, Inspired Quill. Her debut novel, Sugar and Snails, was shortlisted for the 2016 Polari First Book Prize. Her new novel, Matilda Windsor Is Coming Home, is inspired by her previous incarnation as a clinical psychologist in a long-stay psychiatric hospital.
What got you started as a writer? I’d written since childhood, but was too shy to share the results with anyone but my sister, although I did win a national student writing competition in my late teens. Later, I was too busy writing reports and academic papers for fiction. When a family tragedy sparked a midlife crisis, my therapist (see next answer) urged me to consider what I wanted for myself. It was the prompt I needed to make space for my hitherto secret ambition to become a published author.
What difficult experience has helped you as a writer? The complicated bereavement forced me to take my writing seriously. Plus, several years of psychotherapy helped me mine the depths of childhood trauma and to accept it, however painful, as part of who I am. I believe my fiction benefits from this meticulous processing: I can delve into characters’ challenging emotions without my own issues contaminating the story.
Have you ever participated in the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo)? If so, how many times and what was your experience? Not officially, as the pace is too fast for me, but I’ve started a new novel in November a couple of times, averaging 1000 words a day to complete a draft before the end of January. However, contrary to most advice to hare through the first draft to have something to edit, I remain a contented tortoise.
What advice would you give a new indie author hoping to publish a book? Set up your author newsletter early, preferably before you publish.
What has been the biggest challenge for you during Covid? Tolerating the UK government’s mismanagement, especially in relation to PPE shortages, neglect of care homes and apparent indifference to higher death rates among people of colour. But it’s catalysed my next novel about a care home resident with delusions of grandeur who becomes convinced she’s responsible for the transatlantic slave trade.
What are you reading right now?The Promise by Damon Galgut, winner of the 2021 Booker prize.
Would you rather laugh or cry over a book? As in life, I value both.
Have you ever climbed a tree to read a book? Not that I can remember, although I have read in a hammock hanging from a tree. (Make that two trees.)
Have you ever dropped a book in the tub, in a pool or in the ocean? Books are far too precious to read where there’s risk of damage.
Could you live in a tiny house? A tiny house is far preferable to no house, so yes, of course. But, as I live in a larger-than-average house at the moment, I’m not looking forward to downsizing.
What are the small things that make you happy? Butterflies, the first snowdrops, a surprise sight of deer on my morning walk. Choral singing, cuddling up with my husband, cuddling up with a book. Connecting with readers, learning new words, a fresh insight into my WIP. Moorland, spectacular sunsets, lentil soup.
You may know that I committed to NaNoWriMo this year and I’m happy to say that I reached my goal and wrote 50,000 words in thirty days. During November, I only read two books. There was no time! Now that I’m finished, I’m looking forward to reading, a lot!
Here are just a few thoughts about the NaNoWriMo challenge.
On the first day of NaNoWriMo, I also started reading For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway. That was a little intimidating and discouraging. There’s no way to measure up to that.
It was hard! Maybe it’s age, maybe it’s something else, but I had planned to get up at 5 o’clock every morning and write for an hour and a half. That happened some days, but I was simply too sleepy to do that every morning. Most mornings I didn’t get started until at least six-thirty and by then by other obligations were fast approaching. So not so good.
I had to skip a couple days then double up. It was doable but I don’t think what I wrote the following days was as good.
This year, I went in with a loosely defined plot. That worked well, but if I had been better organized, I would have known more what to write each day and I wouldn’t have struggled so much in the early morning hours.
Throughout the month I often asked myself: What am I doing, and why did I commit to do this in November? November is the worst month for novel writing! Yet, having finished, I feel like I’m part of a community. Those who’ve done it can relate to the craziness of November.
I had fun. That was the best part. I revealed the plot to my family and we talked about some of the plot options. They were very supportive.
Did you participate in NaNoWriMo this year? Have you done it in the past? Leave a comment and thanks for reading!
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