Author Interview Series-Nicole Fanning

Nicole Fanning

Nicole is a smitten wife and super proud dog mom to three rambunctious rescue dogs. She is an old school romantic, with a proclivity for a little mischief, and an obsession with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Her debut novel, Catalyst, is the first incendiary installment of the Heart of the Inferno Series, which follows the story of a dangerous mafia don and the girl who became his only exception.

Marina Raydun: I've written a novel in two parts before but never a trilogy. How does the process work for you: do you conceptualize the entire novel ahead of time, or do you craft one installment at a time?

Nicole Fanning: Yes, Catalyst, Ignite, and Flashpoint I wrote out the entire plot, for each chapter, in all three books, before I ever allowed myself to write a single word of the actual manuscript.

MR: When did you first begin writing? What made you want to become a storyteller? 

NF: I was ten when I started writing. At the time I was in love with The A-Team, and even though the show had gone off the air before I was born, I used to write my own new episode ideas and give them to my mother to send in to the producers.

In regards to the Heart of the Inferno Series, and Catalyst, I've had this idea for several years, but never really had the time to write it out. Then came the Pandemic, and suddenly all I had was time. It ended up being a blessing because it reminded me how much I enjoyed it, and I just hoped to bring a bit of needed escapism to my readers as well.

MR: What is your favorite underappreciated novel? 

NF: I am a big fan of Chuck Palahniuk's "Choke."

MR: What does literary success look like to you?
NF: When my fans reach out to me to tell me that my books gave them a book hangover or touched them in beautifully inexplicable ways.

MR: What’s the most difficult part about writing characters from the opposite sex?

NF: I think transitioning your point of view from one to the other, especially in back-to-back chapters, can be a bit challenging at times.

In Catalyst, my female main character, Natalie, is this sweet-yet-feisty all-American nurse, who is content with living a simple life. Jaxon, on the other hand, is a playboy-billionaire-alphahole, who has lived a life of entitlement and violence as the head of a dangerous underground mafia.

They have such different thought processes and personalities that sometimes I will write several chapters from one perspective and then go back and write the counterpart chapters in the other perspective to stay in the right frame of mind.

MR: How did publishing your first book change your writing process?
NF: I learned how important it is to have the right team around you. When I published Catalyst in April, my social media presence was practically non-existent. I had to accept that finding and growing my following wouldn't happen overnight. Thankfully, I have been very fortunate to have developed such an incredibly enthusiastic fanbase as well as a phenomenal team of internal support.

MR: Is there one topic you would never write about as an author? Why?
NF: The death of a pet. Since their lives are so short in reality, they at least get to live forever in my books.

MR: What are you currently reading?

NF: Because I am currently deep in the trenches of writing Flash Point, which is the third book in the trilogy, the only books I am allowing myself to read are Catalyst and Ignite in an effort to stay in the right headspace. 

But I do have an extensive TBR List that is waiting for me when I finish!

MR: What do you think about when you’re alone in your car?

NF: The last chapter I wrote, and the one I am currently writing. I love to listen to my playlist and just get lost in the story I'm crafting.
MR: Is there a book that people might be surprised to learn you love?

NF: "I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell" by Tucker Max

Find Nicole Fanning’s books here: Nicole Fanning on Amazon

Author Interview Series-Marie Shantie

Marie Shantie

Like my heroine, I was born and raised in the Soviet Union and immigrated to the United States in the late 1990s. I received my higher education in San Marcos, California and then obtained masters & license in mental health in New York. I am a practicing licensed psychotherapist, and I worked with people with mental illnesses as well as with drug and alcohol addicted patients for many years.

Therefore, one of my tasks, already as a writer, was to more deeply reveal the problem of addiction and, possibly, influence the stigma about people who could not cope with life's difficulties, did not find internal and external support, and therefore turned to drugs. 

Although the novella is not autobiographical, some of the events described could have actually happened. Which ones - let it remain mystery.

Marina Raydun: You are bilingual. Which language do you find easier for creative storytelling?

Marie Shantie: I would say Russian as I moved from Russia to USA when I was 17-18 y.o., so I attended middle & high school in Russia.

MR: What is the first experience you had when you learned that language had power? 

MS: As a child I read this old good story in Russian about the power of punctuation called “Казнить нельзя помиловать”. Made a huge impression on me.
MR: Your novella deals with some hefty, emotional scenarios. Can you talk a little bit about your inspiration or motivation for writing this piece? 

MS: My inspiration to write it was driven by a person whom I lost in my life & who meant a lot to me. Before he died, I promised him that I’d go get my degree & license in mental health & substance abuse & dependency because I wanted to be able to understand & help people who are addicted like he was. I made this promise, then I went & got my degree, but before I did, he died. I continued. I thought, if I can help one person in my life, I’d feel justified to have my career. Then I got my degree & my license, but he was already dead & I talked about him a lot in my practice, in outpatient substance abuse groups which I ran & told people who had addiction issues about him, but it didn’t feel enough. So, I felt a calling to write about it. After I wrote about it, I felt relief. Like I told his story-now I am ok. 

Now there were other emotional scenarios dealing with another character (main character). That was inspired by other close people in my life who had to deal with crazy 90’s criminal Russia.  

MR: What sort of research went into it?

MS: The research that went into this was my masters degree, my license, my certification (Credentialed Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Counselor) & many years (about 8 before I wrote the book) working with mentally ill and people affected by addiction. Also, the research that went into writing about parts that took place in Russia came from my own experience. 

MR: Why did you choose to write this novella in Russian as opposed to English?

MS: Russian is my native language & the majority of story line took place in Russia with combined real characters.

MR: What’s the most difficult part about writing characters from the opposite sex?

MS: I wrote the story about two characters. One is of my own sex, the other is of opposite. I think the hardest part about writing about the opposite sex is that it is written about the real character who died in real life and me having to face this character’s mother reading it. 

MR: What was the hardest scene to write? 

MS: The second main character’s story because it is still very emotional for me-he died in real life & the way he died in real life.

MR: What is your favorite genre to read? 

MS: Satire. 

MR: What are you currently reading?

MS: Rereading Gogol “Dead souls”.

MR: If you could have drinks with any person, living or dead, who would it be? 

MS: Gogol!!

MR: Why? 

MS: I was always fascinated by his works and his character. He supposedly was buried alive. 

MR: What other authors are you friends with, and how do they help you become a better writer?

MS: I don’t have any authors’ friends (yet), but would love to. 

To learn more about Marie, please visit her website: https://www.shantie.art/

Author Interview-Terry Shepherd

Terry Shepherd

October is my favorite month. It’s my birthday month, it features my absolute favorite weather, and it’s Halloween! So, of course, time gets away from me this time of year. Therefore, instead of our regular Author Interview, we’re trying something new this month. Here is an author feature. Let us know what you think!

Terry Shepherd came late to fiction. An Ann Arbor, Michigan native, Terry’s incarnations include a broadcaster, corporate executive and entrepreneur, authoring four non-fiction self-help books before writing CHASING VEGA, his first thriller, in 2020. Vega spawned the holiday short story CHASING CODY and this summer's second long-form outing for Shepherd's protagonist, Jessica Ramirez, CHASING THE CAPTAIN.

"I always wanted to be a fighter pilot," Shepherd says. "But I didn't want to subject a young family to a lot of moves. Corporate life ended up moving us around anyway and it wasn't until we decided to re-root near our kids in Florida that I thought of giving up the corporate grind for writing full time.”

Terry says this, pondering the horizon from the 12th floor balcony of a condo on the Atlantic Ocean at Jacksonville Beach. “ My wife, Colleen loves the sunrises and the views are breathtaking. But I'm just as happy locked away in my home office at our apartment in town.” 

It seems that after a lifetime of extroversion, Terry Shepherd has allowed his introvert to emerge. "You figure out what you need to do feed your family," he says. "For me, that meant creating a charismatic personality and learning how to lead. I saw that the bosses got the bucks for taking risks. I decided I'd rather be shot out of the saddle leading the way than get shot as someone else's horse.”

 Terry offers a cocktail, refilling his own glass with Coca Cola. "I limit my intake," he jokes. "My brain is already running at maximum warp and doesn’t need much stimulation." He motions to one of two rocking chairs on the balcony. The waves are relatively calm today and there's a sea breeze that mitigates the Florida heat.

Q: In a profession where you could live anywhere, why choose Florida?

Terry: Jacksonville was our longest stop during my corporate career. Our kids graduated from high school here and put down roots. When you get to be our age (Terry turns 67 in January), proximity to your grandkids is the primary driver. They are ten minutes away and we love being able to help out whenever their parents need us.

Q: Why fiction? 

Terry: I had a painful departure from my last corporate experience that triggered the clinical depression gene that's common in many families like ours. I thought that my contributions to the world were over and I would become a hinderance instead of a contributor. As you enter life's home stretch, you know people who are stuck with bodies and minds that no longer serve them. I've always felt that when I saw that coming, I would rather hasten my exit than be a burden to my family. The darkness that depression injected into the proceedings made me believe that moment of decision had arrived.

Terry runs an index finger across the tiny semicolon tattoo on his left wrist, a symbol of mental health awareness and how someone has made the decision to write another life chapter, rather than put a period on existence. In the space of ten months, he lost both his 92 year-old father and his only sibling, a younger sister who ended her life in 2020, shortly before CHASING VEGA was published.

Q: What made you decide to keep going?

Terry: My wife is a two-time ovarian cancer survivor and taught me a lot about facing a monster with both grace and determination. She’s my defintion of a true heroine. And we know a lot more about depression now than we did when I was having panic attacks in junior high. I have a gifted psychiatrist who helped me understand that in my case, it's a brain chemistry thing and that I would need a combination of effective meds and the will to heal. Part of healing was finding a way to keep contributing and writing about the same diverse cast of characters I loved surrounding myself with on the teams I've led seemed like a possible path forward.

Q: You've had some major business successes. How did you apply those learnings to this new profession? 

Terry: I always look for the best people and ask them how they did it. So I made a list of successful authors I liked and reached out to them. To a person, they responded and have been incredibly helpful in guiding me as I learn The Craft.

Q: What were some of the gems of wisdom they shared?

Terry: Write every day. It's a profession. Writer's block isn't allowed in the rest of the world and you have to learn how to keep the content moving forward even on days when the muse isn't singing. There are rules. But aside from good grammar and the ability to tell a story, everything else is up for grabs. Write what you love. Keep learning and growing and eventually, you'll find an audience. 

Q: Has Jessica Ramirez found hers?

Terry: I think she's slowly finding it. Having a white guy write her stories probably doesn't help. But she's about as authentic as they come and once people spend some time with her, they fall in love with her.

Q: You've said you write for diverse casts on purpose. Few of your characters look like you. Your stars include minorities, LGBTQ, a medical examiner who is on the autism spectrum and an MI6 Director who is in a wheel chair. How do you create an authentic cast?

 Terry: Immersive research. I have very close friends who live those lives and I've walked with them as they navigate a world that doesn't always accept them. They have been wonderfully candid about their experiences and witnessing them make their way has given me a special empathy for the unique challenges every individual faces.

Q: In CHASING VEGA, your antagonist is a woman who kills men who have evaded justice. What makes a good adversary?

Terry: I love villains who do the wrong things for the right reasons. That's not the case in CHASING THE CAPTAIN. The bad guy has zero redeeming qualities. As a reader, I enjoy the extra tension I feel when you can understand why the person does what they do.

Q: We've rarely seen Jess and Ali at work in their home base, the fictional college town of Paloma, Illinois. Do great thrillers require a broad stage?

Terry: Not necessarily. Alfred Hitchcock can turn up the tension in a life boat. I like giving my heroines the added obstacle of being a fish out of water and taking Jess away from the town where she grew up does that.

Q: Much of CHASING THE CAPTAIN takes place in the UK. Was that on purpose?

Terry: Absolutely. Before VEGA, I created a Twitter identity for Jess (@DetJessRamirez). She’s very active on that platform and for some reason, she clicked with UK cops.I started getting email asking if I would put Jess on their home turf. That was particularly fun because I got to meet and consult with a number of really gifted law enforcement pros across the pond. They all know that Jess is fictional, but they treat her as if she was a real person.

Q: Authors often say that their characters feel real.

Terry: Oh, Jess and Ali are real to me. If I'm pondering a particular plot point or some dialogue, they both weigh in.

Q: They talk to you?

Terry: Sometimes. When you've spent a lot of time building their backstory and have a binder full of character information for a member of your cast, they become a part of you, at least until you've put a bow on their story. I begin with a general premise and have a notion of how it might end. And then I let the characters take me there, even if "there" ends up being somewhere else.

Q: Do the people on whom you base Jess and Ali ever dispute how you paint them?

Terry: Traci Ruiz, my role model for Jessica, is her real-life incarnation, a 25 year law enforcement veteran. She says I give  Jess too much emotion. Compared to Traci, who is a master at compartmentalizing what happens on the job, Jess is definitely more emotionally driven. But my beta readers like her that way. They want to know whats going on inside her head; the things the people around her might not perceive. Understanding motive is another reason to love or hate a character. If I'm doing it right, they see some of themselves in Jessica Ramirez and can't help but get attached to her.

Q: What about Ali? 

Terry: I know and admire a number of awesome men and women with a same sex preference. Declaring that openly is still a tough thing to do and requires a ton of courage that most of us couldn't muster. The highest compliment I get is when one of my friends accuses me of basing Alexandra completely on her personality. 

Q: What do you hope readers take away from a Jessica Ramirez Thriller?

Terry: Beyond enjoying a few hours of escape from reality, I hope that the people who share traits with one of the cast members might be inspired to believe that they could be heroes and heroines, too. When a young person tells me that she is thinking of becoming a cop because she admires Jess and Ali, that makes my day.

Q: Has writing helped you heal?

Terry: Not just the writing. The best thing about the thriller and mystery space is that there is much more demand for great content than any one person can create. We're not competitors and the community is very supportive and close. Writing is a tool to apply a magnifying glass on your own adventures and we all end up writing something autobiographical at some point. But the friends I've made as a writer have made a huge difference. We realize we're all in this together and try to help each other navigate the maze from ideation to publication. That often spills into life itself. We're put on this planet to help make it better and the most important daily metric for me has always been how I've helped someone else.

Q: Are you ever afraid you'll run out of ideas? 

Terry: All the time. Each day is another blank screen that needs to be populated with words that attract an audience. And the fear that our most recent book will be the last one anybody buys seems to be nearly universal.

Q: But you keep at it anyway?

Terry: While holding that finished product in your hands often feels like that first moment with your newborn, the adventure happens during the journey of creation. The classic chestnut, "It's not the destination. It's the journey." is very true. When I reread CHASING VEGA, I think about all the people I met during it's creation and am excited to start another chapter. Once a story is told, I can't wait to discover another one to tell.

Terry Shepherd writes thrillers for grown-ups and is the author of JULIETTE AND THE MYSTERY BUG, a book that helps kids stay safe in a Covid-19 world. His website is TerryShepherd.com.

To learn more about Terry, please visit the following:
TerryShepherd.com 

Facebook.com/TerryShepherdWrites

Twtitter.com/TheTShepherd

Author Interview-Lauri Schoenfeld

Lauri Schoenfeld

Lauri Schoenfeld currently resides in Utah with her hubby, three kids, and dog Jack Wyatt Wolverine. She’s a child abuse advocate, a Nancy Drew enthusiast, and is part cyborg. Teaching creative writing classes to her community is one of her favorite things to do. When she’s not having long conversations with her characters and creating stories, she’s hosting the Enlightenment Show, reading, or solving a mystery. Lauri’s a well sought-after speaker and a frequent guest with multiple writing groups, podcasts, and businesses, talking about Connecting to Your Artist, Embracing Your Fears to Succeed, and Learning to Love Yourself After Abuse. She’s the owner of Inner Enlightenment, a business built around connecting to your inner light and child within through stillness, creativity, play, and self-expression. Lauri teaches and holds creativity workshops, retreats, and one-on-one coaching.

Marina Raydun: You’re a child abuse advocate and you also head a business that focuses on connecting to your inner child. Why is this so important to you, and how does this weave its way into your writing?

Lauri Scoenfeld: I grew up with childhood abuse within my home, where I felt that play, wonder, expression, and feelings were unacceptable. Because of that, I tried to be something that I wasn’t for a long time, which ultimately turned me into my worst nightmare as unhealed wounds festered without a solution. Writing has been very cathartic and healing for me to write my deepest thoughts on paper where expression, creativity, wonder, and play are always welcome.

MR: Little Owl is a psychological thriller. Do you think you'll continue to write in this genre or are you open to trying your hand at multiple ones?

LS: I would love to write more thrillers, but I’m also open to writing other genres. I have a few YA realistic fiction novels, and a non-fiction book I’m currently in different stages on.

MR: How do you select the names of your characters?

LS: Sometimes, they’re nicknames to people I know, but most often, I can see what the characters look like right from the beginning of creating the story, and I ponder what their name feels to me by what I can see of them.

MR: What was the hardest scene to write when you were working on Little Owl?

LS: There were so many hard parts, but the end was shocking to me with the twist, and after I finished writing it, I cried for a while.

MR: What did you edit out of your book?

LS: I originally had nine POVs for a while within the story. Two characters were chased out of the novel and never came back. I also had many chapters and scenes that didn’t end up moving the story forward, so they also got pulled.

MR: If you could cast your characters in a Hollywood adaption of your novel, who would play your characters?

LS: Oh, I love that question. Adaline Rushner would be Claire Danes. Cache Rushner, her husband is Tom Ellis. Officer Abbott would play Wentworth Miller and Sam would absolutely be Justin Hartley.

MR: Is there a thing you’ve written that makes you cringe now?

LS: I wrote a piece for Little Owl about what a decayed body smelled and looked like. It was cringe-worthy writing it, but reading the edit, it was equally cringy because my writing was uncomfortable and stiff. You could tell I didn’t enjoy writing that scene. There was not much happening, and it read monotone.

MR: If you had to do something differently as a child or a teenager to become a better writer as an adult, what would you do?

LS: I’d stop overthinking and trying to be someone else’s voice. I’d write my own stories, the unfiltered, real, gritty and true pieces, and allow myself to mess up more often.

MR: What is your favorite genre to read?

LS: I love thrillers and mysteries, but also I enjoy memoirs and non-fiction. I’m all about investigating ourselves and finding the hidden secrets that no one knows about.

MR: Is there a book that people might be surprised to learn you love? I love the Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. I’ve read that book multiple times throughout my life and also gather new pieces of wisdom about the beauty of the journey in life.

To learn more about Lauri, please visit:

Website: https://laurischoenfeld.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/LauriSchoenfeld

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/laurischoenfeld/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/laurischoenfeldevents

Amazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/Lauri-Schoenfeld/e/B096ZFRXB9/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1

To request review copies or an interview with Lauri Shoenfeld, please contact Mickey Mikkelson at Creative Edge Publicity: Mickey.CreativeEdge@Gmail.com | (403) 464-6925.

Author Interview Series-Shane Wilson

Shane Wilson

Shane Wilson is a storyteller. No matter the medium, the emphasis of his work is on the magical act of the story, and how the stories we tell immortalize us and give voice to the abstractions of human experience. His first two contemporary fantasy novels as well as a stage play, set in his World of Muses universe, are currently available. Born in Alabama and raised in Georgia, Shane is a child of the southeastern United States where he feels simultaneously at-home and out-of-place. He graduated from Valdosta State University in south Georgia with a Masters in English. He taught college English in Georgia for four years before moving to North Carolina in 2013. Shane plays guitar and writes songs with his two-man-band, Sequoia Rising. He writes songs as he writes stories--with an emphasis on the magic of human experience. He tends to chase the day with a whiskey (Wild Turkey 101) and a re-run of The Office. Shane’s novels are A Year Since the Rain (Snow Leopard Publishing, 2016) and The Smoke in His Eyes (GenZ Publishing, 2018). Shane’s short story, “The Boy Who Kissed the Rain”; was the 2017 Rilla Askew Short Fiction Prize winner and was nominated for a 2018 Pushcart Prize. An adaptation of that story for the stage was selected for the Independence Theater Reading Series in Fayetteville, NC. Shane is currently at work on a new novel.

Marina Raydun: You write songs as well as novels. How do the two compare in terms of your creative process?

Shane Wilson: This is something I’ve been thinking a lot about. I’ve always dabbled in different modes and genres. My first publications were in poetry and creative non-fiction, so I’ve always bounced between lyrical writing and prose writing (which can be plenty lyrical, itself). For me, I think the process of writing a song varies in significant ways from writing a story. There are obvious differences (like the whole issue of music composition), but in a holistic way, I think that writing a story tends to happen in a more linear fashion while writing a song tends to play out in a more recursive, circular process. In other words, when I start abook, I tend to mostly write straight through from point A to point B. When I’m working on a song, I might start with the chorus, go to the verses, circle back to the chorus, etc. For me, songwriting tends to jump around a good bit. I think it’s probably because of how songs are put together—with verses and choruses and bridges. Then there is the issue of making sure it all works rhythmically with music and so forth. There is a lot of retreading the same ground when working on a song.

MR: You majored in English and taught English for a number of years. What is the first experience you had when you learned that language had power?

SW: I’m not sure that there is one specific moment in which the power of language was revealed to me. Instead, I think it was the emphasis that my family put on stories. My family was full of storytellers—my father, my mother, my aunt, my grandfather. I was often drawn into the colorful tales they would weave for me—often some combination of the real and the fanciful. It would be years later before I learned how to spin magic from my words like they did, but I think it was growing up listening to those stories that instilled in me that love of language and story.

MR: What does literary success look like to you?

SW: Literary success looks like consistent output and consistent improvement. We would all like to sell a bunch of books every day, but that is less important to me than experiencing the world through writing that strives at a genuine exploration of the human experience. So, as long as I’m still writing and as long as I’m still finding ways to improve my craft, I’m calling that literary success.

MR: Have you read anything that made you feel differently about fiction?

SW: I would point to two books. First, I always tell my creative writing students to read Rainer Marie Rilke’s collection, Letters to a Young Poet. That book changed the way I understood my compulsion to create. Over the course of Rilke’s correspondence with the unnamed young poet, he explores the artist’s compulsion: “A work of art is good if it has grown out of necessity. In this manner of its origin lies its true estimate: there is no other. Therefore, my dear Sir, I could give you no advice but this: to go into yourself and to explore the depths whence your life wells forth; at its source you will find the answer to the question whether you must create.” In other words, art must come out of need. That always meant that if a person could imagine a life without writing, they should abandon the practice. The second book I should mention is Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie. No other book has ever spoken to me in the way this book did. In many ways, Rushdie’s work showed me what was possible in fiction. It redrew the boundaries of what fiction could accomplish in a single volume. It masterfully demonstrated how language can redefine what is possible in the world.

MR: What’s your favorite childhood book?

SW: I always loved The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster. I also spent a whole lot of my childhood and adolescence reading R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps. Those books were killer.

MR: What is your favorite genre to read?

SW: I love literary fiction with elements of science fiction and fantasy thrown in.

MR: What are you currently reading?

SW: I am currently reading Light of the Jedi by Charles Soule—the first in a new series of Star Wars novels—and Hollywood Park by Mikel Jollett—a memoir about his family escaping the Synanon cult when he was just a child.

MR: How did publishing your first book change your writing process?

SW: Publishing the first novel made writing a novel feel more possible than it had ever felt before, and in a way, I suppose it was more possible than it ever had been. Once I could see that seeing a project through to the end was possible and that it could find a home, the next story came easier. Writing is like any muscle: the more you write, the easier it gets. Sometimes I might get bogged down in some research for a new project. Other times I may not be sure if the project I’m working on at the moment will go the distance. One thing is for sure, though: if I have a story that can go the distance, I just need to stick with it long enough to finish. Publishing a first novel makes this really basic concept more concrete. Publishing taught me how to finish.

MR: If you could cast your characters in a Hollywood adaption of your book, who would play your characters?

SW: I’ll answer this question in kind of a general way. As for A Year Since the Rain, I think Jesse Eisenberg (Adventureland) would do well as the leading male in either of the novels. I could also see Bill Hader (Barry) or Adam Driver (Marriage Story) in that role. I would like to see someone like Zoe Kravitz cast as Nona. For my second novel, The Smoke in His Eyes, I think of a young, handsome guy for TJ, the music prodigy. He needs to be able to sing, though. Maybe on of those kids from High School Musical: The Musical: The Series—Joshua Bassett maybe, or a Jonas Brother. As for the ladies, Leslie Grace (In the Heights) would be a good choice for Lila, and I would like to see Jenna Dewan (Step Up) in the role of Muna.

MR: Is there a book that cemented you as a writer?

SW: In spite of the fear of being redundant, I think the only book that can cement someone as a writer is the book that person writes. If you’re writing, you’re a writer. It’s the work—not the “success” or the “publication”—that separates the writer from the aspiring writer.

To learn more about Shane, please visit https://www.shanewilsonauthor.com

Author Interview Series-VK Tritschler

VK Tritschler

VK Tritschler is a full-time busy body, and part-time imagination conjurer. She lives on the amazing Eyre Peninsula in South Australia, having moved there from her hometown of Christchurch, New Zealand. Her family consists of a very patient husband, two rampant boys and too many pets to mention. She has a wonderful set of amazing writers who support her in the form of Eyre Writers, and in return she offers crowd control services for the Youth section who are the future best-selling Australian authors.

Her first book “The Secret Life of Sarah Meads” was released in 2018 and since then she has kept herself busy participating in the Anthology “Magic & Mischief”, publishing “The Risky Business of Romance”, “Trade Secrets”, participating in the NYC Writing Challenge, the Clunes Booktown, and helping to organize and run the Eyre Writers Festival.

Marina Raydun: Have you been writing since youth or did you fall into it as an adult? What inspired you to start writing within the romance genre?
VK Tritschler: I have always had an interest in the written word but as a reader rather than a writer. I only began my writing life about six years ago when I moved to Australia. But my Nana always loved romance books, and used to hide her 'penny horribles' around the house and I become addicted to not only finding them, but reading them. And from one romance reader to another, there is something almost hypnotic about unravelling the tangle that is a good romance.

MR: What’s the most difficult part about writing characters from the opposite sex?

VK: Perspective. It is all very well to imagine what you think a person might take from a situation, but to truly appreciate their focal points you need to get someone from the opposite sex to read your work and give feedback. Even then, I think we inevitably write with the direction and guidance of our readership as well, which in my case is predominantly women.

MR: What’s the best and worst book review you’ve ever received?

VK: When I started getting reviews, I got a one star review which was almost crippling. As a new writer, it seemed to imply that my efforts were pointless. But then when I stood back and away from the review, I got some perspective and it is now one of my favourite things. It pushed me to write better, be stronger, and ask more of myself and my characters. And there is nothing wrong with not being perfect when you start, its about the journey and growing as you go.

MR: What other authors are you friends with, and how do they help you become a better writer?

VK: I have lots of amazing author friends, who not only push me, but remind me of the importance of my writing on my own wellbeing. When I am tired and run down, I sometimes don't feel like writing, but once I start and escape into the worlds my mind creates it reinvigorates me. Sometimes my friends have to push me to get started, so that I can lavish in the stories. Sometimes it is just being able to bounce ideas around, or discuss plot line or concerns. It is a type of family that wraps itself around you.

MR: What book do you wish you had written?

VK: I read books all the time that I wish I had written. But if I had to meet any authors from any decade it would be Charles Dickens and Jane Austen. One for the darkness and the other for the light.

MR: If you could cast your characters in a Hollywood adaption of your book, who would play your characters?

VK: Actually for most of my books I have scouted ideas of actors, but they are normally obscure or from foreign films. I guess my mind works in mysterious ways!

MR: Is there one topic you would never write about as an author? Why?

VK: I think I would never write about something I didn't believe in. For me, my writing is attached to emotions, and therefore I cannot write a story if I do not emotionally connect to it in some way - which I guess limits me to things that I have experienced or have first hand knowledge of, even its a pseudo-version of my own understanding such as paranormal worlds.

MR: What are your literary pet peeves?

VK: Being told that we cannot create books outside of our genre, or we must write only to market. As authors we are artists, we do not need to be shackled to expectations.

MR: Who is your literary crush?

VK: Nora Roberts - a woman who despite everything, writes what she wants, speaks out when she feels she needs to, and writes prolifically.

MR: Is there a thing you’ve written that makes you cringe now?

VK: No, because when I read my first attempts I can see my own growth and development. Like a toddler learning to walk, and then to run, my writing shows the outline of my literary wings.

You can learn more about VK Tritschler here:

www.vktritschler.com

www.facebook.com/vktritschler

www.twitter.com/vktritschler

www.goodreads.com/vktritschler

To request review copies or an interview with V.K., please contact Mickey Mikkelson at

Creative Edge Publicity: mickey.creativeedge@gmail.com / 403.464.6925.

The first six months of 2021 in books

I’ve been fairly lucky with book recommendations this year (thus far, anyway). And Audible, G-d bless it, has been my one true reading companion, allowing me to ingest much more literature than ever before-12 titles in six months! Here are some brief reviews to help you make some reading choices this summer.

Leave the World Behind by Rumaan Alam

5-stars. What a fabulous literary fiction novel. Highly recommend this one for some uncomfortable self-reflection.

Class Mom by Laurie Gelman

3-stars. A fun easy read. It won’t stay with you but it will entertain you along the way.

Just Like You by Nick Hornby

4-stars. I’m a Nick Hornby fan but this wasn’t a favorite. I didn’t connect with the characters, and I didn’t feel much by way of development either. But what the book did was bring a ton of issues to the surface that I simply never had reason to consider in the past (issues like racism in Europe, Brexit etc). I mostly recommend it for that reason.

The Bad Muslim Discount by Syed M. Mansood

5-stars. Enlightening, entertaining, a ton of character development. Highly recommend, particularly if you like immigrant lit.

How to Walk Away by Kathrine Center

4- stars. Predictable by way of plot but some great character development. Well researched, too!

Send for Me by Lauren Fox

5-stars. So painful yet so beautifully written. Highly recommend, particularly if you have any relation to the plight of the Jewish people during WWII. The author used real life letters from her grandmother as inspiration, and included excerpts throughout. Just wow.

Return to Life by Jim B. Tucker

4-stars. I saw Jim B. Tucker on Netflix’ Surviving Death and was intrigued by his credentials and area of study. This is a fascinating book, backed up by data and science. If you have any interest in past lives, this would be the book to check out.

True Story by Kate Reed Petty

4-stars. Tough subject matter. Will keep you guessing. Great character development.

Good Neighbors by Sarah Langan

5-stars. This is one of my top-3 favorite reads this year to date. Talk about holding up a mirror to “you” (and society as a whole!) and forcing you to look! Cannot recommend this one highly enough! Both the plot and character development are out of this world!

Dominicana by Angie Cruz

5-stars. This book was my book club’s most recent selection. I truly enjoyed it. It never ceases to amaze me just how similar all immigrant experiences and stories truly are. Recommend!

The Wife Upstairs by Rachel Hawkins

4-stars. A little too predictable plot-wise but very entertaining. A good beach read.

One by One by Ruth Ware

4.5-stars. A highly entertaining whodunit, ala Agatha Christie. Though it is set in freezing temperatures, I’d say this is a great beach read as well.

What have you read this year so far?

Author Interview Series-Humphrey Hawksley

Humphrey Hawksley

Humphrey Hawksley is an award-winning author and foreign correspondent whose assignments with the BBC have taken him to crises all over the world. His Rake Ozenna series originated when reporting from the US-Russian border during heightened tension. He has been guest lecturer at universities and think tanks such as the RAND Corporation, The Center for Strategic and International Studies and MENSA Cambridge. He moderates the monthly Democracy Forum debates on international issues and is a host on the weekly Goldster Book Club where he discusses books and talks to authors. He has presented numerous BBC documentaries and his latest non-fiction work is Asian Waters: The Struggle Over the Indo-Pacific and the Challenge to American Power.

Marina Raydun: Your CV is truly impressive-a journalist working as international correspondent for BBC since the early 1980s, your professional and life experience is fairly unique. Would you be able to pinpoint an event from your professional life that may have inspired you to start writing fiction?

Humphrey Hawksley: Early teenage reading planted the seeds. I devoured Leon Uris’ fictional history Exodus on the founding of Israel; then Author Hailey’s Airport, Hotel and others; Robert Ruark on Africa and James Mitchener with The Drifters, Hawaii and so on. These books gave me a scope of the world that the classroom barely covered. I couldn’t get enough of these books. Then, years later, in 1995, when I was the BBC Beijing Bureau Chief, I drafted an outline for a non-fiction book about China. My agent, David Grossman, arranged a meeting with the legendary publisher, the late William Armstrong of Macmillan. He glanced through the outline, slid it to one side and leant forward, chin resting on his hands, and said, “This is all very worthy. But could you write me a fictional story of China and America going to war?” I was so happy. That book was Dragon Strike, published in 1997, and, given the current turn of events, it is still selling well today.

MR: What is the first experience you had when you learned that language had power?

HH: What and excellent question! Singing hymns at primary school morning assembly. Onward Christian soldiers. The head teachers saying -- Let us pray and a hall full of children lower their heads and clasp their hands. Then came William Shakespeare and Graham Greene.

MR: Talk to us a little about your Rake Ozenna series. What inspired you to pursue such a storyline? It’s hard to fathom how much research must go into each volume in the series!

HH: Rake Ozenna emerged from a BBC assignment in 2015 when I visited the island of Little Diomede. Far away in Europe, Russia had just taken Crimea and was threatening Ukraine. I wanted to go to the place where the American and Russian territories actually met. Little Diomede is amazing as are the eighty or so people who live there. They wake up every morning looking across a narrow stretch of water at a Russian military island barely two miles away. The islanders are independent, as tough as leather and hard as steel and they live in a wild, remote environment that few people know about. That led to Man on Ice the first in the series. Rake is an islander who is with the Alaska National Guard and a veteran of foreign wars. It would have been easier to create a hero from my own backyard. But I couldn’t resist choosing the unusual setting of Little Diomede and the opportunity to create a no-nonsense hard-as-nails character like Rake Ozenna. As the great Nelson DeMille so kindly said, “We’re glad he’s on our side.”

MR: What does literary success look like to you?

HH: Is it possible? Maybe if you’re like Harper Lee, J. D. Salinger or Jack Kerouac and you do a really great book that stays in the public conversation. But when you’re doing a book every year or so, you’re only as good as your next book. I have met writers whom I regard as hugely successful and often find them concentrating on their failures and anxious to do better.

MR: You also have non-fiction titles to your name. How does your writing process vary depending on whether you’re writing fiction or non-fiction?

HH: Fiction is more difficult. I need uninterrupted ‘me’ time to work out characters, structure, pace and so on. Making stuff up isn’t as easy as it sounds. The non-fiction is more straight forward, and I can work from research and reporting even with people around and interruptions. It is, though, very different to journalism. Structuring 1,000 words is not the same and structuring 100,000.

MR: What’s the best and worst book review you’ve ever received?

HH: I do like the Kirkus one for Man on Fire -- Brass-knuckled international intrigue for readers who still pine for the world of James Bond. I love the one star Amazon for last year’s non-fiction Asian Waters: The Struggle Over the Indo-Pacific and the Challenge to American Power. “Good for tabloid style opinion reading, not an academic work.”

MR: What is your favorite genre to read?

HH: A political thriller and its non-fiction counterpart.

MR: If you could have drinks with any person, living or dead, who would it be? Why?

HH: Adolf Hitler. The bad guy makes the story and he’s the baddest of the bad. Look at all the material still coming out of Nazism and the Second World War.

MR: What do you think about when you’re alone in your car?

HH: Should I get a new GPS. And I structure chapters and plan travel.

MR: Is there a book that people might be surprised to learn you love?

HH: Candide by Voltaire – the horrors and folly the world throws at us; the Panglossian optimism that all is for the best in this best of all possible worlds; and the secret of happiness is to cultivate one’s own garden.

To learn more about Humphrey Hawksley visit the following:

www.manonfire.org.uk

www.rakeozenna.com

www.humphreyhawksley.com

https://www.linkedin.com/me/profile-views/urn:li:wvmp:summary/

https://www.facebook.com/HumphreyHawksleyThrillers

Author Interview Series-Kristine Raymond

Kristine Raymond

It wasn’t until later in life that Kristine Raymond figured out what she wanted to be when she grew up, an epiphany that occurred in 2013 when she sat down and began writing her first novel. Over a dozen books in multiple genres later, there are a multitude of ideas floating around in her head thus assuring she’ll never be idle. When a spare moment does present itself, she fills it by navigating the publishing and promotional side of the business. When not doing that, she spends time with her husband and furbabies (not necessarily in that order) at their home in south-central Kentucky, gardens, reads, or binge-watches Netflix.Kristine is represented by Mickey Mikkelson at Creative Edge Publicity.

Marina Raydun: Your bibliography is rather varied. You are comfortable writing historic western romance novels as well as erotica. Where do you find your inspiration?

Kristine Raymond: It’s more like inspiration finds me.  Ideas pop into my head (usually at the most inopportune times), and stories form that I have no choice but to write.  Anything can trigger the process.  A song lyric, a scene from a TV show or movie, real-life interactions with a bank teller or car mechanic, or observing people as they go about their daily lives (it’s not stalking; it’s research…)

MR: How did publishing your first book change your writing process?

KR: I didn’t have a writing process.  Aside from some angsty teenage poetry and a half-hearted attempt at journaling, I hadn’t authored anything before writing and publishing my first book, Here to Stay, in 2013.  It was all new to me, which, in some ways, was good because I had zero expectations about everything, and in others, it was bad because I had no clue what I was doing.

MR: What do you owe real life people upon whom you base your characters?

KR: None of my characters are based entirely on real-life people.  There may be a personality quirk or habit of someone I know, and I’ve used family names in some of my stories, but my characters are purely fictional.  I will say I think it’s impossible for an author to write and not imprint a portion of their experiences/feelings/beliefs, however minuscule, into their plotlines.

MR: How do you select names of your characters?

KR: Most often, my characters tell me their names without me actively thinking about it, although I did dream the name Landry (my heroine in Hearts on Fire).  If I’m writing a character of a particular nationality, I’ll do an internet search for baby names that are popular to that culture. Worst comes to worst, I’ve been known to thumb through the telephone book for ideas.  Yes, they still make those.

MR: Talk to me about your Seasons of Love series. What a fun, creative idea!

KR: Seasons of Love is one of my favorite books, and not just because I wrote it.  What began as a title for a limited-release anthology – Dogwoods in Springtime – turned into a collection of four seasonally themed, interconnected stories that can be read individually or as a whole.  Based in four different locations that I’ve either visited or lived, the themes in each story vary.  Dogwoods in Springtime is about a widow who gets an unexpected second chance at love.  Seashells in Summer depicts a single mother’s challenge to open her heart to a stranger, knowing she may lose everything in the process.  Aspens in Autumn find our hero and heroine running for their lives – and into each other’s arms, and Snowflakes in Winter is a ‘love at first sight’ tale with a stalkerish twist.  Each story ends in a happily-ever-after, and there is some character carry-over that gives the reader a glimpse into the future.

MR: If you had to do something differently as a child or a teenager to become a better writer as an adult, what would you do?
KR: I’d have told myself to be confident and not worry what others think.  Naysayers are always going to exist.  The key is to listen to what my heart and soul tell me, rather than strangers who have no stake in my life.  So what that some people tell me I won’t succeed?  It’s not up to them.  It’s up to me.

MR: What other authors are you friends with, and how do they help you become a better writer?
KR: At this point in my life, I have more author friends than non-author friends.  Laramie Briscoe deserves the credit for me being where I am today. Hearing her talk about writing and the process of self-publishing gave me the courage to write a book – the first of sixteen, as it turned out.  Grace Augustine, Rebecca Thein, and P.J. Tracy are dear friends, and we chat on an (almost) daily basis.  We bounce ideas off of each other, make suggestions about covers and blurbs and plotlines, and it’s nice to talk with people who understand both the elation and frustration I deal with on a daily basis, as most authors do.  (I could go on and on with names because the writing community is so welcoming and helpful.)

MR: Who is your literary crush?

KR: I don’t have a crush, per se, but Will Lyman from Karen Robards’ Hunter’s Moon is a favorite.  And, Jack Tanner from the Hidden Springs series…well, even though I created him, let’s just say if he were a real-life person, my hubs might have some competition.  Just kidding, honey. 😉
MR: Is there a thing you’ve written that makes you cringe now?

KR: Every book I’ve published.  Seriously, though, there are passages in every book I’ve written that I would reword in hindsight, but when I released them, they were the best they could be.

MR: Is there an illicit book you had to sneak growing up?

KR: Mmmm…I probably read Mom’s bodice rippers a few years earlier than I should have, but I never read anything illicit.  Still haven’t.  Why, do you have any suggestions?

To find out more, please visit Kristine Raymond’s website at www.kristineraymond.com and follow

her on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and BookBub.

Hoarding Clothes

I have too many clothes. I mean, there are multiple closets, shelves, hangers, and drawers. A strange thing to complain about, I know, but between reading all about Death Cleaning and watching Marie Kondo’s multiple shows, I can’t help but wonder why I need all this shit when I wear no more than roughly ten percent of it. Literally, why have hanger upon hanger of dresses, mesh drawer upon mesh drawer full of pants other than the fact that I can now afford to give them all a home? Surely, that’s not a good enough reason, and yet here I am, elbow deep in an attempt to spring clean a week too late-my kid’s school having already completed its clothing drive fundraiser.

The clothes!

So many clothes!

Growing up, age six through eleven, I wore a school uniform a decidedly deep shade of brown five days a week. Much like most clothes we wore, the uniform wasn’t washed in between wears, earning its turn to be laundered roughly once a month (though a fresh collar was attached to it weekly-we weren’t savages!). On Saturdays in 5th grade, however, we got to wear whatever we wanted. Whatever we wanted was, of course, inevitably limited to whatever we had, which wasn’t much. In my case, it was whatever happened to be inside the shiny Czech closet in our living room. More specifically, it was whichever items of my sister’s wardrobe I could fill out at my ten/eleven years of age, my sister being catastrophically thin and me never being thin enough. To me, her clothes were the epitome of what the future could hold. Having lived with us through college and first job, on her days off, she would frequent the outdoor market where pensioners sold loot from the recently permitted trips to Poland, where they would peddle their own crap and purchase Western clothes (mostly sweaters or denim skirts ornamented with white strips of lace) to peddle back to us. There, she’d treat herself to a blouse or a pair of pants roughly on a weekly basis. Once “free form” was permitted in 1993, I could wear one of the two pairs of my sister’s jeans-one high waisted and acid washed (the same pair I would later travel to America wearing) and a skinny, stretchy black pair (the same one I would later stick a wad of gum into during lunch at my Brooklyn junior high where a lunch aid would scream, “no gum chewing” with alarming regularity and, thus seal the pocket forever). On Sundays, too, when I’d go to a few hours of quasi-Hebrew school at a local dilapidated synagogue I was allowed to wear my sister’s clothes. I was probably one of the coolest kids dressed on any given weekend…but then the weekend would be over and back into the itchy, poop-brown dress I’d go.

The decidedly brown school uniform with a dress white apron (the daily one was black)

I did have my own clothes. There weren’t many (on account of constant growth and having a mandatory school uniform), but my favorites were my American second hand items. My dad, like many in the immediate aftermath of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, had an entrepreneurship gig on the side of his nine to five job. Namely, he had a small, hole in the wall shop that sold liquors, lycra pentyhouse (heresy, I tell you!!), and chocolate-all European! Unironically, the shop’s name was as tacky as it was unoriginal (Marseilles!), no one involved in the venture having ever been anywhere past the confines of the USSR, let alone France. The name certainly wasn’t the idea of the city’s Association of People with Disabilities, from whom dad’s little venture was leasing the space. It is through a host of charities that this organization received a rather impressive shipment of American donations one year. A clothing drive, probably not unlike the one I just under-delivered to at my kid’s school, must’ve been held somewhere in the United States, and these Bobruisk folks with various disabilities were the intended beneficiaries. Only the country was starving so only the president and the immediate assistants benefited free of charge; the rest of the folk had to pay. And, though none of us qualified on basis of any disability, because my dad’s business was an important source of income for the Association, our families too got to partake-first dibs among the paying clientele, no less. Winning! Those were some good dibs, too! Ah, that mustard colored plush skirt with a zipper down the front and a pair of Timberland boots made me feel so American. Our impending immigration on my mind, I imagined that all my clothes would look like that once we moved. Actually, the dream was that on the other side of the ocean, I’d eventually have enough clothes to change outfits everyday, just like I watched them do in the Latin American telenovelas they’d started showing us on TV daily. Apparently, rumor had it, it was a hygiene consideration, let alone a statement of your socio-economic status, this whole changing clothes everyday thing. To have an outfit for every day of the week-ah to dream! On TV, the outfits also never repeated (ever!). I figured that was probably a bunch of baloney but I liked it, in principle.

When I finally did come to America, I had very little of my already tiny wardrobe traveling west with me. I had very few prized possessions but my sister informed me that my favorite pink shiny leggings and green bicycle shorts were a no-go because, allegedly, only hookers wore those in America. So, instead, I’d brought the same items I’d by then officially inherited from my sister. In addition, some other things made it into our misshapen suitcases, like all the random summer ensembles bought at the same outdoor market where my sister liked to shop. Besides these things, I had nothing. My grandma (who’d made the move three years ahead of us) claimed that she had everything prepared for me, therefore there was no need to bring clothes for me. We were to save the luggage space for pots and pans and sewing kits. Unfortunately, a few days into my American tenure, I discovered that what grandma meant was that she had a couple of black garbage bags of clothes collected from various neighbors’ daughters waiting for me in her studio apartment hallway closet. None of them fit or were remotely age-appropriate. So much for my American wardrobe getting off to a good start. Back to the drawing board whilst wearing my faux leather sandals with socks.

My cousins removed once, twice or thrice rushed to the rescue (the western way of enumerating relations still confusing to me despite that one Trusts & Estates class in law school). They were older and taller but it worked. More than that-it saved me. It did bother me that these weren’t my items, and that they had a vague smell of someone else’s detergent no matter how many times we washed it in our building’s basement laundry room using our own 99c one, but I had enough clothes to change an outfit every day of the week once school started, as the reported cultural expectation dictated. In fact, I had exactly five changes-just enough for a school week (if I ever showed up all five days in one week that first year in America, that is). I was otherwise miserable, of course, swallowed whole on the daily basis by an overcrowded school buzzing in a language I did not understand but, at least, I was dressed fairly well while crying in this classroom or that. 

The black jeans I inherited from my sister (this is after their pocket has been sealed shut with gum).

One of my most prized possessions—this Polish sweater I’d inherited from my sister.

Still, family donations weren't enough for the first fancy party my family was invited to in the spring of our first year here. The whole entire restaurant was being closed down for this shindig and none of my clothes were appropriate-neither my jeans with the no longer functional pocket nor my $10 plaid skirt. Shopping for this ball wasn’t in the cards simply because our budget didn’t allow for a one-event fancy dress for me. Fortunately, given that I’d stopped routinely weeping at school sometime around March and this was May, by then I’d gotten a few people in my circle who were okay with my calling them friends. One of these girls had a lean, slender body and a cousin with what seemed like way more money to all of us back then than it would now. This cousin had bought Jane a dress for some bar-mitzvah and generously, with her parents’ permission, she allowed me to borrow it for the party. It was velvet and featured a bead and/or pearl pattern. It had poofy sleeves and some sort of a ruffly bottom and it was glorious. Zipping me into it was no small feat, and I was a little too proud for not busting its zipper (because no way would my family be able to afford fixing it), but I will be forever grateful to a blonde girl named Jane whom I likely would not recognize walking down the street today. One day, I swore back then, I wouldn’t need hand-me-downs and friends’ rentals.

My rented gown. We’d bought the shoes at the $10 store.

It is no surprise, then, that when I got my first job paying above minimum wage, I shopped (stil cheaply, of course) and shopped some more. Affordable clothing and even a tiny bit of fairly disposable income (I was living with my parents and my sole expense was a metro card and lunch by then) meant I could afford some decent variety. It turns out that’s what I’d been after all along-to have more than five outfits, to repeat less often, to be like the ladies of the New World television. In high school, I had three pairs of jeans (all Levi’s!) and probably ten tops (thanks, Saks 5th Ave OFF 5th). In college, it was five pairs of jeans and roughly fifteen tops. By law school, it was seven and twenty. Now, it’s fifteen and figurative infinity. It’s all the little Soviet child inside me ever wanted but the kicker is that I still wear no more than ten percent of it all so what’s the functional difference? I only like looking at it all, folded and hung neatly, as if the sum of all the contents of these multiple shelves and hangers are a positive summary of my life thus far. It’s all sorts of telling and horribly depressing. Now I feel cluttered and simultaneously ungrateful for my riches. It doesn’t take a graduate degree in psychology to understand the metaphorical dependency here-I shop because I can, because I want to make up for all the years I couldn’t. Still, it’s starting to feel gluttonous. Surely, it’s the opposite of the intended and expected effect of all this accumulation. No one needs forty t-shirts and fifteen pairs of shorts living in the Northeast. No one needs five pairs of dress pants and twelve blouses when she doesn’t have an office job or go out. Maybe someone else can benefit from my greed. Maybe some girl out there will find the joy in my second-hand clothes and the cycle will begin again. 

Now, what to do with the hangers?!