Welcome to
Writers4Higher
The purpose of the Writers4Higher blog: to feature authors in a new light, a fresh look at the way writers use their talents and life energies to uplift humankind. Writers4Higher doesn’t promote religious or political views. Authors are asked to answer three simple questions: simple, yet complex.
This issue, Writers4Higher features
Shelagh Watkins
Hi, Shelagh. Welcome to the
Writers4Higher family!
1. Tell me about yourself. Your book(s), your life, your
inspiration.
Hi Rhett, Thank you for inviting me to Writers4Higher and
giving me the opportunity to talk about my involvement in writing. I began
writing fiction in 1998 when I wrote my first novel, The Power of Persuasion. After the receipt of a stack of rejection
slips from publishers, I soon realized that finding a publisher was not an easy
task. Some of the rejection slips contained hand-written notes suggesting that
I should find a literary agent, since most publishers do not accept unsolicited
work. Finding an agent proved to be just as difficult a task as finding a
publisher. So, I gave up. I didn’t write for four years, until my brother died
at the age of forty-three in 2002. He left two young children, then aged eight
and five years old. I began writing again and produced my first children’s
novel, Mr. Planemaker’s Flying Machine.
From that point on, my writing career continued to the present day.
2. Where do you see your writing taking you in the future?
I have just completed what others consider to be my best
piece of work to date: a short story, A
Family Arrangement. The setting for the story is nineteen-twenties, rural Lancashire . The theme is the struggles that single
mothers faced in the twenties without the support of a husband. This might form
the basis of a family saga. It depends upon how well the story is received and
whether readers would be interested in reading more. The story is available on
Amazon here: A Family
Arrangement.
3. How do you use your talents/time to help others?
In 2007, I set up the Published Authors Network on Ning
(social networking platform). The site was free and amassed over two thousand members.
In 2008, I set up the Published Authors forum, www.publishedauthors.org for
members of the Network. I also set up the Published
Authors Network group on LinkedIn, which now has 9,290 members. Published
Authors also has a group and a page on Facebook.
In 2008, I decided to rewrite my first unpublished novel, The Power of Persuasion, which I then self-published.
The same year, I put together Forever
Friends, an anthology of short stories and poems written by writers from
around the world. To do this, I set up my own small press publishing company,
Mandinam Press.
Although I do not accept submissions because of the small
scale of the company, I have published two more anthologies in the Forever
series, Forever Travels (2010) and,
more recently, Forever Families (2012),
and three books by individual authors:
Living by the Swamp by Alice Crooker (2011), On the Way to Siberia by Hermann Frech (2012) and An Introduction to Mechanics of Human
Movement by James Watkins (2012).
Would you like to find Shelagh?
Check out the links to
this talented author:
Be sure to visit the Writers4Higher Market! We have gear for the writer in you.
Rhett
DeVane
Fiction
with a Southern Twist
