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
Anne C. Petty
Hi Anne! Welcome to the
Writers4Higher family!
1. Tell me about yourself. Your
book(s), your life, your inspiration.
I’ve always been a wordsmith. Even in grade school I remember how cool it
was to be able to manipulate words, and somehow I never got over it. The idea
of being a writer and book publisher took root pretty early on. At age 8, I
remember taking the 8x10 cardboard from the package of my dad’s new shirt and
folding it in half, thinking, ‘I’m going to write a book.’ On the front of the
cardboard I wrote the title: The Dog Who Lost His Bark, and drew a kind of
Scotty-looking dog underneath it. Inside I wrote, “He found it!” I rediscovered
that early wordsmithing attempt years later when I was looking through my
mother’s keepsakes after her death.
My writing foundation is in myth and folklore, and I’ve been
an avid reader of classic horror since I was a kid. J.R.R. Tolkien, Ursula Le
Guin, and Edgar Allen Poe are probably the biggest influences on my own
storytelling approach. I’ve written a lot of non-fiction, as well. My first
three published books were non-fiction, literary criticism. The first was a
user-friendly version of my dissertation on Tolkien’s mythology, which is now
in its 2nd edition from the University of Alabama Press. The second
was Tolkien in the Land of Heroes, a
study of universal themes in LOTR,
and the third was Dragons of Fantasy
(how to write about dragons in fantasy/scifi fiction), both from Cold Spring
Press/Simon & Schuster.
My literary tastes run toward the dark side, but I really
prefer psychological horror and suspense over the guts ‘n gore school of
writing. My first novel, Thin Line
Between, was mined from the Australian Dreamtime legends. The sequel to
that novel, Shaman’s Blood, came out
last year from Journalstone Publishing in San Francisco. I also have a writing
partner, P.V. “Pete” LeForge, with whom I’ve written a trilogy in a style we
call Florida literary suspense. The first book of our North Florida trilogy is Hell and High Water, set in the Gulf
Coast area and dealing with Florida swamp legends (Black Bay Books, 2012). The
second book in this series, Museum Piece,
is due out early 2013. Also, Journalstone will be publishing two of my books in
2013: The Cornerstone, based on the
Doctor Faustus tale, and LIMBUS, INC.,
a shared-world anthology for which I’m both creator and series editor. Looks
like I’ll be busy next year!
2. Where do you see your writing taking
you in the future?
In mid-2012, I was diagnosed with lung cancer and not given
a very optimistic prognosis. However, I’ve already outlived the shelf-life that
hospital physicians projected for me and have turned things around to the point
that I now believe I’ll live to write another day, or even another year.
As I wrote in my blog, what has this experience done for me
as a writer? I think it has made me less cerebral about the big issues of life
and death. It’s so easy to kill off characters on paper, but having stared my
own possible quick demise in the face, my perspective is changed forever. I
hope it will infuse my storytelling with a level of immediacy and empathy that I
think was missing.
I suspect my writing may become more spiritual in nature. My
background in myth and folklore has made me aware of symbols and their greater
meaning for people, but now those images are more personal. I definitely
believe in the transformative power of the human mind. I wouldn’t call myself a
religious person, but I’m open to the spiritual aspect of life and the beyond.
Do I envision spirit guides of my own? Indeed I do.
3. How do you use your talents/time to
help others?
I love sharing with others what I know about the craft of
writing. I’ve spent nearly 40 years as a professional editor, writer, and
publisher, so I do have a few words of wisdom I can pass on to those who are
curious. I especially enjoy presenting panels and seminar sessions at writing
and pop-culture conferences. Dragon-con in Atlanta is one of my favorites, where I have often been a guest speaker for
the Tolkien Track.
Also high points for me every year have been the free summer
workshops I’ve presented for the Tallahassee Writers Association at the
downtown Tallahassee library. I’ve covered topics as diverse as the fluid
landscape of the publishing industry to writing flash fiction to world-building
techniques for science fiction and fantasy fiction. I hope to do more of these, once I regain my
health.
And finally, there’s my publishing company, Kitsune Books. I
started it 6 years ago with the mission to publish literary fiction and
book-length poetry collections that were highly deserving but probably didn’t
have a prayer of getting published by larger mainstream companies. Our motto
was “Quality books for eclectic readers.” I’ve reluctantly decided to close the
company at the end of 2012, because I just can’t manage the demands of running
the company while I’m concentrating most of my energies on staying alive. That
said, I feel I’ve accomplished what I set out to do with the press, which was
to make sure that each book was a work of art, from the text to the cover,
typeface, and layout. Working on a personal level with the authors and artists
who crafted our thirty or so “Kitsune” books was a great joy and possibly the
most rewarding period of my wordsmithing career. The fact that so many of these
books won literary awards in our short history is icing on the cake.
Would you like to find Anne?
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
