Writers4Higher features Amy Hill Hearth

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

Amy Hill Hearth

Hi Amy. Welcome to the Writers4Higher family!

Tell me about yourself. Your book(s), your life, your inspiration.
I am inspired by older people and the stories, perspective, and wisdom they are able to share. When I was growing up, I had several great-aunts and a great-grandmother who lived into their nineties, and my paternal grandmother lived to 101. I grew up listening to their stories.

My dad was an executive with General Electric, and we moved several times when I was a kid. My favorite place while growing up was Columbia, South Carolina. I loved South Carolina and had a happy childhood there.

I studied Sociology in college, then switched to Writing, graduating from the University of Tampa with a B.A. degree in 1982. I worked as a newspaper reporter in Florida, New England, and in New York. In 1993, I published my first book, HAVING OUR SAY: THE DELANY SISTERS’ FIRST 100 YEARS, an oral history of two centenarian sisters who were the daughters of a man born into slavery. HAVING OUR SAY was a New York Times Bestseller for 113 weeks. There was even a Broadway play adaptation, followed by a Peabody Award-winning telefilm adaptation. I worked on both adaptations as an advisor and also wrote two sequels. I went on to write several more nonfiction books, most recently, “STRONG MEDICINE” SPEAKS, an oral history of the matriarch of a Lenni-Lenape tribal nation. In 2009 I decided to take a break from the competitive world of book publishing and to write “just for fun” for a while. I had never tried my hand at fiction and ended up writing a full-length novel, MISS DREAMSVILLE AND THE COLLIER COUNTY WOMEN’S LITERARY SOCIETY. It sold immediately to Atria/Simon & Schuster and was published last fall. It’s about a middle-aged housewife and mother who moves with her family from Boston to a sleepy Southern town in far-south Florida in 1962. It’s told through the eyes of an 80 year old woman looking back on those days.

Where do you see your writing taking you in the future?
I have no idea, and I think that’s a good thing. When I was younger I tried to plan everything, but now I see the beauty in being open to new possibilities. Sometimes, you can try too hard.

How do you use your talents/time to help others?
I have mentored many young people, helped writers of all ages, served on nonprofit boards, and written hundreds (maybe thousands) of pro bono newsletters for worthy groups and causes. Unfortunately, I have far more requests than I can handle, but I do my best.

Would you like to find Amy?

Check out the links to this talented author:

Amy's Website

 

Amy on Facebook

 

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Rhett DeVane

Fiction with a Southern Twist

Writers4Higher blog

Rhett's Website

Rhett's funny Southern Blog

Writers4Higher features JoElle Martin

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

JoElle Martin

                       Hi, JoElle. Welcome to the Writers4Higher family!

                                                

1. Tell me about yourself. Your book(s), your life, your inspiration.

If there is such a thing as reincarnation, then I was a gypsy in all my former lives. I love to wander. I love not having a plan and just taking each day as it happens. To me life is an amazing gift and shouldn’t be wasted. Each day is a promise of adventure, knowledge, and making a difference. Each day is about really seeing the world and living, not just going the motions and existing without awareness.

One of my favorite quotes is from the movie “Tuck Everlasting” (based on the book). Angus Tuck tells Winnie Foster, “Do not fear death, but rather the unlived life. You don't have to live forever. You just have to live.”

My life hasn’t been perfect. I’ve experienced pain, disappointment, poverty, and other unhappy events. But I am thankful that somewhere my family had healthy resiliency and emotional intelligence genes and that they were passed on to me; as well as a dab of storytelling genes.

In school I was told I was a good writer, but I didn’t really know what to do with it. I wrote my assignments and received A’s. I competed in Journalism writing events and won awards. But that was about it. I didn’t keep a diary. I didn’t like writing about me. I liked making up stories and writing about other people.

Shortly after I graduated high school I proposed to my boyfriend and we were married. We are still together. I’ve had a happy married life and my husband and I raised a wonderful son. It was during the time I homeschooled him that I began to think about my writing. I was telling my kid that he could live his dream of being a firefighter (and he did become a firefighter), and that’s when I realized I didn’t want to reach my last day and regret never having written a book.

I began to write. I wrote stories for the local newspaper. I became a writer and regional editor for our homeschool newsletter. I became a staff writer for a bilingual area newspaper. And soonafter that began working on my first manuscript.

While my newspaper and newsletter articles are non-fiction and cover items of community interests, my novels are fantasy, romance, and adventure. My published novels are a four book young adult fantasy series. The manuscripts I am currently working on are fantasy/paranormal romance. I’ve always loved fairy tales and I consider my stories as modern day fairy tales. They take place in the world of today, however the characters are elves, dragons, fairies, witches, and humans too. The stories are mostly fun and filled with adventure. I avoid too much drama. There is enough of that in real life. I like my characters to have a sense of honor and a sense of humor.

My inspiration comes from everywhere. I was driving through the Deschutes National Forest on a clear night with a full moon. The forest looked absolutely magical and that combined with an early childhood memory and I had the inspiration for my first novel ….and that evolved into the four books. Nature inspires a lot of the scenes in my books. My characters are not any particular people I know. But I have had characters inspired from people watching. People are fascinating.



2. Where do you see your writing taking you in the future?

I don’t really think about this. I love that I’ve written not one book, but several. I knew that I had it in me and I feel a huge sense of accomplishment in what I’ve already done. Though my series has not been a commercial success, I feel successful in that the reviews I have received have all been positive. I feel honored that people have read my stories and liked them. Do I hope to be able to quit my “day job” and write full time? Sure. Would I like my audience to be bigger? Of course. I have stories inside my head pushing me to let them out and get them on paper. I do see myself writing until there are no more stories … and that won’t be anytime soon. I have four manuscripts in various stages of completion and three or four more stories waiting inside my head. Oh wait! And many of my series reviewers have said they could see Dreamer’s Forest as a movie. I was told that as they read it, it felt like a movie. I need to look into making that happen.



3. How do you use your talents/time to help others?



I volunteered as regional editor for California Homeschool News for three years. Our family raised a guide dog puppy for a guide dog school and I wrote of the experience in our city newspaper. Actually most of my non-fiction pieces are on community topics. I’d like to do more in the way of volunteering, however between work, school (I will finally get a degree this spring), and family I keep pretty busy. I do try to find gentle ways of helping others (and being kind to animals and the planet) each and every day. I truly believe if you send out good energy it makes a positive difference in the lives of others.

JoElle's Books: A Bridge in the Forest, A Promise in the Forest, 

A Secret in the Forest, and Moonlight in the Forest

Would you like to find JoElle?

Check out the links to this talented author:

JoElle's website

JoElle on Facebook

Be sure to visit the Writers4Higher Market! We have gear for the writer in you.

The Writers4Higher Market

Rhett DeVane

Fiction with a Southern Twist

Writers4Higher blog

Rhett's Website

Rhett's funny Southern Blog

Writers4Higher features Jill Fletcher Palaez

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

Jill Fletcher Palaez

Hi. Welcome to the Writers4Higher family!

1. Tell me about yourself. Your book, your life, your inspiration.

The author, my mother, Jill Fletcher Pelaez was born in 1924 in Puerto Rico, and she died at age 88 on July 2, 2012 in Tallahassee, FL. She had an insatiable zest for life and broad interests, encompassing art, music, dance, writing and history. She was especially interested in the Civil War, the end of which became the setting for her novel.

Mom worked on her first and only novel for 20 years and had not yet found a publisher for it. In May 2012 she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and within two weeks WiDo Publishing had offered her a contract. She was thrilled to know that her work and her protagonist, Tench — whom she dearly loved —would live on after her.

Mom didn’t live to see her book in print; but she knew it would finally see the light of day this month. We are thrilled for Mom, but also for the world, that her book, The Day is a White Tablet (WiDo Publishing), is now available to entertain, to teach and to uplift all those who read it.

2. Where do you see your writing taking you in the future?

Since Mom isn’t with us any longer, I’ll just let you know about her past writing, which was primarily in the realm of children’s literature. She was the author of Donkey Tales (Abingdon Press 1971), a children’s book of short stories set in Spain. She also contributed articles and short stories to Ideas and Images (a text book of the American Book Company), and to magazines, U.S. Lady, Humpty Dumpty, and Highlights for Children.

3. How do you use your talents/time to help others?

Mom’s altruism never waited for the grand gesture. All through her life, she had a way of making each person who crossed her path feel important. She wanted to hear everyone's life story, and when people spoke, she gave them her full focus and attention. For example, in 2004, when my Mom was 80, she and I went on a trip together to visit my oldest daughter in Hawaii. I will never forget the attention Mom attracted as we traveled. She embraced and became friends with everyone. The manicurist at the nail salon, the clerks at the dress shops, the waiters at the restaurants, the people we met at shows we attended, the passengers on the airplane, the flight attendants, and my daughter’s friends—all became her instant friends. She exchanged e-mail addresses with everyone.

As a little girl, I remember living in Needham, Massachusetts for a year while my Air Force father was on duty there. All of our friends became her friends. Everyone loved my mother. She would gather our friends around her and teach them the hula, listen to their problems, and get to know them in profound ways. When we moved, the neighborhood children gave HER the going away parties! 

Mom also cared deeply for others less fortunate. In her older age, she and her friend and companion (she never liked calling him her boyfriend!), would seek out the homeless in the community so they could buy a meal, or give money, or help in some little way. She could never say no to any organization that solicited her financial help. She generously gave to numerous organizations, everything from the American Red Cross and the Wounded Warrior Project to the Wilderness Society and the March of Dimes. 

Her biggest contribution, in my opinion, is the love and time she devoted to her family. When she could no longer drive, she became my housemate. I built onto my home so she could have her own space, a lovely suite. Her encouragement and love made my life richer then and makes my life richer now, especially as I prepare to introduce her book to the world.

Would you like to find Jill Fletcher Paleaz?

Check out the links to this talented author:

LINKS:

Jill Fletcher Palaez Website

The Day is a White Table on Facebook

  

 

Thank you for sharing this book and insights on your wonderful mother. Oh, how I wish I could have known her! Through her writing, and the love you and your family hold for her, she will live on. My  best to all of you.

Rhett DeVane

Be sure to visit the Writers4Higher Market! We have gear for the writer in you.

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Fiction with a Southern Twist

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Writers4Higher features Pat Bertram

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

Pat Bertram

Hi, Pat. Welcome to the Writers4Higher family!

 1. Tell me about yourself. Your book(s), your life, your inspiration.

I always thought I’d be a writer, so when I was twenty-five, I quit a job to write a book about a love that transcended time and physical bonds, told with sensitivity and great wisdom. Unfortunately, I discovered I had no talent for writing and no wisdom, so I gave up writing.

After I discovered I didn’t know how to write, I did temporary work for several years to gain experience of life. Or at least life as it pertains to work. I worked at hundreds of different companies doing everything from filing to billing to bookkeeping to operating a switchboard to selling cars to being a legal secretary. When I wasn’t working, which was frequently, I read. All those thousands of books seeped into my subconscious, and gave me a feel for storytelling, and so when I took up writing again, I had more of an idea of how to tell a story. I just had to learn the specifics, such as show don’t tell, which I did.

Three years ago, my life mate/soul mate died, and the only way I could handle my overwhelming grief was to pour it out onto pages of a journal, letters to him, and blog posts. When I discovered how much those blog posts meant to people who had also suffered grievous losses, I compiled my writings into a book about my first year of grief called Grief: The Great Yearning, which has recently been published by Second Wind Publishing. And so, quite by accident, I ended up writing the story of a love that transcended time and physical bonds, told with sensitivity and great wisdom. I just never knew that the story I’d always wanted to write would be mine.

2. Where do you see your writing taking you in the future?

I blog most days, and much of that writing is about my continued journey through grief. Someday, perhaps, I’ll write a sequel to Grief: The Great Yearning, chronicling how I found my way to renewed happiness, assuming, of course, I ever get there.

3.  How do you use your talents/time to help others?

I don’t really use my writing talents to help others. I wrote about grief to help myself get through a horrendous time in my life, and my writings in turn helped others realize that they are not alone in their grief, that others have felt as lost and lonely and adrift in a sea of pain as they do.

Would you like to find Pat?

Check out the links to this talented author:

Website - http://patbertram.com

Blog – http://ptbertram.wordpress.com

Second Wind Publishing - http://tinyurl.com/patbertram

Amazon - https://www.amazon.com/author/patbertram

Barnes and Noble - http://www.barnesandnoble.com/c/pat-bertram

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Pat-Bertram/47117252623

Pat Bertram

author of More Deaths Than One and A Spark of Heavenly Fire, available from Second Wind Publishing, LLC
http://patbertram.com

Be sure to visit the Writers4Higher Market! We have gear for the writer in you.

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Rhett DeVane

Fiction with a Southern Twist

Writers4Higher blog

Rhett's Website

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Writers4Higher features Olivia deBelle Byrd

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

Olivia deBelle Byrd

Hi, Olivia. Welcome to the Writers4Higher family!

1. Tell me about yourself. Your book(s), your life, your inspiration.

I was born and bred in Panama City, Florida, on the beautiful waters of the Gulf of Mexico in the Florida Panhandle. My grandfather, Wyatt Oates Byrd, moved to Panama City in 1930 from Alabama so I would be called Old South. I graduated from Birmingham-Southern College in Birmingham, Alabama, am a former elementary school teacher, and was a stay-at-home mom for my two children, Tommy Jr. and Elizabeth. My husband, Tommy, and I still reside in Panama City.

Miss Hildreth Wore Brown-Anecdotes of a Southern Belle is my first book. It contains 41 humorous satirical anecdotes of a romp through Southern life. I like to call it real-life fiction as all the people, places, and events are real, but like all good Southern stories exaggeration and embellishment have been added.

The stories are punctuated with everyday mishaps that Southerners seem to have a knack for turning into entertainment. Because they are actual occurrences, the reader is drawn into the warmth and familiarity of the characters and their stories. The characters who dance across the pages range from Great-Aunt Lottie Mae, who is as "old-fashioned and opinionated as the day is long" to Mrs. Brewton, with her turban and dark sunglasses, who calls everyone "dahling" whether they are darling or not. Miss Hildreth was honored to win the 2011 Florida Publishers Association Awards for Florida Fiction for Adults and Cover Design.

In writing this first book, Miss Hildreth Wore Brown, I wrote what I knew-humor and the South. Since I was raised by a Southern father and grandmother of uncommon wit, the fabric of my childhood was laced with humor. I grew up surrounded by marvelous tales of Southern grande dames and eccentric Southern gentlemen. Humor was a staple in our household. I have loved the art of storytelling as long as I can remember. When I finally put pen to paper, the stories poured forth as though an age-old tap had been discovered and turned on. I loved the gush of warm and euphoric remembrances and seeing those memories transposed into the written word.

Lives have many forks in the road, but becoming a published author was a U-turn in mine. The world of publishing has taken me down many new paths. My readers have been my inspiration. They have made the lost sleep, uncertainty, and long hours’ worth it all. I have made new friends and renewed old friendships. I have found family I never knew existed. Every time a reader tells me they laughed at my words, my soul smiles. I have been in love with the written word as long as I can remember and to use it to bring pleasure to others is the greatest pleasure of all.

2. Where do you see your writing taking you in the future?

My next book is a novel-a sweet, sweet love story. Taking place in the South in the 1960s and '70s against the backdrop of the Vietnam War, it is the love story of Elisabeth Belle Sterling and Kincaid Patterson who search deep within their souls to save each other through their love and devotion. I like to say it is for the love story in all of us.

3. How do you use your talents/time to help others?

My belief system revolves around the Golden Rule-do unto others as you would have them do unto you and love your brother as yourself. My life has been immensely blessed and I believe we are put on this earth to help others who may be struggling or who may not have been as fortunate.

Being a third generation Panama-citian, I am very ensconced in various charities in our community such as the Boys and Girls Club and Early Learning Coalition. On a more personal level, every Christmas my daughter and I adopt a struggling family and supply them with Christmas gifts. We continue to do this even though my daughter is now married and living away. This act always turns out to be a blessing for me and adds value to my life.

Would you like to find Olivia?

Check out the links to this talented author:

Olivia's Website 

Olivia on Facebook 

Be sure to visit the Writers4Higher Market! We have gear for the writer in you.

The Writers4Higher Market

Rhett DeVane

Fiction with a Southern Twist

Writers4Higher blog

Rhett's Website

Rhett's funny Southern Blog