Writers4Higher features Mitch Doxsee

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

Mitch Doxsee

Hi, Mitch. Welcome to the Writers4Higher family!

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

My love of the ocean is mirrored in my love for writing. I was born on Marco Island, Florida and lived with my grandparents for the first years of my life. My grandfather was a fishing guide, and I would cruise through the Ten Thousand Islands with him on many of his fishing trips. My book, Dismal Key, is the product of me trying to capture those days with him before he died of cancer. As I told my wife, I just wanted one more ride with him. Dismal Key is that ride. While human trafficking was never an issue we ran into while fishing, it is an issue that hit home with me when I did a missions trip to Amsterdam with Youth With a Mission (YWAM) during my college years. Working with YWAM opened my eyes to the horrors many of these girls go through. Moreover, it made me realize that human trafficking is not something that happens overseas, it happens in our own backyard. Just drive down I-75 and you see the billboard signs for massage parlors advertised every few miles. These are nothing more than cover ups for prostitution. Many of the girls working there are not there by choice.

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

Honestly, I never knew I had a novel in me until I began to write one. At this time I am working on a follow up to Dismal Key. It will be the conclusion. I have a few ideas for other books, and I will begin exploring those options. It would be nice if my writing took me to a tropical island with a house! But I don’t see that happening any time soon.

How do you use your talents and time to help others?

I use my talents every day. I teach English to seventh graders. I am fortunate that I have a supportive administration that encourages me to break out of the mainstream when introducing my students to literature.  I try to make them strong readers to help them become strong writers. If they fall in love with reading, I can almost assuredly make them at least understand the importance of proper communication through the written word. It often gets challenging. However, this leads to the greatest rewards.

 Would you like to find Mitch?

Check out the links to this talented author:

Twitter: @doxsee77

Facebook: Mitch Doxsee on Facebook

Amazon: Order Dismal Key on Amazon

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

Rhett's funny Southern Blog

Writers4Higher features Nancy Springer

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

Nancy Springer

Hi, Nancy. Welcome to the Writers4Higher family!

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

            When I was a little kid, elementary school age, I used to pretend I had a camera behind my eyes that recorded everything I saw.  My mother was an artist – watercolors, oils – and her favorite word seemed to be “Look!” as in look at the sky, the bird, the tree.  I didn’t have nice clothes or many toys, but I did have acres and acres of rural New Jersey farm, forest, swamp and riverside where I could look all around.  I’m about sixty years older now, and I still don’t have nice clothes or many toys, but I have a huge, ever-growing collection of eidetic memories on which I draw for my writing.
            When I was a little kid, one day I looked at a new thing called television, and it frightened and repulsed me like nothing I’d ever seen in nature.  I tried never to look at it again if I could help it. Thus began my lifelong, instinctive avoidance of popular culture in favor of deeper rivers that run quietly, a tendency to stay away from crowds, clear my calendar and to watch birds more than movies.
            In my teens, the hodgepodge inside my head began to overflow, so I started to hoard it in notebooks.  I made lists of  groovy words (yes, I was a hippie), bumper stickers, trenchant graffiti, jump-rope chants, imaginary birds, symbolisms of colors, jewels, planets, animals . . .world without end, and notebooks couldn’t encompass it all, especially not as I studied English Literature in Gettysburg College.  In my twenties, living in rural Pennsylvania, I started to write novels – just as a hobby, mind you, another way to fill notebooks.  I didn’t have nerve enough to admit, even to myself, that I wanted to be a writer.  I just wrote.
            I was addicted to my writing; I had to write every day.  Writing was my “fix.”  Seriously.  I did it as an alternative to becoming drowned in Valium.  Back then nobody knew much about childhood depression, but in hindsight, I’m sure I had it, and I know darn well that it continued  into my adulthood, then intensified when I married and had children.  I saw doctors, of course, but frankly, they weren’t much help.  Ultimately, it was my writing that saved me.   
            How?  Very briefly, like this:  At the time I knew only that I had compulsive daydreams and that I had to get them down on paper by writing fantasy.  I didn’t know that the struggling characters were myself and me.  I had no idea why I was imagining situations so extreme that my forbidden emotions might actually be allowed to surface. Having depression had made me feel so worthless that I was astonished to be able to sell books such as THE WHITE HART and THE SILVER SUN for publication and even more astounded that people read them.  But after the first four or five books I began to realize that, in writing about gallant, loyal, compassionate protagonists I might actually be expressing my own personal values, in which case I was not a bad person.  A fan wrote me praising my depictions of friendship and love.  Love?  Me?  Holy catalpas, was I not totally unlovable after all?
            Ten fantasy novels gave me a decade of such insights and strengthened me so much that once more I wanted to use my “camera eyes” on the real world.  Instead of mythic fantasy, I wrote contemporary fantasy, aka magical realism, set in small towns and shopping malls.  I felt so much better that I bought myself a horse, fulfilling a childhood dream, then started writing children’s books and poetry about horses.  By now, my kids were in school and I could have found a job, but my royalties made that unnecessary.  I wrote, went trail riding with my friends, got back in time to greet my kids when they came home from school, took cross-country camping trips with my family, and kept growing as a person and a writer, venturing into some serious topics in YA, including crime, abduction, missing persons, and mystery.
            I realize, writing this, that my life has a different texture than most people’s. It’s not lumped into the dates of new jobs or locations or even publications.  On the average I published a book a year, and I lived in central or western Pennsylvania; it didn’t matter where. I do not have a hometown or any sense of belonging to a group.  Doris Lessing says writers must create a space, a quiet place in which the voice of story can speak.  Having been a loner since childhood, I have space galore. You could plop me down anywhere and I’d find something to look at/write about.
            Although not many lumps in my life, there were a few big bumps .  My divorce - my husband didn’t like me once I got well and strong.  And the empty nest, and menopause, which messed up my body chemistry enough to throw me back into depression for a while. 
            But by then the doctors were able to help me.  Also, I had learned how to look out for myself.  Eventually I started going to singles dances – that was weird – where, against all odds, I met my wonderful second husband.  We’ve been together for fourteen years now, and he’s the reason I’m living in the Florida panhandle and loving it. 

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

            Just within the past year or two I’ve been undergoing a tremendous change as a person who writes.  For the first time in my adult life, I don’t have a novel in the pipeline for publication next year. I’ve slowed down.  I no longer feel driven to write every single day.  This may be because I’ve been writing non-stop for forty years and could use a break, or it may be because my emotional needs are being met in my real life for a change, or – it doesn’t greatly matter.  If anything, it’s better this way.  Now when I write, it’s for the joy of words and the love of story.
            This way of writing is so new to me that it’s hard to say where it may take me.  It’s already found me a totally unexpected place as author of a Publishers Weekly “Soapbox.” I have a feeling I may be doing more blogging, social outreach, and writing about writing.  But I’m also working on my current novel, just a little differently.  For once, I’m taking my time.
           

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

            I’ve always wanted to help, and necessarily I do it my own way, quietly, day to day.  I give money, not to charities, but to individuals or families in need, anonymously.  Also, I have rescued so many dogs and cats I’ve lost count, and I make sure to have them vetted and neutered.  When I see a turtle crossing the road, I pull over and give it a lift to the other side.  I try to create a wild animal sanctuary on my property.  I share Schweitzer’s reverence for life.
            I volunteer for the local library, and back in Pennsylvania I volunteered at an animal shelter and a horse rescue, at a community center thrift shop, at March of Dimes Horseback Riding for the Handicapped .  I’ve heard that one of my books, COLT, has influenced at least one young reader to make equine therapy her career.  Other fans have let me know that my books inspire them or console them.  This always surprises me, but I hope my books do help people somehow.
            I don’t know whether the following counts as help or annoyance, but as I’ve gotten older, past middle age, I’ve become willing to deploy my mouth in public.  If I hear anyone calling a boy “girly,” I speak up: “That is a huge compliment.”  Last week I heard a woman say, “Children are people, too,” and a man answer, “No, not really.”  I turned on him like a mother bear protecting her cubs.  Poor guy, he said he was joking, and I do have a sense of humor, but a joke is seldom just a joke.  When I was a kid, people joked about women drivers.  Now they don’t anymore.  They know it isn’t fair to put women down.  I wish they wouldn’t joke about children either. 
            Or about mental illness.
            Occasionally I say so.  I know I’m opening a can of anacondas whenever I speak up, so I try to be discreet, but there it is:  I really want to help get rid of the stigma and ignorance that still darken the lives of people with psychological disorders.  I’ve tried to do this through writing, but the topic does not seem to be marketable, or maybe I’m too close to it.  What I can do is tell my story in venues such as this.  My writer-for-higher purpose  can be to show that mental illness is just that, a sickness, a normal challenge of the human condition, and it can be treated and cured.. 
            I’d like to thank this  wonderful blog for allowing me that opportunity.

            

Would you like to find Nancy?

Check out the links to this talented author:

Nancy Springer's Website

Nancy Springer's Blog

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 Leslee Horner

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

Leslee Horner

Hi, Leslee. Welcome to the Writers4Higher family!

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

My name is Leslee Horner and I am a mother, wife, and author. I left my teaching career ten years ago, moved to Florida, and became a stay-at-home-mom. In 2007, while spending my days with my then eighteen-month-old and three-year-old, my passion for writing was reignited and I began work on my first novel. I have written four novels since that time and recently published one of them.  

SUMMER OF STARS (THE PAST LIVES OF LOLA RAY~BOOK ONE) is the first book in a four-book Young Adult series that follows a fifteen-year-old girl named Lola as she deals with the stresses of adolescence while simultaneously flashing back to the past lives in which she died the day before turning sixteen. In SUMMER OF STARS, Lola’s family is falling apart at a time when all she wants is to be normal. It’s bad enough that her bipolar mother slips into a deep depression and her father has a mysterious online friend but now she’s having dreams and visions of a life in the Holocaust. With the help of Ian, the new boy across the street, she realizes that it is her family’s past life together that she is seeing. Ian helps her make peace with both the past and the present, becoming her best friend in the process. Of course, being best friends with Ian isn’t exactly uncomplicated.

I get much of my inspiration from my fascination with the mysteries of life, particularly the journey of the human soul. Many people find easy answers to those questions in religion or science where as I tend to get caught up in the “yes, but, what if?” And that question is where all of my novels begin. With THE PAST LIVES OF LOLA RAY series, I used the theme of reincarnation (what if our souls really do live many lives in different times and bodies?) to also write about points in history that I find to be incredibly important. We need to remember where we’ve been in order to see how far we’ve come and to also not repeat tragedies of humanity.

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

In the next two years, I hope to have completed and published the entire Lola Ray series. Book two, AN UNREQUITED FALL, will be released in the fall of 2014. I may revisit my first two unpublished novels, HEALING NIGHT (women’s fiction) and A CIRCLE HOME (new adult) and polish them up for publication. I also hope to complete a current work in progress, LIFE IN THE WAKE (women’s fiction), about three women dealing with the sudden and tragic death of their best friend. I also have another Young Adult book series idea floating around in my head that, if the stars align, will make its way onto the page and out into the world in the years to come.

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

Something that I have always enjoyed is working with and being a role model for our youth. It was this passion that brought me to the teaching profession and guides me as I write fiction for young adults. For four years now, I have been the leader of the teen program (Uniteen and Youth of Unity) at Unity Eastside Church in Tallahassee, Florida. I think it is important for young people to have adults in their lives that listen to them with open hearts and allow them to be who they truly are. I try to be this kind of presence for the kids I spend my Sunday mornings with.

Would you like to find Leslee?

Check out the links to this talented author:

Leslee Horner's Website

Summer of Stars, The Past Lives of Lola Ray on Facebook

Leslee Horner on Twitter

Summer of Stars on Amazon

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 Jack Pittman

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

Jack Pittman

Hi, Jack. Welcome to the Writers4Higher family!

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

I have a science background — a BS degree in Chemistry from Loyola University in Baltimore and a MS degree in Technology Management from American University in DC. When I attended Loyola University, everyone was required to minor in philosophy. We science majors groused about this requirement. Give us more physics, not metaphysics, we demanded. But our professors would shake their heads. “As you grow older, you will find the lessons you learned from philosophy will be more useful in day-to-day living than the science courses you took.” I sincerely doubted that bit of passed-on wisdom at the time, but it has, indeed, turned out to be true.

I served twenty-two years in the US Army which included a tour in Vietnam with the First Infantry Division and graduation form Command and General Staff College. My Army experiences taught me discipline, loyalty, self-assurance, and the value of friendship.

I retired from the Florida Department of Health after thirteen years. This experience taught me the value of community service.

In 2014, my wife Jackie and I will be married fifty years. This experience taught me the values of acceptance and love.

All of these life experiences have inspired and colored my writings. The first book I published on Amazon was Spirit Walk through the Universe. I began writing this non-fiction book in 1999 but didn’t publish it until 2013. It is a collection of my personal essays on cosmology and the nature of God — pretty esoteric stuff, but it brought together the disciplines of science and philosophy in my mind and on paper. I did some research, as I wrote the book, and tried to make sure the science was up-to-date, but I had been a technical writer all of my life and writing non-fiction seemed relatively easy.

Although I had no education or experience in writing fiction, I wanted to write a novel. My first attempt was a children’s book titled The Land of Lost Socks. I floated it around to a few friends as a trial balloon. It got mixed, but mostly negative comments. The plot involved a five-year old Jeremiah (named after my grandson) who crawled into a dryer in search of a lost sock. The drum started turning and the dryer took him to another dimension. After meeting strange, yet familiar characters, the dryer took him back home. His mother tried to convince him that he was knocked unconscious in the spinning drum and dreamed his inter-dimensional experiences. But he knew what he experienced was real and vowed to find a way back.

The plot didn’t work well for me either. I decided to write an adult science fiction novel, Loose Strings, based on Jeremiah as a twenty-five year old genius quantum physicist whose research is leading him to find a way to open dimensional portals using string theory. In the first two chapters, Jeremiah is undergoing psychoanalyses to uncover the basis for his recurring dreams about inter-dimensional travel. The dimensional journey includes side excursions into quantum theory, dream theory, betrayals and conspiracies, mental augmentation, military operations, the code of the warrior, ghosts, dementia, a smattering of adult content, life after death, and the irrelevance of time — something to pique nearly everyone's interest. More information about the Loose Strings premise, plot, and characters is found at the web site; http://www.loosestrings-scifi.com/. The cover art is String Theory 2, a painting by Robert Hollingworth of Melbourne, Australia, used with permission.

Because I had no experience as a novelist, I had to learn about plot consistency, setting scenes, building characters, and writing dialogue. I attended a creative writing course presented by Adrian Fogelin in the spring and retained her as a creative writing coach. I’m still learning, but she gave me the inspiration, confidence, and courage to publish Loose Strings on Amazon.

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

I definitely want to keep writing. I am currently writing another science fiction book called Moon Shadows. It’s about the exploration and exploitation of our own moon and the moons of Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. I haven’t quite decided on the format, it may be a collection of short stories strung together by a common theme — kind of like Ray Bradbury did in the Martian Chronicles. I may do a re-write of Spirit Walk through the Universe. And I left room for a sequel to Loose Strings. Life is good.

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

I work as a volunteer for the Capital Area Chapter of the American Red Cross as an orientation and a disaster response instructor. I also volunteer at Big Bend Hospice. Recently, I am hoping to get more involved at the Veterans Domiciliary Home in Lake City.

Would you like to find Jack?

Check out the links to this talented author:

Jack's Website

Loose Strings on Amazon.com

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 Rhett DeVane

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

Rhett DeVane, the humble

Writers4Higher blog master.

It’s been two years now. The Writers4Higher blog has gained its legs and is going strong. I am thrilled to see people from across the globe tuning in to read about the fine featured authors. Hosting this blog has greatly enriched my life, as I have met so many talented, kind people.

Seems only fair that I answer my own probing questions for this two-year anniversary post.  Here goes:


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

I am a born and bred Southern woman, from the somewhat rolling hills of North Florida, United States. Originally, from the small town of Chattahoochee, Florida, I have called Tallahassee my home for over thirty-five years.


In my professional life, I am a dental hygienist. This field has provided financial stability and the opportunity to get to know many quality people. I love my patients, and after all of these years, consider them friends. Bless their hearts, they have listened to me as I discussed the latest plot lines, characters, and upcoming releases—mixed in with their care and the required home care instructions, of course.

I look for humor. And I don’t have to search far. Seems I can’t help tripping over some wild situation, some crazy family story, or newspaper article. Humans provide more than enough inspiration for my stories, and the occasional dream.

My latest novel, Suicide Supper Club, found its seed in a funny conversation with my sweet mama. I was her caretaker for the final five years of her life, and we discussed everything, especially end of life issues.

My small-town upbringing provides the inspiration for my writing. I scrape through memories, ask questions of relatives, and keep my eyes and ears open at family gatherings. At one time, they ran from me. Now, they come forward.

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

Wherever it leads, I shall follow. I have a number of novels in first draft, ready for revisions. Not only my Southern fiction series, but middle grade fiction as well: two middle grade fiction series are in the works. Elsbeth and Sim, book one in the Tales from the Emerald Mountains series was released in October of 2013, with plans for book two in the fall of 2014. I pen a few reviews for the Tallahassee Writers Association blog, as time permits, and have reviewed novels for Southern Literary Review.

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

For my fellow authors, I host this blog—Writers4Higher. I see my fellow authors as friends, not competition. I have met so many fine people, and hope to meet more. We are put on this earth to help each other. Through Writers4Higher, I promote this philosophy.

As I continue on this writer’s journey, I will continue to gift a portion of my royalties to benefit charities I hold dear. To this end, I frequently donate to local people of my choice. I know where the money goes. I like that.


Would you like to find Rhett?

Check out the links:

Rhett's Website
Order Suicide Supper Club on Amazon
Order Elsbeth and Sim on Amazon
Rhett's People 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 Angela Yolanda Hodge

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

Angela Yolanda Hodge

Hi, Angela. Welcome to the Writers4Higher family!

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

BIO: 

Angela Yolanda Hodge was born and raised in the beautiful town of Madison, Florida.

Angela is a graduate of North Florida Community College. Formerly a teacher for Florida’s Early Head Start Program, Angela has over ten years’ teaching experience.

As a child, she always kept how she felt within her. When trials and tests came, she began to express those moments and her feelings in writing. Writing became therapeutic for Angela, as it allowed her to release the pressure that she says submerged her heart in fear. Angela’s writing taught, kept, and saved her.

Angela currently resides and works in Tallahassee, while enduring many challenges over the years, Angela found a way to overcome the pain and rejection from her childhood. She is a proud mother of three children, five grandchildren, one son-in-law, and two God children.

In 2011, Angela published her first book, Daybreak: Gaining Strength Through Our Pain. In 2012, she contributed two short stories to two anthologies. One of her short stories, entitled, “A Wicked Twist of Fate,” was featured in Barbara Joe Williams’ anthology, 21 Lives of Lisette Donavan, and earned Angela a 2nd place prize in the Tallahassee Authors Network’s short story contest. The other, entitled “The Amazing Journey of Healing,” was featured in Marvin “Merv” Mattair’s anthology, Words from My Kings& Queens. In 2013 she published her second book Daybreak : Rising Above It All With Praise.

She is the Founder and Visionary Director of the Daybreak Community Outreach Program, which is a volunteer Christian base program designed to allow each individuals to be creative in their reading and writing skills we provide five workshops which includes the Daybreak Creative Writing Workshop, Scrapbooking with Daybreak, Daybreak Book Club for Kids, and Daybreak Poetry Slam, and Daybreak Young Author Conference.
****

I love Scrapbooking. It allows me to be free in my mind, I can express how I feel without using words. I love spending time with family and friends.

My inspiration is believing in myself, finding my self- worth and moving forward. For many years, I lived in fear, the fear of not being accepted, the fear of rejection, and the fear of not being worthy. I was led on a 31 day transformation, and in those days, I felt I wasn't going to make it.  I had to let it all go the past hurt, the pain, the unforgiveness, and the hate, day by day as I read the word. I gain strength to keep pushing, so I stand today and say all is forgiven.



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

I see my writing taking me in many different directions, working with others to help bring out their own gifts and talents. We all were born with a special gift; we just have to discover it and set goals to achieve it.


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

I use my talent and time to help others by volunteering in the community my Daybreak program is volunteer services. I do workshops as well and help with the youth department at my church. I volunteer with the FAMU Softball team, Leon County Reading Council, and Leon County High School. I also provide services to GMME-Global Multi Media Enterprise; I’ve been a reader and reviewer for the publishing company. 

Would you like to find Angela?

Check out the links to this talented author:

Website:www.angelayhodge.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/DaybreakMoments.

Twitter: @angelayhodge

Daybreak Community Ourtreach Program

https://daybreakprograms.wix.com/daybreak

Amazon: http://amzn.to/12a3Gwg

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