Writers4Higher features Melinda Clayton

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

 

 

 

Hi, Melinda. Welcome to the Writers4Higher family!

 

 

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

Goodness, I’m not sure where to start. I’m the daughter of a preacher and a teacher, raised in the south with a strong disposition to give back. I remember clearly my mother taking shoes to school to give to a poor student who needed them. In their retirement, my parents continue to volunteer their time with their church, Habitat for Humanity, the local food bank, and other various causes.

I’m the oldest girl of five children. My younger brother was born with Down Syndrome in a time in which doctors routinely recommended institutionalization (which was met with a resounding “No” from not only my parents, but my siblings and me as well). Over the subsequent 32 years my brother has inspired all of us to do more and be more than we ever thought we could.

I graduated from the University of Memphis with a B.A. in Social Work in 1989, and a M.S. in Community Agency Counseling in 1993. My first years in the field were spent working with some of the poorest of the poor in Tennessee, providing case management to those discharged -sometimes after decades of institutionalization - from the local mental health institute. I worked with clients who had no electricity, no running water, and in some cases, not even a floor. I had clients who cooked over a fire in the front yard, who gathered water from the nearest pond, and who slept with a baseball bat in order to kill the snakes that slithered in during the night.

Eventually I moved to Colorado, where I spent a decade specializing in work with individuals diagnosed with both a developmental disability and a mental health disorder. I worked inpatient, outpatient, and in-home. In different jobs I served as behavior specialist, program manager, and director. I also had an ever-expanding private practice which my former business partner and forever dear friend continues to operate to this day. We moved to Florida about eight years ago, and I took time off to raise my children, complete my doctorate in Special Education Administration, and write a handful of novels.

My background heavily influences my writing. Both Appalachian Justice and Return to Crutcher Mountain, set in the fictional town of Cedar Hollow, West Virginia, follow the lives of women and children who have been abused and left to overcome the consequences. Return to Crutcher Mountain also introduces Robby, a young boy with Down Syndrome who is in desperate need of a home, complete with someone to love him. My maternal ancestors are from West Virginia, which is no doubt why I’m enamored with the area.

My third novel, Entangled Thorns, also set in Cedar Hollow, follows the life of the adult children of a moonshiner from Appalachia, chronicling the struggles they’ve had to escape the ravages of their childhood and make a life for themselves. 


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


That’s an interesting question, and one I’ve given a great deal of thought the past year or so, although I’m still not sure I know the answer. I enjoy writing, be it academic or for pleasure. I’ve had several mental health/relationship type articles published in various print and online newsletters and magazines, and I would like to pursue that. I also enjoy writing fiction. I have a very rough idea for a fourth novel, and also some ideas for a series of short stories. I suppose the short answer is that I would like to pursue all of the above. I don’t really think about where my writing will take me so much as I think about what I’d like to do with it, if that makes sense. I don’t ever really think about the end of the journey; instead, I focus on the steps I’d like to take along the way. Wherever I end up…well, that’s where I’ll be.


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

I seem to be compelled to write stories about people struggling to overcome trauma. I believe in the power of hope, and in the power to overcome the challenges set before us.


When I worked directly with clients I was often amazed at the strength and tenacity displayed by people who had undergone tremendous challenges. I’m inspired by their courage. If there is a message to my novels, I suppose it’s that there’s always hope. No matter how dark the days, no matter how awful the circumstances, there’s the possibility of a second chance. Life often doesn’t turn out the way we expected it to, or even the way we wanted it to. Bad things happen to good people, and sometimes life throws us a curveball so outside the realm of what we’d expected that it may seem there’s no point in continuing. But as long as we can draw breath, we can choose to do the best we can with what we have at that moment. Sometimes we have to let go of what life was supposed to be in order to appreciate it for what it is.

On a less abstract note, my publisher, Vanilla Heart Publishing, and I worked together last year to raise money for the Tipton County Adult Development Center (TCADC) in Covington, Tennessee. For several months, a percentage of the proceeds from Return to Crutcher Mountain was donated to the center. This is the center my brother attends, and funding is a constant issue. More recently, Vanilla Heart Publishing and I have discussed the possibility of a book of short stories featuring the people of Cedar Hollow, written by not only me, but also my family. All of the profits from this book will be donated to TCADC, which is currently raising funds for a new building (the old one is consumed with black mold). As you can imagine, this is a cause very dear to my heart!   

 

Would you like to find Melinda?

Check out the links to this talented author:

 

 

Melinda on Twitter

 

 

Melinda's Goodreads Blog

 

 

 Melinda's Wordpress Blog

Appalachian Justice on Amazon.com

Return to Crutcher Mountain on Amazon.com


Entangled Lives on Amazon.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

 

Thanks for joining us, Melinda!

 

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 Donna Meredith

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

Donna Meredith.

Hi Donna. Welcome to the Writers4Higher family.

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

Why, my husband and some friends ask, do I want to write? They shudder and confess how much they disliked cranking out papers in English classes. Maybe I’m weird—okay, I am—but I liked the challenge of putting the right words in the right order on paper. Still do.

More than that, writing is my way of making sense of the world. It’s where I think through the way people relate to each other and explore the contradictions of our behavior, how we can act with courage and kindness one moment—and with hostility, fear and jealousy the next. It’s where I try to capture the beauty and balance in our natural world. And I write because I hope to make a difference in the world, in some small way. Vanity, I know.

I guess I liked teaching for the same reason. For 29 years I helped high school students become better readers and writers. We read literature, I told them, to understand what it means to be a human being, to journey along another person’s path and wear their skin and shoes, at least for a little while. Literature expands our world. We wrote and shared poetry and journals even though they weren’t on standardized tests because words helped vent adolescent angst. The newspapers and TV shows I advised became a home for all kinds of kids, especially for the pentagons and parabolas that didn’t fit into a school system’s square holes. They wrote copy, drew computer graphics, and held camcorders in front of their faces that served as a buffer between awkward teen and the tough world of peers.

I wrote my first novel, “The Glass Madonna,” because I had a sense that new generations were forgetting what the world had been like for women just a short time before. Even women of my generation were glorifying life in the 1950s, forgetting how many jobs were closed to women and how a wife might call police to beg for help because her husband was beating her, only to be told they didn’t get involved in domestic disputes. It’s easy to forget what it was like before birth control gave us some control over our own bodies. Easy to look down on other countries that lack rights for women—unless we remember our own grandmothers weren’t born with the right to vote. I wrote the novel because if we become complacent, the progress could slip away. I worked another concern of mine into the story: the homeless, damaged veterans, who were frequent guests when I served lunch at The Shelter. The story also explores the way addiction to nearly anything—alcohol, food, drugs, sex—damages everyone in a family.

The second novel, “The Color of Lies,” grew out of love/hate. The things I loved and hated about teaching. The kids I loved so much I could have adopted them, and the occasional one that made me wish I could stay in bed instead of going to work. The joy of reading a student’s moving poem or personal essay, balanced against the insanity of bureaucratic paperwork and extraneous duties. The difficulty of finding time to meet the needs of students while devoting time to my own family and enough “me” time that I didn’t go crazy. Every working woman has been there. The novel also grew from my love/hate of small towns. I tried to capture the close connections, the sense of rootedness my protagonist feels, as well as the frustration she feels with the slow pace of change and the small-mindedness of some citizens, including her own father. All the characters behave in ways that are morally ambiguous at times—as we all do. We are, after all, only human.

As a writer, you hope a reader sees something of themselves in the story and feels less alone. 

 

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

 

Both manuscripts I’m working on now meet my need to feel I’m writing about things that make a difference. “Magic in the Mountains” tells the true story of a woman who wouldn’t let anything get in the way of fulfilling her artistic vision. Her story deserves to be preserved as a part of West Virginia history. In my environmental mystery, “Between a Rock and a Wet Place,” a female hydrogeologist protects our water supply from corporate greed. The latter gives me an outlet to write about protecting our natural resources again, something I have missed after giving up the environment column I wrote for the Tallahassee Democrat for 18 months.

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

One way I’ve tried to give back to fellow writers is through my involvement with the Tallahassee Writers Association. I served as vice president two years and president for two years, pouring time and energy into bringing Tallahassee outstanding writers conferences and workshops. I’ve coordinated our Seven Hills Literary Contest for the past six years and edit the Seven Hills Review, providing writers an opportunity for recognition and publication. On a personal level, when TWA members have been sick or lost family members, I’ve tried to make sure they received cards and hospital visits—small touches of support as we make life journeys together. We’re more than colleagues. We’re friends. We’re family.

At one point in a creative writing class at FSU, I questioned whether writing was how I should spend my retirement—was I being selfish? My professor, Sheila Ortiz-Taylor, responded that writing is an act of generosity, a sharing of yourself, an act of courage. Since publishing my books, I’ve come to realize how true her words were. It takes tremendous courage to put yourself out there, exposed for others to accept or reject. Even if we write fiction, the characters emerge from our imagination and world view. They are us, even the bad guys. Scary stuff.

Publishing is like giving birth—and we display our babies to the world, weak-kneed with anxiety, hoping people will click “like” or leave good reviews on amazon. Our hearts soar when someone posts that our novel is “important” or made someone laugh, and we are hopeful that we have, indeed, made a difference. Then someone posts that they found a spelling error on page 10. Our hearts are sore.

The journey has its ups and downs. All the more reason we need our fellow writers. Our friends. Our family.

******

Would you like to find Donna?

Stop by and say hello and check out this talented author's work.

Here are links:

WEBSITE:Donna's website

FACEBOOK: Donna on Facebook

DONNA'S BOOKS:

The Glass Madonna: The Glass Madonna on Amazon

The Color of Lies:The Color of Lies on Amazon

Thank you, Donna, for sharing with us!

Rhett DeVane

Writers4Higher

Rhett's author website

Fiction with a Southern Twist