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Close to Home with Pamela Cook 

5/26/2015

4 Comments

 
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Real life issues create some of the strongest conflicts for writers. Pamela Cook talks about how the Hendra virus led her characters into dark places in "Close to Home", releasing late June. (available for pre-order at Amazon: http://bit.ly/1AwO3HB)

Lovely to be on Susanne’s blog today, talking about where I got the inspiration for my upcoming release, Close To Home.


As with all books, the story didn’t originate from just one source. The initial impetus though, was a discussion at a pony club event about the potential dangers of the hendra virus. For those who aren’t aware of it, hendra is a virus that is transferred from bats to horses and has resulted in many equine deaths and four human deaths since the mid 90’s. Naturally anything that is life threatening induces a huge amount of fear and the heated conversation about whether or not horses should be vaccinated made me realize what a volatile topic it was.  Since conflict is the bedrock of any good plot I thought this was a great topic to weave a story around.

The hendra idea led me to create a main character who is a vet but not in the traditional sense. Charlie Anderson works for the department of Primary Industries and oversees outbreaks of the virus. This meant I could create a character who is smart, independent and assertive – just the type of character I like to write.

Charlie Anderson returns to the town where she spent her teenage years, which happens to be on the south coast of NSW. While the virus has to date been centred in Queensland and the north of NSW, it isn’t entirely impossible that outbreaks could occur further south. Since I’m lucky enough to have a second home there, I base a lot of my descriptions on the area. Naringup is a little bigger than Milton – probably more like Berry in size – but the surrounding bush and beach areas are, in my mind, very similar.

One thread that emerged as I was writing was the issue of domestic violence. It’s a classic example of the way a story can take on a life of its own and lead you in a direction you hadn’t originally intended. I don’t want to give away too much here but there is a plotline that involves emotional and physical abuse, one that I found difficult to write at times and that definitely changed my perspective on the issue. I have a post coming up about that on my own blog very soon.

As always I was inspired by my love of horses, strong female characters, rural landscapes. And just a touch of romance. 

Blurb

Orphaned at thirteen, Charlie Anderson has been on her own for over half her life. Not that she minds - she has her work as a vet and most days that's enough. Most days. But when she's sent to a small town on the New South Wales coast to investigate a possible outbreak of the deadly Hendra virus, Charlie finds herself torn between the haunting memories of her past, her dedication to the job and her attraction to a handsome local.

Travelling to Naringup means coming face to face with what is left of her dysfunctional family - her cousin Emma, who begged Charlie not to leave all those years ago, and her aunt Hazel, who let her go without a backwards glance. But it also means relying on the kindness of strangers and, when she meets local park ranger Joel Drummond, opening her heart to the possibility of something more . . . 

As tensions in the country town rise, can Charlie reconcile with the past and find herself a new future in the town she left so long ago?

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Pamela Cook is a city girl with a country lifestyle and too many horses. Her rural fiction novels feature feisty women, tangled family relationships and a healthy dose of romance. Her first novel, Blackwattle Lake, was published in 2012 after being selected for the Queensland Writer’s Centre/Hachette Manuscript Development Program. Her second novel, Essie’s Way, was published in 2013. Close To Home is her third novel. 

 Pamela is proud to be a Writer Ambassador for Room To Read, a not-for-profit organisation that promotes literacy and gender equality in developing countries. She teaches creative writing through her business Justwrite Publishing (www.justwrite.net.au) and divides her time between her home in the southern suburbs of Sydney and her ‘other’ home on the south coast of NSW. When she’s not writing she wastes as much time as possible riding her handsome quarter horse, Morocco. 

Pamela loves to connect with readers both in person and online. You will often find her lurking in one of these places:
www.pamelacook.com.au
www.facebook.com/PamelaCookAuthor
@PamelaCookAU


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Cocktails and Cruises

5/24/2015

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I love cocktails! 
There are combinations to suit every mood and every weather. 
When I sail on my first cruise in July I plan to try a new cocktail every day! 

What sort do you prefer? Gin or vodka based?
Originally made with gin, vodka cocktails became popular in the 1980s. Traditional cocktails began to make a comeback in the 2000s and by the mid-2000s there was a renaissance of cocktail culture in a style typically referred to as mixology that draws on traditional cocktails for inspiration but utilizes novel ingredients and often complex flavours. 

A really delicious summer drink is Strawberry Lime Rosé Sangria (see below)

 ~ This light, refreshing, and simple sangria is perfect for sipping on a toasty summer afternoon. The bright ruby-red hue is compliments of starting with a nice pink rose wine, and then soaking strawberries in it. Lime adds a zesty bite, rum gives it a bit more potency, and lemon-lime soda mellows the whole thing out and makes it entirely too drinkable

In summer, I love pina coladas and Cosmopolitans, but in winter, whisky and dark rum-based drinks hit the spot. 

What are your favourite choices? What would you like to drink if you were on a cruise? Leave a comment below and you could have a character named after you (or naming rights if you prefer!) 



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Home Truths with Mandy Nolan 

5/19/2015

1 Comment

 
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1.    I’ve always fancied the idea of telling a few home truths and you’ve done it in your memoir. Did you try other titles before you settled on this one, and if so, what were they?

No, the title came to me straight away. It doesn’t always happen, but when it does it's a gift because it feels like you have your book ‘hook’ straight away. As a comedic writer it is always my intention to tell the ‘truth’ as I see it, which generally means attempting to navigate the mental minutiae of the daily grind. Home Truths seemed perfect because I wanted to write a book about who we are in the place where we live, how we live there, and how how we live has changed. I often feel like the David Attenborough of the suburbs.

2.    What do you see the rights and responsibilities of the memoirist to be?

To avoid clichés. To ensure that their story has significant interest for a reader and isn’t a narcissistic tour de force. I think it’s important to protect the innocent as much as possible, but never to sacrifice a good story for the sake of upsetting people. If apple carts must be upturned to tell a good story, then so be it. If you can’t hack the flack, then you should write fiction and then your lies to your friends and family that none of your characters are based on them will seem more plausible.

3.    I’ve always enjoyed the ‘slice of life’ that memoirs provide. How difficult was it to choose what to include and what to exclude?

Writing is always about choices. You can’t include everything. That's tedious and dull and more the style of the classic ‘biography’ or ‘autobiography’. Either your book will be a big body of water that you skim over the top, or you’ll pick a point and dive right down to the bottom. Frankly I think that’s more interesting and from a business point of view its clever because memoir subjects are endless. Biographies or autobiographies kind of run out of steam because the only proper ending to the story is your death. As a comedian of 30 years I know how important choices are and how muddying the water with too much detail actually dilutes a story rather than strengthening it. I don’t know why but I seem to have developed some sort of acquatic metaphor for the memoir process. I guess you could say that was a choice too, and once I’d made it I had to run with it.

4.     I was intrigued by your article about the ‘shit hole’ town you grew up in and the subsequent responses. But what stood out from that chapter was that you said the town was making an effort to ‘tidy up’ since your article went viral. Did you ever consider that your words would stir up a positive response?  It never occurred to me that people would take offence. I was quite surprised by the reaction to what I considered to be a harmless metaphor paralleling the declining health of my grandmother. It surprised me how angry it made people. How that in turn fuelled anger at me and a feeling of betrayal because I had broken some unspoken code: don’t say negative things about your home town. In Australia we have a tendency to romanticise our rural areas – so much literature writes of the hope and the majesty and the simple goodness of the people. It is confronting for people when you refer to those people as bigots and homophobes and their awful town as a shit hole. Hard to romanticise that, and I guess if you’ve decided to buy property and make your life in the aforementioned shithole, it’s going to really cause some grievance towards the author. Personally I don’t really care about upsetting people. I think its good to be provocative, and in the end it’s just my truth. The positive aspect for the town was that it reinvigorated some sort of town pride and engagement in a dialogue defending the integrity of ‘shithole’.  Of course my view is unchanged, it is still a shithole. It’s where I grew up. I hated it and I still do. Why is it so offensive for me to say that? I think that’s an interesting question.  Like Jeanette Winterson pointed out, not everyone likes oranges. And not everyone is going to love their hometown either.

PictureMandy Nolan sets great store in speaking her mind.
5.   I laughed wryly as I read about your Feng shui efforts. (My bed is beneath a window, faces a mirror, and has more doors into the room than you would believe possible – six!) How much ‘tongue in cheek’ is there in  Home Truths? My tongue is permanently in cheek, but it’s generally because I find most things amusing.  I am rather superstitious and as much as I may ridicule a belief system, I’m the first one to try and oblige its requests. At a more philosophical level I find it endlessly amusing that we humans are so desperate to find respite from taking control of our life decisions and responsibility for their consequences that we’ll outsource the blame to bed placement. How can that not be funny! Of course it helps knowing there are people who live 100% by the rule of esoteric belief systems! 

6.     What does your family think of making an appearance in your book? Has it caused any interesting discussions at home? They are so used to it, they barely notice. My family has featured in my comedy ever since I first opened my mouth. Interestingly it is my friends who are nervous. In Home Truths I wrote about my first share house, and we took a lot of drugs and engaged in reckless and often outrageous sexual behaviour. We were anarchists, feminists and quite possibly at times almost criminal. All of those women now have successful careers and families and were horrified that I may have revealed more than they were comfortable with. I let them sweat it out.

7.    While reading Home Truths, I got the impression that you enjoy living life to the full. What’s next for Mandy Nolan?

I have about three fiction ideas I fiddle with. And two other memoirs that I want to write. I have been working as a creative person ever since I left school so ideas are never a problem for me. In fact I have so many ideas I can’t contain them. They end up on scraps of paper, written in the note section of my iPhone or on lists on my computer. I love projects.  I create projects for myself all the time – I paint, I write, I come up with plans all the time. I have projects on the home front with the kids too. So I guess I will just keep all those balls in the air. Life is wonderfully chaotic and intense, and I intend to continue squeezing every last drop out of the lemons life sends me.


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Buy links:

Paperback
  • Booktopia: http://www.booktopia.com.au/home-truths-mandy-nolan/prod9781925048377.html

eBook
  • Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00U0U47H2
  • iBookstore: https://itunes.apple.com/au/book/home-truths/id971662016?mt=11 
  • Kobo Books: https://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/ebook/home-truths-11


http://finch.com.au/books/home-truths for more buy links to independent bookstores and chains around the country.
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The Dreamcatcher with Maggie Christensen

5/14/2015

6 Comments

 
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Dreamcatchers trap bad dreams – but sometimes nightmares escape.

Ellen Williams, a Native American with a gift for foretelling the future, is at a loss to explain her terrifying nightmares and the portentous feeling of dread that seems to hang over her like a shroud.

When Travis Petersen – an old friend of her brother’s – appears in her bookshop The Reading Nook, Ellen can’t shake the idea there’s a strange connection between her nightmares and Travis’ arrival.

Suffering from guilt of the car accident which took the lives of his wife and son, Travis is struggling to salvage his life, and believes he has nothing to offer a woman. But Ellen’s nightmares come true when developers announce a fancy new build, which means pulling down The Reading Nook – and she needs Travis’ help.

Can Ellen and Travis uncover the link between them and save her bookshop? And will it lead to happiness?

A tale of dreams, romance, and of doing the right thing, set on the beautiful Oregon coast.


Welcome, Maggie! Thanks for joining me and congratulations on your new release! I love the whole idea of dreamcatchers and I'm fascinated by this story. Please tell us more about "The Dreamcatcher". 

1. What inspired you to write this series? 

I was inspired to write this series when, like Jenny in The Sand Dollar, I was facing a redundancy. Then, on a visit to Oregon, we saw this lovely house which became Maddy’s home in both The Sand Dollar and The Dreamcatcher. Florence has a lovely little bookshop which became the inspiration for Ellen’s bookshop and, after writing The Sand Dollar, I knew I had to write Ellen’s story.

2. What drew you to the Oregon Coast as the setting for this series?

 I set the series on the Oregon Coast after falling in love with the Old Town area of Florence Oregon on many visits to my mother-in-law there. It’s a lovely part of the world which reminds me of my native Scotland with its wild ocean and beaches.

3. Are there personal qualities you believe all heroes need to have? OR What does your heroine see in your hero that sets him apart from other men? 

 I think there’s a little bit of my husband in all of my heroes. They are men with a bit of history, who have a gentle side and who are able to be passionate while they may not be very talkative – the strong, silent type. In The Dreamcatcher, Ellen is drawn to Travis once she learns of his past and his vulnerability. She also senses a strange link between them.

4. What comes next after The Dreamcatcher? 

 There will be one more book set in Oregon introducing a new character as the heroine, but the reader will also meet old friends from my earlier two books in the series.

My next book to be published, however, will be The Broken Thread, a sequel to my first book, Band of Gold. This one tells the story of Anna’s sister Jan. I hadn’t intended a sequel to Band of Gold, but have been asked about a sequel and Jan’s story suddenly came to me.



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Social media links:

http://maggiechristensenauthor.com/
https://www.facebook.com/maggiechristensenauthor
https://twitter.com/MaggieChriste33 
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/8120020.Maggie_Christensen

Buy Links:

Amazon US  http://amzn.to/1a0mwRX
Amazon UK  http://amzn.to/1CtybzF
Amazon Au   http://bit.ly/1FhlWZ4
Smashwords https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/533763
Kobo   http://bit.ly/1bCu4MC
Nook http://bit.ly/1zWXaeS
Itunes http://apple.co/1I6tYJh

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    Author

    Story elements surround us every day, from new places to a favourite piece of music or an odd moment witnessed in passing that becomes a scene in our work. On this weekly post, fellow authors will share some of what inspires their stories and their lives. Sit back and make yourself comfortable with the drink of your choice as the curtain rises. 

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