Close to the Sun by Donald Michael Platt

“They are the knighthood of this war, without fear and without reproach; and they recall the legendary days of chivalry, not merely by their daring exploits but by the
nobility of their spirit.” — David Lloyd-George, Speech in House of Commons, October 29, 1917

My WWII historical novel Close to the Sun follows the lives of two Americans and a German from childhood through the end of WWII. As boys, they idealize the exploits of WWI fighter aces known as chivalrous Knights of the Skies. Hank Milroy from Wyoming learns his first flying lessons from observing falcons. Karl, Fürst von Pfalz-Teuffelreich, aspires to surpass his father’s 49 Luftsiegen accumulated during WWI. Seth Braham falls in love with flying during an air show at San Francisco’s Chrissy Field. The young men meet exceptional women. Texas tomboy Catherine “Winty” McCabe believes she is as good a flyer as any man. Princess Maria-Xenia, a stateless White Russian, works for the Abwehr, German intelligence. Elfriede “Elfi” Wohlmann is a frontline nurse. Mimi Kay sings with a big band.

Flying fighters over Europe, Hank, Karl, and Seth experience the exhilaration of aerial combat victories and acedom during the unromantic reality of combat losses, tedious bomber escort, strafing runs, and firebombing of entire cities. Callous political decisions and military mistakes add to their disillusion, especially one horrific tragedy at the end of the war.

Historically a Camaraderie developed within the fighter squadrons, and friendly rivalry also was common during competition to be the top ace. After the war, more friendships developed between Allied and Axis flyers who met at fighter pilot conventions and entertained each other in their homes. 

One interesting bond was that between the Jewish RAF hero of the Battle of Britain, Robert Roland Stanford “Lucky” Tuck, credited with 27.66 to 31 victories, and Luftwaffe General of All Fighters Adolf Galland who had 104 Luftsiegen. Galland entertained Tuck after the RAF ace had to bail out over German held territory in 1942. During Tuck’s interrogation by Galland, each was surprised to learn they had shot down the other’s wingman during the Battle of Britain, and a friendship began. Tuck later became godfather for Galland’s son born in 1966.

Hannes Scharff, a German living in South Africa and married to a daughter of a WWI Royal Flying Corps squadron leader, returned to Germany when the war began and became the interrogator of captured 8th and 9th Air Forces pilots. Charming and non-threatening, he learned more information than any harsh methods might have accomplished. Near the end of the war, imprisoned fighter pilots whom he had interrogated, broke out of their Stalg Luft prison as the Soviets came closer. They rescued Scharff to save him from execution by the Red army.

I saw the fighter ace camaraderie often first hand while researching for Close to the Sun. I was among the following guests at fighter ace Historian USAF Colonel ret. Raymond F. Toliver’s home one typical evening in the 1970s: Adolf Galland and Robert Roland Sanford Tuck; General Frank Kurz who flew the legendary B-17 Swoose Goose during WWII; Jim Brooks who had 13 victories against the Japanese and his wife “Liltin” Martha Tilton; Bud Mahuren who scored 20.75 ETO victories against the Luftwaffe plus 3.5 in Korea; and the above mentioned master interrogator Hannes Scharff, then living in the USA as a gifted artist in mosaics. 

Elapsed time seems to have restored the romanticized fighter ace ideal as chivalrous Knights of the Skies, which began in the Great War, and was memorialized in books and later films such as The Grand Illusion. 

About the Author

Author of four other novels, ROCAMORA, HOUSE OF ROCAMORA, A GATHERING OF VULTURES, and CLOSE TO THE SUN, Donald Michael Platt was born and raised in San Francisco. Donald graduated from Lowell High School and received his B.A. in History from the University of California at Berkeley. After two years in the Army, Donald attended graduate school at San Jose State where he won a batch of literary awards in the annual SENATOR PHELAN LITERARY CONTEST.

Donald moved to southern California to begin his professional writing career. He sold to the TV series, MR. NOVAK, ghosted for health food guru, Dan Dale Alexander, and wrote for and with diverse producers, among them as Harry Joe Brown, Sig Schlager, Albert J. Cohen, Al Ruddy plus Paul Stader Sr, Hollywood stuntman and stunt/2nd unit director. While in Hollywood, Donald taught Creative Writing and Advanced Placement European History at Fairfax High School where he was Social Studies Department Chairman.

After living in Florianópolis, Brazil, setting of his horror novel A GATHERING OF VULTURES, pub. 2007 & 2011, he moved to Florida where he wrote as a with: VITAMIN ENRICHED, pub.1999, for Carl DeSantis, founder of Rexall Sundown Vitamins; and THE COUPLE’S DISEASE, Finding a Cure for Your Lost “Love” Life, pub. 2002, for Lawrence S. Hakim, MD, FACS, Head of Sexual Dysfunction Unit at the Cleveland Clinic.

Currently, Donald resides in Winter Haven, Florida where he is polishing a dark novel and preparing to write a sequel to CLOSE TO THE SUN.

For more information please visit Donald Michael Platt’s website. You can also connect with him on Facebook and Twitter.

About the Book

Close to the Sun follows the lives of fighter pilots during the Second World War. As a boy, Hank Milroy from Wyoming idealized the gallant exploits of WWI fighter aces. Karl, Fürst von Pfalz-Teuffelreich, aspires to surpass his father’s 49 Luftsiegen. Seth Braham falls in love with flying during an air show at San Francisco’s Chrissy Field.

The young men encounter friends, rivals, and exceptional women. Braxton Mobley, the hotshot, wants to outscore every man in the air force. Texas tomboy Catherine “Winty” McCabe is as good a flyer as any man. Princess Maria-Xenia, a stateless White Russian, works for the Abwehr, German Intelligence. Elfriede Wohlman is a frontline nurse with a dangerous secret. Miriam Keramopoulos is the girl from Brooklyn with a voice that will take her places.

Once the United States enter the war, Hank, Brax, and Seth experience the exhilaration of aerial combat and acedom during the unromantic reality of combat losses, tedious bomber escort, strafing runs, and the firebombing of entire cities. As one of the hated aristocrats, Karl is in as much danger from Nazis as he is from enemy fighter pilots, as he and his colleagues desperately try to stem the overwhelming tide as the war turns against Germany. Callous political decisions, disastrous mistakes, and horrific atrocities they witness at the end of WWII put a dark spin on all their dreams of glory.

Publication Date: June 15, 2014
Fireship Press
eBook; 404p

Could You Decide Your Fate…at Age 16 by Jenni Wiltz

Hello! I'm happy to be here at What Is This Book About to tell you about my new novel, The Red Road. It’s about the terrible choice 16-year-old Emma West has to make when gang violence touches her family. Her dad may never be the same after gang members attack him and nearly end his life, but everyone from her mom to the police just want to her to forget about the incident. They want her to focus on school instead. But the lessons she's learning in school aren't very useful in the real world. That's what gives her the idea to seek out revenge on her own. 

It's Your Life, as Bon Jovi Says

In a lot of ways, this book is about choosing what to do with your life. Em, my heroine, feels helpless because people expect her to do and be certain things. Her parents and teachers expect her to go to college. She's smart and gets good grades, but at what cost? She has no free time, feels an incredible amount of stress, and the next few years of her life are entirely mapped out for her. 

At one point in the book, she looks out the window and imagines herself with the free time to do something as simple as walk a dog. It seems like such a luxury to her in that moment. She calculates how long it will take her to finish high school and college, then get a job, and then finally be able to relax a bit. It's at least five years, and that’s if all goes well. Can you imagine not making a single selfless choice for five years? At the age of 16, no less? For Em, it feels like a death sentence. Experimenting and taking time to see what’s out there in the world are not part of the plan for an AP student. I know because I lived that life for four years in high school!

They Say Hindsight Is 20/20

I made this part of the story because although I have a college degree, lately I've started wondering if I should have just learned a trade (or learned to code) instead. I think it's a real choice today's high school kids have to consider. College is so expensive. Are you going to get enough out of it to make it worth the student loan debt? What kind of job can you get with your degree? What would happen if you just spent time learning coding and software, or a trade, instead? I don't think it used to be this way. I think we used to be more certain of the value of a college education.

I might also be influenced by the student loan debt I took on to get a Master’s degree. The first time through college, my wonderful family supported me. The second time through, I had to borrow money. Every month when that huge bill arrives in my inbox, I grimace…and I wonder. If I knew more about software or coding or plumbing, would I have been able to pay that bill off already?

Choose Your Own Adventure

So what did I do with this dilemma in the book? I took it and put a dark, dangerous spin on it. Most normal kids might just think about community college or getting a job right out of high school. But Em’s choices change when a gang member attacks her father. Instead of a career vs. college, Em’s choices are a miserable last year of high school as an AP student…or a student of revenge as she tries to find (and punish) the people who hurt her dad. It’s the same idea behind a Choose Your Own Adventure book! What choice would you make? I hope you’ll join Em as she makes her decision in The Red Road.

About the Author

Jenni Wiltz writes fiction and creative nonfiction.  She’s won national writing awards for romantic suspense and creative nonfiction.  Her short fiction has been published in literary journals including Gargoyle and The Portland Review, as well as several small-press anthologies.  When she's not writing, she enjoys sewing, running, and genealogical research. She lives in Pilot Hill, California. Visit her online at JenniWiltz.com.

Connect with Jenni on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or Goodreads.

About the Book

Honor student Emma knows more about galvanic cell diagrams than guns. College is the only way out of her gang-ridden hometown, but her parents can't afford it.

When her unemployed dad lands a job as a census taker, things start looking up. But he's sent deep into East Malo Verde, where gang members rule the streets and fear anyone with a badge who knocks on doors. One night, a gang member mistakes him for a cop and beats him savagely, leaving him for dead.

Her best friends, her chem lab partner, her mom, and the detective assigned to the case all try to convince her to focus on school. But school won't prepare her for a world that ignores a crime against a good man. Emma must decide what's more important: doing what's expected, or doing what she feels is right…even if it leads her down a dark and dangerous path of revenge.

Sweet Little Child by Morgan Straughan Comnick

 I have a degree in early childhood education (although I currently work at middle school; go figure), so I have had experiences with inside the classroom of the land of crayons, snotty noses, and shoe tying.  I vividly recall one day when I was in a kindergarten classroom, sitting crisscross applesauce on the reading carpet observing as the kind teacher showed projects, the topic being “What do you want to be when you grow up?”  We tell kids they can do anything, and when they are young, they take this quote by the string and soar to the sky with it!  Their imaginations know no bounds and as I sat there, viewing their colorful doddles of themselves at their dream job at age five, my heart warmed, transporting me to happier, innocent times.  Most kids, I noticed, wanted to be firefighters, superheroes, ballerinas, or princesses. You always have some kids who want to be doctors and that class happened to have tons of future vets. All the choices are darling and attainable to a sweet mind.

Perhaps, I was an odd child.  I take that back; I know I was an odd person, but I was too shy to let it show until I was in my late teens.  I did not want to be any of the normal or unimaginable careers back when we dressed up as our future occupation. I wanted to be a paleontologist.  I loved dinosaurs. Granted, I cannot really recall how I got into them (Land Before Time may be a part of it, but the first one is too sad), but I know I had many children’s resource books about the topic that I still consider precious to me today.  I borrowed a white lab coat from my mom with a name tag that said “paleontologist” in navy marker letters.  I always brought props: I had a red plastic sand shifter, sand, one of my books, dinosaur bones I found at a local museum, and a tan plush mastodon.  One of the doctors at the hospital my mom worked at could not even pronounce my career! I have a picture of a curly hair, grinny me, hugging a plush mastodon, ready to discover dinosaurs.  From age five to eight, this was my dream, my life, my way to change the world.  However, when I read in a book about how most paleontologists have to travel to desert lands to dig up their findings, my first grown up choice was squished, buried as deep as the dinosaur bones.  I hate heat and dry along with the texture of sand. I remembered telling my dad at age eight about my choice to change my career choice in the kitchen, and he stared at me and tried to suppress a laugh.

In third grade, I watched a six-hour special with my mom on QVC that sold teddy bears from six different companies. Stuffed animals have always been a passion of mine, but there was something about this schedule, the hosts, the company owners, and the history of the bear. This was my first introduction to Teddy Roosevelt as well.  My mom recorded this special for me and got me six of those bears and I do not know how many times I watched that tape in my elementary life!  From that moment on, I collected teddy bears, having over three-hundred before I donated many after I got married and I found my new dream: a teddy bear designer.  Writing that down in fourth grade cocked many heads, but I enjoyed drawing teddy bears in cute clothing, with a story I wrote for each bear.  Huh…I wrote earlier than I thought…Getting off track!  Teddy bears still have made a huge impact on my life with their cute fluffiness!

In fifth grade, I was introduced to my favorite teacher, Ms. Mahan.  That made my year special to begin with.  I made some lifelong friends there as well (all boys oddly).  Even though I was still shy and got picked on for it among other things, Ms. Mahan was the first one to tell me I could sing well (I sang a song from the Pokemon: the First Movie soundtrack to her! HA!) and that she admired my imagination, how I dressed up, and liked to act.  Dress-up was one of my favorite past times as a child and I incorporate that into my life still. I was timid to be myself, but I loved being someone different, expressing myself in this way. So, I figured, why not get paid to dress-up and perform?  I had this dream for about two weeks, but my shyness would be a huge hindrance to my time in the spotlight.

Ms. Mahan did not give up on me though.  I had to take a career placement test in fifth grade and the first result I got was teacher.  I was baffled, scratching my head at the thought. My father was a high school teacher, so I knew the ins and outs of education, the behind-the-scenes of grading, meetings, and curriculum.  One of my most beloved past times growing up was playing school with my younger cousins, with me as the instructor.  The light that danced in their eyes when a subject clicked or I engaged them in something new fueled a fire inside my soul. However, I never considered it for me.  I did not want to copy my dad’s path. However, Ms. Mahan had other plans for me, her next sentence changing my life: “Oh, a teacher?  I know you would make a great teacher Morgan; you have the compassion to be one.” And it was like the universe aligned.  I decided to become an early childhood/elementary teacher right then and there and never looked back.  I still am seeking full employment as an educator, but I did get my requirements down, so blessed I get to show compassion and teach the next generations.

There is one career down, but you are probably wondering about writing?

To be frank, I never considered being an author or writing as a job. I wrote to express my timid, locked away voice, to vent, to be creative in my own world of non-judgment.   I began writing Spirit Vision, my first published work, when I was fifteen because my communication arts teacher boldly said he was going to write a book at random one day.  Then he told me I would be a grand character in his, sparking a desire to share a story with the world.  Thanks to my on-going imagination, this inspiration, my high school setting, and my love for the spiritual world, I was able to start the book.  It took me four years to finish the book and four years to get a contract with Paper Crane books after I had forty nos from other companies.  The works in A Sweet, Little Dream are from my public education days. The fact I get to share them, thank them for all they have done for me, is grander than treasure. It thrills me to no end to have my beloved characters and ideas loved by other people, to have my imagination explode, become almost tangible on a page, to inspire others to make their dreams come true.

Dreams.

My occupation is very different from the five-year-old who wanted to assemble pre-historical creatures.  I am not digging in the sand or deciding what color fur would look best for the Japanese kimono bear, but, I think all through my life, I wanted to piece things together to tell a story, create my own thing for others to love, to inspire and interact with others. What is better than writing and teaching to do this?  I grew up, but the colorful world of a kindergartener is still in my heart, fueling, pulling, driving me daily.  So, in a way, I did follow my childhood dream.

Thank you for reading my guest post and joining me for my collection’s blog tour. 

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Morgan was born and raised in the small, yet big enough town of Farmington, Missouri which has magic hidden within it along with bipolar weather. Before she found her path to teaching and the bridge that connects her to writing, she wanted to be a paleontologist, a teddy bear designer, an actor (which she still dreams about, but in anime voice acting form), and an American J-Pop idol. She had been writing since she was six, but never pondered it until her 6th grade Communication Arts teacher gave her the title “The Queen of Details” and her 9th grade Communication Arts teacher informed her she would make a fantastic book character for HIS future book, where she laughed, but it triggered the question within her “Why can’t I write one?”

When she is not writing, daydreaming, snuggling with her hubby, or trying to educate and inspire young minds at her local school district, Morgan enjoys singing, acting, drawing, playing video games, organizing things, doing goofy voices, confusing people by making them smile with her cute, but unique fashion choices, engaging in social interaction with her friends, family, co-workers, love of her life, and church family, smiling and laughing to burn calories, having ‘me’ time by listening to music and walking, watching awesome TV shows and movies, and collecting adorable plushies, and geeky buttons and keychains along with buying way too many books, graphic tees, and dresses. She is in love with reading as well. Her guilty pleasure, however, is being a full otaku. Anime, manga, cosplay, Japanese culture and more help identify and inspire her every day, giving her confidence and happiness.

Morgan’s first book, Spirit Vision, fuses Morgan’s love for her hometown and the people close in life, the world beyond life, finding the magic only you can have inside yourself, the power of love and friendship, and of writing in general. She hopes to make Spirit Vision a series and write many more books, sharing her always on imagination with the world.

You can reach Morgan via: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads

This collection was born thanks to adventures to magical places that my youthful imagination crafted, a royal decree that henceforth let me be known as “The Queen of Details,” and a very energetic “role model for today’s youth.” Writing had always been a comfort, a way of expressing myself since my voice was locked tight due to shyness. But because of these events, gifts, professors, and people in my life, light was shed on a pathway to writing as a career. In this collection, you will find works mostly from my high school years, exploring an array of genres. You’ll learn about my younger self–both child and teen–who made me the woman I am today. It all started with a notebook, a pencil, words of encouragement, and a sweet, little dream.

I Shared a Bathroom With My Eighty-Year-Old Father and Survived. Mostly. by Andra Watkins

I never wanted to spend five weeks with my eighty-year-old father. The explosive gas. The same story for the five billionth time. The all-night self-scratching. The sleep apnea machine. The gut that obscures all ability to hit the toilet.
 
But I needed my father.
 
I wanted to launch my debut novel To Live Forever: An Afterlife Journey of Meriwether Lewis by taking readers into the world of the book. For thirty-four days, I would walk the 10,000-year-old Natchez Trace as the pioneers did. In fifteen mile daily increments, I would become the first living person to replicate their journey through Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee.
 
Starry-eyed, I believed my walk would make my book a success. I imagined a best seller. News crews following my journey. My name is blinking neon lights. People standing in awe, holding my novel for an autograph.
 
I'm an idiot. A complete idiot.
 
I didn't understand my idiocy when I approached my cantankerous father and asked him to be my wingman on my Natchez Trace walk. I needed him to drop me off and pick me up fifteen miles later. After striking out with everyone else, he was my last hope to make a grab at literary glory.
 
He said no.
 
Because why would he want to spend five weeks with me? We shouted instead of speaking, argued in place of connection. For most of my life, I dreaded every interaction with Dad. His lectures and nagging and know-it-all-ness. Yet I was willing to put all that aside, while he rejected me?
 
Wrong answer, Old Man!
 
When I finally regrouped, I appealed to his ego. The Roy Show. In towns full of strangers who'd never heard his stories. Junk shops and crap food he could eat without Mom's knowing.
 
He was totally on board with that.
 
For five weeks, I lived with my aging father. I walked fifteen miles a day on pavement. Through every conceivable quirk of weather, I duct-taped my shredded feet and dragged my aching joints across three states. 
 
The hardest thing I've ever done. Walking. For thirty-four days. With my maddening father circling in the car.
 
Think of the most aggravating person in your life. Imagine putting yourself through the worst endurance exercise possible with them. How would you feel?
 
I wrote Not Without My Father: One Woman's 444-Mile Walk of the Natchez Trace to explore that journey. I won't reveal how my dysfunctional family adventure turned out, but I will tell you why you need to read this book. RIGHT NOW.
 
You're losing someone this very minute. Incrementally, they're slipping away. You mean to have an adventure with them, to spend an hour or an afternoon, to do that thing. But Life's crazy gets in the way. You put it off, because this person is maddening, right? And before you know it, that person is gone: either because they've moved on to another phase of Life, or they've passed away.
 
I wrote Not Without My Father to encourage everyone to grab a loved one and Make a Memory. Right Now. Today. To turn "I wish I had" into "I'm glad I did." You shouldn't care about this book because I wrote it. You shouldn't move it to the top of your overflowing reading list because I need to make money. 
 
You should read this book because it will change your life. You will connect with a loved one, and you will Make a Memory. You will have an experience to treasure, something you wouldn't otherwise have. Read Not Without My Father. Be inspired to Make a Memory in 2015.
 
And I want to hear about the memories you make. Please submit them to me at mystories(at)andrawatkins(dot)com. I promise, I'll read every submission, and I'll highlight them on my website andrawatkins.com.

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Andra Watkins lives in Charleston, South Carolina. A non-practicing CPA, she has a degree in accounting from Francis Marion University. She’s still mad at her mother for refusing to let her major in musical theater, because her mom was convinced she’d end up starring in porn films. In addition to her writing talent, Andra is an accomplished public speaker. Her acclaimed debut novel To Live Forever: An Afterlife Journey of Meriwether Lewis was published by Word Hermit Press in 2014.

You can connect with Andra via: Website | Facebook | Twitter

About her book

Can an epic adventure succeed without a hero?

Andra Watkins needed a wingman to help her become the first living person to walk the historic 444-mile Natchez Trace as the pioneers did. She planned to walk fifteen miles a day. For thirty-four days.

After striking out with everyone in her life, she was left with her disinterested eighty-year-old father. And his gas. The sleep apnea machine and self-scratching. Sharing a bathroom with a man whose gut obliterated his aim.

As Watkins trudged America’s forgotten highway, she lost herself in despair and pain. Nothing happened according to plan, and her tenuous connection to her father started to unravel. Through arguments and laughter, tears and fried chicken, they fought to rebuild their relationship before it was too late. In Not Without My Father: One Woman’s 444-Mile Walk of the Natchez Trace, Watkins invites readers to join her dysfunctional family adventure in a humorous and heartbreaking memoir that asks if one can really turn I wish I had into I’m glad I did.

Pages: 219 pages
Publisher: Word Hermit Press (January 12, 2015)

Q&A with Kathleen Eagle author of NEVER TRUST A COWBOY

What about cowboys inspired you to write this romance?

Like most of the girls I knew growing up, I fell in love with Hollywood cowboys.  I loved the way they dressed, the way they lived, really loved their horses, and I loved their stories.  Fast forward a dozen or more years to the summer I spent in a volunteer program in South Dakota when I met a real working cowboy.  He dressed the part, rode the horse, talked the talk and walked the walk.  After I finished college I returned to South Dakota and married that cowboy.  He inspired me to write Romance.

You’ve published more than 40 books. How do you continue to come up with such original plotlines and characters?

We live in Minnesota now, but with family, horses, and land in North and South Dakota, we make lots of trips there.  I’m all about writing what you know, especially the setting.  Real people inspire characters for me, too.  Those Hollywood characters I loved when I was a kid were created by somebody else.  I have to come up with my own characters, draw from my own experience.  As for a situation or setups for plot building, a news story might spark my imagination—the all-important what if?  Sometimes my husband will show me something that caught his eye.  He’s the one who spotted a story about 21st century cattle rustling.  The first seed he planted in my brain for NEVER TRUST A COWBOY was a picture of a tricked-out horse trailer used by thieves.

What are the three ingredients for the perfect hero in a romance novel?  

A hero has to be skilled, confident and committed to something—a goal, an ideal, a person or people—and he has to be honorable.  But he’s never perfect.  You see him on the flip side of those qualities as well.  He’s made at least one serious mistake.  He’s human, which makes him flawed.  He’s a warrior, protective of women, children, animals—you want to see him in that role—but he’s also vulnerable.  His gentle side melts your heart.

If you could make any literary hunk in history come to life, who would it be and why?  

Since the Starz channel truly brought Jamie Frasier to life in the movie version of Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander, I’ll wish for Christian Langland from Laura Kinsale’s Flowers From the Storm to come walking up my driveway.  His journey from arrogant rake to admirable, caring hero makes him a man to sigh for.

How did you come up with the personalities in the book? Are they inspired by real people?

I started with a basic story setup.  I wanted the heroine to live on a ranch and the hero to be involved somehow with cattle rustling.  But how?  Can he be a thief?  Del Fox had to be a man who’d worked through some tough times, learned some hard lessons, and reached a point where he can be putting his experience to use.  He just can’t tell anyone who he really is.  His match would be a woman who’s living in a shell of her own making.  Circumstances have shaken her confidence, but she’s trying to rebuild herself and her life. They both have to be hard on the outside and hungry on the inside. Trust is the heart of the matter with these two loners.

What’s on your reading list right now?

I’m enjoying a beautifully written non-fiction book—Buffalo For the Broken Heart: Restoring Life To a Black Hills Ranch. By Dan O’Brien.  Next up is Windigo Island, a mystery by William Kent Kruger.  

Do you have any writing rituals or quirks?

I write on a laptop, but when I get stuck, it’s back to pencil and paper.  Pencil because I have to be able to erase.

What is the first book you remember reading by yourself as a child?  

The Real Mother Goose.  I knew most of the rhymes, and I remember following the printed words with my finger and saying them aloud.  I said I was reading, and pretty soon I really was.

What are three things about you that might surprise your readers?

I can do the Texas Two-Step, but I’ve got a Rock ‘n Roll heart.  I’ve finally, finally, finally stopped biting my fingernails.  And while they might have a tastte for me, vampires or zombies aren’t my cup of tea.

What are you working on for your next book?

A woman buys a South Dakota town in an internet auction.  A whole town.  It’s nearly dead, and its few residents have put it up for sale.  It’s going to be a four-book series. 

About the Author

KATHLEEN EAGLE published her first book, a Romance Writers of America Golden Heart Award winner, with Silhouette Books in 1984. Since then she has published more than 40 books, including historical and contemporary, series and single title, earning her nearly every award in the industry.  Her books have consistently appeared on regional and national bestseller lists, including the USA Today list and the New York Times extended bestseller list. 

Born in Virginia and raised "on the road" as an Air Force brat, Eagle earned degrees from Mount Holyoke College and Northern State University.  She taught at Standing Rock High School in North Dakota for 17 years. She continues to teach writing at the Loft Literary Center in Minneapolis.

Show, Not Tell by Karen Kilpatrick

As a writer, you quickly encounter an oft-quoted tenet relied upon by editors to help guide authors into creating more compelling pieces: “Show, don’t tell.”  This phrase means, in essence, that you have to draw readers into your story with descriptive action verbs and dialogue while avoiding passive, long-winded scene setting and musings. Readers want to participate in the story, not just be told about the story, if that makes sense.  It took quite some time for me to really nail down “show, don’t tell” in my own writing, and even longer to adopt the approach in my parenting. 

As a mom of three young children, I have often found myself, on too many occasions to count, lecturing one of the kids about any assortment of things, for example:

“Pick up your trash.”
“Don’t say mean things to your sister.”
“Why don’t you play that together instead of fighting over the toy?”

What I began to notice about lecturing is, well, nobody was listening.  It turns out that my kids have this innate ability to completely tune out my voice.  Perhaps I just speak in a tone that is unable to be processed by their little ears(!)  Whatever the reason, I just wasn’t being heard. It can be very frustrating when you feel like your words and voice don’t matter, especially when you have important things to say and teach!

I thought about that familiar command, “Show, don’t tell.”  Could this directive be as applicable to parenting as it is to writing?  I decided to try it out! So every other night, instead of reading, I would think of stories to entertain my kids before bedtime.  The stories would be based on things I saw them do that day that I wanted to reinforce, or lessons that I wanted them to learn.  Based on real situations, but with fictional characters, my kids were drawn into the stories.  They wanted to know what happened, how the characters interacted with each other, and how problems were solved!  And soon, I started to overhear them talking to each other and their friends about the characters and lessons from the stories!  I was “showing” them through characters what I was unable to “tell” them as a parent.   And this was how the Pumpkinheads® series was born!

The Pumpkinheads® books are based on everyday situations featuring lovable characters that children can relate to and understand.  Each book addresses a social or emotional lesson disguised in a fun tale, for example, learning about loving what you see when you look in the mirror, being kind to your friends, and standing up for what you believe in!  There are currently five books in the series, with five more to be released in 2015.  There is nothing that I enjoy more than being a mom and a writer, so it has been amazing for me to be able to share these stories with young readers. 

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Karen Kilpatrick is the author and co-illustrator of the award winning children’s books series, Pumpkinheads® (Carmin Cares, Ella’s Toys, Love Monster Lulu, Sage’s Song and Danza’s Message). She currently is working on new Pumpkinheads® titles and other books for children. Karen also writes adult short stories, and is a winning author in the Florida Writer’s Association’s collection contest, with her short story, The Envelope, published October 2014. She lives with her husband and three children in Parkland, Florida. To learn more about Pumpkinheads ® books and for fun art activities, games, and stories, you can visit www.pumpkinheads.com.

You can reach Karen via: Website | Facebook | Twitter