Interview with Tanya Stowe

This week, I interviewed author Tanya Stowe.

On your blog you mention, “Have motorhome will travel.” Where have you traveled thus far?

We just retired a little over a year ago so we haven’t been far. Last summer we planned a trip from California to Florida. It was going to be a nice leisurely drive but my husband needed surgery. They scheduled it for August so we ended up driving home with the motorhome in one week. Long daily drives. Not much fun. But we saw lots of amazing country and before that, we flew our granddaughter out for a graduation present and went to Disney World in the middle of July. I thought I’d be miserable since I have an aversion to bugs, humidity and alligators but I loved it. Florida is beautiful. It rained every day. The clouds were so close to the ground it felt like you could touch them. And the lightning! I had no idea Florida was the lightning capital of the U.S. Our return trip was rushed but I have every intention of going back through the Gulf States at a much slower pace and enjoying those areas as much as I did Florida.

But I have to say our most interesting trip last year wasn’t in the motorhome. We had an opportunity to tour China and we jumped on it. The best impulsive idea we’ve had in a long time! China is fascinating. I’ll be blogging about it for many months to come.

You’re a multi-published author. Which book has been your favorite to write?

Every book is your baby so it's hard to pick just one. But I have to say the one that was the most fun to write was Santa Fe Sunrise…simply because I love everything about Santa Fe. The scenery. The history. The food and clothes. Even the music. I’d put on my Nouveau Flamenco tunes by Ottmar Liebert and start typing. That book just seemed to flow. It might not be my best book or the most compelling but it was fun to write.

Did you always want to be a writer?

I wrote my first book when I was eleven years old. It was about a princess named Shalimar set in Ancient Egypt. So yes, I’ve always wanted to write. And it’s interesting to note that my first published book was a time travel romance about…you guessed it…an ancient Egyptian slave girl named Mara caught in a plot to murder the Pharaoh.

You have a large family. How do you find a good balance between family and writing? 

What is balance? Is there really such a thing? Lol. I think balance is a lot like a faith walk. You stumble and fall. Get back up and start again. It’s the getting up that’s important not the state of being “balanced.”

Having said that, I will tell you I’m a list maker. Always have been. Lately I’ve found a planner that incorporates all aspects of my life, work, relationships, faith, chores, appointments. It even has a scripture passage for each week. I sit down on a Sunday night, name all of my goals and tasks for the week then plug them into a daily calendar. I find that if I get busy and drop the ball, it’s on the planner and I can pick it up the next day or the next week. Things I need to do don’t disappear into the ether, especially those important writing or PR goals I need to meet. I also find that my daily to-do list that seems overwhelming in my head isn’t such a monster when it’s down on the page.

Tanya's latest release, Mojave Rescue (Love Inspired Suspense), is available on Amazon. 

Interview And Book Giveaway With Janalyn Voigt

 by Jeff Reynolds

How many of you are fans of Tolkien or the Chronicles of Narnia? Yes, I know this page focuses on Suspense and Mysteries, but Ihave a hunch that several of you enjoy the above mentioned stories as well. If you find yourself in that category, you might be interested in learning more about the Tales of Faeraven by Janalyn Voigt. Better yet, you might like to enter the giveaway for one of the three digital giveaways for your choice of her two novels, whichever format you prefer.

WE HAVE A TRIO OF WINNERS!!!

Congratulations to Dana, DeAnna, and Elizabeth!

I became familiar with Janalyn via her web-site, Novel Books. I won two novels on her site, both by authors I have interviewed here on Sleuths and Suspects (Donna Fletcher Crow and Suzanne Hartmann).

Jeff Reynolds: Welcome to Sleuths and Suspects, Janalyn. Would you like to start off telling us a little bit about yourself? Your education and vocational background? Your family? (Your husband's name sounds familiar.) Your church background and involvement?

Janalyn Voigt: I grew up in California and landed in Washington by way of Australia and Hawaii. My husband was in the military, and we traveled a lot. One of my interests happens to be travel, so that worked out well. I have my AS and meant to go into music performance, but the need to make a living eventually me trapped in an office job, proving you can become successful in something you were never meant to do. I eventually escaped into the life of my dreams. My husband is the other John Voigt. I participate in worship team and in a ministry to Moms in my local church.

JR:  Tell us about your series, Tales of Faeraven, and about your current installment, Wayfarer. What inspired the series?

JV:  I started a story about a half-cast princess trying to unite a divided kingdom against a common foe on the spur of the moment to entertain my bored daughter on a road trip. I twisted the name of her doll, Cinda, into Syl Marinda to name the heroine. The story took hold of me and wouldn't let go, even through the years when I gave up on my writing dream. I eventually returned to the story I'd abandoned but kept moving into the back story. It occurred to me that the back story needed to be told and that I had a trilogy to write rather than a single book. Syl Marinda shows up near the end of Wayfarer, book two, and becomes the heroine of DawnKing, the last book in the Tales of Faeraven epic fantasy trilogy.

I like to think of the books as forming a composition similar to a three-movement symphony. The series started on a fast-paced adventure, but then the music slows and grows reflective before buidling on a crescendo that culminates in the final climactic scene. The stories are like a play told by an ensemble cast, with each character important and their individual tales told as the fabric of one overarching storyline.

Wayfarer just released this January. Since it is that slower, deeper passage in the symphony, it shows us the world of Elderland and its people from a more intimate angle. There are dangers here, but many of the monsters found in Wayfarer dwell within the characters. Attaining peace with self is the story’s main theme, the hero’s greatest need and desire, and the thing he can’t capture without change. If he fails, his people will be destroyed. The story problem asks whether the high king of Faeraven can unite a nation divided by his own mistakes. DawnSinger was an epic quest adventure. Wayfarer is more of a love story, both on a romantic level and in relationship to God. I have received feedback from readers that Wayfarer’s thought-provoking themes have challenged them and in one case even changed a life. I wondered if I would be able to retain male readers due to the emphasis on romance within Wayfarer, but male reviewers so far have told me that the romantic element was acceptable.  

JR:  Writing contemporary and historical fiction involves a lot of research so it comes across as authentic. How does writing fantasy differ? [One example I'm thinking of is the language and glossary guide in your books.] What are the benefits and pitfalls of that genre?

JV:  I actually researched 13th-century Europe and medieval siege warfare to write Tales of Faeraven. I had heard that the best fantasy worlds are those most like earth itself. That made sense, when I thought about it, so I did my research. However, there is less pressure for everything to be historically accurate. It does have to adhere to common sense, though, and to be believable. Sometimes what you make up aligns to reality, which can be surprising. I am not a linguist, but I like fantasy names, so I invented the languages in Tales of Faeraven. I then started to notice that they bore similarities to early Anglo Saxon and Celtic patterns, so I took the names those directions.

Some writers shrink from the thought of creating a fantasy world, but really all fiction involves made-up worlds. Writing fantasy allows more freedom of creative expression, and of course that very freedom can be challenging to manage. When I had to draw a rough map of Elderland, it was difficult for me. Until then I'd carried the map only in my head. It was the same when my publisher asked me to put together a glossary of the creatures, features, and foreign words within my series. Next time I invent a world, I'm going to write it all down as I go. :o)   

JR:  Dawnsinger describes a harrowing journey, almost as difficult as its journey to publication. Could you tell us about what it was like, and the equally fun part of marketing the book?

JV:   Writing and finding a publisher for DawnSinger took many years and lots of tears. I had to grow as a writer and as a person first. It's interesting that the harrowing journey in the book parallels my own as its author. The tagline of the book says it all: sometimes victory comes only through surrender.

Marketing my books has taken me to some interesting places and stretched me in ways I would never have expected.  I'm introverted and a little shy, so my first inclination at a party is to make like a wallflower. Having books to market forces me into the center of the room. That's good for me, I remind myself. The hardest part was when I went on live international radio for an Alive in Christ interview that was broadcast to 80 countries. (No pressure there, right?) I won't say I did a perfect job of it, but they did offer to invite me back, so I couldn't have been completely horrible.

JR:  Two years ago, you had a reading challenge on your web-site Novel Books, which has encouraged my reading -- I read over twenty books that year, and matched that last year without that motivation. I'm currently on my sixth novel in '14, not counting non-fiction I'm plowing through. On a previous interview I did on with you on another site, you commented "reading another author's novel is like sitting down to a dinner you didn't have to cook." What are your favorite authors/books, both fiction and non-fiction?

JV:  It just thrills me to know that, Jeff. I started Novel Books with the idea of sharing my passion for reading. I'm so glad to have inspired you. I don't send it out by feed anymore, but I still post book reviews at that site.

My favorite authors are in fiction Charles Dickens for his larger-than-life characters, Mark Twain for his turn of a phrase and vivid characterizations, Mary Stewart for gorgeous prose, and J R R Tokien for his detailed world and deep sense of story. I don't read much non-fiction, but when I do I tend to pick up autobiographies like Act One, Moss Hart's autobiography, and Mark Twain's Roughing It. I’m currently reading The Time Traveler’s Guide to Elizabethan England by Ian Mortimer. This is no dry history tome. The author takes the reader, quite vividly, into the time period.    

JR:  What's next? Is there another tale of Faeraven on the horizon? Or something completely different?

JV:  I’m not sure which of the two fantasy series brewing in my mind that I'll pick up first. It may be the story of Daeven, Kai and Shae's missing older brother, or something in an entirely new world. I'm currently finishing DawnKing, and then for a change of pace I'll write Deceptive Tide, a romantic suspense novel as part of the Islands of Intrigue series I'm writing with authors Lynnette Bonner and Lesley Ann McDaniel.

JR:  Thank you for your time. Could you let us know about what you do on your blog page, and any other websites to keep up with your writing journeys? Or where we should go if we'd like to invest in a Wingabeast (flying horse) or tips on keeping Waevens (a spider-like creature with a very nasty bite) out of your house?

JV:  I've enjoyed visiting with you, Jeff. Thanks for the opportunity.

Those who want to learn more about wingabeasts, waevens, and the other creatures and aspects of Faeraven can visit the Fantasy Worlds area of my website. I created it as a book extras site to give just a little more to readers who told me they didn't want DawnSinger to end.

Readers can escape into the Creative Worlds of Janalyn Voigt or into creative worlds of travel at my new Literary Wayfarer site, a different kind of travel blog. And I teach other writers to live with passion, write well, and remember to breathe at Live Write Breathe.

Jeff to readers: It's time for the giveaways. As stated, we're giving away three copies of your choice of her two books on your favorite digital format. The rules are simple:

1. Leave a comment.
2. Share your e-mail. (You can spell it out like AuntDotKahm(at)ant(dot)com.)
3. What is your favorite mythological creature? (Mine is an unbiased news reporter.)