Dear Readers,

Listen to authors Debbie Weiss, Janis Daly, Gail Olmsted and me on a show called Bookish Road Trip  airing on Author Radio Network  Oct. 20. This is a recorded interview from the live show 10/4. At the end of this blog are more dates to discover other books and meet authors via podcasts or book fests.

BOOK SALE! 

October is both Domestic Violence Awareness Month and Disability Employment Awareness month. In the back of the book, and on my website’s RESOURCES page, are hotlines for Domestic Abuse Crisis lines and the Americans with Disability (ADA) telephone number where one can reach out to report a problem and seek help.

In honor of the themes in this novel, The Moments Between Dreams  eBook is on sale for only $4.99 during October.

Book Club members have asked what I have in common with the characters in the book. I’ll share briefly how I dreamed them up in this blog post.

This history of my family, in particular, my grandmother’s and mother’s struggles, inspired my novel.  

 In The Moments Between Dreams, I conjured up scenes that show how close Carol is to her sister, Polly, and how different their lives are. Do you have relatives that you love dearly yet they lead very different lives? This reminds me of the classic storybook tale “The Country Mouse and City Mouse”  contrasting the lifestyles and preferences of two mice.

I saw how close my grandmother was to her sister, my Great Aunt Bern, how different they lived, and how they’d tease each other in a loving manner. I also thought of how close I am to my own sister, who lives in a rural area compared to my life in an urban setting.  

Not being able to see her sister is a motivating factor for Carol to make a change. There are scenes when Carol compares her life to her siblings and is envious.  However, she is trapped, knowing she would not leave Joe unless her children are safe.  Domestive violence survivors can stop answering the question: “Why didn’t you leave (an abusive partner) sooner?” but rather, “Why is an abuser allowed to hold his family hostage?” 

Carol is the culmination of the women in generations before me, facing the challenges of their time. She takes on my mother’s and grandmother’s pious nature. The character’s reliance on her deep faith is a survival method to persevere when conflicts arise.

Carol refuses to act like a victim, and I love that about her. I also show her flaws, as her good girl nature, a rule-follower, puts her in further danger. Being resilient is something Carol and I might have in common, but when one is writing, an author may not realize the vulnerability on the page is coming from deep within. That’s why storytelling, songwriting, painting, and sculpting are wonderful forms of art to convey dilemmas. Having researched what happens to contemporary women in unhealthy, abusive relationships helped inform me to write an authentic story about what happens to Carol, factoring in the era of the 1950s. I explain more about this in two podcasts and interviews airing this month. There are several in-person events in October where I look forward to meeting readers. You can check my author website EVENTS page and PRESS page to view the links on this list below.

Oct. 3 – History Through Fiction podcast

Oct. 4 – Live show 1 p.m. ET Bookish Road Trip, a Facebook readers’ group. Join here!

October: The History Author Show podcast

Oct. 8 – Writers Conference – WOW – I’ll present a writing craft class on plot structure using outlines and storyboards.

Oct. 9 – Iowa City Book Festival Author Fair

Oct. 15: Twin Cities Book Festival

Oct. 29 – Barnes & Noble book signing in Maple Grove, MN

BOOK SALE! ONLY IN OCTOBER, the eBook is on sale for only $4.99. There is a paperback and an audiobook format, too! 

P.S. OCT. 24 is World Polio Day as Rotary International continues its campaign to #EndPolio. This book has you covered on all of October’s Awareness themes!