Janie Wilkins, author of Janie's Unbelievable Journey

Hot Days of Summer



July is almost gone and we are in the middle of the hot days of summer. It doesn't seem so long ago that we were fighting the blustery winds of winter. It reminds me that no matter where we are on the calendar year or in the season of our life, that there are challenges. We need to learn to just keep on going.



Look for the good things in your life. Watch for the kindness of God in your life.

When I spoke to the Stonecroft Women's group in Dodge City one of the cute little favors at my plate was a paper doll with an orange flavored Tootsie Roll Pop attached. (My favorite!!!) I took it as a little kiss from God. I mentioned this to the group in my speech and when I got to my spot at the table there were 6 of them stuck inside my Bible. That was way too sweet and I cried.



Another big kindness of God was that I was assigned the conceptual editor that I had for Elk's Resolve. What a blessing! I am so happy about that.



I also am blessed to be acquainted with some very special author friends. I learn from them every day. I want to intoduce you to one of my newest friends, Janie Wilkins







1.My name is Janie Wilkins, and my book is "Janie's Unbelievable Journey: Inspirational Letters written along the Way."






2. I think my readers would

like to know that my faith in

God has enabled me to

overcome obstacles along

life's highway and to succeed

in helping students to grow

and learn and believe in themselves.



3.A Methodist minister told

me that I have a story to tell,

and God commanded me to

tell my story to help others

and to teach and inspire.



4.My strong points, according

to my own children and those

who know me best are that I

write from the heart, as I feel

led by God and that when one reads my stories and letters

that it is as if I were talking to them. This is my style as well.



5. I love to read, and I have read everything I could get my

hands on that is about real people. I love non-fiction

and history best of all.



6. I just completed reading

Max Lacado's "Traveling Light," which is on our United Methodist Women's reading

list.



7.My memoir is in two volumes, and volume two will be out

shortly after volume one is released.



8.My biggest obstacles to

writing are time, time, time, always. When I was

completing my manuscript

initially, I found that I had

to set goals and stay up

until I met the goal I had set. Since I had sponsored

school yearbooks most of

my working years, I applied

some of the rules and guidelines we established

to meet deadlines.



9. "Janie's Unbelievable

Journey: Inspirational

Letters Written along the

Way" is a true story of life

as a wife, mother and

educator. It lets the reader

know that we can accomplish

our dreams if we believe in ourselves and never give up!

You will want to read this

memoir to see how Janie

overcame obstacles to raise

three extraordinary adult

children the last one as a single parent.



10. Readers may contact me at Janiew3@aol.com or at my publisher at www.tatepublishing.com/bookstore

or at 888 361 9473

The Price of Trust by Amanda Stephan

I love meeting my fellow authors. This week we have Amanda Stephan.




1. What is your name and the title of your book(s)?

I am Amanda Stephan and the title of my book is The Price of Trust.

2. What is one thing you think your readers would like to know about you?



This is my first book, I've written two others, and I'm currently working on my fourth novel. The third and fourth are a series. I have ideas for a children's book, and many more ideas for my fifth and sixth books!

3. When did you know that you wanted to become a writer? I've always loved to write. In school, if I was given an assignment involving writing, I always went above and beyond. In college, I completely aced my English class because the professor had us write about specific topics. I never got below an A+. She was an awesome teacher...



4. What are your strong points in your writing style or methods?

I really don't know what I could say my strong points are in my writing methods. My readers have told me that after they were finished with my book, they felt as if they were a part of the story, or that I had written the book exclusively for them. I hope my writing style is fun and happy, yet poignant and thought provoking.

5. Are you a reader?

I like to read, but not when I'm writing. If I have a book I'm working on, I won't read another book because I don't want to get fuzzy on my ideas!

6. Do you have another book that you are working on and hasn't been submitted for publication? Tell about it.

I have two other books I haven't submitted for publication yet, and am working on my fourth novel. The second book is about a single mother who is trying to raise her two beloved children to the best of her ability in a Godly manner. These children are constantly trying to entangle their mother in romantic affairs. My third book I'd have to say is my favorite so far. (That's only because I'm not finished with my 4th!) The third book is about a woman who is tricked into marrying a man she's not even interested in, and decides that love isn't a romantic fluffy feeling in the pit of her stomach, she chooses to see what God can do with her marriage. It's a romantic mystery with an introduction to a serial killer. The fourth is the continuation of that story, focusing on her, her husband, and the killer.

7. What are your biggest obstacles to writing and how do you overcome them?

My largest obstacles are getting out of my comfort zone. I love to write, but I always feel silly so I tend to shy away from marketing my books. I'd love to just write and let someone else do all the other stuff!

8. Please put a description of each of your books here. (back matter is ok)

The Price of Trust ~ Carly Richards is on the run. For the last two years, she's skipped from town to town, ducking her dangerous and well-informed ex-fiance every few weeks, never settling anywhere for long. With the death of her parents, Carly's vulnerability made her trust a man with an attractive facade. Now that same man has tracked her across the country, always nipping at her heels, preventing her from reaching out to anyone other than her God.

Now she's in Montana, and surely that is far enough away from Texas and her abusive past that she can rest. Without a car and money, she has little choice but to dig in and begin building back up her savings so she can run once more. Caught in the circumstances, the kind people around her begin to creep into her softening heart. God is at work, and she has to trust him to not only take care of her, but care for the people she is learning to love.



9. How can readers contact you or purchase your books? Please put your website or blog here. Please stop by my site and leave a comment, I'd love to hear from you! http://www.thepriceoftrust.com

Home Always Beackons: A New Sunrise by Lana Lynne

1. What is your name and the title of your book(s)?

Home Always Beckons: A New Sunrise by Lana Lynne (The sequel was just accepted by my publisher and I will send that tirle once I have finished work with my editor)



2. What is one thing you think your readers would like to know about you?

I write with the perspective of God's sovereignity and grace in the actuality of the tough roads which life can take.



3. When did you know that you wanted to become a writer?

I started writing on my mother's manual typewriter at the age of 10yrs with a vehement love of Louisa May Alcott and Laura Ingalls Wilder. However, I made another career choice, married, and was raising my family with my writing kept in a drawer or journal until my daughter was a teenager. That's when I decided to start on the journey which led to the publication of my first book.



4. What are your strong points in your writing style or methods?

A playwright friend of mine told me my style is "the old storyteller" in which my words help you to feel you are really there and can hear the characters.



5. Are you a reader?

I have always loved to read--staying up late in the night to finish a good book!



6. What are you reading right now? Life's Healing Choices by John Baker

7. Do you have another book that you are working on and hasn't been submitted for publication? Tell about it.

**As I mentioned before, the sequel to my first book has just been accepted for publication- it is set during beginning of the cattle drive period in 1867. I am also working on my third book which will complete the trilogy. It is set in Washington D.C. in 1874. Both of these new books include characters introduced in the first book, Home Always Beckons, as well as new characters.



8. What are your biggest obstacles to writing and how do you overcome them?

Working full time and writing in the "after hours". The good Lord, a supportive husband, family, and friends who encourage me to keep going.



9. Please put a description of each of your books here.

I'll only include the one for Home Always Beckons now and will send updates for the second as its release date approaches: "Author Lana Lynne has written a historically poignant story filled with characters that will capture the hearts of teens and adults alike. Home Always Beckons emerges in the shadow of a war's end as lives are rebuilt and the treasure of enduring love is found. Marcus Johnson and John Wilkins marched from Rockport, Arkansas, over five years ago to aid in resolving the war that divided the nation. Many friends and family members fought beside them. Some returned home, spent and broken. Others remained where they had fallen, leaving only memories for their families. John and Marc had made a rare choice. They would not make the return journey for a time. They had found solace after the war in work with Texas cattlemen. Now the devastation they discover in their home state further deepens the waters of guilt that engulf them as they ultimately travel home to Rockport. The Civil War had painfully reached the very doors of the family and friends they had left behind. Anger, forgiveness, betrayal, and love are waiting for them. Faces and names echo from the trees and farms, but when John and Marc discover romance in the surprising love of two sisters, A New Sunrise dawns."



10. How can readers contact you or purchase your books? Please put your website or blog here.

At present,it is available through my publisher: Tate; On line at: Amazon, Barnesand Noble, Hastings, Borders, Books A Million, Mardel; Barron's store in Longview, Texas. You can check facebook for the book forum page for Home Always Beckons book signings at events and stores. We are currently working towards a website and I will send you an update once it is ready.

Happy 4th of July Week

I love the USA! I was blessed to be born here. I am ashamed to admit that I have not studied the lives of the founding fathers and I have not read the entire Constitution of the United States ........yet. It has been awhile since I have read the Bill of Rights.

My goal is to read both this week. It is high time. I want to challenge my readers to read these documents before July 4, 2011. That gives you a year.

I also want to read about the founding fathers and each of the presidents and their impact on my life today. That is a tall order for me. I think it is something I can do for more understanding of the blessing of being a Citizen of the United States.

Today, I want to intoduce you to authors, Lillian Laird Duff and Linda Duff Niemeir. Their book is on my reading list. I love this era!
1. What is your name and the title of your book(s)?
My name is Linda Duff Niemeir and I am co-author of Sharecropping in North Louisiana: A Family's Struggle Through the Great Depression. Mama and I wrote the book together because it is her story and she knows all the details.
2. What is one thing you think your readers would like to know about you?
There are a couple things: One, I am the wife of a retired military man whom I folllowed around the world as Uncle Sam assigned him to various Airforce bases, some of which included Europe. Because I love traveling, and because I have always been fascinated to learn how "other people" live, those experiences living in Kansas, Germany, Montana, Italy and England have enriched my life in more ways than I can tell you! Second, readers may like to know that I attended business school after high school which gave me the tools to also have a career as a typist, a "secretary," an "administrative assistant," and various other titles for over two dozen different jobs - all of which I had to seek out as we moved to a different town or continent. That in itself was a challenge, but I managed to work for 40 years and supplement our income enough to finally pay for a home in Arkansas so that I might retire at age 59 and my husband retire at age 62. My goal had been to help my husband (and add to our income) enough that neither of us had to work so long that our health would be too poor to travel in our RV to see more of America and further enrich our lives. I saw so many people get themselves in debt during their "life careers" as they purchased all their "wants" and then they had to work so long to pay off those debts that they were not able to enjoy retirement (or possibly die before retirement) and that was not acceptable to me.
3. When did you know that you wanted to become a writer?
I am not sure yet that I am a writer, and you might ask why? As we traveled the globe with USAF, I was so eager to share those wonderful and sometimes humorous experiences, I wrote short stories and submitted some for publication but each was denied. In each case, I was somewhat surprised and demoralized because I thought the stories were interesting and that other people would enjoy them. Anyway, the other desire I had for many years was to record for posterity the stories my mother had told me as I grew up of her life growing up on cotton farms during the 20s, 30s and 40s. Life was very hard for her and her parents and her sisters as they eeked out a living as sharecroppers moving from one farm to another as my Grandfather sought better land, or better conditions for the family - nearer to a school or church or town. The stories she told made me realize how fortunate I was to have all the blessings I enjoyed daily, and how hard my grandparents, parents and other family members worked to get to the point in their lives where they too had enjoyed many of life's blessings. I realized that many people take for granted the modern conveniences we have and do not appreciate those blessings that God has bestowed on us. Now we were not rich by any means, not rich in what many people would say rich is, money in the bank or fine clothes on our backs or fancy cars in the driveway! But we were (and still are) rich in that we had everything we needed, and sometimes more than we needed, and we had love from our family members and from our God who made each of us in His own image, giving us gifts and a heart and mind with which we can and should serve Him. Mama used those stories she told about her early life and how hard her parents worked to teach me strong work ethics and frugal ways that would help me be more like what God intends for me. Her mother had taught her those work ethics. Sorry, I got off track there, so I need to explain that the other reason I wanted to retire early was that I might still have enough wits about me to write down mama's story so I could share it with family and friends. It did not originally start off as a book to be published, but God had a plan.

4. What are your strong points in your writing style or methods?
My strong points are that I write like I talk, just as I might talk to a friend or neighbor over a cup of coffee. I do not use "big college words" that some people might not understand, mainly because I did not go to college and I wanted people of all ages and backgrounds to be able to read the book and hear the stories as mama told them to me. We wrote the book in the first person so the reader can picture my mama sitting down somewhere comfortable telling me those stories as a child, or picture us working on a chore that might remind her of how that chore was done in the old days.
5. Are you a reader?
Yes, I read the Bible and especially enjoy the chronilogical edition so I can keep the history straight in my head. As a lover of math, and bookeeping (which I did not get to use much after school), my logical mind just wants to know a story, whether fiction or non-fiction, in chronilogical order. It just makes more sense to me. I enjoy a variety of reading materials such as period novels, biographies, magazines about gardening, home decorating and traveling.

6. What are you reading right now? Right now I am reading Winds of the Day by Howard Spring, a period novel set in old England prior to and after WWI. Being in the middle of the book, I do not know where it will end, timewise. I can picture in my mind some of the scenes described and places in England spoken of because I lived there myself four years.
7. Do you have another book that you are working on and hasn't been submitted for publication?Tell about it.
No, but I have always wanted to write a book about some of the places where I lived, especially in Europe and tell some of the ways we Americans had to change our daily lives to fit into our environment. My husband and I took a long vacation last summer to Alaska and back to Arkansas, driving over 12,000 miles in 70 days on the road (with two grandchildren) seeing places we had not seen before and meeting lovely people, each one having a story if we took time to get to know them. I thought I might write a book about those people, but as I made notes on our travel blog that I set up for family and friends, I found that I did not have time each day to write down enough information about those places, and interesting persons we came upon. So I decided to just sit back and enjoy the ride and smell the roses. Perhaps some day I will write another book.
8. What are your biggest obstacles to writing and how do you overcome them?
One obstacle I had was just getting started, so the best way I found to overcome that was to set a date or time and made myself do it. I had to be consistent in those times (daily as I wrote with my mother who lived next door at the time) and not let anything distract me if possible. I know that is easier for a retired person as myself who does not have kids still at home to deal with or household chores that keep calling to a busy mom who also works outside the home! The biggest obstacle for me was finding out how to get the book published after hearing so many friends and relatives say "You need to get it published." I had no idea how to do that. I thought maybe I'd have to print it dozens of times, mail it off to publishing houses and wait forever to hear from them that "it did not fit their needs" - well that was what sometimes happened to John Boy Walton (as I watched the reruns on TV, which thoroughly delited me - the show, not his stories being turned down). And when a friend told me to just google publishers, I was absolutely overwhelmed by the thousands listed. So, I bowed my head and prayed and told God that if the book was to be published, He would have to help me find a publisher. When I opened my eyes there was a publisher listed out of alphabetical order (for some strange reason?) on the pages of As - Tate Publishing and Enterprises! So when I clicked on the name and read about the Christian family working together to "publish the word" I knew I would start there and the rest is history. No pun intended. I told God that I would give a tithe to my husband's ministry, Christian Motorcycle Association, in which we have been involved since 1995. God has blessed me and mama in sales and the joy of meeting so many other people who were either sharecroppers or children or grandchildren of sharecroppers has been wonderful and unexpected. Our own family doctor who read the book told us he had been the son of a sharecropping family from Arkansas.
9. Please put a description of each of your books here.
A family's history lives and dies according to the dedication of its storyteller. Author Lillian Laird Duff is one such historian, and with the encouragement and help of her daughter Linda Duff Niemeir, the stories of this sharecropper's daughter will spark in readers the desire to keep their own family histories alive. Sharecropping in North Louisiana is the true story of the hardship Lillian's family faced during the Great Depressin and World War II. The word pictures Lillian paints are vivid and will bring to life for readers a time when people were forced to get by with what they had. It will also leave readers hungry for a home-cooked meal, as Lillian recalls food preparation on the farm with such richness and delight that you can almost smell the smoked pork and taste the homemade ice cream and butter. Join Linda in listening to her mother's stories once more.
10. How can readers contact you or purchase your books? Please put your website or blog here.
Our book can be purchased through Tate Publishing and Enterprises website, other major websites on line such as Borders, Books A Million, Amazon.com, etc. It is also in audio form which makes fun listening. I have a website at www.niemeir-duff.com as well as a travel blog which I used to document book events beginning in the fall of 2008. Recent blog posts are vacation fun, etc.