As a child, I was mesmerized by storytellers and my mother always made sure I had a supply of books close at hand while I was growing up. Sitting on her lap and listening to her read to me is one of my earliest memories. I remember drawing pictures and then making up stories to go with them, and as I got older, my stories became longer and more fanciful. At age ten, I began to write them down, and when I was twelve, I wrote my first “book,” all handwritten. I wrote during rainy days in gym class when we all had to stay in the locker room and sit on benches. I had a small cult following of friends who waited for me to finish each page which I would then pass down the row. When I got a typewriter for my thirteenth birthday, I typed up my “masterpiece” and put it in a 3-ring binder then hid it away. The story was actually quite silly. Having a typewriter, however, made it possible for me to write even more, which I did on almost a daily basis.
But, as happens to many young, aspiring writers, reality grabbed me and when I graduated from high school and headed to college then into the workforce, the dream of becoming an author washed away. It wasn’t until I turned 62 and experienced my 3rd job layoff that I decided to try and make my writing dream come true.
Writing has since become an addiction to me, and I’m finding that ideas for numerous scenarios and characters keep flooding my brain, with the characters screaming, “Write about me! Write about me!”
And, that’s what I intend to do.
Time Travel
Interview with Author – M.D. Stewart
I grew up in southern West Virginia and being the middle child, was surrounded by family, namely my two brothers. After high school, I married a man I met in college. He left school and joined the Navy, and we traveled to different bases along the East Coast. He gave me two great boys before we parted ways.
After the divorce, I attended beauty college, which helped me express my creativity differently than the poems and stories I’d written in the privacy of my bedroom. I began a twenty-year career in the beauty industry including teaching at my alma mater and then working for the state cosmetology licensing agency.
I always had a vivid imagination and dreamed of writing and publishing my own stories. Now, that I’ve hit fifty, my dream has been realized because of the love and support of my retired coal miner husband.
I live in rural Boone County, West Virginia, with my fabulous husband, one cat, one chunky dog, and six pet chickens. When I’m not writing, I’m helping my husband preserve the goodies from our garden, walking my dog, or gathering eggs.
Interview with Author – Emily-Jane Hills Orford
An avid gardener, artist, musician and writer, Emily-Jane Hills Orford has fond memories and lots of stories that evolved from a childhood growing up in a haunted Victorian mansion. Told she had a ‘vivid imagination’, the author used this talent to create stories in her head to pass tedious hours while sick, waiting in a doctor’s office, listening to a teacher drone on about something she already knew, or enduring the long, stuffy family car rides. The author lived her stories in her head, allowing her imagination to lead her into a different world, one of her own making. As the author grew up, these stories, imaginings and fantasies took to the written form and, over the years, she developed a reputation for telling a good story. Emily-Jane can now boast that she is an award-winning author of several books, including Mrs. Murray’s Ghost (Telltale Publishing 2018), Queen Mary’s Daughter (Clean Reads 2018), Gerlinda (CFA 2016) which received an Honorable Mention in the 2016 Readers’ Favorite Book Awards, To Be a Duke (CFA 2014) which was named Finalist and Silver Medalist in the 2015 Next Generation Indie Book Awards and received an Honorable Mention in the 2015 Readers’ Favorite Book Awards and several other books. A retired teacher of music and creative writing, she writes about the extra-ordinary in life and the fantasies of dreams combined with memories.