Welcome to the seventh Writing Festival Friday. This week I’m thrilled to interview an up-and-coming children’s writer, Jennifer Gladen. She’s made a great start at getting her short stories and articles published and making a name for herself on the web, and is one of those people I believe will be much better known as the years go by. She’s working on a novel now too!

Before I get to her interview, here’s a reminder about how Writing Festival Friday works. Each week you’re welcome to leave a comment under the Writing Festival Friday article on this blog. At the end of the week I’ll choose one of the comment writers to interview for an upcoming Writing Festival Friday. Please keep in mind that at this point I’m about a week behind in my interview writing, so if you are chosen for an interview you might not be notified for a week, at least. However you can come back here the following weekend to see who got the interview.

All writers, of all genres, are welcome to participate in Writing Festival Friday. You do not need to be a published writer. You just need to leave a comment. And when you leave that comment, feel free to include your blog, book, and site links. Tell us all about yourself and your writing. The purpose is for us to get to know one another better.

The winner from last week’s Writing Festival Friday is Beverly Stowe McClure.

And for today, the spotlight is on . . .

Jennifer Gladen

 

Linda: Jennifer, what inspires you to write for children?

Jennifer: I’ve always loved to read and write. When I was younger, I read through our entire book case of children’s books (which was a lot) in one summer. Even now, I enjoy the children’s genre more than the adult. It only made sense to me that I write for children, too.

Linda: You’ve been gathering quite a few writing credits lately with online magazine publications. Please tell us about them. And to what do you credit your success in getting your stories published?

Jennifer: Stories For Children is one of my favorite e-zines to write for. I love how they have a variety of stories, articles and poems for children of all ages. They have published a number of stories and articles of mine since June 2007 including Shivering Sally and the Scary Sounds, Fulfilling a Destiny, and More Than a Pretty Picture. Coming in February 2008 is “Mrs. Martin’s Marigolds” and in December of 2007 my first poem for SFC, “In From the Snow.” I also have “The Writing Enemy,” “Going Out,” and “Through the Ashes” scheduled to appear in future issues of the writer’s magazine Once Upon a Time.

And my latest good news: I just signed a contract with Guardian Angel Publishing. They will be publishing my first online picture book next year.

I credit my successes so far to persistence. I don’t believe in giving up. If a manuscript is rejected, I pick it up, dust it off and send it off again.

Linda: You’ve signed up for NaNoWriMo this year. What can you tell us about your project and your feelings about the NaNoWriMo writing marathon at this point?

Jennifer: To tell you the truth, I was nervous about NaNo at first. My comfort zone is picture books, short stories and articles. But So far I’ve been keeping up (Although it is only the first few days.) You can follow my progress at NaNo.Org.

Linda: What advice do you have for other aspiring authors?

Jennifer: The most important thing I can advise other aspiring authors is to keep submitting. Get those manuscripts out there. I could wallpaper my office with all the rejection slips I’ve collected. However, if I stopped there, I never would have become published and the dream of writing a picture book would still be a dream - not the reality in progress that it is today.

I also am on my third course at the Institute of Children’s Literature. I’ve always had an aptitude for writing, but ICL taught me the business side of it also and how to market my work.

Linda: What are your writing goals for the future?

Jennifer: My largest future goal is to write and have published a book about a child who needs an organ transplant. My family had the unfortunate reality of experiencing such a situation and we longed for a book that could validate the child’s experience. You can read more about this current project here.

Linda: Thank you, Jennifer, for this look inside the life of a children’s writer. I loved reading your short story, Shivering Sally and the Scary Sounds. You did a great job of building suspense and putting us into the action.

. . .

Jennifer’s website is at JenniferGladen.Com. She also has a blog: http://jgladen.blogspot.com.

Welcome to the sixth edition of Writing Festival Friday here at Perspectives on Writing. This week’s interview is with a seasoned travel writer and feature article writer living in Europe, Annie Duguid. She’s also a novelist!

The winner from last Friday is Devon Ellington! I will contact her for an interview soon. As I’m running a week behind right now, it will probably be two weeks before I can post her interview.

Before we get to the interview, here’s a reminder of how Writing Festival Friday works. This is an opportunity for writers to be interviewed so we can get to know you and what you love to write. Any writer is welcome to participate by leaving a comment - see the comment link at the end of this article. Each week I choose one author to interview - it will be one of the people who commented on the most recent Writing Festival Friday.

Writers of all genres are welcome to participate in Writing Festival Friday, and you do not need to be a published writer - I can always think of something to ask an unpublished writer as well. You can leave your comment at any time during the week, from Friday until the following Friday. Right before I post the next Writing Festival Friday article, I’ll pick a new interview winner.

When you leave your comment to this article, you’re welcome to post your links to your blog, site, books, or whatever you want to share. Let’s get to know one another better!

Annie Duguid

This is a fascinating interview. Annie has a lot of writing experience, and advice to share with aspiring writers.

Linda: How did you get started as a travel writer?

Annie: Travel writing is something I have done sporadically for newspapers in the past but was afraid to specialize in. This year I broke through the fear barrier and pushed myself out there. I am lucky that my visits to Eastern Europe give me an edge at a time when European investors are looking to buy property in countries like Bulgaria. More and more holidaymakers are going there because of the wonderful scenery and low prices so editors are interested in first hand up-to-date information.

Again luckily, I love traveling by train and with the emphasis on green travel, this is now a popular angle.

I’m not a photographer. The larger newspapers source their photos from libraries but my happy snaps from disposable cameras have even made it into local newspapers. I have invested in a much better digital camera now as using my own photos gives me a larger market and better fees.

Online travel writers at Travel Writers and Media Kitty have offered lots of encouragement, leads and advice for which I shall be ever grateful. I read guidelines carefully and try to find unusual seasonal angles six months in advance. Travel writers are remarkably generous in sharing market recommendations and warnings. The British Travel Trade Fair provided more contacts and leads for stories than I can ever use in a year

When I am going somewhere, I pitch storyline ideas to online, magazine and news editors before I leave. I write up everything I do whether it is pre-sold or not. An unsold article used in ten or more low-paying markets still brings in useful money.

And of course you can always be a travel writer without leaving home. I wrote an emergency guidebook on the Isle of Wight (UK) this summer and have another due out next Spring specifically about a local harbor town.

Travel Writing by L. Peat O’Neil is a brilliant book for anyone interested.

Linda: What were some of your most memorable experiences while doing feature writing for newspapers?

Annie: Interviewing the Beatles was fun and I met many celebrities. People who are deservedly famous are invariably thoughtful in their answers and incredibly patient and kind. Some celebrities, however, just think being themselves is enough to entitle them to be rude and arrogant.

One of my favorite stories came from attending a weekend fair in a small French village whose all-bachelor population advertised for single women to marry. I like following up tales of the supernatural too and met families living with poltergeists, ghost hunters and even a composer of well-known TV theme tunes whose home in Portugal was haunted by a ghost that had followed him from a previous house. I had nightmares for months after that.

Nowadays I look for local people who have hidden talents or back story. I find that much more satisfying than hanging about “doorstepping” a celebrity. One elderly neighbor had developed an improved form of wireless communication in World War 2, another had fought as a teenager in the Spanish Civil War.

Linda: What are your writing goals now?

Annie: As a child I dreamed up countless happy-ever-after fairy tales and always expected to write romances. This is far more difficult than I anticipated but I aim to have two completed by the end of the year. They are already first and second drafted. It is still a possibility.

The travel writing and the personal features produce regular writing income. The fiction is my luxury aspiration. I can’t pretend I’m writing a bestseller.

Linda: What advice do you have for other aspiring authors?

Annie: Write every day even if it’s just a letter to a friend. See where your stream of consciousness takes you. If you feel yourself flagging, try another genre or writing discipline just for fun. Push yourself into publication. Even if what you write only appears in a local church magazine or freesheet at first, it will give you some cuttings and spur you on.

Be open to your heart. Ask for advice when you need it and listen. Listen to everyone. Note the tricks of speech that bring them alive on paper.

Join an inspirational writing group with similar aims and ambitions like the Muse Online Writers’ Conference or Freelance Writing Organization International.

Linda: Are you still in Bulgaria?

Annie: I go to Bulgaria two or three times a year and hope to spend longer there next year. There is so much to research and write there. We share the house with a family of chinchillas which have spent most of summer 2007 stripping the wallpaper –perhaps it’s a hint I should be an interior decorator rather than a writer?

…

Annie Duguid is an Associate Editor at Freelance Writing Organization, International and can be found at Garden and Hearth - Travel Europe She has umpteen blogs in various stages of disarray and her own jottings website at Personal Features. She also moderates the weight watching Writers’ Support Group at Spark People.

Welcome to the fifth Writing Festival Friday, posted late on Friday evening thanks to my incredibly busy schedule earlier today.

The winner of the most recent Writing Festival Friday drawing is Jennifer Gladen. I’ll be sending her interview questions within a few days. Congratulations, Jennifer!

Last week’s winner was Mel Trent, a prolific writer of short stories, novels, reviews, and more. Her interview is posted below.

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Before we get to the interview, I need to remind everyone that the way to enter this weekly interview contest is to make a comment on this article with your website or book links if you have any, and/or information about your writing. I’ll chose the winner next Friday via random drawing. The winner gets interviewed for the following Writing Festival Friday.

You can make your comment any time during the coming week. Comment on the most recent Writing Festival Friday entry at Perspectives on Writing. Writers of all genres are welcome to participate.

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Mel Trent

I’m excited to have a great interview to post today. Mel Trent, the winner of last week’s drawing, has written short stories and novels including The Immortal Guns of Talon Konstantine. She’s also a talented non-fiction author with a book for sale at Lulu, Absolutely, Positively True Stories and a series of detailed anime reviews found online through her page at Piker Press.

Linda: I’ve been looking through your archived articles, fiction, and poetry at Piker Press. Why did you decide to start writing for Piker Press, and how has it changed you and your writing?

Mel: I discovered Piker Press in early 2005 after following a link in a National Novel Writing Month participant’s signature. After hanging around the forums and reading their weekly issues, I decided it was a good place to finally try my hand at submitting my work. I started with a short poem, and in April of 2005, I won a poetry contest. After that, senior editor Alex Queen asked me to write anime reviews for the Press. I’ve been writing for so long without even trying to publish anywhere. It really was past time to get started on it. I don’t think it’s really changed my writing any, but it’s given me a lot of confidence. Because of the response I’ve gotten at Piker Press, I know that I am a good writer and that there is an audience for my work. I now feel that I can move on to bigger and better things.

Linda: What themes can we expect to find in your short stories and novels?

Mel: I think that themes are organic. The characters will tell you what your themes are as you move along. I don’t start out with themes in mind. I like to ask readers what themes they see in my work. That said, the themes I notice in my writing are things like revenge, spirituality and faith versus religion, and relationships, especially non-traditional relationships. I like to explore the dynamics in a romantic relationship between two men or a single father and his daughter or how one person’s secrets can affect his interactions with his entire family. Part of that is because of my own experiences. The rest is because I love observing people. It’s one of my favorite pastimes, behind writing and reading, of course.

Linda: What are your writing goals now?

Mel: My current writing goals are to finish up a short story I’ve been working on for a while now and then concentrate on NaNoWriMo. After that, I will probably look to edit some more recent short stories for another Lulu project and start looking into publishers for the long fantasy novel I wrote for NaNo in 2004. I’m also currently gathering information and resources to possibly produce a podcast about writing early in 2008.

Linda: What advice do you have for other aspiring authors?

Mel: The best thing for aspiring writers to do, I think, is to write. Every day. Write in a journal. Write poetry. Write drabbles. Just write. Practicing the craft is the only way to get good at it. Equally important is to read as much as possible. It’s a good way to explore how so-called “professionals” go about it. Another thing I find helpful is to have a creative outlet that isn’t writing, whether it’s music, painting, knitting, scrapbooking or whatever. You don’t have to be good at it; it just has to be something you enjoy. When faced with a writer’s block, being creative in some way that has nothing to do with writing is better medicine than staring at a blank page or screen and kicking yourself for not being able to write.

Mel has a few novels posted on the web at Talon’s Tall Tales.
Here’s a link to her Lulu Store.

Mel recommends The Literacy Site - a “click to give” donation site that funds free books for children.

Welcome to the second edition of Writing Festival Friday, a blog event where you can connect with other writers, promote your books and blogs, and possibly become the featured writer next Friday. It is easy to participate. Just leave a comment to this article, telling us about yourself, your writing, and whatever else you want us to know. Please include your site and blog links if you have any. Writers of all genres are welcome to join in.

You can post here any time between Friday and Wednesday morning to be included in the next random drawing. The winner of the drawing will be sent a short series of interview questions via email, and will be featured in the next Writing Festival Friday posting.

Please visit the websites and blogs of your fellow writers to give them the support they need to keep on writing!

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Donna Alice Patton

Today’s winner is Donna Alice Patton, a novelist living in Ohio. Donna has a blog: Layers of Life. She won Honorable Mention for middle grade novels in the 2007 Write It Now! competition. She’s written in a variety of genres and co-writes a monthly syndicated newspaper page for children. Her first novel will be published before the end of this year.

Linda: Congratulations on having your book chosen for Honorable Mention in the Write it Now! Competition at Smartwriters.Com. Please tell us about your book and the series it is part of.

Donna Alice Patton: The book that won the Honorable Mention is The Cattle Rustling Catastrophe. It’s the second book in my series about ten year old, Jenny Cameron. This book (along with the first, The Hooky Playing Fiasco) takes place in 1890’s California. I grew up watching westerns on TV and I love the Old West so it was a natural choice. What I try to do with the books (while still being historically accurate) is to take problems all children face and let them see the consequences of making choices. It sounds like a lofty goal (and somewhat boring) but the books are anything but ho hum!

In the first book, Jenny and her best friend, Brose, decide to skip school to see a circus train. Having lost her three brothers in a fever epidemic, Jenny will do anything to keep Brose’s friendship. Too often staying friends means taking dares to prove how brave she is. When events spiral out of control, Jenny comes to realize it isn’t taking dares that makes a person brave, but standing up and saying no. At the end of the book, she gets a lesson in true bravery when she has to save not only her life, but her father’s.

I love how the book also had a built in lesson on peer pressure, a problem kids today face too.

With The Cattle Rustling Catastrophe, Jenny and Brose are up to mischief again when they borrow a dime novel from the Cameron family cook. Sent to pick up the family’s wash from the washerwoman, they make an amazing discovery. Miss O’Leary matches the description of the female outlaw, Annie O’Banyon, from the dime novel.

Never one to sit still when there is a problem to be solved, Jenny is determined to help “capture” the cattle rustling female and help her family. Pretty soon, she’s in over her head and an adventure follows. This book deals with lying, spreading rumors and what happens when you “cry wolf” once too often.

Sometimes, I think of Jenny as a cross between Tom Sawyer and Maverick !

There are two more books planned for the series but I’m still doing research on book three, The Ghost Town Gamble.

Linda: What was it like to be part of that contest? Would you recommend it to other writers?

Donna Alice Patton: This was the third year I’ve done the Smartwriter’s Contest. The first year, I submitted a Jenny short story, The Quilting Bee Calamity. While it didn’t win, it did go on to be read and evaluated by Blooming Tree Press for an anthology. The story didn’t make it, but I got some nice feedback from everyone involved.

Last year, the first Jenny book didn’t place. This year, I got the Honorable Mention for the sequel.

I think the Smartwriter’s in a great contest to have your writing validated. Even if you just enter and get a critique, you can get some positive feedback and know where you missed the mark. While some writers don’t think contests have much value, I’m a firm believer in contests. I enter quite a few and am always glad to have the critiques. (Not that I don’t yell and fuss and kick a few tables for a couple of days at the bad ones! But, eventually, I get over it and either agree or disagree with the judges.)

Linda: Tell us about your writing journey; when did it start, and how did you grow as a writer?

Donna Alice Patton: I always tell people I was born to be a writer. There isn’t really a time when I didn’t KNOW that’s what I wanted to be. Not that getting started was easy. Even though I scribbled little stories, or made up millions in my head (usually sequels to my favorite TV shows), I didn’t know that real people were writers. In my mind, writers were some great, exalted creatures gifted with this rare talent. They weren’t someone who cut out coupons or sat around in their pj’s plotting a novel.

I was about eighteen when I first started to take my writing seriously. The first piece I ever had published was a Letter to the Editor. In those days, I was always protesting something! A lovely older couple called me on the phone to tell me they loved the letter and agreed. My first fans!

Since then, I’ve written probably millions of words. Honestly. I wrote short stories, articles, and just about anything else. Happily, I’ve been published in quite a few magazines, online sources, etc. Probably the best thing to happen to me is that I read somewhere a writer should try different types of writing. I never limited myself to any one genre.

For several years, I wrote all the PR for the Autistic Society in a nearby big city. Not that I knew anyone who had an autistic child, but they asked for a volunteer and it sounded like good writing practice. I wrote several books (never published) but I think I gained more skill with each book I wrote. At first, I wrote Gothic romances (which dates me, I’m sure) because those were what I loved to read. Later, I started to read more children’s and young adult books because I remembered how I’d loved them as a child. Books were always the doorways to adventure for me.

After awhile, I realized that I wanted to write more for children than any other age group. (Although I do have two grown up novels in the works too.) My first book, The Search for the Madonna, will come out by EcceHomo Press sometime toward the end of this year. It’s a historical mystery set during the Depression on a small Ohio farm.- I also write a monthly newspaper page, Cookies and Milk, with two friends I met at a writing group. We just published our first full year and are syndicated in several other papers (with a tentative promise to be syndicated in more this coming year.) Several short Jenny pieces have made their print debut in the newspaper. Which proves, even in a small mid-western town, there are great opportunities for writers!

I know you didn’t ask, but it’s a question I always like to know from other writers — what’s your favorite piece of advice? Mine would be try a lot of different writing. Diversify. Switch genres or time periods. Try something totally different. I spent one year happily writing educational worksheets for an online provider. It was great practice on being concise and sifting out what’s really important in biographies. It also gave me tons of material to recycle when I began to write for the newspaper. You’ll never know what you’re best at until you try.

Donna Alice Patton: The picture is of me sitting on the porch of one of my favorite authors, Laura Ingalls Wilder. It was taken on a visit to Rocky Ridge Farm in Mansfield, Missouri

Linda: Donna Alice… thanks so much for participating in Writing Festival Friday. I’ve appreciated the opportunity to get to know you, and look forward to reading your books.

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This post is now part of the Writers Block Carnival, the Books Carnival, the Bookworms Carnival, and the Work at Home Moms and Dads Carnival.