Last week we published “Far Away,” an essay by Ishion Hutchinson that considers V.S. Naipaul through the criticism of Derek Walcott. These two great Caribbean writers were touchstones for Hutchinson as he left Jamaica to become a writer in New York, and their decades-long feud over fidelity to one’s origins informed his anxiety over that […]
Original source: https://www.nybooks.com/online/2022/10/29/poet-in-the-academy-ishion-hutchinson/
The Bush Clinic follows a doctor who is forced to support a hospital where she encounters tribal women fighting for their and their children’s lives in a war that does not value them. Where did the idea for this novel come from and how did it develop over time?
Thanks for asking. I was so pleased to find reviewers who call THE BUSH CLINIC femme-driven. Ha, ha, that was my intent. In all societies, women live in a network of women, although that practice is not dramatized in our novels or movies. For female heroes as far back a Angie Dickinson”s Police Woman, women characters operate in a world of men. Where were her sisters, aunts, daughters, sorority sisters, female colleagues who held strong positions like judges or reporters?
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071034/
Women working together is a novel idea in some writing genres. Mostly we see a few forced together like in refugee camps, or the wives of men in leadership like in the church.
I started with the writing principle that the female characters drive the plots of my stories. Nothing happened except by their pushing. That’s in all my stories, but not so much LGBTQ+. I looked at women in combat zones and saw that they had no protection, no cover, no rights even to clean water. How did they manage to feed the children and stay clean?
Women were corralled together and could not resist abuse or separation. My idea was that women talked among themselves and found strategies for how to respond to abuse and support each other, except some were ostracized.
In a free emerging democracy, women must secure the right to vote, the right to open a business, to own property, to choose when to have kids. Access to capital is critical for women to have a voice in business and in politics. Not a token woman on the board of a corporation, but a self-made woman who succeeds by the work of her own hands.
So I developed several of these types in a fantasy story set on another planet to see what obstacles they addressed, what bad behavior they indulged, and how much social power they could accrue. The fantasy series starts with THE BUSH CLINIC, and several novels follow our connected tribal women and intruders from Earth.
The male characters were not neglected. In fact, some get hero roles as militia leaders of generals in the peace-keeping corp. A woman is more interesting when an interesting man pursues her.
What were some of the emotional and moral guidelines you followed when developing your characters?
I feel that women compete and undercut each other. I feel that there’s a hunger among readers to see women who are generous in spirit and want the best for others, but that’s an ideal, isn’t it? Finding the oxygen for oneself is a daily struggle, so which woman has the energy to fight for the group? Unfortunately, altruism is learned behavior.
Just the same, women emulate some who they admire — either for looks or clothes or attracting men or the voice of outrage. The undercutting comes when a genuine position gained through effort is lost or not available. Women (and men) turn to other strategies.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
The solutions I found for women in a combat zone were partly about how to handle the children for education and guiding them into different expectations. The tension between Dr. Greensboro, an offworld doctor with the bush clinic, and her growing native assistant Brianna Miller rang true, I believe, for the limitations of how women help women.
What is the next book in the Tribal Wars series about, and when will it be available?
In THE BODY POLITIC Brianna Miller returns to Dolvia as a grown woman with experience and the access to capital to make a difference among the savannah tribes. Her voice in the militia is strong because she contributes connections with offworlders and ideas for managing the kids at risk.
The tribal women who the reader has gotten to know in the first novel each come to the public square in Cylay and partake in self-torching, a protest act against the oppression of Rabbenu Ely. We feel the lost because we know each of the women as individuals.
Brianna Miller takes on an assistant named Kelly Osborn who is my heart’s favorite in the series. Kelly is a poet and trying to find her place, betrothed to a warrior who she fears, but still relating her love of the savannah and the people in her published poems. The differences between cynical Brianna Miller and emotional Kelly Osborn are stark and tell us more about women working together.
Author Links: GoodReads | Twitter | Facebook | Website
On Dolvia, Lt. Mike Shaw demands Dr. Greensboro’s doctoring skills at the hospital, forcing the closure of her bush clinic. She witnesses forced labor, forced migration, and the threat of an epidemic from bad water. She sees how tribal women–often wearing burkas–find solutions for saving the children in a conflict zone, and she commits to the their cause for Home Rule.
Brianna Miller is an isolated girl–a mixed-blood orphan–among the Dolviet tribes. With the lessons from Dr. Greensboro, the abuse from soldiers, the sisterhood among victims, Brianna prepares for a future she will choose for herself. But first she must travel offworld.
Original source: https://literarytitan.com/2022/10/29/women-working-together/
Icarus Never Flew ‘Round Here follows a lonely rancher on a contemplative journey that explores our idea of God and how we can become servile to that idea. What was the inspiration for the setup to your story?
The initial spark of this story came from driving through the same Oregon High Desert that’s depicted in the novel. It’s a lonely stretch of highway. The kind where significant chunks of time can pass without seeing another car. This produces an immense loneliness. But oddly it’s sort of a euphoric loneliness, especially if you’re the kind that can appreciate the beauty that a high desert has to offer, because it makes you feel like you’re the only one alive. And, if you’re inclined to believe in god, it makes you feel closer to him/her/it. It makes you feel special.
So, the idea of putting a character out there on the edge of the horizon sat around in my mind for quite some time. Then, as I began to read and teach authors like Kafka, Sartre, Camus, and Dostoyevsky, I became fascinated by absurdism, existentialism, and the like. The specific idea that became the driving force behind Icarus Never Flew ‘Round Here is the clarification Jean-Paul Sartre provided for existentialism in a famous speech turned essay titled Existentialism Is a Humanism. It was there that he outlined that people traditionally believed that our essence precedes our existence, meaning that the idea and purpose of human beings was conceived in a creator’s mind before we were born. Existentialism posits that the order is reversed, that we exist and then it is us who determines our essence.
I wanted to critique the traditional religious view of that debate by showing the dangers of thinking god has ordained all that you do. Historically, there has been a lot of pain caused by this idea, especially because it’s so difficult to rid yourself of once the idea takes root. I believe it to still be one of the biggest cancers in modern American culture.
Dale Samuel is an interesting character. What were some driving ideals behind his character’s development?
Toughness and self-sufficiency are probably Dale’s two defining characteristics. And although Dale is rather rough around the edges from the beginning, those characteristics give him a nobility that I think readers can respect. He is in some ways an ode to the kinds of hardworking, rural people that can be found in the wide-open spaces of Idaho and Oregon and, of course, the rest of “Middle America”.
Eventually, Dale’s toughness and self-sufficiency work against him, as it does with many of us stereotypically stubborn Americans, because he thinks he can figure everything out by himself. Or, when rather humble and undecided, he tends to go with his gut instinct to break the tie. It’s through this type of thinking that I critique all of us who find the meaning in life’s events that we desire to exist. We create our own meaning but think that we’ve discovered god’s, which creates a sense of elation that few recover from.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
Demonstrating the flaws of thinking our essence precedes our existence is the central theme, which is why the novel is told non-linearly and why there is no real inciting incident. I attempted to marry content and form by having the reader witness events in Dale’s life without knowing why they were happening. The why, or the essence, comes after the event as you piece things together. So, that theme dictated not only what the novel is about but also how I constructed it and sequenced the final product.
Another more subtle theme, that’s also prevalent in my first novel Ways and Truths and Lives, is the idea that everyone possesses little bits of relevant truths. If we pay attention to all of Dale’s encounters, all the people he comes into contact with dispense tiny fragments of wisdom. Wisdom that could have saved Dale a lot of trouble if he wasn’t so headstrong. This is a lesson to us all, and through it I try to celebrate the idea of democracy merged with the more Eastern idea of multisided truth.
What is the next book that you are working on and when will it be available?
I have a third novel idea that is now mostly in note form, although a few practice chapters have been drafted. It will center on a priest who has lost his faith and a whole host of characters that come to him for guidance. The book, as I see it now, will center on how the church (at large, not specifically Catholicism) represses our sexuality in unhealthy ways. That project is, however, probably several years away.
What you’ll most likely see from me first is a book of poetry, which I hope to have fairly ready after I finish my master’s in creative writing (2024). The bulk of my poetry centers on the idea that absent and/or delinquent fathers are a perfect metaphor for a god, assuming one exists, that has abandoned us (i.e., the Christian god).
Author Links: GoodReads | Twitter | Website
Years of living and ranching in the lonely and desolate Oregon High Desert has given Dale plenty of time to think. He specifically ruminates and wrestles with the idea of whether he and his wife Janice are cursed like all of humankind, or if somehow they are different—special even. Armed with only a thimble full of theological understanding, Dale must figure out whether he indeed has a preordained essence or if he simply exists, and what the consequences of either would be.
Dale’s inevitable descent into frustration and erratic behavior illustrates the irony that so many of us are guilty of: when we try to emulate the idea of god that we’ve developed in our mind based mostly on intuition, we end up becoming servile to an idea, the results of which often ripple and reverberate in disastrous ways.
The only question is, does the horizon say anything back?
Original source: https://literarytitan.com/2022/10/29/this-is-a-lesson-to-us-all/
Smuggled follows a teen girl that is abducted into child slavery and the efforts of her friend to find her and bring her back to safety. What was the inspiration for the setup to your story?
As an adolescent psychologist I have heard and seen all manner of child exploitation, abuse, trafficking, really all sorts of suffering of kids as modern-day slaves.
But nothing could have prepared me for the day this teen boy opened up and told me how his day starts at 4 AM in the morning, to clean up this big house, prepare breakfast for the whole family and get the younger children ready for school. I held back tears as I paid attention to every word and expression on his gaunt face. I kept my facial expression, focused, brave and impartial. One thing I have learnt whilst working with teenagers is, if you want to hear their whole heart and story, don’t frighten them by reacting just listen and be interested otherwise they stop sharing.
The boy was tall and slim. As he told me this story he sometimes sat on the chair and other times he walked about in the room. When he was silent, his eyes always appeared to be in deep thought yet blank. He said he had come from Germany and was living with this “sort of auntie”. Right there was my cue. I knew this was a case of child exploitation and modern-day slavery.
I encouraged him to report to the Safeguarding office at the college and took him there.
The next day, the kid never came back.
For the next month, I experienced Post Traumatic Signs. As I drove to work, I would look out hoping to spot him. I stopped at any kid who looked anything close to him. I was gripped with guilt and regret. Why didn’t I take him straight to the police station, or some safe shelter. This haunted me on and on until one day I said ENOUGH!
I have to write about what our teens are experiencing because every time I’m quiet and don’t bring this to the masses, a kid next door is suffering in silence….screaming but unheard. And that when I started writing the book SMUGGLED.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
The signs of teen trafficking and why we as a society must have the wisdom to spot and the courage to stop.
The powerful role of teen peers in identifying and reporting these occurrences.
How teen trafficking affects all of us as a society.
What is one thing about child trafficking that you think is misrepresented in the media?
Children who have been trafficked are usually portrayed as dirty looking, unkempt, unlearned slaves trapped in houses. Most of the time, these are children living amongst our own children in schools and colleges or in other settings where we visit on a daily basis. They are bright kids who have hopes and aspirations. Kids who have been deceived or coerced with the promise of a better life that obviously turns out nasty.
Traffickers and slave masters are shown as bad aggressive people. But on the contrary to this media image, traffickers are very often regular neighbours, co-workers, business people, notable professions, even religious leaders walking with heads held high yet have skeletons in the closet, they are benefiting from exploiting kids, modern day slavery.
The worst bit is how many of us are part of it ignorantly. For example, when your cleaner is from an agency that exploits people you become part of it. When you take your car to the cheapest car wash in town run by rogue exploiters, and you have these young people swarming to clean. When your handy person sends a young lad to do your work. Most of us never ask questions even when we feel iffy.
For example, there’s this case at this salon where I frequented. The young girl at the time must have been the age of my own teen kid. Yet she was working in this salon on a school day, standing all day. I was there for hours, and I did not see that kid take a break. Needless to say I reported it because I’d rather err on the side of caution. My instincts were right. The kid was soon interviewed and taken into care – she was obviously a minor.
Here’s the uncanny thing, the community ostracised me for reporting and “ruining the kid’s prospects” This is the kind of thinking that is surely skewed I tell you.
It does take Wisdom to SPOT and courage to STOP. Because without reporting it can not be stopped and this takes a willingness to be derided even by your own neighbours.
What is one thing that you hope readers take away from Smuggled?
Child trafficking is all around us and it’s more common than we think. We all can do something to spot & stop it – if we are willing.
That’s why together with the book we offer a free workshop Wisdom to SPOT & Courage to STOP.
Author Links: GoodReads | Twitter | Facebook | Website
What’s even better is that, with this book; SMUGGLED you get a FREE TICKET to our Workshop – WISDOM to SPOT, COURAGE to STOP. (Worth over £667 BUT free for YOU with this book.)
Original source: https://literarytitan.com/2022/10/29/screaming-but-unheard/
The 5-Time Rejected Gamma and the Lycan King follows a Gamma werewolf who is bonded to a lycan king but wants nothing to do with him; he must prove he is different and that they are meant to be together. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
The vibe I was going for in the setup for Lucy was, “Again? Really? Let’s just get this over and done with”, whereas the one for Xandar was, “This isn’t fair. I just met you”. The inspiration stemmed from the connection between failures and second chances…well, in this case, the sixth chance since Xandar is Lucy’s sixth-chance mate. And the failures I was looking at aren’t confined to relationships.
When I wrote this scene, I saw it as a person’s resistance to trying something again after failing so many times in the past. It could be a passion we’d given up because we were taking longer to get the results we wanted, an idea that had been shelved because we no longer believed in it after the number of times it was rejected, or even a dream we kept as a dream because the effort we put into turning that dream into reality never seemed to have amounted to anything.
Lucy opened herself up to love before. She did put in the effort to be liked, to be loved. But for various reasons explored in the book, her past mate-bonds never worked out. If it never worked out, not for lack of trying on her part, why should she keep tormenting herself in something that she felt she wasn’t good at and feel bad about herself after? So, when she met Xandar, she automatically assumed that he, like the rest, would find something wrong with her, something that she should be ashamed of and would make him want to reject the mate-bond.
By contrast, before Lucy, Xandar’s heart had never been given to anyone. And being the crowned prince and subsequently the king, he never had to put in much effort to be liked or loved. Whereas respect was something that others had to earn, it was Xandar’s birthright. Meeting Lucy changed that. She was closed-off and dismissive of him, spoke minimally when answering his questions like they were holding a formal conversation, and altogether lifeless and indifferent when it came to their bond. Nevertheless, he is determined to open up to her and love her, hoping she’d feel safe enough to open up to him.
The inspiration for this setup is basically how something extraordinary may begin to happen just when we decide to give up, how the arrow pulls back only when it’s about to propel forward. It is frustrating not to know whether to keep knocking on the same door or find another door entirely, and this story explores how when one woman decides to stop knocking on doors altogether, being content with everything she already has, is exactly when the right man comes knocking, only to have her close her door on him, one that he continuously knocks on with romantic gestures, attentiveness and constant reassurance through his words and actions that he wasn’t like the rest.
Lucianne, despite having been rejected multiple times, maintains a strong personality and sense of self-preservation. What were some driving ideals behind your character’s development?
With each failed mate-bond, Lucy had grown to learn that she’d be okay on her own. At some point, she even felt that she was better off on her own. It was difficult for her to let Xandar in, learn to trust him, and believe that he would never let her go.
To develop her character, it was really about making her aware of how different Xandar was to her compared to her past mates. And this awareness was brought about by the people close to her. It is difficult to be objective when one has been treated poorly so many times, so awareness was planted in Lucy’s mind by supporting characters before the thought blossomed on its own.
Another thing was a matter of self-belief. I don’t disagree that she has a strong personality but she’s not one with the highest self-esteem. When she began considering the possibility of being with Xandar, she was hit with the undeniable fact that she wouldn’t just have to be a mate, she’d have to be the queen – a role that terrified her in the beginning. It was a fear of being an imposter and not being good enough. She didn’t see herself the way her friends, family, and allies saw her. It took time, encouragement and progressive assimilation into Xandar’s professional world before she truly believed she was the right person for the job, not only because she had the required skillset already, but because she had the attitude and character required to stand on the pedestal with him.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
There were so many, but I’ll just keep it to the top three. The first was definitely the importance of always getting up again even after being belittled, beaten, bruised and destroyed. As long as we’re still alive, there’s no doubt there’s something we can do, something that can make a difference in the world if not in our own world.
The second was attentiveness and effective communication in a relationship. We are all creatures of emotion and the lack of these two aspects leads to emotional starvation that may turn into distance, feelings of abandonment, and even resentment. I wanted to explore how two people, after deciding to give each other a chance, go all out in making things work, in seeing and hearing the little things that others don’t see or hear, and in resorting to solution-oriented communication to strengthen their relationship as opposed to leaning towards emotional outbursts and blame-shoving to get a point across.
The third, and arguably the most important one, was the vitality in knowing that you matter, no matter what anyone says. Most, if not all of us, have been through phases in our lives where we were either told or implied to be a failure, a lost cause, a complete nothing. It hurts more when it comes from the people we love or respect. It hurts most when it comes from ourselves. The message this book is trying to convey is that we have the final say in whether we matter – and we do. Just because we haven’t reached the same heights or found the same happiness as the people around us yet doesn’t mean we’re failures. It doesn’t mean that we’re nothing. Each of us is a work-in-progress and that’s something. That something matters. We matter.
What is the next book in the Coalescence of the Five series that you are working on, and when will it be available?
Book Two is entitled The Rogues Who Went Rogue, and it’s already available on various pay-by-chapter platforms. It’ll be released in paperback and pay-by-book eBook in July 2023. This sequel delves deeper into the world of the rogues and introduces readers to a species that shut itself away from the werewolves and lycans for more than two centuries – vampires. Like the shifters in Book One, vampires possess their own unique abilities that may or may not complement wolves and lycans. New friendships will be formed, past foes will emerge, a buried truth will force itself out, and an unknown power will surface. It’s a tale of love, strength, acceptance and forgiveness, along with a dash of humor.
Author Links: GoodReads | Amazon
After 5 failed mate-bonds, she’ll do anything to escape another heartbreak…
Gamma Lucianne learns that her prayers to the Moon Goddess were ignored, and she’s being bonded once more. But this time, she’s not giving an inch—even offering the lycan king a chance to reject her on their first meeting…
… but he refuses.
The lycan king owns everything… except her heart.
King Alexandar considers his mate a gift from the Goddess. Yet she seems determined to reject him. His patience is tested as he finds any and every way to win her heart and protect her, especially when Lucianne becomes a magnet for danger.
Certain creatures don’t want her as queen, and they’ll do anything to stop Alexandar from making her his. Even if it means eliminating her.
Alexandar won’t stand for anyone disrespecting his mate, let alone harming her. He’ll remove anyone who stands in his way. He will win Lucianne’s heart, no matter the cost. Blood will be shed, and in the end, will the king and queen still be standing?
Original source: https://literarytitan.com/2022/10/29/it-doesnt-mean-that-were-nothing/
The Perfect Sister follows a young woman who joins a sorority in hopes of starting a new life, only to realize her secrets are not meant to remain hidden. What was the inspiration for the setup to your story?
I have always been inspired by Gossip Girl, and Pretty Little Liars. I wrote a trilogy called High School Queens. I took the girl Bethany from that story and originally put her in college. The story went completely different from her, so I made it its own trilogy.
Tinsley wants nothing more than to leave her past behind her, but her new sisters won’t allow that to be the case. What were some driving ideals behind your character’s development?
I think the biggest character development for her is being able to grow from her mistakes. She did all these things to fit in, and she was starting to do them with Kappa Zeta. She learned to have a backbone and be herself without fear. It was why at the end she stands up for Codi against the Kappa Zeta sisters.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
I honestly wanted to explore the themes of forgiveness. People make mistakes all the time, but can you forgive them and yourself for said mistakes. You see both sides of letting go of people’s mistakes and using it for revenge.
What is the next book that you are working on and when will it be available?
My next novel Ride will be out in November. It’s a story of two sisters as they deal with trauma. One of them is a recovering alcoholic, while the other is trying to find her love for music again. It’s inspired by the music of Lana Del Rey.
Author Links: GoodReads | Twitter | Facebook
Tinsley came to Campbell to escape the problems and mistakes of her past. She thought she would have a fresh start, but at Kappa Zeta, there’s not such thing as a fresh start or hidden secrets.
Remember girls, you better keep your secrets close to your chest and make sure none of your sorority sisters have a knife they’re dying to dig into your back.
Original source: https://literarytitan.com/2022/10/29/be-herself-without-fear/