Avalon Books - Author! Author!


	Read some interviews from past editions:
		S.J. Stewart June, 2008
		Zelda Benjamin April, 2008
		Shirley Marks December, 2007
		Donna Wright December, 2007
		Carolyn Brown August, 2007
		Roni Denholtz June, 2007
		Tara Randel April, 2007
		Sydell Voeller February, 2007
		Sheila Robins December, 2006
		Ann Holt October, 2006
		Cynthia Danielewski July, 2006
		Jane McBride Choate March, 2006
		Kathryn Meyer Griffith January, 2006
		Mel Taylor November, 2005
		Kathleen Fuller September, 2005
		Tracey J. Lyons July, 2005
		Ludima Gus Burton May, 2005
		Holly Jacobs March, 2005
		Sandra D. Bricker January, 2005
		Cheri Jetton September, 2004
		Heather S. Webber July, 2004
		Karl Fieldhouse May, 2004
		Shelley Galloway March, 2004
		Ilsa Mayr January, 2004
		Kathy Carmichael November, 2003
		Dorothy P. O'Neill July, 2003
		Joani Ascher May, 2003
		Patricia DeGroot March, 2003
		Nancy J. Parra January, 2003
		Barbara Meyers November, 2002
		Christine Bush September, 2002
		Debby Mayne July, 2002
		Jean C. Gordon May, 2002
		Charles E. Friend March, 2002
		Norma Seely January, 2002
		Glen Ebisch November, 2001
		Gina Cresse September, 2001
		John Paxson July, 2001
		Terri Alcock May, 2001
		Clifford Blair March, 2001
		Amanda Harte January, 2001
		Kent Conwell November, 2000
		Carolyn Brown September, 2000
		Annette Mahon July, 2000
		Marjorie McGinley May, 2000
		Jack Lewis March, 2000
		Amanda Harte January, 2000
		Joyce and Jim Lavene November, 1999
	Return to the current Author! Author! interview:
		Sherry Lynn Ferguson August, 2008


Author! Author!: November, 2004
Click on images to learn more about these books. An Interview with Kathryn Quick


How long have you been writing and how long did it take to get published?
	I’ve been writing since 1990 and was thrilled to get published in 1999.
Have you ever used real people as characters?
	I get inspired watching people. Although I’ve never actually used a real person as a character, I have used incidents from life. For JESSIE’S WEDDING, my second Avalon release, I used an incident that happened when my son, Jarrett, was six-years old and a ring bearer in his aunt’s wedding. He refused to hold Jessie’s, the flower girl, hand; she was ‘yucky’ to quote him. But eventually she won him over and during the reception, he was bringing her champagne glasses full of cola. They became inseparable. On the way home, Jessie told her grandmother she was going to marry Jarrett some day. Some nine years later, a book about a ring bearer and flower girl who reunite some twenty years later to walk down the aisle again was born. Other characters in other books are collages of people I’ve met or read about.
Where do you get ideas for plots?
	Plots usually come to me in snippets during conversations with friends or in daydreams (when I’m supposed to be working). I try to write each down as I hear or imagine an incident that is promising. A news clip on the Thunderbirds and my job in government was the basis for BLUE DIAMOND, my first release from Avalon Books. It is about a jet pilot who needs the heroine to help save the air demonstration team from being cut out of the budget by a feisty Congresswoman. The problem is, however, the heroine lost both her brother and fiancŽe, who also were fighter pilots, in a plane crash five years earlier and she is not too anxious to relive that memory.
How did you start writing?
	I had a pretty vivid imagination as a child. I used to cut out pictures from the newspaper and use them as paper dolls. Then I made up some “adventures” for them. When I got older, I started writing some of these down as short stories. They led to a job on the school newspaper where I became the editor in chief and eventually won a local writing award for a story I did. Much later, I became a stringer for a local newspaper. I had a column – A Quick Look Around – for many years until I decided to try my hand at romance novels.
What inspires you to write?
	I get inspired when a friend or fan takes the time to let me know how much they enjoyed a story I wrote. I still feel as excited as I did when I first got published every time that happens.
How do you develop your characters?
	This will sound strange, but my characters seem to develop themselves. As I get deeper into a story, the characters develop real personalities and act in ways that are typical to their persona when put in situations during the course of the story. I think characters that develop this way are something that happens to most writers. The characters simply do not allow us to do something atypical. You can sort of hear them inside your head saying “Now you don’t really expect me to do that, do you?”
What can you tell us about your latest book for Avalon?
	FALLING FOR YOU was plotted between periods of New Jersey Devils Hockey games and while waiting for my son to take the ice at the Bridgewater Sports Arena. It’s a twist on a Cinderella-type plot, opening with the heroine flat on her back on the ice with her son begging her to get up before someone sees them. The heroine has no idea why a hunky sports hero with an 18-room estate and a Porsche wants with a single mom who lives in a cracker box housing development and drives a ten-year old used car. While she tries to figure out if he is her prince or just her imagination on overdrive, what ensues is a romantic comedy of errors involving a pair of black strappy sandals and an ice skate. I think this is my favorite book to date.
Are you working on anything else for Avalon?
	I’m hoping to finish a holiday book within the next few weeks in time for consideration for the next holiday season. Tentatively titled ‘TIS THE SEASON, the heroine’s father, a long-time department store Santa who loves the holiday season, is fed up with Christmas commercialization and quits his day job. To get him to stay, the heroine accept s challenge from him; teach one person the true meaning of the season before the holiday parade in which Santa traditionally arrives. The catch is that her father gets to pick the person. Her father picks the manager of the very department store in which he works, a determined workaholic who has little time for anything else. As the heroine does her best to show the hero that the gift-giving is merely a tradition and Christmas is more a matter of spirit, she uncovers a secret he’s been carrying with him since childhood and manages to heal his heart along the way.
Do you have any advice for aspiring writers? Or for anyone wanting to submit to Avalon?
	The best advice I can give is to leave your ego at the door never give up. Rejections are part of the job; you don’t take them personally. Besides, each one is proof to the IRS that you are really a writer for all the office equipment and supplies you are going to deduct from your income tax. Seriously though. There is a quote I think about on when I get feeling discouraged. “Failure is simply giving up when you didn’t realize how close you were to success.” I don’t remember who said it, but it’s so true. My father also taught me a lot, but among the most important things he did was that gifts are to be shared. So every now and then it’s best to look over you shoulder; not to see if anyone is catching you, but to reach back and see whom you can pull along with you toward success. As far as submitting to Avalon Books, if you have a good story you think fits within the guidelines, by all means do! I very much enjoy writing for the romance line and find everyone willing to help and open to ideas and suggestions.
When do you find time to write?
	I have to make time. It may only be thirty minutes, but that translates into a page or two of the next chapter or a few good pages of editing or rewriting. That thirty minutes a day can take you closer to the last page where you can type ‘The End’ and know your story is finished being told; not finished with the rewrites and revisions, mind you, just a first draft. A wise author once told me ‘the first draft doesn’t have to be good, it only has to be down on paper.’ But you do burn out. When that writers’ block sets in, each person has his or her own way or breaking through. For me, chocolate and watching either ‘Camelot’ or ‘My Cousin Vinnie’ (depending upon what I’m working on at the moment) usually works.
What are you working on now?
	I’m mulling around some plot for a series called GRANDMOTHER’S RINGS. I’m planning to do some stories about two sisters and a brother who used their Grandmother’s Rings to find love. I hope to incorporate an Amethyst (my mother’s birthstone), a Citrine (my father’s) and a Sapphire (my sister’s) into the plots and titles of each book. I’m on character sketches right now and exploring threads to tie the plots together.