I am thrilled that my publisher formatted the first two novels in the Child Finder Trilogy in the Kindle format and that they are now available on Amazon for the standard price of $9.99.
Here are the links…I hope you Kindle lovers get a chance to download and enjoy the stories:
Ladies and gentlemen, please help me welcome my guest-blogger for today, Linda M. Faulkner. Linda is a transplant from New England to Montana, which is the setting of her mystery novel, Second Time Around. In addition to writing fiction, she also pens a column, Business Sense, in The Weekender, a monthly entertainment newspaper (Orlando, FL) and articles for both regional and national magazines such as Three Rivers Lifestyle and Rough Notes. A tremendous body of Linda’s work appears in the insurance industry, where she has developed, written, and instructed numerous continuing education workshops and seminars. Visit Linda’s web site at: http://www.lindamfaulkner.com.
Well, Linda, it sounds like you’ve been involved in the writing world for some time! How far back does your interest in writing go?
LF: I’ve been writing since I was a kid. I joined both MWA and RWA in the late 1980s and served as Chapter President of RWA’s New England Chapter from 1990-1994, during which time I came this close to publication. I first became published in 2002 with a monthly newspaper column in The Weekender, an entertainment monthly in Hunter’s Glen, Florida and went on to publish in several magazines, both regional and national. My first mystery novel, Second Time Around, was published in January 2009.
MA: You’ve written non-fiction features in newspapers, and non-fiction articles and training documents for the insurance industry…so what brought you to the fiction realm?
LF: Probably because that’s what I prefer to read. I like becoming involved in the characters; I invest myself in their lives and the outcomes of their decisions. I can do that with a very well-written short story, but it’s over so soon!
MA: I know what you mean about immersing yourself in your character development. I like to tell folks that I “mentor” my trilogy’s protagonist, Special Agent Patrick O’Donnell, much as I would mentor young officers in my real Air Force career. Did any of your experiences in your prior professional life contribute to your novel?
LF: In an ironic way, my writing inspired my professional career. I’ve worked in the insurance industry for over 30 years. After founding my first insurance agency at age 28, I found myself a bit bored 11 years later: you can’t climb up the ladder within an organization when you’re the boss! I was invited to teach insurance continuing education seminars by the local agent’s association and after a few years, began writing the seminars. That led to me opening another insurance business where I develop, write, and instruct insurance seminars. As a result of that endeavor, I’ve been recruited to contribute articles to a national insurance magazine. Writing insurance texts, on deadline, really helped me hone a number of my writing skills. And no, I don’t base my fictional characters on people I know—although I sometimes “borrow” the names of people I know for my characters, with permission, of course.
MA: I know you from the Rocky Mountain Mystery Writers of America chapter and email loop. Is there a “local color” to your novel?
LF: My debut novel is a mystery, which is set in the Rocky Mountains of western Montana. What do you do when the dead body you stumble across turns out to belong to your father, the father you thought abandoned you in infancy? That’s what Timmie Campbell asks herself. Turns out her mother has been lying for years: about her father’s abandonment, about him not contacting them, about a lot of things. Unfortunately, Timmie can’t dwell on her mother’s deception because she has to deal with the stalker who’s monitoring her every move with cameras hidden in the trees outside her mountain home in western Montana–not to mention the additional bodies that begin piling up. Sheriff’s deputy Jack Kendall further complicates her life. He’s investigating the murders and is intent on resuming their relationship–the one he ended the previous summer. Unfortunately for Jack, Timmie’s not the least bit interested in romance. Her priority is stopping the killer before he eliminates everyone her family.
MA: I see. There’s a little Rocky Mountain romance to add a twist! How did you develop your characters?
LF: I tend to develop all my characters the same way. First, I choose 2-3 important personality/character traits, a goal/mission, and move on from there. In the case of Timmie Campbell, the protagonist in Second Time Around, I also made sure a couple of her personality/character traits conflicted with those of Jack Kendall, her love interest and “partner” in solving the mystery.
MA: What makes Timmie strong and what makes her weak?
LF: Timmie’s strengths are her compassion and perseverance; they’re also her weaknesses. I enjoy building characters in shades of grey rather than black and white; it makes for a more interesting personality and allows for changes and growth down the line.
MA: I presume since it’s a mystery you have one or two nemeses that Timmie has to deal with? Tell us about him/her/them.
LF: Well, the murderer is the “bad guy,” but her parents also played that role, to a lesser degree. Because of her upbringing and her parents, Timmie has issues with people who lie. That’s a thread through the story, which might be considered a nemesis.
MA: Since you live in the real-world setting of your fictional story, have any real experiences shaped the plot?
LF: The setting is real: pretty much my own backyard. And the critters are real, too, although I changed some of their names. The opening scene, where Timmie is walking her two dogs down her driveway in the forest when the dead body comes rolling down the hill, happened to me—except for the dead body part. My husband and I were walking our four dogs, and we heard a rustling in the forest. The puppies went on alert and, being the writer with the vivid imagination, I said to Stephen, “Wouldn’t it be neat if a dead body came rolling down the hill?” He said it would be lovely, but I don’t think he really meant it. The opening for the book was born.
MA: (Chuckling) You know, only mystery writers and law enforcement professionals think that way! What’s next after Second Time Around?
LF: I’m currently at work on two mysteries: Two-Timed, a follow up to Second Time Around, and Death Benefits. I’m hoping to complete each of them by the end of January.
MA: Will we see Timmie and Jack again in your next novels?
LF: Funny you should ask this question right now. I have always tended to move on when a book was complete. But my fans (gosh, I love saying that!) have been pushing for another book about Timmie and Jack. So, I’ve been asking fellow writers their take on writing series versus standalones to get a different perspective. When I began Two-Timed, it was with the same protagonists, Timmie and Jack, and I lost interest after a few chapters. But now that I’ve resumed the story from the POV of one of the minor characters in Second Time Around, a suggestion from another writer, it’s moving right along and keeping me very involved. I suspect I’ll be doing some of that in the future: writing several books from differing POVs of characters involved in all of them. But I also see me writing standalones, too.
MA: That’s a neat way to approach it – a series, but from the point of view of different characters…gives people a new perspective each time. I want to thank you for stopping by and chatting with me and my readers. I encourage everyone to visit Linda Faulkner’s website for more information about her and her new novel, Second Time Around:
http://www.lindamfaulkner.com and Author Exchange Blog: http://www.lindamfaulknertips.blogspot.com
The New York Journal of Books just posted a great review of my second novel, Child Finder: Resurrection! Please stop by and read the review, but here’s an excerpt in the meantime:
“What really differentiates this work from others of its ilk is Angley’s extensive forensic background. He uses it to enhance the credibility of the investigation going forward. Correct terminology regarding weapons, references to government practices, and handling of top-secret documents, even the interaction between agencies—it’s all spot on. The authenticity immediately brings the reader into the middle of a high level, shadowy government operation that reeks of the real deal. It is not difficult to imagine that this story may not be fiction after all, that possibly such a unit actually does exist somewhere in our government.”
I was invited to appear as a guest on a very special and unique website, The Good Men Project: Real Stories from the Front Lines of Modern Manhood, which periodically features interviews with men in a blog called, Man-to-Man.
“The Good Men Project: Real Stories from the Front Lines of Modern Manhood” is a collection of first-person stories about what it means to be a man in America today ~ from Pulitzer winners and Poet Laureates to ex-cons, Pro Football Hall of Famers and just regular guys. The authors describe their defining challenges, losses and triumphs through honest and simple truths, and are hoping to spark conversations about what it means to be a good man today.
Among the men profiled:
That’s why this book and DVD—along with the web site, the film, the online discussions and public events—is so important; it is a forum for men to talk and to be heard, to tell their stories and encourage other men to do the same.
Want to wake in the morning with more creativity? Then pay attention to what’s on your mind when you fall asleep.
Research has proven that the mind uses its most recent daytime images and thoughts to create dreams. So, too, the mind produces the mood with which you wake after sleeping.
No matter what story you work on, do not think about it as you fall asleep. Instead, before going to bed, do something to put you in a relaxed state. Play some soothing music, preferably without vocals, which can plant new thoughts. Yoga, maybe? Or walking? If you’re one of those people who fall into bed exhausted, then concentrate only on your breathing. Then trust your mind to work on what’s necessary since you’ve put it at ease.
The state you wish to create for your mind is one that you have not directed. The mind knows what’s necessary, better than you know what’s important. Get into the habit of allowing your mind to work for you.
You’ve heard the saying, “I’ll sleep on it.” Then the person goes about doing something else. In the morning, the answer comes. It’s the same principle. Trust your mind. Your writing and creativity will be better for it.
Please visit Mary Deal’s website for more wonderful articles like this one: Write Any Genre.
I had the wonderful opportunity last night to appear as a guest on Bob Calvert’s Talking with Heroes radio program. Bob is a good friend of the Military Writers Society of America, and on his show last night he was interviewing several MWSA officials as well as the recent Book and Author of the Month winners. I’m proud to say my second novel, Child Finder: Resurrection, resulted in my selection as the January 2010 MWSA Author of the Month. I blogged about it before, and you can go back if you like to read the original post: Mike Angley Is Author Of The Month January 2010!
Here’s the link to my interview on the Talking with Heroes Radio program. My interview begins around the 43 minute mark, and runs for about eight minutes. Enjoy!
My special guest today is a very prolific mystery writer. Marilyn Meredith is the author of over twenty-five published novels, including the award winning Deputy Tempe Crabtree mystery series, the latest Dispel the Mist from Mundania Press. Under the name of F. M. Meredith she writes the Rocky Bluff P.D. crime series. No Sanctuary is the newest from Oak Tree Press and a finalist the mystery/suspense category of the Epic best in e-books contest .
She is a member of EPIC (Electronically Published Internet Connection), Sisters in Crime, Mystery Writers of America, and is on the board of the Public Safety Writers of America. She was an instructor for Writer’s Digest School for ten years, and served as an instructor at the Maui Writer’s Retreat and many other writer’s conferences. She makes her home in Springville, CA, much like Bear Creek where Deputy Tempe Crabtree lives. Visit her at http://fictionforyou.com
Marilyn, welcome aboard! Those are some wonderful accomplishments and affiliations. It sounds like writing is in your blood. Is it something you always did, or did/do you have other passions besides writing?
MM: I’m the mother of five children. The first part of my life consisted of all the things you do when raising a family, but I was always a reader. The writing I did at the time was mostly PTA newsletters and plays for my Camp Fire Girls to star in. I had all sorts of jobs from being a telephone operator, teaching in a school for developmentally disabled pre-schoolers to owning and operating a licensed residential care home.
MA: So, were you writing throughout all these other avocations or did it come later in life?
MM: I made a couple of attempts when I was in my early thirties, sent them off, was rejected and threw the manuscripts away. When my sister researched our family genealogy, what she found contained a lot of unaswered questions. I wrote two fictional historical family sagas based on the genealogy and after many, many rejections managed to find publishers for both. When I was done I knew I wanted to keep on writing–and mysteries seemed the logical choice since that’s what I was reading.
MA: Quite an interesting journey! I’m impressed by the family connection to your early fiction work. Now, none of your early professions seem to lend themselves to the kind of novels you write, but did you find any inspiration from them?
MM: None of my careers inspired my writing, although I’ve certainly included bits and pieces of different jobs and experiences into some of my stories.
In my Deputy Tempe Crabtree series, Tempe is a combination of a female police officer I did a ride-along with, a female resident deputy I wrote a profile article on for the local newspaper, and a Native American artist I’d met on several occasions. In my Rocky Bluff P.D. series, because I feature different members of the department and their families more in one book than another, I have to say they are based on many police officers I’ve met over the years. I’ve had a lot to draw on. We lived in a neighborhood full of police officers and their families; my son-in-law was a 15 year veteran of a beach community police department; and I now have a grandson who is a police officer in a mountain community. I belong to Public Safety Writers Association and many of the members are active or retired law enforcement.
MA: It sounds like law enforcement is certainly part of the family history, so I can see the connection to your work. Tell us about your current projects.
MM: Dispel the Mist is number eight in the Tempe Crabtree mystery series. While helping in the investigation of a popular county supervisor with ties to both the Mexican and Indian communities, Tempe finds herself in deep trouble and has an encounter with the legendary Hairy Man. Our local Indian reservation, which is often the setting for many of the books in this series, has a place called Painted Rock which is a cave of boulders with a pictograph of the Hairy Man–the only Big Foot pictograph in California. When I visited I knew Tempe would also go there.
No Sanctuary is number five in the Rocky Bluff mystery series. I like to say it’s about two churches, two ministers, two wives and one murder.
MA: You mentioned you have had two major protagonists throughout your writing career. Tell us about them.
MM: The heroines in both series are strong women though very different. In both cases, the women lost their first husband and raised a child alone. In Tempe’s case, her son is grown now and off to college and Tempe is married to the pastor of the local church.. In No Sanctuary, Officer Stacey Wilbur’s boy is only five and she’s still single though she is romantically interested in one of the Detectives in Rocky Bluff P.D.
Tempe always sees things differently than the detectives she works with, often going off on her own to make sure the right person is being blamed for the crime, a strength…but one that often causes her problems. Her Indian heritage comes to play often–in this particular book it’s the legends her grandmother told her and dreams that may prophecy the future. Officer Stacey Wilbur is small but able to defuse bad situations without relying on her physical powers and she’s willing to take on new challenges which she does in the latest book when she’s asked to help trap a pedophile.
MA: Since you write mysteries, I assume you have a fair share of “bad guys,” but are there any particular ones that pop up throughout the series?
MM: There are always bad guys in every book–the murderer. But an ongoing character who has caused Tempe problems in the past has a turnaround in this book, Detective Morrison. In the Rocky Bluff novel, one of the police officers, a friend of Stacey’s and Doug’s is a bit on the bumbling side, sometimes to the detriment of a case.
MA: Your depiction of the Painted Rock is a fascinating real-life experience and feature you embedded in your work. What about others? Do you include aspects of other real laces or people in your novels?
MM: When I had the opportunity to visit the Painted Rock site on the reservation and see the pictograph of the Hairy Man, I knew this all had to be included in the plot of Dispel the Mist.
I’ve been a member of several churches over the years, and known good ministers and a few who weren’t so good, and I’ve known their wives, church secretaries, female choir directors and of course a lot of this is part of the plot of No Sanctuary.
MA: What’s next for Marilyn Meredith? Are you going to continue the series?
MM: I have another Rocky Bluff P.D. book called An Axe to Grind coming out after the first of the year, and my next Deputy Tempe Crabtree mystery will appear in September. I just finished another Rocky Bluff novel and I’m starting a new Deputy Tempe mystery right now. Both series are available in all the usual places–except I’m the only one who still has the first two in the Rocky Bluff series which can be purchased from my website. The middle two are only available as e-books on Kindle. The latest and all of the Deputy Tempe Crabtree mysteries are also available as e-books.
MA: Marilyn, thanks for coming by the Child Finder Trilogy and sharing your background and your writing with us! I am in awe at all you have accomplished in your life, especially the fact that you have published over 25 novels!
I love a good mystery and I encourage everyone to visit Marilyn’s website to learn more about her and her stories: http://fictionforyou.com
MA: My guest today is arguably one of the most interesting writers I have had the pleasure to feature on the Child Finder Trilogy blog. Michael Cogdill is blessed as one of the most honored television storytellers in America. His cache of awards includes 24 Emmys and the National Edward R. Murrow for a broad range of achievement, from live reporting to long-form storytelling. His television credits as a journalist include CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, and The Today Show, and Michael’s interview history crosses a wide horizon: The Reverend Billy Graham, Dr. Mehmet Oz of Oprah fame, Dr. Henry Kissinger, Abby Hoffman, Senator Hillary Clinton, Senator John McCain, Howard K. Smith, James Brown, Keith Lockhart of the Boston Pops, and many other newsmakers. His coverage credits include Presidents and Vice Presidents of the United States.
Michael spent ten years writing She-Rain, letting it evolve into a world of fiction drawn from his upbringing in Western North Carolina but reaching far beyond. His other writing credits are Cracker the Crab and the Sideways Afternoon – a children’s motivational book available at www.CrackerTheCrab.com, and a self-help volume, Raise the Haze. Michael makes his home in South Carolina with his wife, Jill (a children’s book publisher), and their golden retriever, Maggie. He’s currently working on his second novel and works of non-fiction as well.
Michael, I am truly honored to have you guest-blog with me. Your credentials are extensive and impressive (we’re not talking about one or two Emmys…24!), and your background in the media intrigues me. Please tell us more about that.
MC: My television career started only a few days out of my college graduation, and those who saw my early work would never have guessed the success I’ve been blessed with twenty years later. I was an angst-infused stiff with big hair, terrified eyes, and a devotion to delivering bad news in the worst possible way.
But a teacher in the sixth grade, on the heels of an unintentionally terrifying command that I stand and read a creative assignment out loud in class, cast a calming look onto my red-facedness and said, “You are going to be a writer someday.” No matter how often I failed as a television writer and performer in my early career, her belief in me, ever alive in my subconscious, stood me in the good stead of never-give-up. 24 Emmy Awards later — with a bio no one saw coming — I owe the cosmos a word of thanks on every breath I draw. Seeing what the good Lord has done in my life, where I’ve arrived from where I started, the most avowed atheist might say, “Surely, this small-town southern boy took a lift on some Almighty hand. He gives me not choice but believe in miracles.”
MA: Isn’t it fascinating how certain teachers and their encouragement stick with us throughout our lives? I, too, had a similar experience early in life which nudged me forward to my writing career. But writing is about much more than just one or two supportive comments. It’s also about life itself. Tell us how your life inspired your decision to write fiction.
MC: It began as a catharsis. My father was a violent alcoholic whose pathway to sobriety led through a black and low thicket, very near the swamp of an early grave. Only after I left at seventeen – abandoning the house of my rearing in search of a home of reliable peace — did my dad decide on living rather than soon dying. In his journey to a new way of life, I saw discipline, real faith, astounding humility and gratitude, a graceful man emerging from nearly hopeless swale. Having heard stories about my maternal grandfather’s opium addiction — which killed him early — I decided to explore the healing that seems inherent in the writing of prose. Something about writing a thing down grants the heart a harness over its tormentor. I wanted a novel, but had no great story. So I began with the telling of small stories, linking them with humanity as I knew, and imagined, we can be — at our worst and finest — letting the people of my only-child imagination lead. And to She-Rain they have shown me the way.
People ask, in no small wonder, how I arrived at so radical a love story, so wild an adventure into the deep nature of humankind. I tell them – I was raised by strong women. They helped me imagine strong women. The hands and hearts of women governed the hand of this writer to “the end.”
One more point on why the novel. Fiction celebrates the striving for beauty. I’m pretty desperately in love with trying to write a sentence that shines a warm light on the eyes of the mind. A light running to our innermost humanity, surprising us with how gracefully we can rise off the hardest times to a living art. Fitzgerald is among my heroes, his own addiction aside. A man who can write of a sea the color of blue silk stockings, a hotel the shade of roses, or a yacht in the repose of youth; anyone who could imagine the beauty and tragedy of Gatzby’s longing is an artist who must inform the work of my soul and hands. If someone finds Scott Fitzgerald’s hand, from way beyond his grave, somehow brushes the slightest touch against She-Rain, I’ll consider the book an artistic success.
She-Rain is a southern novel, compared to Cold Mountain, To Kill a Mockingbird, and the work of Pat Conroy. I’m very humbled by such company.
MA: Wow. Yours is a powerful story of life, love, challenge, faith, forgiveness and redemption. Many people look at a landscape and see a few trees, perhaps a hill, and two or three colors. But you are the kind of person who can look at the same scene and see a painting, the graceful brushstrokes of God as He continuously perfects Hs masterpiece, three-dimensional, multi-colored and with an orchestra playing in the background. You have a great gift. Your personal life obviously inspired She-Rain, but what about your professional life…any influences?
MC: Definitely. Countless figures in She-Rain take their seed from across my experience. Big Ms. Ed draws from an extraordinary woman whose stunning philanthropy I covered on television. Rev Lew grows from two radical Christian ministers — one of whom I count among my greatest friends and confidants. He can hold a sermon out over a crowd with a magnetic eloquence, letting it fall at times with jarring hilarity, right to the brink of the profanity that is his everyman vocabulary — one that draws far more people than it repels. He’s deeply learned, kind as a saint, with a lore that made some beautiful history, shaking up the church in the name of civil rights. And to those who may fear She-Rain is a religious book, I can assure you, Rev. Lew is a truly transformative figure who speaks in a language everyone can grasp.
But two women truly lead She-Rain. Mary Lizbeth, a white girl considered a nothing from nowhere, and Sophia, an African American child of scandal raised in world-altering privilege, come from so many great women I have known. They remind each of us we’re capable of a greatness reaching far beyond the walls of our times.
One more derivative from my career as a television journalist. As a news anchor, I hold human grief in my hands — on my very breath — night after night. It streams through that screen into millions of lives, overflowing too many minds with a notion of hopelessness. Human beings can live out a ruthless unkindness toward one another and themselves. You’ll see this, in some “high-def” prose, through more than one scene in She-Rain. In fact, my co-anchor said one act of violence in the book came with such vivid power off the page, she had to put the book down to rest for a moment. Yet it is, too, my experience as a journalist that we human creatures are vested with a capacity to work tremendous good into the world, and we ache to do so. We’re a compassion democracy, our majority longing to see a love prevail among us. The light of our times always outshines the dark, and I’ve had the joy of telling such stories of forgiveness, caring and seemingly boundless human greatness on television. She-Rain rose as a physical legacy I want to leave the world. It’s a tome of my desire not merely to spread around bad news as a journalist. I want to do something about it. To become a living solution of hope. In She-Rain, you’ll ultimately see humanity at some of its highest beauty as I imagine it. That imagination lives distilled and inspired by real people I’ve been blessed to know.
MA: Tell us about She-Rain’s hero.
MC: I grew him straight out of my boyhood, my father’s times as a boy who went hungry during the Depression, and my uncle, who lived with that opium-addicted grandfather I never knew. His greatest weakness is living down to the low expectations around him, steeped in fear, malice and victimhood. His strength becomes a willingness to let courageous women help break the hell out of his life. They help him turn the breakage of it into a life he never saw coming.
MA: Given the nature of She-Rain, the telling of a story about life, love, humanity, I assume all is not rosy. You must have an antagonist or two, someone who torments your main character?
MC: The single (and truly nefarious) bad guy — A.C. — emerges into a living stand of evil who comes to represent the worst of us all. The villains in She-Rain sweep across the full horizon of humankind. They remind us all to answer a calling not to be, entirely, ourselves. Yet this love story actually celebrates the best of our possibilities. Even in a love triangle, beauty can emerge in lives willing to own up to our deepest longings and live out a radical kind of love. Very topical in times of scandal surrounding governors, senators and a certain golf superstar.
MA: Very contemporary indeed, but then, aren’t the scandals of today the story of mankind itself? We exist on a planet where forces of good and evil, love and hate, forgiveness and shame all “duke it out” in ways that torture souls to seek the nourishment they need. I get the sense that She-Rain comes not just from your own personal story of your father, and the many life stories you “covered” as a journalist. What other influences are at work in the novel?
MC: The living with addiction as a child and being brought up by the hand of great women. My experience growing up during the Civil Rights movement and seeing people scarred by racism, class battle, and language-literal religious fundamentalism — all this makes a mark on She-Rain as well. She-Rain draws its breath, also, from old family stories — and a few I’ve heard from friends, including the living octagenarian minister who inspired Rev. Lew. I believe every writer draws story through the prism of someone’s experience, then casts that experience around. When you read of Rev Lew in She-Rain, for example, I pledge you’ll share my experience of unstoppable laughter. I owe that not to myself but to that man I’m blessed to know.
MA: You mentioned plans to write beyond She-Rain. What comes next?
MC: I’ve started another novel — The Belles of Honeysuckle Road — and am completing a non-fiction piece — Raise the Haze — taken from my experience covering the seismic impact of so-called ordinary people. Doing my job is a schooling in extraordinary humanity. My work as an inspirational speaker finds its way into Raise the Haze, and I hope it inspires in its audience a belief in the seismic nature of a life live far beyond its place and time. A life committed to the improvement of other lives. It’s about the legacy we see in the likes of Herb Kelleher, Richard Branson, Mother Theresa, Billy Graham — though the people I speak about are anti-celebrities. Utterly anonymous in the current media age. Yet the difference I’ve seen them make has a way of elevating an audience at the heart level. Inspiring people to live up to a hidden greatness within. It’s about leadership toward a legacy that will improve lives long after the breeze of our final breath. I’m working Raise the Haze with a terrific co-writer in London, Chris Dines — a great young man who’s a living symbol of heroic giving of the self. In a world of sometimes flimsy life coaching and prosperity theology, Chris is a breath of real hope. We don’t quite know what we’ll do with the book yet, but we’re heartened by our reviews!
MA: That’s an entirely new and different project, and one that also sounds as inspiring as She-Rain. But with so many colorful characters in She-Rain, is there any chance you will return to them and continue their stories in future books?
MC: My wife, Jill, vows I will write a sequel. When you get to the end of She-Rain, I invite you to tell me if you’d like me to fulfill this vow. I believe in being a writer deeply connected with readers. I want to hear from you. Please, get in touch. I work in television, which means it’s impossible to hurt my feelings!
MA: Michael, I have to tell you that speaking with you has been inspiring. Just getting some hints and flashes of She-Rain has been uplifting. I read the sample pages of She-Rain that you posted on your blog and found just this snippet to be engaging. There’s no doubt you have a bestseller on your hands. I invite my readers to visit Michael Cogdill’s blog for more information about him and She-Rain: http://she-rain.blogspot.com/
I’ve also done something for Michael that I’ve not done for any other author I’ve had guest with me on the Child Finder Trilogy. I’ve created a separate post dedicated to She-Rain that includes its synopsis, reviews, and more information about this special author. Please visit it here: She-Rain Dossier
Michael, thanks again for stopping by to visit with me and my readers.
I am pleased to present the She-Rain Dossier, a repository of information about author Michael Cogdill and his novel, She-Rain. Here you will find reviews, a synopsis about the novel, and information about and by Michael Cogdill.
I recently interviewed Michael for the Child Finder Trilogy’s blog, and I invite you to visit this particular post to read more about this fascinating author and his story:
Mike Angley’s Interview with She-Rain Author Michael Cogdill
She-Rain Reviews:
From Actor/Writer/Director, Peter MacNicol http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001493/:
“I’m reading your beautiful novel, and if I may add to what you’ve undoubtedly heard, such gorgeous prose, such beautiful writing, such singing speech! So Southern in its music and perfect word choice. You write like no other living Southerner, certainly none that I know. Only among the dead can I find your forbearers – somewhere between “A” for James Agee and “W” for Thomas Wolfe. It is so exquisitely sounded out on the page that oddly I find myself muttering certain passages out loud to myself — common enough occurrence when I read poetry, but rarely prose. Bravo!!”
From Dr. Cheryl McClary, author of The Commitment Chronicles:
“Once in a great while something unflinchingly beautiful touches our lives and we are forever changed. Such is the gift of She-Rain, Michael Cogdill’s first novel. He weaves a masterpiece of woundedness, love, death, and redemption that breaks your heart as it mends your soul. Just as the mountains embrace the cool breath of the she-rain, the novel cradles you until the final word. A soon-to-be bestseller!” Cheryl McClary Ph.D., J.D., Professor, attorney, and author of The Commitment Chronicles: The Power of Staying Together. (National Library Book winner, 2007)
From John Jeter, author of The Plunder Room:
“Michael Cogdill has managed to do what few journalists have done before: Move with stylistic grace from the formulaic demands of television to poetic prose that shimmers through his debut novel. Some of us have taken more than a decade to break the enslaving bonds of journalism’s tried-and-true habits so that we might be able to write serviceable fiction. But many don’t get close to the mellifluous beauty the author here seems to pour out as effortlessly as crystal-clear moonshine. At the same time, Mr. Cogdill has retained his reporter’s keen eye and his sharp ear … that of an orchestra’s maestro (or, more accurately, the sub-decibel hearing of a blue-tick hound dog). On a vast and multilayered canvas, Mr. Cogdill takes us into the brutal lives of harrowingly real characters — some we’ve seen in other places in other circumstances, wrought by other hands — yet he carves them deeply into our souls so that we bleed with each of them in every aching step toward their redemption.”
From Ruta Fox, Writer, Editor, Entrepreneur (Creator of the AH Ring, made famous by Oprah):
“Michael Cogdill is the heir to Pat Conroy. His feel for the nuances, ear for the language, and ability to vividly describe the beauty of rural North Carolina are astounding. His storytelling ability, his infectious characters, and his authentic Southern soul permeate this marvelous, monumental, and moving book.”
She-Rain Synopsis:
A child living as prey to an opium-addicted father, drowning in a gene-pool of lowest expectations, feels shackled for life to the tobacco farms and cotton mill poverty of 1920′s western North Carolina. Some of the only beauty he knows rises in the eyes of a girl, surviving times harder than his own. Emerging from their adolescent love, the narrative rises far out beyond that opening milieu of violence, ignorance, and language-literal religious fundamentalism. It branches toward likely the least expected figure ever in a Southern novel. Her mystery begging the question — what might have been, had an African-American infant born of scandal been placed on the arms of one of the grandest American fortunes of the early 20th Century? Raised utterly cloistered in the clefts of Appalachia, steeped in her adoptive mother’s Vassar education, classical piano, the refinements most mountain people considered as distant and alien as the stars. When that son of an opium addict happens upon her — each in uniquely desperate times – they set off the beginnings of seismic change to the worlds they’ve known. Driven by what Faulkner might call human hearts conflicted deep within themselves — the feel of it terrifying and beautiful at once. What overflows them distills to ways of life that melt the hard rocks of racism, classism, the self destruction of living down to the worst human expectations. By its contemporary end, the telling of this story has moved readers of both genders to tears of our best human possibility. I’m deeply humbled by this, and by how the story entertains with humor, the grit of real adventure, and forms of love least expected.
Writer’s Statement, She-Rain:
This book evolved into that rare piece that bridges the hearts of men and women. Diverse readers report that it changes them for the greater, they never want it to end, even comparing it to the work of Scott Fitzgerald. But it’s unique in its bi-racial content — reaching out far beyond the bounds of race so common in the book market. The novel ultimately begs the question what might have happened had an African-American infant of scandal been placed on the arms of a great American fortune in the early 20th Century, raised cloistered in Appalachia in a home lush with books, classical piano and the love of a Vassar-educated mother. What follows when she’s set loose on the world around 1929, in confluence with a white teenage boy from the wells of mountain poverty? That thread twines with the isolation of North Carolina textile mills and affairs of love running from the clefts of Tarheel mountain living through one of the soaring mansions of Newport, Rhode Island.
The manuscript already finds readers pounding tables for the film, calling it an instant classic, a WOW, a joy on each page. While writing it, I carried on my career as a seasoned television performer and producer, public speaker, and writer with 24 Emmys and the National Edward R. Murrow Award. Beyond the art of the piece, I am an entrepreneur who believes in ownership of the intellectual property. Thus, my commitment to place under the book’s launch a major publicity blast, including on-line book signings via Skype and a dedicated web presence to generate intimacy with readers around the world. I am determined to grant the book a success that somehow measures up to the gift of so many who have delved into the manuscript and emerged gracing it with praise.
Bio:
Michael Cogdill is blessed as one of the most honored television storytellers in America. His cache of awards includes 24 Emmys and the National Edward R. Murrow for a broad range of achievement, from live reporting to long-form storytelling. His work proves the power a message can hold when it reaches the human heart. Michael’s television credits as a writer/performer include CNN, CNBC, MSNBC, and The Today Show. His interview credits are about as varied as you can get: The Reverend Billy Graham, Dr. Mehmet Oz, Dr. Henry Kissinger, Abby Hoffman, Senator Hillary Clinton, Senator John McCain, Howard K. Smith, James Brown, and countless eminent members of Congress along with other key newsmakers around the country. His coverage credits include Presidents and Vice Presidents of the United States and major figures in entertainment.
Michael is a sought-after inspirational speaker, whose messages deeply move the most diverse audiences. Much of his speaking draws from the extraordinary heroism of seemingly ordinary people Michael has covered in more than twenty years in television. He inspires with fun, and the pathos of deeply personal storytelling, leaving audiences with astounding power to change destructive ways of fear, despair, and even the meanness that makes news. They leave with an utterly new lens on life and the events within it. A world-changing view of themselves, empowered to build human institutions and human lives into soaring stories of success. Michael carries the wisdom shared with him during some of the worst of times to help people rise to their personal greatness. Thanks to the great souls he’s been blessed to know and cover, Michael’s speaking helps people change their times with new and magnetic leadership.
Michael is a writer working across genres that include children’s literature, the Southern novel, and self-improvement non-fiction. His latest completed work, a novel entitled She-Rain, will launch in 2010, with a global publicity blast. Michael is currently at work on two self-improvement pieces of non-fiction: God’s Contact Lens (which has the attention of writer Philip Yancey) and Raise The Haze (an e-book in partnership with peak-performance coach and coming Bob Proctor Youth Movement speaker, Chris Dines, in London).
Michael was born in Asheville, North Carolina, June 11, 1961 — the son of a truck driver and a mill worker. He is extremely proud of his working-people roots, drawing on their deep wisdom and life lessons in his reporting, writing and public speaking. Michael is a cum laude graduate of the University of North Carolina at Asheville with a degree in communications, emphasis on the liberal arts. He married Jill Kremer Cogdill in 1985, and together they’ve founded a company, Cracker the Crab LLC, publishing children’s literature and offering a product line with emphasis on raising self-esteem in the young. Michael currently anchors the 6:00 and 11:00 news weeknights on WYFF News 4, NBC in the western Carolinas and Georgia.
The very prestigious writers’ website, FiledBy, has named Mike Angley one of its Featured Authors! I am truly honored by this distinction, especially because I was selected from among the 3 million authors who belong to the site. Thank you, FiledBy, Inc.!
Enter your email in the box below to sign-up for my newsletter, and I'll drop you a line when new articles come up.
My strict privacy policy keeps your email address 100% safe & secure.