Monthly Archives: April 2018

Author Update: Larada Horner-Miller

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After spending nearly 30 years as a middle school teacher, author and poet Larada Horner-Miller now teaches workshops based on her experience writing two memoirs. Her first memoir, This Tumbleweed Landed (2014), celebrates her Colorado upbringing in the 1950s and 60s. A Time to Grow Up: A Daughter’s Grief Memoir (2017) is her newest book. You’ll find Larada on LaradaBlog, Larada.wix, and her SouthWest Writers’ author page. Connect with her on Facebook and Twitter.

How would you describe A Time to Grow Up: A Daughter’s Grief Memoir?
Through a series of poignant poems and reflections, I celebrate my parents’ legacies, mourn their deaths, and offer words of comfort and inspiration for others who are grieving.

What unique challenges did this work pose for you?
I tried to put this book together the year after my mom died, but the grief was too fresh. I had to wait three years before I could tackle it again. I also added a section about the loss of my dad, and I was surprised how I handled his death with very little writing. But I was my mom’s primary caregiver, so I focused on her.

During the process of writing A Time to Grow Up, were you afraid of revealing too much of yourself in the work?
Yes, I was concerned about revealing too much, and I had to choose not to include some things and to include others. I had to include my recovery story because it is the foundation of who I am today.

Tell us how the book came together.
I worked on this book for over a year. I added parts and then took a break. It was so intense that it took my breath away if I worked on it for too long a stretch. I put it together in Scrivener, printed it, and then went through it line by line. I also had it professionally edited. I found a great editor who loved the book and felt it was a sacred trust to edit.

The cover was an experience. I knew it had to reflect the inner message of the book—I grew up to be the woman I always wanted to be. At first, I was going to use a stock photo, but my Facebook supporters who knew my other work said I had to have a picture from where I grew up. So a girlfriend took a picture of me with Saddle Rock in the background. She also inspired the idea to put a drawing of my mom and dad as angels on the cover. I worked with someone from fiverr.com who didn’t understand that I wanted the drawing to be more opaque (more like it was in the clouds), but we were running out of time, so I took it as it was. I plan to fix the drawing in the future, but right now I like the cover. It’s the first one I didn’t do myself!

TumbleweedLanded150How did you choose the poems and prose to include? Were all the pieces written specifically for this book?
All of the poems were written specifically to heal—they poured out of me about six weeks after Mom died. I had no idea when I was writing them that they would end up in a book. The prose section came from journals I write daily. I used a combination of poetry and prose in my first memoir, This Tumbleweed Landed, and I loved how it turned out. Originally this grief memoir was only going to be a poetry book, but as I typed the poems, I saw the holes in information between the poems about my mom’s three-month struggle and death. I knew I had to flesh out the gaps. I did that by consulting my journals, and then the prose became an integral part of the book.

Do you remember what inspired you to write your first poem?
I didn’t write poetry as a child—it felt so foreign to this country girl—and didn’t understand it in high school. I was an English teacher in my late 20s before I wrote one line of poetry. I do remember the feeling that came with that first poem—complete freedom of expression.

What does being creative mean to you?
Being creative means that I tap into the authentic Larada and make something that expresses a part of me. It can be my writing, graphic designs I do on the computer, a floral arrangement, a dance with my husband—creativity has lots of avenues of expression for me.

How does a poem begin for you, with an idea, a form, or an image?
Poems begin with a line or an image. I just wrote one this last week inspired by an exercise session. I have lost some weight and looked down, and my belly is shrinking. Also I applied for Medicare and am turning 65, and the poem then became about all the changes that are going on in my body and spirit in growing older—so I embraced my elderly Larada. It was quite a process!

Looking back to the beginning of your writing/publishing career, what do you know now that you wish you’d known then?
I wish I had pursued it wholeheartedly instead of as a hobby. I wrote two of my books more than thirty years ago and put them away and did little with them. I wish I had jumped on the publishing wagon and really believed I was a writer. Today I know I am a writer!

What writing project are you working on now?
I am working on a delightful project—writing the authorized biography of Marshall Flippo, the world-famous square dance caller who turned 90 years old last September. We have weekly phone interviews, and I have over 37,000 words already towards the book. We hope to release it in June of 2019. His life was one of absolute joy and laughter—I’d love to say that about my life at 90!

Is there anything else you’d like readers to know about you or your writing?
Today writing feeds my soul and spirit. I am retired and have the luxury of choosing what I do now, and I wouldn’t want to do anything else with my time. Also, I have been presenting memoir workshops at local libraries. I provide informative handouts, time for participants to write, and lots of resources. I used to think watching my middle school students write was the pinnacle, but I can tell you now that watching adults write is even better!

Find out more about Larada and her writing in her 2017 interview for SouthWest Writers.

KLWagoner150_2KL Wagoner (writing as Cate Macabe) is the author of This New Mountain: a memoir of AJ Jackson, private investigator, repossessor, and grandmother. She has a new speculative fiction blog at klwagoner.com and writes about memoir at ThisNewMountain.com.



An Interview with Author Brinn Colenda

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Former U.S. Air Force pilot Brinn Colenda weaves real-life experience and political intrigue into his military thrillers. Homeland Burning (2018) is the second book in the Callahan Family Saga published by Southern Yellow Pine Publishing. You’ll find Brinn on his website BrinnColenda.us and on Facebook.

What is your elevator pitch for Homeland Burning?
Spring 2000: An international organization launches environmental terrorism attacks across New Mexico and the Southwestern United States. Wildfires destroy western mountain watersheds and municipal water systems, breached dams release tidal waves of water to obliterate farms and towns, and stone-cold shooters target helpless civilians. USAF Colonel Tom Callahan struggles to convince a skeptical U.S. intelligence community that enemy attacks on American soil are not only possible but inevitable. Callahan’s political enemies in Washington conspire to distract the President and ridicule evidence, forcing Tom to go rogue. He’ll need all the help he can get from aviators of the New Mexico National Guard, the Civil Air Patrol, and the Ninety-Nines (an international organization of women pilots).

What unique challenges did this work pose for you?
I love the Southwest, especially New Mexico, and I wanted to highlight the culture and the geography, both of which are unique. At the same time, the Southwest is particularly vulnerable to the attacks portrayed in Homeland Burning. I wanted to use fiction to point out some public policy issues that need to be considered and discussed without being preachy.

What was the most rewarding aspect of writing Homeland Burning?
The research. The characters. The storyline. The people I met along the way that helped—pilots, emergency management people, soldiers, firefighters, rangers, police, even a couple of cabinet secretaries.

How did the book come together?
It should not have taken as long as it did. I got caught up in my job as a councilor—but all those meetings and speeches turned into grist for the storyline. Probably about twelve months of actual writing. I am lucky to be in a superb writing group in Taos, which helped me immensely. Southern Yellow Pine Publishing of Tallahassee had published my second thriller, Chita Quest, the third in the Callahan Saga (yes, I wrote them out of sequence chronologically!), and jumped on Homeland, so I did not have any time delay from finished to published work.

What inspired you to start the Callahan Family Saga books? What sparked the story idea for the second in the series?
I got the idea for Cochabamba Conspiracy, the first book in the series, when I lived in Bolivia. Then I became intrigued with what happens to family dynamics when in danger or under other types of stress. The Callahan family happens to be military—military families are stressed under normal conditions. The stories are about ordinary people put in extraordinary circumstances and how they manage to survive and grow. I read a lot of thrillers so I decided to use that format. The idea for Homeland Burning came to me while I was serving as a councilor for the Village of Angel Fire. We were struggling with how to address the issue of emergency management, especially wildfires, and it occurred to me that the United States could be a prime target for ecoterrorism.

Tell us a little about your main characters.
I always have pilots and flying scenes in the stories. In Homeland Burning, I chose to highlight female aviators because I think they are usually overlooked. I am always amazed at how characters grow or crumble. One of the minor characters kept growing in stature and showed me that you could be gentle and kind without being weak. She became one of the stalwarts of the book, saved lives, taught lessons in humility, and essentially saved everybody. The antagonist went a little nuts and the Callahans were taken to the edge of their capacity to cope. I love my characters and often have conversations with them. They are all strong-willed and often they do what they want, not what I want.

You began your writing career later in life. What did your mature self bring to the writing table that your younger self never could have?
I was lucky in my career—I flew cool planes, lived in distant lands, and worked at reasonably high levels in government. I met many interesting and complex people. I developed a “big picture” of life and of international politics that I did not have as a young man.

Who are your favorite authors, and what do you admire most about their writing?
Ken Follett, Isabel Allende, Arturo Perez-Reverte, Daniel Silva, Dick Francis. They all tell compelling stories, beautifully written. I nearly cry when I read Allende and Perez-Reverte. Their translations are better than anything I can write—I can’t even imagine how beautiful their written words would be in the original Spanish.

Do you have a message or theme that recurs in your writing?
My female characters are strong, competent, and confident—able to handle dangerous and often bizarre situations. They are not the kind of women who are usually portrayed in thrillers, but they are the kind of women in my family and circle of friends. I like to take readers to exotic locations to broaden their horizons. I pride myself on the quality of my research so readers learn interesting things as they enjoy the story.

What writing projects are you working on now?
I am writing a Young Adult thriller using some of the Callahan characters. It will “star” the Callahan’s sixteen-year-old son as he spends a semester abroad in Ireland and faces a decision between the easy way out and the right thing to do.

KLWagoner150_2KL Wagoner (writing as Cate Macabe) is the author of This New Mountain: a memoir of AJ Jackson, private investigator, repossessor, and grandmother. She has a new speculative fiction blog at klwagoner.com and writes about memoir at ThisNewMountain.com.



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