Monthly Archives: June 2023

Author Updates: Patricia Gable & Linda Wilson

Patricia Gable and Linda Wilson are former teachers who now write middle grade and children’s books, respectively. These members of SouthWest Writers (SWW) each had at least one new release within the last year and have an interview posted on the SWW website.


Patricia Gable has authored essays, memoirs, children’s stories, and educational articles. In 2021, she published the first in her middle grade Right Series, The Right Address. Her latest release is The Right Choice, book two in that series. Visit Patricia’s author pages on Amazon and SouthWestWriters.com. For more about her work, read her 2022 SWW interview.


What would you like readers to know about the story you tell in The Right Choice?
When writing this series, I wanted to feature good characters that relate to the reader. They have problems along the way, but they are resilient. Strong friendships develop, and they support each other. Also, they have no devices to distract them. Set in the early 1980s, readers will learn some things that are different from the world today.

Annie and Willie, introduced in The Right Address, return in the second book along with a new character. Tell us about your main characters and why a middle grade audience will care about them and their plight.
Christopher is a new character in the second book of the series, The Right Choice. He is a talented basketball player, the youngest and best player on the high school varsity team. When his dad is deployed to the Middle East, he and his mother move to a small town to live with his grandmother, a woman with wise advice. He is allowed to continue playing at the high school for the current season. A college recruiter comes to watch the boys play and he sets his sights on Christopher. But when misfortune strikes, will Christopher ever realize his dream?

Annie and Christopher do not get along at all in the beginning. When six-year-old Willie gets hurt, Christopher takes care of him. Annie sees that Christopher is not as bad as she thought.

When did you know the characters were strong enough for a series?
In 2005 I entered a short story contest with two homeless children, Willie and Annie, as characters and was awarded Honorable Mention. The story kept nudging me in the back of my mind. When my sister and I took a novel writing course, I used the story as a springboard to write the first book. Then I just couldn’t put the characters away!

Do you have a message or a theme that recurs in your writing?
My message is for middle graders to not give up on their dreams. If you have an obstacle in the way, take another path but always move forward.

What is the greatest challenge of writing for the middle grade market?
Middle grade readers are a wonderful audience. My personal challenge is making my books and stories exciting, funny, and inspiring to readers.

What projects are you working on now?
I’m working on the third book in the series, featuring the kids from the two previous books. When a winter storm closes school, the friends hang out at Christopher’s house. After board games and television, they decide to play hide-and seek. Willie hides in the basement and discovers an underground tunnel built during prohibition. What will he discover?


Linda Wilson is the author of the Abi Wunder Mystery series and other books for children. Her two newest releases are Waddles the Duck: Hey, Wait for Me! (2022) and Cradle in the Wild: A Book for Nature Lovers Everywhere (2023). You’ll find Linda on her Amazon author page, on her website at LindaWilsonAuthor.com, and on Facebook. Visit the Writers on the Move blog where she’s a contributing author. And read more about her writing in SWW’s 2021 interview.


Waddles the Duck was inspired by a family of mallards that came to live in your swimming pool. Did you also have a personal experience that inspired Cradle in the Wild?
My picture book, Cradle in the Wild, was inspired by an idea I found in a craft book that I used when my two daughters were in grade school. The idea is to gather natural materials that birds use to build their nests, such as dried leaves, grass, bird feathers, soft parts of weeds and flowers, small pieces of bark — virtually any type of materials birds might find in the wild. In the spring, we would scatter these natural materials on the grass and watch for the birds to discover them and carry them away. The birds didn’t always discover our materials. I remembered how disappointed we were when they didn’t find our contributions to their nests. The two young sisters in the story were disappointed, too, when the birds didn’t come. So, they brainstormed about what they could use to attract the birds. I love to sew and especially love colorful fabric and sewing incidentals. My collection of ribbon, yarn and lace gave me the idea of adding these colorful snippets to the natural nesting materials, and the story was born.

What topics does Waddles the Duck and Cradle in the Wild touch upon that would make them a perfect fit for the classroom?
Waddles: The main message I want readers to come away with is to realize that feeding waterfowl foods that are nutritious for them (such as waterfowl pellets available at pet stores, dandelions, wheatgrass, chopped lettuce leaves, and cracked corn) are far better for them than feeding waterfowl bread. The boy in the story must discover a solution to finding a good home for a mallard duck family that has taken up residence in the family pool. He realizes that the ducks wouldn’t survive for long due to the chemicals in the pool and the lack of natural food that ducks ordinarily find in their natural habitat. I’ve purchased little rubber ducks and plan to have them float in a tub filled with water to demonstrate to students what happens in the story.

Pygmy nuthatches, March 2021, gather to wait out a storm and eat the thistle in Linda’s bird feeder.

Cradle: I’ve presented a program for Cradle that has worked well with students and adults a number of times now. I begin by passing around a collection of about ten bird’s nests that I’ve gathered over the years and discussing birds while the students are feeling the nesting materials, especially the soft fuzzy insides that birds use for protection of their eggs and hatchlings. I show the adults a terrific book — Bird Watch Book for Kids: Introduction to Bird Watching, Colorful Guide to 25 Backyard Birds, and Journal Pages, Dylanna Press, 2022 (Amazon) — which suggests taking water, sunscreen, etc. on bird-watching trips with their children. The book encourages children to keep track of the birds they see in the book’s journal pages. I show the parents a bird guide for adults to keep on hand and tell them about bird-sound apps they can save on their phones. I either read or tell the Cradle story, then give them a craft I’ve put together in a Ziplock bag for them to make a bird nest of their own at home.

Tell us about the journey to choose the evocative and poetic title for Cradle in the Wild.
Creating the title Cradle in the Wild was just one of those inspirations that came to me one day. Many times I write title ideas in a notebook over many days and weeks. Sometimes nothing works. Then if I’m lucky the aha moment arrives and I’ve got my title.

You released two books in less than one year. How did you accomplish this?
I have to chuckle at this question because, though these book ideas marinated for quite some time before they made it to the page, I wrote both books during COVID when we were all stuck at home. While doing that, I thought I needed a special COVID project, too, so I erected a bird feeder close to my kitchen window. So, while writing the books I enjoyed watching many kinds of birds frequenting my feeders.

In your last interview for SouthWest Writers, you shared what you wish you’d known when you began your writing/publishing career. What did you learn from publishing Waddles the Duck and Cradle in the Wild?
I learned something about marketing from writing these two books. As a self-published author, for a few years I tried to make sales by placing ads on my social media, I wrote blog articles, I became the newsletter editor for the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI), and more. Though I enjoyed doing all of that, I made very few sales. Once I accumulated the five books that I’ve published (a chapter book and four picture books), I began selling at book fairs. It’s a lot of work, but I started meeting readers and selling books. Since I don’t have a publisher backing me up and helping to distribute my books, I’ve decided my biggest reward is coming from meeting local readers. This is how I plan to spend my time from now on — sharing my stories with parents, grandparents, and their children in venues where they can also purchase my books.

What writing projects are you working on now?
Sometime in 2023, I’m hoping to finish the second book in my chapter book trilogy, Secret in the Mist: An Abi Wunder Mystery, which is a ghost/mystery story. I’m also working on creating a new Tall Boots book which will be a side-by-side Spanish/English bilingual book, and after that making my other picture books bilingual. And for a new project, I want to write a book about turtles/tortoises. The working name of my character is Twiddles.


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




An Interview with Author Lynn Ellen Doxon

In September 2022, nonfiction author Lynn Ellen Doxon branched into historical fiction with her debut novel, Ninety Day Wonder (Becoming the Greatest Generation, Book 1), released by Artemesia Publishing. You’ll find Lynn on apbooks.net and her Amazon author page.


Tell us about the book Ninety Day Wonder. What were the origins of the story?
Ninety Day Wonder is the story of a Kansas schoolteacher who was drafted in June of 1941. He had just been accepted into medical school, fulfilling a lifelong dream, when the draft notice came. After basic training, he trained for a position in the coastal artillery and was posted to Fort Worden on Puget Sound. While there he wrangled an opportunity to become a pharmacist, furthering his interest in a medical career. The weekend after he finished that training the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. The Army, in immediate need of officers, sends him to OCS, where, in 90 days, he becomes an antiaircraft artillery officer,

The story is based on my father’s experience in World War II. There are a few things in the book that didn’t happen to him — for example, meeting Sarah Gale while at OCS and falling in love, but some of the most surprising things did actually happen to him.

Who are your main characters, and did they surprise you as you wrote their story?
The main character and narrator is Eugene Sinclair. Other characters include Tom Morris, a friend from Kansas who goes off to pilot school as Gene goes to OCS, and Joseph Zook, a 16-year-old Mennonite who runs away from home to join the Army. Captain Henderson is the CO of the AAA Battery, for whom Eugene becomes executive officer, and Lieutenants Brasseux, Carson, Douglas, Edelstein, Sessions, Tilton, and Wright are officers of the battery during at least part of the book. And of course, Sarah Gale Simmons, a young civilian employee of the OCS base. In the original story arc, Sarah Gale would not even be in the third book of the trilogy, but through her letters to Gene and her adventures as she joins the newly formed WAACs, she takes over the book and becomes the favorite character of many readers. When I finish Gene’s trilogy, Sarah Gale will get a book of her own.

Can you give readers a glimpse into the main settings of your novel?
The novel follows Gene from a small town in central Kansas to basic training at Camp Callan (now the Scripps Institute and Torrey Pines Golf course), to Fort Worden on Puget Sound, to Camp Davis on the southern coast of North Carolina, to Fort Bliss (which at the time also included the White Sands missile range), to the Orlando Air Base in Florida and finally, to Jungle Warfare training in Australia. While each is an army base, some are new, some old, and some not even fully formed when Gene arrives.

What are some obstacles you faced while writing Ninety Day Wonder?
I have written three non-fiction books, hundreds of online, print magazine, and newspaper articles, and scientific publications, but this is my first novel. Novels are MUCH harder than anything else I have written. I researched the period, the equipment, the Army, the bases extensively, then had to write the story so that it did not sound like a report on the research. The learning curve was pretty steep, the time in process almost five years, but I finally finished and got it published.

What sort of decisions did you make about including historical figures and events while crafting your novel?
Events are historically accurate. For officers of the rank of colonel and above, I used real names in most cases. I debated how realistic to the Army of the 1940s to make the dialogue. I ended up using words like Jap, Negro, and damn, but avoided the more offensive pejoratives and expletives for the most part.

Was there anything surprising you discovered while doing research for this book?
I was surprised to learn that my father was trained as a pharmacist. I had always assumed his knowledge of medicines came from the fact that he was a chemistry and biology teacher. I also learned that the attitude of the majority of Americans was that we should stay out of the war right up until the Pearl Harbor attack. I discovered that there was a radar in Hawaii that detected the Japanese planes coming in, but the lieutenant those radar operators reported the sighting to thought it was a squadron of American planes that were expected that day and did not pass the report along. I had also been unaware of the frequent Japanese bombing raids on Darwin and other parts of Australia.

What was the most rewarding aspect of putting this project together?
My father spoke very little about his experience in the war, and I think the most rewarding part was learning what he did. This first book follows his experience pretty closely, although I departed from the actual timeline in the second half. The next two books are not so close to his actual experience, but his experiences gave me a strong basis for the story.  Simply having the book published and out there is also very rewarding.

When can your readers expect book two?
I had about 240,000 words down on paper and my publisher told me it could not be one novel, so it became a series at that point. I do not feel I did as good a job as I could have at making a suitable ending for the first book, but I made it into three books. I promise a better ending in book two, which will come out in April 2024.

You said you started writing at a young age. At what point in your writing life did you finally consider yourself a writer?
I started telling stories at the age of 3 or 4 and started writing them down in second grade. I came in second in my first writing contest at the age of 18 (and have come in second in numerous others since then — never first). The local newspaper editor published my letters home (slightly edited to remove personal comments) when I traveled around the world on World Campus Afloat at the age of 20. My first book was published in 1980. I wrote a newspaper column called “Yard and Garden” for the Albuquerque Journal for 15 years, and numerous other articles in my position as Urban Horticulture Specialist with the New Mexico Cooperative Extension Service, but all of this was incidental to other jobs and I didn’t consider myself primarily a writer. Early in my retirement, I was making about $1000 a month writing online articles, but I still didn’t consider myself a writer. I didn’t really consider myself a writer until I was deep into the first draft of Ninety Day Wonder (my fourth book) and joined SouthWest Writers. I was surprised to learn that there were other people who considered themselves writers who had much less writing experience than me.

What are you most happy with, and what do you struggle with most, in your writing?
I can tell a good story and hold people’s interest. The plot and characters come easy to me. I am almost never at a loss for words and can quickly get lots of them down on paper. I have the most trouble with writing highly emotional action scenes. Because of my beginning as a scientific and educational writer, I use long sentences, too much passive voice, and excessive description. I have to go back and edit several times before I am satisfied, and Lee Child still beats me hands down every time. I am considering making Sarah Gale’s book a thriller just to challenge myself.

Writers can sometimes get bogged down with writing rules. Do rules ever affect your creativity?
I don’t pay too much attention to writing rules. That was a problem for editors when I wrote the Yard and Garden column. Having read voraciously for almost 70 years, I have internalized many of the rules but I don’t let them get in the way of creativity.


Su Lierz writes dark fiction, short story fiction, and personal essays. Her short story “Twelve Days in April,” written under the pen name Laney Payne, appeared in the 2018 SouthWest Writers Sage Anthology. Su was a finalist in the 2017 and 2018 Albuquerque Museum Authors Festival Writing Contest. She lives in Corrales, New Mexico, with her husband Dennis.




Author Updates: Marty Eberhardt & Katayoun Medhat

Marty Eberhardt and Katayoun Medhat are mystery writers hard at work adding to their respective series. These members of SouthWest Writers (SWW) each had a new book published within the last year and has an interview posted on the SWW website.


Author Marty Eberhardt started the Bea Rivers cozy mystery series in 2021 with Death in a Desert Garden. Her latest release set in the Sonoran Desert is Bones in the Back Forty (Artemesia Publishing, 2023). Look for Marty on her website MartyEberhardt.com, on Facebook, and on her Amazon author page. For more about her work, read her 2021 SWW interview.


What trouble does your main character, Bea Rivers, face in Bones in the Back Forty?
Lots of trouble. A skeleton is found on the grounds of the garden where she works … this doesn’t seem to be much more than an interesting puzzle at first. But then somebody’s car hits her boss on a bicycle, and he’s in a coma. She has to take over. And someone seems to be stalking her. It’s not clear if these things have to do with her help with the murder investigation related to the skeleton. Her boyfriend lives halfway across the country and she’s a single parent with way too many responsibilities.

What makes Bea the kind of protagonist that readers connect with and root for?
She’s an overwhelmed working parent who’s trying to do a good job. There are lots of people like this everywhere! As the story progresses, her confidence and competence grow. I was pleased to see this.

Bones in the Back Forty is the second of the Bea Rivers Mysteries. When did you know you wanted to write a series?
I figured I would write at least three books, showing how the protagonist changes. I also wanted to show the Sonoran Desert in its many seasons; the series is in some ways a love song to the Sonoran Desert.

Why do you write cozy mysteries as opposed to other kinds of mysteries?
I don’t much care for gratuitous violence, nor do I wish to be explicit about sex. I like mysteries with great characters, a complex plot with a murderer who’s not easily discovered, and plenty of humor. Cozy mysteries and traditional mysteries fit these categories. These genres are also appropriate for conveying some messages that matter to me … such as climate change is real and threatening; water conservation is essential in the arid Southwest; and natural and cultural diversity can provide great joy to all humans. In this book, I also have a message about respect for our ancestors.

Do you have any writing projects in the works?
I’m working on a third Bea Rivers mystery, set in southern California, and also a long-time project … a historical novel set in early 1960s Saigon.


Katayoun Medhat is the author of the Milagro Mysteries that began with The Quality of Mercy (2017) and continued with Lacandon Dreams (2018). Her newest book in the series is Flyover Country published in 2022 by Leapfrog Press. You’ll find Kat on her website KatayounMedhat.com and her SWW author page, as well as on Facebook and Twitter. Read more about her writing in SWW’s 2020 interview.


What would you like readers to know about the story you tell in Flyover Country?
As Old and New West collide and bad faith actors prepare for future rule, the bucolic idyll of Milagro crashes and burns. A gruesome find, the slaying of a miniature horse by a cougar, and the mysterious vanishing of a park ranger give cop Franz Kafka, aka K, plenty of opportunity to misinterpret events, overlook clues, and create some more adversaries. As K deals with the tragic fallout of his job, he finds himself caught up in a lethal clash of worlds. So it’s basically a tale of contemporary life—with twists.

For those who haven’t read the first two books in the Milagro Mystery series, tell us about your main characters.
K is a stranger in a strange land. He is a natural rebel, great at subverting authority and questioning the status quo, and so isn’t really cut out to be a cop. Maybe he is jinxed, because every time he tries to do his job properly, inevitably tragedy follows.

K’s soul brother and sidekick, Robbie Begay, ex-Navajo police officer and track-reader, is everything that K isn’t — pragmatic, cynical, great at his job, and not at all given to illusions. The cases Begay and K work on bring out their differences and challenge their friendship, and often it is facing hazard and danger that draws them back together. There is a gruff tenderness and generosity to their relationship, which has led some readers to call their friendship a bromance.

A third main character of my books is the community of Milagro in which K, who is quintessentially a loner and, like so many men who must go down these mean streets, commitment-phobic, has found a kind of Ersatz family.

Did I mention that K is now the owner of a bookstore? And the bookstore is becoming something of a community hub, which, as we shall see, brings with it an entirely new set of conundrums.

How did you choose the title of the book?
Apparently “flyover country” is used as a derogatory term for the swathe of rural land between the metropolitan seaboards. To me it holds a suggestion of the forgotten, the hidden, and the elusive; the friction between a bird’s-eye view and the teeming, bustling reality on the ground. The novel’s plot takes place down in the valley and up in the unknowable territory of the Mesa, in a kind of hell and heaven scenario.

What makes your series unique in the mystery genre?
The Milagro Mysteries are ethnographic and psychological mysteries. They are about a place, Milagro, and its people and the ravages and havoc that is played upon them, mostly by larger outside forces that are hard to withstand. The series’ core lies in its unique outsider’s view of rural America, and my conviction that deadly serious subject matter is best served up with a dose of satire.

Which of your three published novels did you enjoy writing the most, and which one was the most challenging?
The newest one is always the favorite one, and the most challenging—until the next one comes along. Writing my first book, The Quality of Mercy, was stress-free: entering terra incognita with no road map, no expectations, and an explorer’s enthusiasm. Milagro #2, Lacandon Dreams, in retrospect might have been the most challenging, because writing your second book is a whole other ball game to writing your first.

What writing projects are you working on now?
Currently I am editing Vision Quest, Milagro Mystery #4, the most ominous book in the series so far. And I’m working on a stand alone, which may turn out even more sinister and is set in Europe. And, of course, I’m seeding Milagro Mystery #5…


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




An Interview with Author Rachel Bate

Author Rachel Bate writes children’s books that inspire readers to collaborate with nature and each other with respect, compassion, and kindness. Her first three books — Desert Bliss (2016), Turquoise Tail (2018), and Santa Fe Tom (2020) — were published by Mascot Books. Her newest release is Tierra Day (Mascot Kids, October 2022). You’ll find Rachel on Facebook, her SWW author page, and her Amazon author page.


Tell us about Tierra Day. What sparked the story idea?
I was inspired to write Tierra Day, which pertains to Earth Day, as a lesson for children about the importance of recycling and not littering. I really wanted children to ponder how keeping the Earth clean is a community effort. Organizing a Litter Clean Up Recycle Day as a community event involving the whole town — including humans and animal friends, the mayor and the governor — shows everyone is responsible for our Earth no matter what their position/title, to help keep our Earth trash-free and clean. Finally, in my humble opinion, I feel Earth Day should be Every day, as I care deeply for our planet and all its creatures.

How have the years you devoted to teaching as an elementary and special education teacher informed your writing?
My educational experience has played an instrumental role in my writing. Many times, throughout my teaching experience, I have come up with stories using puppets for my students to engage their curiosity and conversations about a particular event, emotions, behaviors, etc. I frequently smiled and thought to myself, one of these days I would like to have the time to write down the stories I come up with, especially when my students were extremely engaged and wanted to hear the same story repeatedly.

Did the illustrator’s interpretation capture what you had envisioned for Tierra Day?
For each of my books, I worked very closely in a collaborative approach with my sister, Rebecca Jacob, the illustrator. We both allow each other constructive feedback and independent thought through each of our book creations. She is an amazing artist and each book that we create with my stories and her art truly touches my heart and soul. It is always exhilarating to see and touch each finished book.

How and why did you chose the title for this book?
I chose Tierra Day as the title for this book because Tierra, as a girl’s name, is of Spanish origin that means Earth. Tierra, as the main human character in my story, symbolizes her compassion and caring relationship with others and the animals of our beautiful planet Earth, especially on Earth Day, April 22nd.

What fundamental roles do picture books play for young readers?
I feel pictures capture the written word and bring it to life for young readers. Illustrations allow the young reader to further comprehend what the story is about and provide a visual escape into the story. I feel my sister Rebecca’s artwork especially appeals to children with her vivid colors and character expressions throughout each of our books.

How does Tierra Day differ from your three previous picture books: Desert Bliss, Turquoise Tail, and Santa Fe Tom?
Tierra Day can be used as an instructional tool for teachers, families, outdoor instruction, etc., to familiarize children about Earth Day that occurs annually on April 22nd. At the end of my book is a fact sheet regarding Earth Day and a glossary to use as a lesson on Earth Day. It also aims at teaching children the importance of recycling and how taking care of the Earth impacts not just people, but also the critters we share the planet with.

Do you have a preference, verse or prose, when writing children’s books? What helps you make that determination?
I enjoy writing in both verse and prose depending upon my story’s theme and message. I added a song for children to sing in Tierra Day as another means of learning an important message using music to remember and especially having interactive fun with learning while cleaning up/recycling.

What typically comes first for you: A character? A story idea? Location?
I love getting many of my ideas when I am outside in my garden, hiking in the mountains, being inspired by everything I sense in nature. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, I will visualize a story in my mind, and I must gradually creep out of bed and proceed to write down my thoughts in my journal. A story idea may also slowly evolve from my adventures and characters and quickly formulate in my mind based on my subconscious and conscious experiences.

Your stories focus on helping children to overcome their fears and to believe in themselves. Can you share any experiences that may have inspired you?
I was a very shy child and young adult. At times, I still experience this shyness in my adult life. In the past, I would seek situations to push me out of my comfort zone, for example trying out and getting a lead part in plays, track, cross-country, etc. As an educator, it has made me extra sensitive and insightful to the needs of my students and how each student that I taught over the years is unique and special. I learned so much through observing others, my students, nature, critters, and the responses of each in various situations. It has been a great asset in regard to my writing skills.


Su Lierz writes dark fiction, short story fiction, and personal essays. Her short story “Twelve Days in April,” written under the pen name Laney Payne, appeared in the 2018 SouthWest Writers Sage Anthology. Su was a finalist in the 2017 and 2018 Albuquerque Museum Authors Festival Writing Contest. She lives in Corrales, New Mexico, with her husband Dennis.




In Archive