Andi, has a new book called Discover your Writing Self, this book is based on the writing course I took this summer and I am very pleased that Andi is here today to share about her book, writing and her self.
KMOT: Welcome Andi! When you are writing what sustains you?
ACF: I love this question because for me the answer is very simple: the writing itself is what sustains me. When I write, I discover myself and the world around me with a richness that I don't get in other ways. It's just part of the way I'm made - writing is my deepest tool of exploration.
KMOT: When and how did you come to writing?
ACF: I've been writing most of my life in one way or another. When I was a kid, I used to make up song lyrics as my family took road trips. Then, as I got older, writing was my way of sorting through the trials of adolescence and keeping in touch with my friends in the times we were apart during school breaks. In college, I turned to English as my major and took on my academic writing, and then, I finally came to creative writing through grad school. The thread that weaves all that together is that I have always been an avid reader. I will read anything - shampoo bottles, golf magazines at the tire shop, every click-bait article related to books on the internet. And it's the reading that brought me to writing. . . the way words can inform and wrap us up with comfort, challenge and carry us into new places.
KMOT: When did you publish your first book?
ACF: I published my first book in 2012. It's called God's Whisper Manifesto, and I wrote it when I finished my first full-length book The Slaves Have Names and was in the waiting period to see if a traditional publisher would pick it up. GWF is a short book that sets out the principles by which we want to live at our farm here in Virginia.
KMOT: What do you know now and wish you could tell yourself if you were just starting out now?
ACF: How long do we have here? Really, I would tell myself that I would need more perseverance, patience, flexibility, and creativity than I can imagine right now. I would remind myself that building a career on words is a long game, not something that happens over night, and that it require me to be worth artist and business woman. Mostly, though, I would tell myself to be generous, to support other writers, to remember that this is not a competition but a journey and the more companions we have for the road the better.
KMOT: How many books have you got currently published and how many do you have in the queue?
ACF: have four books published: God's Whisper Manifesto, The Slaves Have Names, Writing Day In and Day Out, and Steele Secrets. My next book, Charlotte and the Twelve, is the sequel to Steele Secrets and travels with Mary Steele as she seeks to solve the mystery of how a schoolteacher and twelve of her students were murdered in a school for African American children in the 1950s.
KMOT: What do you want people to know most about yourself, your business and your passion for writing?
ACF:I believe whole-heartedly in the power of words to change people. I believe writing shifts us, moves us, protects us, and guides us. I believe in writers, especially new writers, and I believe we need everyone's stories to be the fullest, healthiest, most loving humanity we can be.
Thank you Andi for joining us today for a cup of tea and sharing about the writing process and your books. I am honored to have you join us today and am grateful for the opportunity to have taken your course this summer.
Thank you readers for joining us here today. I would love to hear from you so please leave me a comment here or email me at karenmowen@gmail.com
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