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Interview With Author Elizabeth Byler Younts
I am so excited to welcome my guest today, friend and fellow RWA RITA Award double nominee, Elizabeth Byler Younts. Elizabeth is author of the Amish historical novel, Promise to Return.
Carla: First of all, congratulations! I am really excited to be nominated alongside you in two categories in the RITA contest! Since there’s only the two of us in inspirational, I’ve had this image of us like the last two Miss America contestants, holding hands while we wait for the results, but I’ll probably be too busy breathing into a paper bag if my reaction when I got the final round notification is any predictor. What was it like when you found out you had finaled?
Elizabeth: I was shaking. I was ready to walk into a homeschool field trip with hundreds of other families but all I wanted to do was call the people who mattered most and helped me on my journey. I did call my husband, mom, and agent (she screamed twice). It was a completely out of body and spiritual moment.
Carla: I bet! I was stalking the results because I had gotten my phone call first, and I think maybe twelve seconds elapsed before I was posting on your Facebook wall. Now, most people who read this blog know that I’m not a huge reader of Amish fiction (okay, so that might be an understatement), but yours is an intriguing premise. Can you tell us a little about your book and the inspiration behind it?
Elizabeth: Promise to Return highlights the life of the Amish during WW2. As conscientious objectors (C.O.s), their perspective during the war was vastly different from the majority of Americans. Society saw them as disloyal to our country. When boys got drafted they had 4 choices: serve, serve in a noncombatant role (not popular in the church), imprisonment, and Civilian Public Service (CPS). The CPS was brand new in WW2 and were camps throughout the country where all C.O.s would have the option of working. They were all fairly labor-intensive camps: working land, digging ditches, building fences, building out-buildings, raising chickens, fighting fires, some allowed themselves to be experimented upon, and many worked in mental institutions. The C.O.s were unpaid by the government but provided millions of dollars of work, and local churches stepped up and provided the C.O.s with a small amount of money. This money barely covered their living expenses which left very little to be sent home to their families, as many of these men were husbands with wives and children or sons who helped support their families. Over 12,000 C.O.s worked in these camps across the country, yet so few Americans know their story. I wanted to share their convictions and stories through fiction and Promise to Return was born.
Carla: I can’t wait to dig a little deeper into this book myself. What can we look forward to next from you?
Elizabeth: I’m excited to share the rest of The Promise of Sunrise series with my readers. Promise to Cherish will take you into the heart of a mental institution with an Amish conscientious objector…with stories ripped from the pages of my grandpa’s memories of his own service. The love laced through this sometimes bleak story is also inspired from a beautiful romance between my Amish cousin and a girl of a very different faith. You’ll have to read it to find out how that works out.
Carla: Ooh, that sounds interesting. If you could live life as one of your characters (from any of your novels), would you? And who would it be?
Elizabeth: No thanks. I definitely don’t want to be Amish again. I love my heritage, but, please, I cannot live without my Apple products.
Carla: Amen to the technology. Coffee? Tea? Hot chocolate?
Elizabeth: Definitely coffee. My husband and I are coffee snobs. We roast green coffee beans from all around the world. We mostly French press, but we also love pour over. We have a serious problem.
Carla: Hmm, I don’t define that as a problem, exactly… Okay, next question. As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
Elizabeth: As long as I can remember I wanted to be an author. I even wrote my first novel by the age of eleven and promised my Amish grandma that I would someday write her memoir. Though it was over twenty years later before that memoir would be published (Seasons: A Real Story of an Amish Girl) my grandma’s stories are what sparked my writing life.
Carla: Divergent series ending: What were they thinking??? Or “only way it could have ended?”
Elizabeth: I think that Veronica Roth was incredibly brave to end it the way she did. Part of me was frustrated because I wanted “that part” of the ending to have a little more oomph or something, but I thought the continuing chapters were well-done and gave the reader hope without making it cheesy.
Carla: What’s the weirdest thing currently in your refrigerator?
Elizabeth: I’m planning to start brewing my own Kombucha tea, so the scoby in my fridge is definitely a little odd looking. I can’t wait to get started though!
Carla: What’s your dream car?
Elizabeth: Before I was a mom I had a blue VW Beetle. I LOVED it. I want one again. I know it’s not sporty or fast, but it was just me. Once the girls are out of booster seats and such…that’s what I want for our running around.
Carla: Thank you so much for visiting today, and giving us a peek into your writing world! I wish you the best of luck in the contest… and I think we need to go find some really good coffee in San Antonio!
About Elizabeth
Elizabeth Byler Younts is a 2014 double RITA finalist and a member of ACFW and RWA. She is an Air Force officer’s wife and a homeschooling mom with two young daughters, currently living in Pennsylvania. Elizabeth was Amish as a child and after her parents left the church she still grew up among her Amish family and continues to speak Pennsylvania Dutch.
Connect with Elizabeth: Website | Facebook | Twitter
About Promise to Return
When World War II breaks out, Miriam Coblentz’s peaceful Amish world is turned upside down…
It’s 1943, and Miriam Coblentz and Henry Mast are nearing their wedding day when the unthinkable happens—Henry is drafted. However, since he is a part of the pacifist Amish tradition, Henry is sent to a conscientious objector Civilian Public Service camp. When he leaves for the work camp, his gaping absence turns Miriam’s life upside down. Little does she know it’s only the beginning… When Henry returns home, he brings news that shakes Miriam and their Amish community to the core. Henry believes God has called him to enlist in the army and fight for his country, leaving her to make an important decision: whether to choose loyalty to the peaceful life she’s always known or her love for Henry. Two worlds collide in this unforgettable debut novel, providing a fascinating and rare look into Amish culture during World War II. While Henry is battling enemies across the ocean, Miriam struggles between her devotion to Henry and her love of the Amish way of life. One question is at the bottom of it all: will she follow the rules of her religion or the leading of her heart?
Order Promise to Return: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | ChristianBook.com
Tags: Amish fiction, Elizabeth Byler Younts, inspiration, Promise to Return, RITA awards, romance, RWA
“I Quit” and Other Lies I Tell Myself
I had a truly awful week last week. The kind they make Dilbert cartoons and snarky memes about. The kind that makes you want to crawl back into bed, pull the covers over your head, and rethink your entire life. The kids were in horrible moods, everything went wrong at home, and even the good things happening in my career came along with a load of really crummy problems.
Oh, and did I mention that I have a book due in three weeks? The third book in a series which is trying my patience? A book that I’ve rewritten completely once, and in part at least three times?
By the time I got to Thursday night, I’d had it. I messaged a friend and said, “I quit. I’m not doing this anymore.”
I was done. Life was too hard, but since I couldn’t give up on life, I could give up on writing instead. After all, I began writing because I loved creating. But creating had become as much fun as a root canal, and it came along with a bunch of other stuff that I didn’t have the mental or emotional energy to deal with at the moment.
When I woke up on Friday morning, I had this strange feeling of aimlessness. I habitually plan out my following day before I go to bed, often outlining the scenes that I plan to write next, plus all of my other errands, emails, follow-up tasks, and kid-related duties. Then I remembered, I’d quit. I didn’t have any of those things planned for my Friday.
I logged on to Facebook on my phone, still lying in bed and enjoying/hating/accepting the weird feeling of not having anything planned, when I saw a repost of a 2009 Michael Hyatt blog: What Keeps You Going When You Want to Quit? In my head, I snarkily answered, “Nothing. I quit, remember?”
And then I started reading the blog post. When I got to a paragraph in the middle, I sighed and pulled the covers over my head. I couldn’t quit.
“What these same voices fail to tell you is that there is a distinction between the dream and the work required to obtain it. Everything important requires work. Hard work. And sometimes there is a long arc between the dream and it’s realization. That is where the work and the transformation occur.”
And that’s the whole thing. There’s a distinction between the dream of being a published author and the hard work that it takes to get there. Once you do get there, there’s even more work required to stay there. And if there’s ever a business that epitomizes the definition of “long arc,” it’s publishing.
He goes on to say that the mind will attempt to answer whatever question you ask it. If you look for reasons to quit, you’ll certainly find them. The trick is to look for reasons to stay the course.
So here are my reasons for not quitting writing/publishing/life, in no particular order.
1) I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was seven years old. I’m finally living my dream. Would I tell a seven-year-old, even my seven-year-old self, to give up because it’s too hard?
2) I love writing when it’s going well. I don’t completely hate it when it’s not.
3) I interpret and process my world through story. My first response to any challenge (even this) is to apply it to a character I’m writing and see what lessons she can learn from it. I could stop writing, but I could sooner quit breathing than stop creating stories in my head.
4) I’ve got commitments to my publishers, and I don’t want to be a person who doesn’t meet her commitments.
5) Those commitments come with money, and I kind of like money. It supports my Starbucks and shoe and nail polish habits. It also justifies the time I spend on what has up until this point been seen as a hobby.
6) Because I like money and I spend too much on Starbucks, shoes, and nail polish, if I quit writing, I’d have to get a real job. A real job wouldn’t give me the flexibility to drop off/pick up my kids, stay home when they’re sick, or go on field trips. I couldn’t order my work schedule around my personal obligations.
7) To most people, my books are an escape from their own problems. That’s enough. But for a few, they may also inspire, encourage, and teach. I’ve got a folder of reader messages from people who have said my first novel made a real difference in their lives.
I couldn’t quit. And let’s get real for a minute— deep down, I didn’t think I could actually quit. Saying it made me feel better for a little bit, gave me the permission to relax when I needed to let go of the soap opera in my brain. But it’s time to get back to work now, and do what God made me to do. He certainly knows that I’ve tried to reject the call, and considering I’m successful at most things I attempt, the fact I’ve been wholly unsuccessful at quitting writing means something. So I guess it’s time to cowboy up and get back to work.
I have seven reasons to prove it.
Tags: failure, motivation, quitting, writing life
Interview With Author Regina Jennings
Please join me in welcoming my friend and fellow author, Regina Jennings, to my blog today! I met Regina at the ACFW conference in 2012 outside the appointment area, just minutes before I was scheduled to pitch Five Days in Skye to the editor who would eventually buy my book. She listened to my opening, asked me a few questions, and within minutes had helped me craft a better and more exciting hook. I like to say I owe a little of that book’s sale to her and that fortuitous meeting! So it’s a great thrill to be hosting her on my blog today.
Carla: Welcome, Regina! Tell us a little about your newest book, Caught in the Middle.
Regina: You bet! Anne Tillerton has been hiding away as a buffalo hunter in Indian Territory. When the depot’s cook runs off, Anne must find her or take to cooking herself, but on the train to town she runs into complications.
Nicholas Lovelace knows commercial success, but he’s not sure what to do when his train gets held up. Thankfully, the bandits are thwarted by the last person Nick ever expected—Anne Tillerton from back home in Prairie Lea. By the time the robbers are dealt with, Nick owes the eccentric woman his life.
Anne finds the runaway cook, but the woman flees again and leaves Anne with her infant son, forcing her to turn to the only person she knows in town. Nick doesn’t know what to do with a baby and being seen with a rough-around-the-edges woman isn’t helping his reputation. Will the two of them find the child’s father before their partnership changes the course of their future?
Carla: Ooh, a female buffalo hunter! That’s not a character we see often in historical fiction. What inspired this particular novel?
Regina: More than anything I wanted to see Anne Tillerton overcome the trauma of her past. Her bravery allowed another woman to have a happily-ever-after, so Anne deserved one of her own. I started from that point and asked myself what could make such a change possible. In other words, “What is the worst thing that could happen to her?” Given that Anne wants to live unencumbered on the prairies, I couldn’t think of much worse than for her to be stuck with an abandoned child. She knows nothing about raising infants and the only person she knows in town is Nick Lovelace. Nick loves babies as long as someone else is holding them and they can’t spit up on his silk vest. And if Nick values his wardrobe, you can bet we’re going to force Nick out of his comfy office and into the wilderness where he’ll be as helpless as Anne is in the city. Good times!
Carla: I’d say so! I can’t wait to read this one… and it’s on my shelf just waiting for a free weekend. What can we look forward to next from you?
Regina: My next series starts this December with the release of A Most Inconvenient 
Marriage. This series is set near the end of the Civil War in the Ozark Mountains. The first book stars a nurse named Abigail Stuart who feels like her only friend in the world is the sweet but gravely wounded patient Jeremiah Calhoun. Fearing he won’t survive, the Confederate soldier’s last wish is that Abigail look after his sickly sister at home. Marry him, return to his horse farm, and it’ll be hers.
Abigail takes him up on his offer and moves to Missouri after his death, but just as the family learns to accept her, the real Jeremiah Calhoun appears—puzzled to find a confounding woman posing as his wife. Jeremiah is determined to have his life back to how it was before the war, but his own wounds limit what he can do on his own. Still not fully convinced Abigail isn’t duping him, he’s left with no choice but to let the woman stay and help—providing that she give up her claim that she’s his wife and doesn’t ruin his chances with his childhood sweetheart.
“Inconvenient” barely scratches the surface of what the two of them feel about each other, but maybe they’ll find some common ground.
Carla: Oh, now that is most inconvenient. I’m looking forward to reading that one too. Now, on to our lightning round questions. Which do you think is more important: to entertain or teach/inform?
Regina: My primary purpose is to entertain. If my stories don’t entertain, then I’ve let my readers down. Now, obviously a good story involves realistic characters who have flaws, who face challenges and who learn from those challenges. So I force my characters to learn something. Whether or not readers learn something is up to them.
Carla: What three items are essential to your writing process?
Regina: My laptop, my research books, and my secret stash of Twix, Reeses, and Nerds.
Carla: What does your writing cave look like?
Regina: This is my office on its best day. During the winter there are coats thrown all over the couch, firewood stacked on the hearth, and the pink hamster cage somewhere nearby, lest Ginger get chilly. It’s not a very quiet place to write but I like the French doors for light and the fireplace for warmth. Plus with all those bookshelves, I have my resources nearby.
Carla: Most hated chore?
Regina: I can’t match socks. There. I’ve admitted it. There are so many variables—color, size, density, wear, strength of elastic, etc., etc. It seems like no two ever match perfectly.
Carla: What’s the weirdest thing currently in your freezer?
Regina: Maybe it’s not strange that our freezer is full of deer, quail, pheasant, and pork sausage, but what is unique is that the male members of my family (with friends) have done all the “harvesting” and processing themselves.
Carla: Ah, so you and your heroines have more than a little bit in common! Thank you so much for joining me today and giving us a little peek into your most recent release!
About Regina
Regina Jennings is a homeschooling mother of four from Oklahoma. She enjoys watching musicals with her kids, traveling with her husband, and reading by herself. When not plotting historical fiction, she plots how she could move Highclere Castle, stone by stone, into her pasture and how she could afford the staff to manage it.
Regina is the author of Caught in the Middle, Sixty Acres and a Bride and Love in the Balance. Her novella An Unforeseen Match is also included in the collection A Match Made in Texas. She loves to hear from readers at her website, www.reginajennings.com, and on Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest.
About Caught in the Middle
She Wants the Freedom of the Open Plains.
He Wants the Prestige of a Successful Career.
Neither is Ready for What Comes Instead.
The train to Garber, Texas, is supposed to bring life’s next victory to Nicholas Lovelace. Instead, it gets held up by robbers who are thwarted by the last person Nick ever expected–Anne Tillerton from back home in Prairie Lea.
Anne’s been hiding away as a buffalo hunter. She’s only in town to find their runaway cook, but the woman flees–leaving Anne with her infant son. With Nick the only person Anne knows in town, the two form an unlikely team as they try to figure out what to do with the child.
But being in town means acting and dressing for polite society–and it’s not going well for Anne. Meanwhile, Nick’s work is bringing new pressures, and being seen with a rough-around-the-edges woman isn’t helping his reputation. Caught between their own dreams, a deepening relationship, and others’ expectations, can the pair find their way to love?
Order Caught in the Middle: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | ChristianBook.com
Tags: Caught in the Middle, historical fiction, interview, Regina Jennings, romance
Awards News and Giveaways, Oh My!
Forgive me my absence on the blog for the past couple of days. Part of it was a regularly scheduled maintenance outage as I updated some design elements on my site (more structural changes to come soon.) But the bigger part of it was because gathering my concentration lately has been a bit like herding a room full of kittens.
Because my debut novel, Five Days in Skye, double-finaled in RWA’s Rita Awards, in both the inspirational and first novel categories.
I finally understand that saying, “Knock me over with a feather.”
It would be kind of funny to say that this is a grudge match, but really, my fellow finalist is a writer whom I’ve liked and admired ever since I met her last year at ACFW — Elizabeth Byler Younts. She writes Amish historical, I write edgy contemporary, so it’s anyone’s guess how it’s going to shake out. I can say with no irony whatsoever that it’s an absolute honor to be nominated and it gave me a good excuse to attend the RWA national conference in San Antonio this coming July. Because who doesn’t want to take a trip to Texas in the hottest part of the summer, right?
Check out the full list of finalists here.
Now, onto the other reminders: time is winding down on my two giveaways, which close this weekend. Don’t forget to check out all the eligible posts and entry methods by clicking on the images below. ***Contest is now closed***
Thanks to everyone who has shown so much support to Five Days in Skye, as well as my wonderful guests on this blog! Happy weekend!
Tags: Five Days in Skye, giveaways, RITA awards, romance, RWA, speculative fiction
