Today I am sharing an interview with author Patricia Beal. This author interview was originally shared as part of a blog tour on Library Lady’s Kid Lit.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR – PATRICIA BEAL
Patricia Beal has danced ballet since her childhood and has performed with pre-professional companies in South America, Europe, and the United States. She fell in love with a handsome airborne infantryman at Fort Bragg, married him, and quit her day job to have his babies. Soon came the desire to have book babies, too. Patricia is a Genesis Award semi-finalist, First Impressions finalist, and the author of A Season to Dance (Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas, 2017). She writes from Fayetteville, North Carolina, where she lives with her husband and two children.
CONNECT WITH PATRICIA: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Amazon
AN INTERVIEW WITH PATRICIA BEAL
When did you first know you wanted to be an author?
I read Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist when I was 15 and knew that I would love to write something as inspirational and life changing.
When you are not writing, what other hats do you wear? What do you do for fun?
I’m an Army Special Operations Forces (ARSOF) civilian employee, and there isn’t a thing I would rather do with my life. What a privilege to serve alongside America’s best, helping them in the fight against our Nation’s adversaries. I love my job and do it for fun. But I also dance ballet
What is your favorite genre to read? What about that genre draws you?
Military history, strategy, and leading. I work with a lot of very smart people and work hard to run with them, helping shape the future of ARSOF. I just finished The Unforgiving Minute: A Soldier’s Education by Craig Mullaney. I’m now listening to Six Minutes to Freedom by John Gilstrap and Kurt Muse. I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Muse this week. He is the men who helped end Noriega’s dictatorship and who we saved from a Panamanian prison 30 years ago. Next is Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action by Simon Sinek and a review of my Arbinger Institute books.
In a library or a bookstore – what section do you head to first?
I go to the Christian fiction area to see my friends
Where did the inspiration for this story come from?
Desert Willow is a love song to the City of El Paso, to family, and to Prince Harry.
It started as a NaNoWriMo project in 2015 and has a lot of my grandma’s history in it—life in the German colonies of the south of Brazil, the beginning of the shoe industry there, and the story of the most influential man her town has ever known, my great-grandfather.
And what does that have to do with El Paso and Prince Harry?
Well, my Prince Harry lookalike, a young Army captain named Andrew Lee James who lives in El Paso, is helping the protagonist deliver her grandmother’s last love letter, a letter she was urged to write all those years ago after what happened in Brazil.
Which character did you enjoy writing most?
The contemporary story of Clara (protagonist) and Andrew was fun to write because I’ve been around the Army since the nineties. What I enjoyed the most about writing this novel was making all the connections and showing how the actions of a distant past affect and inform the modern story so deeply.
Because I am a K-12 school librarian I have to ask – what is your favorite children’s book?
For moms to read to their baby girls, I adore Someday by Alison McGhee. For older kids, I love From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg. The author notes at the end of an anniversary edition we have make me cry every time. Great book.
Every year I organize a Young Authors Day for the kids at our school. What advice would you give to a child who wants to be a writer?
Quality is almost always better than quantity.
Don’t quit.
Thank you so much for joining us today. It is fun to get to know the author behind the book.
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