Welcome to the Saturday Spotlight, a weekly feature hosted by yours truly and celebrates authors. Focusing on Indie, self-published and debut authors, we love them all. This week I have the pleasure of introducing readers to:
Today is a special double-feature spotlight focusing on two female authors, each focusing on two different spectrum's of literature. First off I have the pleasure introducing readers to
Melody Scott
~author of Auraria Dead~
Author Bio:
Melody Scott was born in San Diego, and graduated from Cal Poly in Pomona, California, After marrying and moving to Cumming, Georgia, she became enamored of the land and obtained her Georgia Real Estate license in 1978. Buying and selling, moving and investing became a way of life until she was drawn to write novels about the land, the history of which still holds a mystique for her.
Today she belongs to the Board of Realtors, Chamber of Commerce, two writing groups, a book club, Sisters In Crime, and Southeastern Mystery Writers of America.
Auraria Dead by Melody Scott
Auraria Dead is a real estate mystery/romantic/cozy with a twist. It involves gold mines, Cherokee Indians, crazy relatives and a bit of romance. When two realtors go to see a property they want to sell and fall into a gold mine shaft, they find a skeleton wearing an ex-husband’s coat. To put her mind at rest, the protagonist tries to contact her ex, but a little child answers the phone. Meanwhile, the man she’s involved with seems to be using her, she’s trying to make a buck and her real estate partner is undermining their deal. Her cousin won’t keep her clothes on and her father isn't who she’s thought he was for almost forty years.
Today I also have the pleasure of introducing readers to:
Teresa Joyce
~author of Its a Fine Line~
-Interview Questions and Answers provided by Author-
Why did you decide to share your story with the world?
This is a very good question and one I have asked myself many times over. The answer is not very black and white; it’s was a combination of many factories. It truth at first it was a way of trying to heal myself, if I could just revisit that dark place then maybe I could find some sort of closure. Seeing it down in print made me face my demons, there was no longer any choice. It became so very real and I was made to look into the face of hell - my hell. As my book progressed it was clear that it was becoming much more than that. It was also recognition of a life, and one that I stand in awe of every time I think of her. That someone enriched my life tenfold, I am proud to be able to call that person my mum. This story needed to be shared with the world for that reason alone. I was also hoping to be able to reach out to others, those which may need a hand to hold. Not unlike finding some form of camaraderie in numbers, cemented by the fact that others could and would understand. I am here to say that there is light at the end of the tunnel; you just need to reach for it. It was a message that I needed to get out there to share, that you can and will survive this with faith. To condense this all down by sharing a chapter in my life at its darkest point, maybe it could help others with their own.
For your memoir you decided to write it yourself instead of using a ghost writer, are you happy with that decision now that the book is complete?
I understand that this book/memoir is just a little different to most other memoirs, as you rightly say I was the one to right this, choosing not to use a Ghost writer. This is something I never even considered, to my mind I had to be the one to do this. I had to somehow try to express the feelings and emotions I felt within its pages, ultimately as no other person could. The best outcome being that you would take the journey with me, strongly believing that this time I would not be alone. I had to travel down that path no question, but it was a lonely road to walk. So the answer to your question is yes I am very happy with the decision I made, no other decision was even in the equation.
What message do you want your readers to grasp?
This question has to be answered two fold. Many things happen to us throughout our life time some good some bad. The good hopefully outweighs the bad, but for others that sadly is not the case. People looking in on us as we go through such a traumatic life changing experience, may find its content hard to understand. There is a knee jerk reaction that tells them to turn away; if they don’t recognize it it’s simply not there. By sharing my experience, I am hoping to hold their attention just enough to dispel their fears. Secondly I am hoping to make anyone in a similar situation aware that there is help out there, that you can survive this because you are stronger then you think. There’s a place somewhere deep inside of all of us that has yet been untapped; if you have never had occasion to do so you are unaware of its strength. But at your darkest moment as long as you believe, hold on to life and love you will survive.
What advice would you give to someone that is in an abuse situation?
It has taken many years of my life to realize, that maybe I was not to blame for everything going on around me at that time, that feeling to be honest never really goes away. I could say that I am now at easy with my involvement, but that would be untrue. So where do you go from there? Forgiveness has to be the answer. Firstly you need to try and forgive yourself, to heal the child that’s inside of us all. The other side of the coin is so much harder, you have to try and make headway in forgiving your abuser. Holding on to all that pain is only creating a mountain of hate which has no real purpose, by holding on to that pain your abuser is still very much in control. I am not in the least saying this will be easy, how could I when I am still struggling to do just that myself. But we have to believe that it’s possible.
Was writing the book in some way therapeutic for you?
Was it therapeutic....... not an easy one to answer. The day I sat down to write I had never been so scared in my life could I really do this? Could I revisit that dark place and come out of it the other end? It was a long hard journey but one I knew I had to take. Sitting here now I know that it has helped me enormously. But while writing there were times that I could not face the next chapter sentence or even the next word. So yes it has been therapeutic, but at that time it was like looking into the fires of hell.
Was your decision to write 'There's a fine line' planned or was it a spontaneous decision?
I could not say that it was planned because in truth; it sort of crept up on me from behind getting closer as time passed. To me it seemed like the best way to deal with the demons lurking in the dark corners of my mind. I didn't get up one day and think lets go write a book! It started as something much smaller - i.e. if I could just write everything down it would feel somewhat like unloading. I could not continue to carry around this amount of emotion/pain any longer without any release. Somewhere along the line it became a book, but at what point this changed I am unsure it just seemed to evolve. Maybe it was the need to help others to do just that, to unload their pain and to face their own demons. You see if my book only helps one person that recognizes its content, then it will have been worth all the pain inflicted.
**please note: for safety reasons Teresa cannot show her picture and has written under a pen name**
Thanks lady's for stopping by today and I wish you all the best with the the success of your novels.
Wow! It took a lot of courage to write about such a painful experience in There's a Fine Line. I give her props for having the courage to do it!
ReplyDeleteThere is such healing in writing and also for those with the opportunity to share in it by reading others' experiences. Thanks!
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