Award-winning Author Interview with Barbara J. Robinson

Author interview of award-winning author Barbara J. Robinson, author of Magnolia: A Wilting Flower and The Lord had Something Better in Mind, "My Special Mother," in Mothers of Writers Vol. II, and "Mother's Glimpse of Heaven" in Fate Magazine.

Barbara J. Robinson Florida, USA

Barbara J. Robinson The Life of Your Writer: I teach language arts to exceptional education students in grades 6, 7, and 8, and I write. My first book was a Southern memoir, and my second book is a mystery/suspense/romance novel. I love animals and own three pets, two Siamese cats and a German Shepherd dog. I have two boys and two girls and a step-daughter and live in Florida with my husband Scott. My favorite food is fried catfish. My favorite color is bluegreen. My favorite sound is the chirping of the birds as they sing their early-morning tunes. My favorite taste is chocolate. My favorite person is my husband. My favorite place is the outdoors. My favorite memory is my dad. My favorite word is God, because I speak with Him every day.    

What is your favorite quote and why?
My favorite quote is The mind is a powerful work of art," by Henry David Thoreau, because as a writer you get to use that powerful work of art to create your own worlds through the power of imagination and the power of the pen and the written word.

Thoreau was a Mother Nature lover, and I am too. I feel closer to God when I am at peace with Mother Nature and enjoying her peace and serenity. Bible verses John 3:16 and 3:17 are my favorites because 3:16 tells how much God loved us, and 3:17 tells why he sent his Son to the world, not to condemn, but to save.

What is your most favorite quality about yourself?
My favorite quality about myself is being a dedicated hardworker and believing in giving anything I begin, my all, because anything worth doing is worth doing well.

What is your least favorite quality about yourself?
My least favorite quality about myself is my lack of patience when it comes to myself andmy writing and being too hard on myself. I am my own worst critic.

If you could go anywhere in the world right now, where would you want to go and why?
I am peaceful and content right where I am, but it would be nice to visit Hawaii one day. When I die, I want to go to the spirit in the sky, heaven with God.

Your Writers Perspective: What inspires you to write and why?
Life experiences, beautiful places, and my family inspire me to write. Writing is a way of keeping memories alive. It has been my way of keeping my mothers and my fathers spirit alive. It is a way of leaving a little bit of yourself behind. It is a release value. It is fun to write and create your own worlds. I have fun playing with words on paper, and I have plenty of stories to tell and share withothers. I realize now that all of my life I have been inspired by a higher power, God. Mother Nature inspires me too.

What is your favorite genre to write and why?
Fiction, because you get to invent and create your own characters and worlds.

What is your favorite book and why? Gone with the Wind was my favorite romancebook, because it is a Southern romance, and I loved it. The author created suchwonderful, realistic characters. For a book to really be good, the characters have to really live and breath, and characters in this book do. My favorite books now are The LeftBehind Series and the Bible, because the authors, Tim LaHaye and Gary B. Jenkins, have taken the Bible and translated it into real life so people can relate to it and understand it.

List your three favorite authors (any genre) and why?
Danielle Steel and V. C. Andrews are my two favorite romance authors, because I love their writing style and the characters they invent. Henry David Thoreau is my favorite nonfiction, with Walden, because I love the outdoors and Mother Nature, and I could identify with much of what he wrote. Now, Im cheating, because you asked for three, but I cant leave out my favorite poet, Robert Frost, and my favorite poem The Road not Taken, because the two roads in the poems are symbols for choices and decisions we all must make in life. Today my favorite authors are Gary B. Jenkins and Tim LaHaye, and I love their books. My favorite book is the Bible, because it explains life, and it helps save lives.

What do you think makes a writer successful?
Writing a great book makes a writer successful, if the writer has the avenue to promote it.

What is it that makes you successful as a writer? Persistence. You have to write to be successful, and you cant give up.

A Writers Journey: What are your goals as a writer? To write a bestseller, of course. In the meantime, to keep writing, keep trying, and to never give up.

What is the best tip you can give to fellow writers? Never give up, when the going gets tough, keep writing. Some best-selling authors had enough rejections to wallpaper their walls before they received an acceptance letter, so you cant give up. Keep writing and keep trying!

What do you hope to provide your readers with through your writing? I hope to give them a release from this world and allow them to journey with me through mine and the ones I create to other places and other times. There is nothing like traveling through the pages of a good book. Its the cheapest travel around. I also hope to provide some insight, humor, and life experience, the greatest teacher of all, so some people may not have to learn some of the lessons in life the hard way, as I learned a lot of mine.

List your three favorite online writer-resource sites and why (include URLs).
www.writergazette.com because it offers so many resources for a beginning writer, freebies, and helpful tips.
www.absolutewrite.com for the same reason. It provides articles about the craft of writing too. www.writersmarket.com, because as a writer, I feel that the Writers Market is one of the most valuable resources any writer can put to use at his or her fingertips, and one more, since I also included this site, last, but not least, the site of my publisher, of course: www.publishamerica.com.

Tell us about your publishing success (book title, genre, publishing date, publishing company or self-publishing). I have been writing since I was in the third grade when my teacher submitted my short story about my pet dog to a local newspaper, and it was published. My first college essay was published on the front page of the local newspaper, titled April Flood, about the 1983 April flood I went through.

I won first place in Southeastern Louisiana Universitys fiction-writing competition with my short story titled The Lord had Something Better in Mind, and it was published in their literary magazine, Gambit, and later in the local newspaper, running as a serial on the front page for three weeks. I developed that short story into a novel which will soon be released by Publish America (www.publisheramerica.com), the publisher of my first book Magnolia: A Wilting Flower, which was released in June 2002.

Magnolia took a trophy home in October, 2002 from the Florida Writers Association (FWA) Convention in Orlando, Florida. I write different genres. Magnolia is a Southern memoir done in creative nonfiction, and because of the way it is crafted, it is captivating for both YA and adults. The latest Southern review follows, and I have the reviewers permission to reprint her review: Magnolia is available at your favorite online bookstore by searching books, Barbara J.
Robinson, Magnolia. (www.amazon.com, www.bn.com, www.walmart.com).

For a personally-autographed copy, see information at authors site
http://pages.prodigy.net/bud25. Magnolia: A Wilting Flower by Barbara J. Robinson Publish America, 2002 Paperback, $19.95 (201 pages)
ISBN: Magnolia: A Wilting Flower is a memoir done in creative non-fiction and aimed for young readers; thus it stands apart from the usual memoir. The collection of short stories set in Ponchatoula, Louisiana follow the young life of Magnolia. The changing South of the 1950s and 1960s is experienced through the young girls eyes. Magnolia could be an interesting book for young reader book groups, because it covers a number of social issues: the death of a parent; interracial friendships; security at home; homeless men; poverty; education; single mothers; and simply growing up.

Barbara J. Robinson is a middle-grade teacher and the author of middle-grade novels. She is a member of the Florida Writers Association and a member of the Southeastern Louisiana Writing Project. Robinson is a past nominee of the Disney American Teacher Award. Joyce Dixon, Southern Scribe Reviews, www.southernscribe.com/reviews/biography-memoir/magnolia.htm.

How long did it take you to write your book(s) and why? I didnt sit down and just write a book. My first book, Magnolia, began with a short story I wrote when I took the Southeastern Louisiana Writing Projects Summer Institute in 1994. That short story became the first chapter. My second book, The Lord had Something Better in Mind, began with a short story I wrote for a creative-writing class when I was at Southeastern Louisiana University, and it won first prize. I took my award-winning short story and developed it into a novel. It took only a few months for me to take short stories and develop them into Magnolia, the tale of my coming-of-age and growing up, so it was easy for me to tell my story. It took approximately six months for me to complete, revise, and develop the second book. I work full-time teaching, so I had to write in the mornings and on weekends.

What would you do differently if you had to repeat the same publishing experience? I would have spent more time on Magnolia during rhe editing and revision process and perhaps crafted it a little differently to make it a better book. I would have done the same with my second book, but I had a contract sitting on my desks for weeks while I was debating if I should take my time and do what I felt like would make the book even better, so perhaps I could shop it around to different publishers, but meanwhile, my publisher was pressing me for an answer, and I gave in.

What have you learned about the publishing world through your experience? It is hard work, not the writing. Thats the fun part. The editing, revising, and marketing are the killers. Marketing is the hardest of all, especially when youre not a pushy salesperson type, like me.

I tried selling Christmas cards and perfume door-to-door as a teen to earnextra spending money, but it didnt take me very long to discover that I was not cut out tobe a salesperson. I wasnt pushy enough to push things on people that they didnt reallywant or need and since Im not, and I have to do my own marketing, my books will probably never become best sellers, but thats life.

Your Writers Response:
This is your chance to Talk-Back" to your readers. What would you say to them?
I hope you enjoy my books, because I wrote them for you, and I spent a lot of time, effort, and hard work on them, but most of all, I hope you get out of them what I meant for you to get, enjoyment and transportation to another world, another time, another place, an escape from the real world and todays problems. I hope you will be able to identify with some of my own life experiences in Magnolia, and I hope you understand why I used the content I used.

There was a purpose and that purpose was to try to educate todays youth and catch them while theyre still young enough to be caught, before they become addicted to cigarettes. From teaching, I have found that my own students love listening to Chicken Soup books, and my testimonial appears in Chicken Soup for the Teachers Soul. Students tell me they enjoy reading or listening to the nonfiction stories being read as read alouds, because they like hearing about what other people have been through in real life and how they handled the situation. They can learn how to handle their ownsituations in life, problem-solving skills. My hope is that they can learn from good stories, rather than by making the same mistakes, learning the easy way, by reading and developing their listening skills, instead of the hard way, by life experience, the best, yet,the hardest teacher of all.

Most of all, I hope you enjoy my books and provide me with some insight and feedback as to how I can make future books even better for you andwhat topics you might like to see me tackle. Whats the one thing that you would want them to know about your writing? I write frommy heart and soul and thats what makes my writing worthwhile.

Please provide us with the link to your index page and/or web page.
http://pages.prodigy.net/bud25

Magnolia: A Wilting Flower
Barbara J. Robinson
PO Box 151, Frederick, MD 21705-0151ISBN: 1591294304, $19.95,
www.publishamerica.comB. Cox

The Midwest Book Review http://www.midwestbookreview.com

This coming-of-age book is a touching story of a girl who has had to deal with family loss, disappointment, and sorrow at a very young age. What makes this book more remarkable is that Barbara Robinson was that young girl! Readers will appreciate the events that unfold, and grow inspired as they read this heart-warming tale from a very talented author.

Jennifer LB Leese, Reviewer
http://www.geocities.com/ladyjiraff/aswbr.html

Life's Lessons Learned the Hard Way
Reviewer Gary Roen reviewed MAGNOLIA: A WILTING FLOWER, and reviews ran in the March issue of Senior Beat and in the April Senior paper in Daytona. MAGNOLIA: A WILTING FLOWER by Barbara J. Robinso (Publish America $19.95 201 pages) is a very touching story of a girl's coming of age. Her hard life will either make or break her. At a young age she has to deal with the death of her father and later her mother's remarriage. One thing that kept her going was her father's belief to have a good life, you had to have a good education. "Somewhere along the hard row that Magnolia seemed to have to hoe, she had learned how important reading and writing skills were for a good education and future, though, she actually had no idea, at the time, just how important those skills would really become to her someday . . . . Magnolia still had many of life's lessons left to learn, and sadly, she would learn a lot of them the hard way."