Interview with historical fiction author Gretchen Craig

I'm happy to welcome Gretchen Craig back to Reviews and Interviews to talk about her newest release
Theena's Landing.

Gretchen Craig is the critically acclaimed author of novels and short stories. Set in Louisiana among the Creoles, Cajuns, and African slaves, her ante-bellum historicals are lush with romance and complicated families. Always and Forever won the Colorado Romance Writers Award of Excellence for Mainstream with Romantic Elements and was chosen as an Editor’s Pick in the Historical Novel Society reviews. Continuing the saga of the same extended families, Ever My Love won the Booksellers Best Award from the GDRWA. The last book of the trilogy, Crimson Sky, an e-book inspired by the pueblos, mountains, and deserts of northern New Mexico, evoke the lives of long-ago people living under a searing sun among the stark beauty of mesas and canyons. Gretchen’s latest novel, Theena’s Landing, evokes the blue sea, searing sun, and clear skies of the South Florida wilderness.

Gretchen was born in the Florida Panhandle and grew up in St. Petersburg on the Gulf Coast. She and her husband have lived in South Florida, Germany, and Maine, and are now in Texas among the mesquite and sunflowers. Having lived in such diverse climates and terrains, Gretchen’s novels are notable for their strong sense of place. Readers swear they can smell the bayous of Louisiana and taste the gumbos of New Orleans.

Hi Gretchen, please tell us about your current release.
I worried I’d never get Theena’s Landing published. The heroine is in love with her sister’s husband, and my editor told me No! Your readers will hate you. But, I said, it’s not about a woman who betrays or cheats. It’s about a woman working very hard not to betray or cheat. It’s about a woman’s journey into independence and self worth. Didn’t matter. It was a no go. Same thing at another publisher. What was I to do? I believe in this book. Real people do love unwisely and have to deal with the consequences. Real people do have divided hearts. So I plunged into the new world of digital publishing. Theena’s Landing is an e-book at Amazon Kindle and at Barnes and Noble.

What inspired you to write this book?
Most of my writing begins with a strong attraction to a place. For the last book it was the pueblos of the upper Rio Grande in New Mexico. For Theena’s Landing, it was remembering the years I lived in South Florida on that narrow strip of land between the Atlantic Ocean and the Everglades. I love conjuring up the heat, the smells, the sunlight, and all those critters of the swamp. And I especially am intrigued with lives lived before roads, strip malls, and air conditioning. I imagined living on the Miami River before there was a Miami. Who lived there? How would a young woman make a life for herself in that environment? What were her opportunities and handicaps?

What exciting story are you working on next?
I’m polishing Evermore, a novel that extends my first two historicals. The same extended family with ties to the Creoles, the Cajuns, and the African slaves of Louisiana loved and struggled through the 1830s and 1850s. In Evermore, the next generation now lives through the Yankee occupation of New Orleans, each character building a life during and after the upheaval of the Civil War.

When did you first consider yourself a writer?
The day after I retired from teaching I got up Saturday morning, turned on the computer, and opened a new file. I’ve written steadily since that day, and even though I was not published for the first two years, I was writing and learning and improving. I was a writer.

Do you write full-time? If so, what's your work day like? If not, what do you do other than write and how do you find time to write?
I’m fortunate enough that I do write full time. I generally write all morning, have lunch, and then write another couple of hours until I’m too bleary eyed to go on.

What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?
I get hung up on research. I can be typing along smoothly, and then suddenly wonder did they indeed have ether right then. I have to stop, look it up, and verify before I can go on.

As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
I wanted to be a woman with many lovely hats, high heels in every color, and matching handbags, of course. Other than that, I wanted to be a ballerina, mostly because of the satin shoes. A fighter pilot, because my brother had those Black Hawk comic books where the jets were sleek and blue-black. And a doctor. I was wrong about all those ambitions, though. What I really am cut out for is writing.

Anything additional you want to share with the readers?
I’m passionate about my characters and their lives. They live and breath for me. I hope you’ll find them as real and vivid as I do.

Thanks for visiting again, Gretchen.

Gretchen's first interview, where she talks about Crimson Sky, can be found here.

Interview with historical romance author Gretchen Craig

Today I'd like to welcome historical romance author Gretchen Craig.

Gretchen writes lush, sweeping historical novels. Always and Forever, set in Old Louisiana among the Creoles and the Cajuns, was awarded the Colorado Romance Writers Award of Excellence and an Editor’s Choice designation from the Historical Novels Society. Ever My Love, which continues the saga of the first book’s families, was awarded the Booksellers Best Award from the GDRWA. Gretchen’s latest historical, Crimson Sky, is a story of love and betrayal set in the old, old West. She lives in Texas with her husband and two dogs.

Please tell us about your newest release, Crimson Sky.
Crimson Sky, a historical with romance elements, is a story about a love triangle. Nothing kinky, just lots of tender hearts. In the pueblos of the Santa Fe area, the people face drought and marauders, and then things get worse. The conquistadors march up the Rio Grande Valley, bringing metal tools, new seeds, new animals – new diseases and weapons.

Zia is a young mother of the pueblos, very much in love with her husband, TapanAshka. When he doesn’t return from the hunt with his fellows, he’s assumed dead. The reader knows he is not and we see him struggling with his injuries and with the Spaniard Diego Ortiz. TapanAshka wants two things: to get home to Zia and their son, and to exact revenge on Ortiz.

When the drought worsens and the pueblo faces starvation, the elders determine they will go to the Spanish for protection and food. Diego Ortiz, handsome and kind, offers Zia his protection and his love. She tries to love him back, but the cost of his love is her religion and her very identity as a Keres woman. She determines she must make her way without Diego’s protection, and then learns of his savagery at other pueblos. She flees.

Zia, Diego, and TapanAshka cross paths one more time for an emotionally satisfying ending.

What inspired you to write this book?
The first time I went out west, we visited Bandelier National Park in northern New Mexico. You can see the ancient adobe ruins of a pueblo on the valley floor. You can climb the cliff paths and crawl into the people’s cave dwellings. You can walk beside the stream into the tall ponderosa pines. In an arid land, this canyon is lush and green and watered. I wanted to move in.

I started my research with Bandelier and expanded it to include the pueblos in the area. The people of Bandelier migrated only a few miles south to what is now Cochiti Pueblo. I am most interested in studying cultures in upheaval, at times of great change. The arrival of the Spanish changed everything for these people, sometimes violently, certainly irrevocably. I set my characters in ancient Cochiti and watched what happened when the conquistadors came calling.

What exciting story are you working on next?
So glad you asked because I’m in love with my new story. Three sisters live in the wilds of South Florida when Miami was just a fishing village. Their mother is long gone, scandalously, and their daddy dies. Each young woman must find her way in the world. Jack is the moral compass of the story, the “hero” whose love and respect the heroine strives to earn. If judging by my sitting at the keyboard crying as I revise some of the poignant scenes, I guess this one is a tear jerker. It’s certainly a love story, but it’s also a story about hard-won integrity, and the pain of love and loss.

When did you first consider yourself a writer?
I retired from teaching high school on a Friday. The next morning, I was at the keyboard, and I’ve considered myself a writer ever since. Even though what I turned out at first was pretty amateurish, I have ever since sat myself down at the computer and written, always trying to be better.

Do you write full time? What’s your work day like and what do you do other than write?
I do write full time. I don’t know how women with children at home do it, but some of them manage to turn out manuscripts, too. As for me, my husband and I are empty-nesters and I have only him and two dogs to look after. I write anywhere from three to six hours a day, depending on when brain-fog descends. The rest of the day I do the usual stuff, go to the gym, cook, maybe even push the mop around. But my main pursuit other than writing is reading. That has been a constant all my life and I read several hours most days.

What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?
I guess I’m not all that quirky. I’m not unusual in that I find it difficult to plan my stories ahead of time. Pantsers, we call ourselves, as in writing by the seat of our pants. But I’m learning to at least have some plot points in mind to guide me through. I suppose my novels are a bit different in that they are not purely romances, though they certainly do have romance elements. I’m interested in exploring characters against a broad canvas of social issues, and writing is most exciting when I feel the character leading me through her story.

As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
A ballerina, of course. Then a fighter pilot in a sleek black jet streaking through the skies (it was the 50s – we all wanted to be fighter pilots). And then I meant to be a doctor. Well, I’m not built for ballet and, oh yeah, no talent either. I outgrew the fighter pilot stage when I found the pilots more interesting than the planes and just wanted to be the beautiful honey the handsome hero comes home to. And as for medicine, I still sort of regret that didn’t work out, but when I was in college and the first “review” week in Chemistry II was way over my head, I rethought my direction. All I really wanted, I decided, was to sit and read, so I changed my major to literature.

Anything additional you want to share with readers?
What I hope for is that my readers come away from my novels with the feeling that the characters are/could be their very good friends, that they feel a close compatibility and empathy with them. I’m fascinated by the history behind each of my historicals, but that emotional connection is what I most want, both as a reader and a writer.

Crimson Sky is available in both Kindle and ePub formats.

Gretchen, thank you for chatting with us today. I wish you the best with your books. Come back again!