Author Chat with Lisa Fowler (Snakes and Stones), Plus Giveaway!

Today we’re excited to chat with Lisa Fowler, 

author of Snakes and Stones! 

Below you’ll find more about Lisa, her book, and giveaway!

 

 

 

 

YABC:   What surprised you most while writing your latest book?

Thank you for asking. That’s a great question. The twists and turns and choices the main character – twelve year old Chestnut Hill – had to make in order to try and put her broken family back together were the greatest surprise. It’s interesting too that some of the same struggles she faced in 1921 are ones young people are still wrestling with today.

YABC:   If you could live in any fantasy world, which one would it be?

I think I’d choose to live in some future world where interplanetary travel would be possible. I’ve always been fascinated by outer space. Wouldn’t it be great to know what’s really beyond what our eyes can see and to experience it first hand? I’d love to have breakfast in a café on Jupiter, sip coffee on one of Saturn’s rings in the afternoon, and then speed off for an evening’s desert of pumpkin pie and ice cream on the planet Neptune.

YABC:   Do you have a mantra that gets you through the drafting phase?

Not really, but I do talk to myself–a lot. I say things like: “you need to be writing instead of playing with the dogs, or playing your trumpet, or practicing your baritone, or raking leaves, or trying out a new recipe,” or any of the other things that seem to keep me from getting the “bones” of a story down. 

YABC:   What is your favorite hobby when you’re not writing?

I love to read and play with the three dogs that share our home, or perhaps I should say with the three dogs that allow us to share their home. We do work for them after all.

I play several brass instruments and am involved in local Community Bands and in my church orchestra, so I choose to make practicing a priority.

I also enjoy long walks but not so much during the heat of summer. Fall and winter are my favorite seasons and I love to walk along and listen to the skeleton tree branches smack together in the breezes.

YABC:   Which character gave you the most trouble when writing your latest book?

I think the character that yielded the most difficulty was Daddy. I wanted the reader to feel Chestnut’s distaste of him because of what she believed he had done, and yet the softness and difficulty of raising an “almost teenage” girl needed to come through. I hope I’ve allowed readers to see more than one side of the man Chestnut disliked so but came to admire greatly.

YABC:   Do you enjoy writing to music? If so, do you have a go-to play list?

While I love most every musical genre and enjoy listening, I prefer the solitude of silence when I write. I can hear what my characters are trying to tell me when they don’t have to compete with other voices.

YABC:   Is there an organization or cause that is close to your heart?

Samaritan’s Purse’s – Operation Christmas Child and World Vision are two that instantly come to mind.

YABC:   What’s a book that you’ve read recently that you would recommend to your readers?

That’s tough because there are so many and if I start trying to name them I’ll leave so many great ones off. I’ll try to name just a few though. I absolutely love the trilogy: Chains, Forge, and Ashes by Laurie Halse Anderson. I have also enjoyed: The Year the Swallows Came Early by Kathryn Fitzmaurice, Kirsten Hubbard’s Watch the Sky, Holly Black’s Doll Bones, and Ruby Holler and The Boy on the Porch by Sharon Creech

YABC:   Which part of the writing process do you enjoy more: Drafting or Revising?

I trip and trod through the writing phase with doubt and fear, wondering if I’m doing it right and what to include or leave out. But when the first draft is done the revising begins. That’s when all of my jets begin firing. I absolutely love revising.

YABC:   What would you say is your superpower?

Shutting out the world around me – a skill I mastered when raising my teenage daughter many years ago.

Thank you for having me and I hope your readers will enjoy Snakes and Stones.

 Meet Lisa Fowler!

Lisa Fowler has lived all her life in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, where she fell in love with mountain ways and lingo. She lives in Asheville, North Carolina. 

 

 

https://www.facebook.com/snakesandstones/

 

 

 

Meet Snakes and Stones!

Twelve-year-old Chestnut Hill’s daddy stole her and the triplets away from their mama. At least, that’s how Chestnut remembers it.

It’s 1921, and after nearly two years on the road with his traveling elixir show, Daddy’s still making no move to go back to Kentucky and buy Mama that house. So Chestnut is forced to come up with her own plan to get home. At night, when Daddy and the triplets are in bed, she draws up flyers with the name of the next town they’ll be traveling to. Before they leave each town and hoping her mama will see them, she nails up the flyers, leaving Mama an easy trail straight to her children.

When that doesn’t work, Chestnut is forced to try something bigger. But when her newest plan lands Daddy in jail and Mama has to come to the rescue, Chestnut discovers that things are not always as they seem. Written with a wonderful mountain hillbilly voice, Snakes and Stones has a mystery at its heart and lovable, strong, and complicated characters.

 

 

Amazon * B&N * Indiebound

 

 

 

 

Snakes and Stones

By: Lisa Fowler

Release Date: November 1st, 2016 

 

 

 

*GIVEAWAY DETAILS* 

Five winners will receive a copy of Snakes and Stones (Lisa Fowler) ~ (US/Canada Only)

 

 *Click the Rafflecopter link below to enter the giveaway*

 

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