Evy Journey has
always been fascinated with words and seduced by beautiful prose. She loves
Jane Austen and invokes her spirit every time she spins tales of love, loss,
and finding one's way—stories she interweaves with mystery or intrigue and sets
in various locales. SPR (Self Publishing Review) awarded Evy the 2015
Independent Woman Author bronze for her writing.
She's lived and
traveled in many places, from Asia to Europe. Often she's ended up in Paris,
though—her favorite place in the world. She's an observer-wanderer. A flâneuse,
as the French would say.
The mind is
what fascinates her most. Armed with a Ph.D., she researched and spearheaded
the development of mental health programs. And wrote like an academic. Not a
good thing if you want to sound like a normal person. So, in 2012, she began to
write fiction (mostly happy fiction) as an antidote.
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About the Book:
Elise thought she knew her mother. Agnieszka
Halverson is a caring woman, a great cook, and an exceptional piano player; but
living in a secure, predictable world, she’s also a little dull. Her world is
Born to immigrant parents weighed down by
their roots, Agnieszka takes solace in learning to play the piano, taught by a
sympathetic aunt who was a concert pianist in Poland before World War II. But
when her aunt betrays her and her parents cast her aside for violating their
traditional values, can Agnieszka’s music sustain her? Can she, at eighteen,
build a life on her own?
When she finally bares her soul to her
children, Agnieszka hopes they can accept that she has a past that’s as complex
as theirs; that she’s just as human, just as vulnerable as they are. But do her
revelations alienate her husband and can they push Elise farther away from her?
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What’s inside the mind of a Woman’s Fiction author?
I’m sure this varies a lot since this is a rather broad
category. I put my books in this genre because at the center of each are issues
that women face. The infinite numberof questions they grapple with. The story
may be set in a historical period or have a young adult protagonist, such as in
Hello Agnieszka, but the focus is still the woman’s experience and growth.
What is so great about being an author?
You can let your mind run wild, and then give your imagined
characters and stories flesh and bone with your words. Heady stuff, that.
There’s power in it.
When do you hate it?
I haven’t yet found that I hate it. I get overwhelmed
sometimes, especially with promotion and marketing. Or, I get into a bit of a
rut.
What is a regular writing day like for you?
When I’m working on a novel, I spend from three to six hours
writing, in the morning and late at night.
How do you handle negative reviews?
Who likes negative reviews? But they can be helpful if
they’re well thought out. I take their existence as part of the whole game and
I don’t lose sleep over it. Many times, if your book is well-written and not
boring—things under an author’s control—those who give bad reviews don’t often
read your genre or may hate your characters, or something they do or don’t do.
How do you handle positive reviews?
I might buy myself a box of macarons. Usually, I
smile—broadly—especially when the reviewer truly connects with something in the
story. Then, I can become pleasantly emotional.
What is the usual response when you tell a new acquaintance
that you’re an author?
Many people, I think, feel authorship is awesome, so you get
an admiring look at least for an instant. Then, they ask about what you write.
That admiring look may last a bit longer than an instant if you happen to write
the type of books they read (if they read fiction). If not, they lose interest
quickly, and we all move on.
What do you do on those days you don’t feel like writing? Do
you force it or take a break?
I do art which, for me, is equally absorbing.
Any writing quirks?
I can’t think of any. In many ways, writing a book is grunt
work. Is it a quirk to want to keep tweaking your book?
What would you do if people around you didn’t take your
writing seriously or see it as a hobby?
I’ve been around long enough now that I’ve come to believe
you can’t change people’s opinions that easily. So I shrug it off and continue
to do what I love doing. Anyway, a hobby can be more engaging than other
serious work one may do for a living.
Some authors seem to have a love-hate relationship to
writing. Can you relate?
I’ve always loved words. So writing seems to be a natural
offshoot of that, even the grunt work part of it.
Do you think success as an author must be linked to money?
How does one spell success as an author? In this culture,
money is the usual measure of success for any endeavor. For me, it’s having
people read what I write; better still, having them find something in it they
can relate to. Obviously, the more readers you get who fill that bill, the
better; but money is secondary.
What has writing taught you?
A lot of things. Many of those things are informational.
They come from when I do research for my books. Having been a researcher once,
I tend to be meticulous. I check even the little trivia I put in it.
Has it taught me anything else? I don’t know but I’ve
learned to be more observant; maybe even more attentive to other people’s
feelings.
Leave us with some words of wisdom.
Do something creative—writing, painting, crocheting,
creating tasty dishes; whatever—even when you think you’re too busy with the
daily demands of life. Creating is enriching, empowering. And I think it’s in
our genes.
