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Gina Holder was gracious enough to host my book, Loving Beth on her blog: “STORIESBYGINA” during the Celebrate book tour. Here is that interview. 

INTERVIEW WITH BONNIE 

What has been your favorite part of the publishing journey?

I was very naïve about the publishing world with my first book. I thought once I wrote “The End,” that that was it—the end. That first book was a memoir about our life in the Alaskan wilderness, and, between working full-time, managing a farm, and taking care of family, it took me ten years to write. It was a relief to finally type those two coveted words at the end of my manuscript. However, sending it out to agents and publishers only to have it rejected was one of the biggest disappointments in my life.

Believe me, the thought of scouring the Yellow Pages for a “Rejected Writer’s Group” did cross my mind. So, after licking my self-pity wounds, I rolled up my sleeves and got to the real work of publishing a book. I spent another year editing, re-writing, and finding a professional editing company that helped me make my story the best it could be. Then it was time to proof, proof, and proof again by as many pairs of eyes as I could get. Only then was my manuscript ready for publishing. All that extra polishing paid off when my book won five book awards and the Kindle version has remained on at least two best seller categories for almost ten years now.

Publishing can be very daunting for the first-time author.  I learned many things the hard way, which ended up costing me a lot more time and money than it should have. Now my favorite part of publishing is taking all that experience and knowledge that I learned the hard way and sharing it with upcoming writers.

Can you share with us something about the book that isn’t in the blurb?

Loving Beth is my first fiction and, believe it or not, I started this story as non-fiction. The first chapter is based on an actual event that happened to my husband’s great grandmother, Easter Mullens. Her story captivated me, and I knew I had to write it. But as I started doing research,  another story evolved with characters who were inspired by the familial tales of my husband’s ancestors, a hardy and resilient mountain people.

Does one of the main characters hold a special place in your heart? If so, why?

I know this sounds biased, but I really love my characters—well, most of them. You “live” with these characters for a long time when you are writing about them. They become close to you and you feel connected to them, and they continue living in your head long after they’ve been put on a page. I have several favorites, but if I have to pick one, I’d say Tommy, the little boy in the story, is my favorite. I love how brave he is when he and his baby sister are dealt a hardship no child should ever have to endure. As his character evolved, I came to love him, and that love poured out through my character, Beth.

What were the highlight or key challenges you faced when writing this book?

The key challenges to writing a historical novel is the research that must be done. I spent more time researching than writing. The story takes place in 1878, so I might spend half a day or more researching one thing—but finding what I needed was the highlight of my day. I love weaving historical details into my story and sharing it with my readers, perhaps teaching them something they may not know.

Share something your readers wouldn’t know about you.

If you haven’t read my first two memoirs about our life in the Alaskan wilderness, you wouldn’t know that my husband and I moved to Alaska in 1981 and settled on an uninhabited island in the middle of a huge glacier-fed lake. This was before cell phones. We lived completely off grid for nearly a decade—the first three months in a pup tent while we built our first log cabin by hand. It was the greatest challenge of my life, especially that first year. But the wilderness grew on me, and I came to absolutely love it. It was the best adventure of my life.

The other thing readers wouldn’t know about me is that I was a ballerina before I married my husband. I was accepted into the Minnesota School of Dance and Theater when I was sixteen years old. I loved ballet. It might sound strange going from a ballerina to a wilderness woman, but that was my path. Ballerinas may look fragile, but they are not. They have stamina and agility, coordination and balance—all of which helped me along my journey.

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