The Swan Bonnet
Katherine L. Holmes
Release Date: July 16, 2013
Genre: YA Historical Fiction
Publisher: GMTA Publishing, LLC
Blurb:
Unknown to Dawn, her grandfather has shot an old swan out of mercy. In their coastal Alaskan town, her father buys the swan pelt, preventing her Uncle Alex, a fur trader, from selling it for export. Dawn’s father surprises her part-Aleut mother with a hat she helped to make and also with an idea to catch poachers. Shooting swans has become illegal but Alaska is a territory and Prohibition occupies the Sheriff.
Dawn and her mother become involved with suspicious responses to the swan bonnet besides its haunting effect. Because Dawn’s grandparents see the swans first, Dawn agrees to secretly watch the migration with the Deputy Sheriff’s son. But after she and her mother encounter women from a ship and find out about a hunting party, they ride to the inlet. There are also townspeople roving the shore but who is the vigilante and who is the poacher?
Dawn and her mother become involved with suspicious responses to the swan bonnet besides its haunting effect. Because Dawn’s grandparents see the swans first, Dawn agrees to secretly watch the migration with the Deputy Sheriff’s son. But after she and her mother encounter women from a ship and find out about a hunting party, they ride to the inlet. There are also townspeople roving the shore but who is the vigilante and who is the poacher?
LINKS
Most
of my favorite authors are indie or self-pubbed, what made me you
decide to go that route?
During
the long and indecisive stays with agents, I saw that Indie
publishers were beginning to thrive. So I submitted and because the
process was more direct, without the agent go-between.
What
was one of the most surprising things you learned in creating your
books?
How
the book came together finally, actually gradually so that the
finalizing was very satisfying.
Which of your characters are you most like? Least like?
In
The
Swan Bonnet,
I would have to say that I hadn’t expected to identify most with
Frances, but I did as the novel developed. I suppose I identified
with the teenage protagonist Dawn at first but as a person much
older, I finally identified with Frances, the independent woman who
traded in my historical novel.
I
least like characters that come into the story but don’t influence
the action so much. They need to be portrayed very concisely which
is difficult.
Do
you have a particular writing habit?
Yes, I write fiction in the morning,
before I talk to anyone. I might edit or rewrite later in the day but
I imagine and draft it in the early morning.
If
you had to choose, which writer would you consider a mentor?
Can’t
decide on one but names come to me –
George
MacDonald, Emily Bronte, Katherine Anne Porter
Are
there any new authors that have grasped your interest?
They
are very new, writers that I found at Authonomy.com or through
Goodreads.com, writers reviewed at my blog Writing Amid Used Books
http://katherinelholmes.blogspot.com/
. I guess that’s why I became involved with used books, because I
wasn’t enthralled with the books being promoted nationally. I’ve
found wonderful books in the Indies and encourage readers to explore
new books if they feel the need to look around.
What
is the hardest part of your writing?
To
re-read something that needs work, especially after I’ve submitted
it, and the gap between being humiliated and starting the revision
Do
you have any advice for other writers?
Do
that difficult act after you’ve finished – re-read your work
sentence after sentence and decide whether it needs to be revised.
You might not be ready for that until a few months after finishing
but this checking is important before submitting the work more than
once or twice.
Describe
yourself in three words.
Contemplating.
Inquisitive. Empathetic.
I
know characters are like children but if you could chose, who’s
your favorite from your books? Of all time?
My
favorite is probably the protagonist of a novel I haven’t published
yet, a child of divorce. And probably because she was someone I
identified with, but at the end of the book, she was my child. I was
empty nest after writing the book and missed that character more than
the others. Many of my protagonists were juvenile and so they
remained with me that way.
Any
song or songs that could basically sum up the overall mood of your
writing?
I’ll
just say “MacArthur’s Park” since my writing is often to
remember, or to prevent from being forgotten.
Do
you plot out your books or just freely write them and let the
characters tell you what to do next?
I
explore the character and setting with a vague plot-line. The plot
doesn’t become defined for me until the second or third draft.
If
you had to choose, which writer would you consider the biggest
influence in your writing?
I
never had one writer that influenced all of my writing. The answer
would have to be several. One doesn’t supersede the authors that
I admired.
What are your current projects? Can you share a little of your
current work with us?
I’ve
been working on a nonfiction project for eight to eighteen-year-old's.
The reason for that age range is because the project is about music.
Most music students begin at about the age of eight but it’s in
the teenage years that music interests many. My project covers archaeology, history, and different ethnicity. It focuses on the
first melodic instrument.
Katherine L. Holmes’ first published book was The House in Windward Leaves, an MG fantasy which became an E-book Finalist in the 2013 New Generation Indie Book Awards and a Juvenile Fiction Finalist in the National Indie Excellence Book Awards. Also, she won Prize Americana for her short story collection, Curiosity Killed the Sphinx and Other Stories, published by Hollywood Books International. In April 2013, The Wide Awake Loons was released by Silver Knight Publishing. The Swan Bonnet, a historical novel, will be published in July, 2013, by GMTA Publishing. Katherine has worked with used and rare books in the last years. She lives in Duluth, Minnesota.
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