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Book Blog Editor Angela Wilson chats it up with historical author Velda Brotherton.

Who is Velda Brotherton?
I wish I knew. I do know this, writing has been the most exciting and rewarding career I could have chosen. I didn’t start writing until my late 40s with my first finished novel to help celebrate my 50th birthday. I was 58 before my first published books came out, two the first year. I guess I’m an old woman now, but still going strong. The nicest people in the world are writers and readers, and I wouldn’t trade all the heartbreak in this game for even one of my best friends. Always creative, I’ve taught piano, learned to paint in oils and did that for about ten years with some success, but all the while writing my stories in my head. They finally plopped onto paper and I was off and running. I’m a native of Arkansas, but have lived all over the place in my lifetime. We’re settled in Arkansas for good now. We have two children, three grandchildren and a great grandchild. I belong to Women Writing the West, Oklahoma Writers Federation, Inc., Ozark Writers League and am co chair of a large critique group that’s been around for 20 years.

How long have you been writing?
Twenty-three years

You were out of the writing game for a while. What was it like to step back in with DOVE?
I wasn’t actually out of the game. I was writing short stories and being published in anthologies while I tried to decide which way to go when the bottom fell out for midlist writers and much of the western historical romance genre. I have had eight shot stories published in that many anthologies during that time.
When I finished Dove, I wasn’t sure what to do next, because I had been out of book publishing for so long. I investigated a few small publishers including the University of New Mexico Press. Their editor thought the book read too much like fiction for their nonfiction line, so I checked out Publish America and spent a lot of time speaking to other writers who were published with them and finally sent my submission. It was really a great feeling to have them want it immediately. The process was much the same as it had been when I was writing for Penguin, but it took a lot less time. You would have thought it was my first publication, the way my husband and I celebrated. What was so important to me was that Edna, my protagonist in Dove, would get to hold a book in her hands. And she did. The book has received a lot of good reviews since it came out, and I’m most pleased to know that it will continue to be available for as long as it has some sales.

Why historicals?
I’ve always thought I should have lived in the 1800s. Books about that time and movies too, always fascinated me. During the pretend part of my childhood, I always lived in Little House on the Prairie or something like it. I liked the idea of the adventure and freedom of that time. I’ve never been interested in historicals about other countries, just America. When I went to work for a newspaper, I soon turned to interviewing and writing about earlier times. It wasn’t long before they set me up with a half-page column that dealt with the past locally because I enjoyed writing it so much. I still write a similar column for a newspaper, in fact for two, both a weekly and a monthly publication.

What are the challenges with writing historicals?
The real challenge is getting to the most correct information. So much of what we find is based on the same information, which may or may not be correct. Finding three separate sources for information is the most difficult. We want to use what is the most exciting, and often that isn’t what really happened. Of course, all historians are challenged in a big way to find the truth, and often it really isn’t possible. In some cases, after we’ve weighed our information, all we can do is use the most logical information. There are some situations about which we will never know the exact or perfect truth.

Do you ever find yourself drawn to another genre?
Oh, yes. Since I read so many genres, I have tried writing them. I like mystery/suspense, women’s fiction and even some paranormal, so naturally I’ve tried writing them. I’ve often thought if I’d only stuck to one genre I might have been rich and famous by now. I even have a dark urban fantasy manuscript with a publisher as well as a light paranormal. The thing is, I love to write and I enjoy whatever world I’m creating. Fiction in any genre does that for me. Creative nonfiction is much more difficult, but I like it better than straight nonfiction. I’m still telling stories.

How has the industry changed since your first publication?
Sad to say,  the changes have not been for the better. But I see the time soon coming when we may see some improvement. Right now, with the bottom line always tons of money and obscene profits, publishing is sinking itself in a quagmire of decisions that are bad for the reading public. If we’re only offered million dollar books, what becomes of all the wonderful and unique stories we all would enjoy reading? And what happens to the young writers with all their talent? What has to change is, in my opinion, first the ridiculous advances, and second the idea that bookstores have the right to rip covers off perfectly good books and get a refund. Imagine, if you will, the grocery store owner who could tear labels off food products he couldn’t sell, and return them for a refund, or the clothing store who could do the same. I feel like the growth of small publishers and POD publishing and Ebooks and a new non-return policy, will in the long run be the saving grace of publishing for tomorrow. But what do I know? I’m just a writer who’s been in the business for 23 years.

Do you think it’s changed for better/worse?
Temporarily for the worse, but I think my previous answer covers how it can become better, given a few strong people with good intentions and better sense.

How has the Internet changed the way you reach your audience?
For me, this has been a Godsend. Especially right now with the high price of gasoline. I live in the country and it’s a long way to the nearest bookstore, and then to the next one. The Internet has allowed me to heavily promote my two latest books and two previous books I have which are still available. Blogs and websites and list serves and online newsletters, the social networks like Facebook, Ning, MySpace, are the best tools one could imagine for getting the word out about ourselves and what we do. Imagine that million plus audience out there. Of course, we have to be smart about what we do and how we do it, but I’m willing to learn anything new that will help with promotion without seeing me running hundreds of miles for booksignings that might or might not attract more than a handful of readers.

What is the best reference book in your writing library?
My shelves are overloaded, even though researching on the Internet is often the quickest and best way to go. I have to have The New York Public Library Desk Reference for it’s perpetual calendar, inventions and scientific discoveries, and so very much more information which I need constantly in writing about the past. Of course I also have several books on the great American West. I find the series from Writer’s Digest “The Writer’s Guide to Every Day Life…” to be invaluable for quick information on dress, slang, politics, furniture, weapons, etc. of any given time in our early history.

Who are you reading?
Right now I’m reading Michelle Gagnon’s Boneyard and I just finished Jeffrey Deaver’s The Broken Window. I never read for pleasure anything in the genre I’m writing at the moment. There is too much danger of being influenced by others, or dare I say inadvertently using someone else’s approach or actual phrasing.

What’s next for you?
Would you believe I’m writing a memoir of my 9 years working for a rural newspaper. My adventures with the paper were probably some of the most unusual of my life. The title is Tigers and Snakes and Flying Machines to give you a hint of some of the things I did. I do have three manuscripts with publishers at the moment, waiting to hear. One is a western historical romance. I’d like to get a publisher for a series.

Why did you write this one under a pen name?
You’re talking about Images In Scarlet by Samantha Lee, I guess. That’s a back in print from Author’s Guild and iUniverse. It was published originally in the 90s. In those days, I was asked to use a pen name because my name didn’t sound like a romance author, and I already had nonfiction books under my own name out there. Earlier I wrote four books for Topaz with Penguin under the name of Elizabeth Gregg, for the same reason.

What is different about it than those under the Velda Brotherton brand?
Probably nothing. Back in those days we had no idea about having a brand, but it’s something I’m working on now, and having some difficulty doing because of my propensity to write all over the place. Hard to brand a writer who does that. We came up with a logo that states my work is Stories Woven Through Time, but that still doesn’t take care of the paranormal or the dark urban fantasy books, does it? Nor the women’s fiction.

What is the benefit/drawback of using a pen name?
Today I won’t use a pen name, because I don’t see a benefit to it, only drawbacks. For instance, just as I began to get a following as Elizabeth Gregg, the line closed, I had to go to another publisher and they didn’t want the same name, so off we went with Samantha Lee. Gone was my following, despite all I did to keep them with me. No Internet at the time, certainly not like we know it today. The only reason Images In Scarlet has that name on it today is that it is a reprint and to change it would’ve meant it couldn’t be done with the back in print program. I wanted it back out there because I didn’t feel it had enough distribution first time around, even though the sales were decent.

Find out more about Velda:

www.veldabrotherton.com
vbrotherton.blogspot.com

Documentary: http://vimeo.com/354804