This is now closed,winner will be announced tomorrow….good luck.
Many of you are gearing up for Katrina Fall Into Reading 2007 can I strongly suggest adding this new, awesome author to your list. You can see a review of her book here in my Book Buzz column. I would love for you to get to know her a little better, because let me tell you she is a gem!!! So without further ado…. (be sure to read all the way down for a giveaway)
Please tell us a bit about yourself and your family.I don’t know why, but this is always the hardest question for me! It’s so difficult to sum up my life and my family… But I’ll try! I grew up in a small town in Iowa and had a beautiful childhood and adolescence. God blessed me with wonderful parents and a brother who I am very close to. I graduated college with degrees in English, Spanish, ESL and Secondary Education. The day after I graduated from college I married Aaron Baart. He is so cool and so funny and I so do not deserve him! J Aaron and I moved to Vancouver, British Columbia a year after we got married so that he could go to seminary. During that time we switched roles: I worked fulltime and brought home a paycheck, and because of his sporadic, student schedule he cleaned the house and did all the typical domestic things. I taught full-time for four years and then substitute taught part-time for another four years. When my gorgeous son, Isaac, was born I began to work less and less. He is now almost four years old. And last year we adopted Judah as an infant from Ethiopia. I gotta tell you, you haven’t seen beautiful until you’ve seen my baby! Now I stay home fulltime because I wouldn’t dare to leave my two tornadoes with anyone else! They are both so filled with energy and life. Yikes. I get tired just thinking about what they can get into on a daily basis. But I love them to death and I can’t wait to have more. I think it’s time for a daughter in this testosterone-filled home!
I love the name of your main character, Julia. Can you tell me how you came about choosing that name?
I have always loved the name Julia. When I started writing After the Leaves Fall, I was pregnant with our second baby, and Julia was what I hoped to name the baby if she was a girl. Unfortunately, I miscarried just after the twelve-week mark. Somehow it felt wrong to “save” that name for another baby. But Julia felt very right for the main character in my novel–I almost didn’t have a choice. Julia just had to be Julia, I couldn’t have named her something different if I tried. Also, Julia is my grandmother’s name. Anyone who reads the book will discover how I feel about my grandmothers! And, consequently, Nellie (the name of Julia’s grandmother in After the Leaves Fall) is the name of my other grandmother. I didn’t really mean for the book to be such a literal tribute to my grandmas, but it sure did turn out that way!
What kind of reader did you have in mind when you wrote After The Leaves Fall?
Honestly, I didn’t have a particular reader in mind when I wrote After the Leaves Fall. I had hoped that it would be a universally appealing book, though now when I look back on it I can see that all of the strong female characters probably make it a book primarily for a female audience. However, I think that many of the themes addressed are not gender-specific. And the sequel, Summer Snow, introduces some really neat male characters that I think will earn a wider readership. I think both books are also well-suited for high school or college age students.
What type of research did you have to do for this book? Or is the setting of the book similar to where you grew up?
The only thing that I researched for this book was the world of engineering. I have a close friend (a woman) who has her degree in biomedical engineering and we sat down for an afternoon to chat about her experiences. Other than that, the book came pretty naturally to me. I grew up in Northwest Iowa and much of the setting in After the Leaves Fall is taken directly from my memories. Although Iowa is thought to be boring and flat, I think it is incredibly beautiful, and I tried to give people a glimpse of the pastoral beauty of the Midwest in my book.
After The Leaves Fall is book one in a series, how did you come up with the story idea?
I wish I could say I had some lightning inspiration like J.K. Rowling sitting in her coffee shop. But the idea for Julia’s story was a slow evolution. First of all, Julia De Smit formed as a character in my mind. I loved her instantly and kept drawing different aspects of her person so that she would be as real to others as she was to me. Then, other characters came into the picture. From there, Julia’s story sort of wrote itself. I’d throw an obstacle at her and imagine what she would do to overcome it and how she would feel in the middle of battling it. I guess there were lots of little experiences in my life that played into Julia’s story, but none of the things that happen to her in After the Leaves Fall are autobiographical.
Will we see any more of Parker? Or do I just have to wait and see =)
I’m going to exercise my 5th amendment right and keep my mouth shut! J Sorry!
(she caught me I was trying to find out information, hehehe!!)
Why do you think it took Thomas so long to figure out his emotions?Love in any form is a very complicated thing. You may dearly love someone, but just below the surface there is often a whole host of other emotions: insecurity, jealousy, fear, desire, hope, lust, and the list goes on and on. And in the midst of all this confusion you have to decide if you are in love, or if it’s just friendship love, or if it was never really love at all. I know people who divorced their spouses because they “loved them but they were not in love with them.” Give me a break. Love is a choice. Thomas does not have that figured out at all, and I made his character so waffling and indecisive because I wanted to show people how seriously you can hurt someone by playing with the idea of love. I don’t think Thomas is a bad person, but I do think that he has given in to cultural expectations (or lack thereof) about what love should truly be. He’s waiting for Hollywood romance and fireworks instead of making a commitment and sticking with it through thick and thin.
What advice would you give any first time novelist who may be sitting and writing right now?
Keep writing! Write and write and write. And then ask yourself this question: Am I doing this because I love to write? Or am I doing this because I think it’s going to get me fame or fortune or notoriety? I truly believe that the Lord has called each of us to a specific task in this world and I believe that there is supposed to be much joy in it for us. If you love writing and you do it with a joyful heart, you are already fulfilling a part of the calling that the Lord has planned for you. Who cares if no one else ever reads it? It is your act of worship, it is your offering, and your Lord takes delight in you. Of course, as with any job there are going to be times when writing is a chore. But if it is a constant uphill battle, if it is something you do because you feel obligated to do it, or if you are writing because you want to be the next big thing, I think something is off. Go and find something you love. Go and find something that makes you feel fulfilled and whole and then go and offer it at the feet of your Creator.
Is there anything you’d like to share with my readers that I haven’t asked you about?
Hmmm… I don’t think so. Other than: Thank you so much for reading this! And thank you, Laurel, for being such an encouragement to me. I am so incredibly grateful that the Lord made our paths cross. You are a blessing!
I have to say one of the many things I like about After The Leaves Fall are sentences that pierced my heart. After reading the first sentence of Nicole’s book, “Waiting is a complicated longing,” I literally stopped and chewed on that sentence for a bit. This is so true in our own lives, we are excited for the future, but fear the unknown; we wait for change, but dislike being changed. Sometimes we know and wait for something better, but fear it may never come. Waiting IS complicated, and what an excellent way to open up this wonderful story. Another powerful piece that pierced my heart is on page 255, second paragraph….oh I guess you will just have to read the book to see it. But I have good news YOU CAN WIN THE BOOK.
Nicole not only has a passion for writing, but her and her husband have another passion. Go to this post and come back and leave me a comment giving me one fact about the post.
Out of the people who comment about that post, I will (or random.org) will select one person for me to send them the book After The Leaves Fall, and a book journal via amazon.com. You have to be willing to give me your snail mail for me to order it and have it sent to you.I will be announcing the winner Saturday September 29th, be sure I am able to get ahold of you via email, etc.
You are not required, but I would love for you to grab the button below and announce the giveaway on your blog.
November 12th head on over there to read all about it.
Welcome to the 2007 
