Blair McDowell ~ Speed Date Interview
You the Readers are the Interviewers. Here is your chance to get answers to the questions you always wanted to ask your favorite Authors. Authors will be coming into the blog for a Speed Date Interview. They will only be there one day and you can only ask them two questions.
Pull up a chair, put on your best smile and make the best impression of yourself.
Personal and inappropriate questions may not be answered at the Author’s discretion.
Ask an Author two questions and be entered to win in our monthly giveaway. You could win a package of free reads from the RJ book vault. We will be asking Authors to select the best question they were asked on the day they day they posted on the blog. We will also be picking random winners from the general questions.
Once the Speed Date interview is done the Interview staff will be going in and selecting a group of questions and answer to post on the RJ Authors Interview Webpage.
http://www.romancejunkiesreviews.com/artman/publish/interviews.shtml
BIO
I wrote my first short story when I was eleven and have never ceased writing since, although only recently have I been able to return to my first love, fiction. During the years when I was scrambling to make money, I supported myself by teaching in universities in the United States, Canada and Australia, and by writing professional books in my field. Fortunately for me, those books were highly successful.My research took me to many interesting places. I lived in Europe, Australia, the United States and Canada. I spent considerable time in still other places, Iceland, the Caribbean Islands, the Far East, and the Torres Strait Islands off the coast of New Guinea. Now I travel for pleasure. Portugal, Greece and Italy are favorite haunts.My books are set in places I know and love and are peopled with characters drawn from my experiences of those places. The Memory of Roses takes readers to the Greek Island of Corfu, where a young woman finds her future while searching for her father’s past. In Delighting in Your Company, the reader is transported to a small island in the Caribbean, with a heroine who finds herself in the unenviable position of falling in love with a ghost. My setting for Sonata is the city of Vancouver, with its vibrant multicultural population and its rich musical life, and my heroine is a musician who finds herself in unexpected danger.
I hope you will enjoy reading these books as much as I have enjoyed writing them.
BLURB
When her father dies, Brit McQuaid inherits a villa on the beautiful island of Corfu, a villa she knew nothing about. He also left a cryptic note asking that she deliver a package to a woman on Corfu with whom he was once in love, while married to Brit’s mother.
This launches a journey for Brit, taking her from San Francisco to Greece and Italy. Along the way she meets a sizzling Greek archaeologist who not only helps her unravel a powerful secret from the past, but shows her the path to her own future. After this adventure, Brit’s life will be changed forever.
Website: http://www.blairmcdowell.com
Blog: http://blog.blairmcdowell.com/
Excerpt and Book Trailer: http://www.blairmcdowell.com/Memory_of_Roses.html
Buy Links:
- Amazon.com: http://www.amazon.com/The-Memory-of-Roses-ebook/dp/B005RTP7VQ/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1317842609&sr=1-1
- BarnesAndNoble.com: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-memory-of-roses-blair-mcdowell/1106234362
- AllRomanceEbooks.com: http://www.allromanceebooks.com/product-thememoryofroses-607745-149.html
- EbookStrand.com: http://www.ebookstrand.com/the-memory-of-roses
Blair will be giving away a copy of The Memory of Roses to one lucky commenter.
November 18th, 2011 at 6:30 am
Good Morning Blair!
Love the cover for The Memory of Roses. It is beautiful.
I love the idea of travelling for research. What is the most interesting thing you have come across while researching? There must be so much differences in culture in all the places you have been.
Do you have genre that you have not written yet but would love to tackle?
November 18th, 2011 at 6:39 am
Good Morning, Blair!
Your books sound so good and interesting with all of the exotic settings.
Do you build your characters on people that you know?
Has teaching taught you the patience to be more disciplined in your writing?
November 18th, 2011 at 8:55 am
Hi Blair,
What an interesting, exciting and full life you’ve lived. I love that you were able to travel to the places you write about. I’ve always found the reader benefits in so many ways from an Author’s research.
Can I ask what you taught in University ?
I realize you write from your own experiences, how do you come up with your characters ?
It’s been a pleasure reading your post. I will definitely be looking to read your books.
Carol L
Lucky4750 (at) aol (dot) com
November 18th, 2011 at 9:12 am
#1–I loved Corfu, the setting of The Memory of Roses. Perhaps the most interesting thing I’ve come across though I found on the small Greek island of Hydra. And it wasn’t a physical object–it was a philosophy of life expressed to me by two very different people, one a musician and the other a professor–in almost the exact same words. I put those words in the mouth of my hero, Andreas. To me they express the Greek spirit.
Genre I have not yet written? Stright historical–although I did a bit of it in Delighting In Your Company (to be released in March)
November 18th, 2011 at 9:18 am
#2 Teaching has indeed taught me patience and the need to be organized. It has also given me the discipline I need to keep at the task until it is done. While I try not to be obsessive about I generally spend four hours a day at writing or writing related tasks.
AS TO MY CHARACTERS–of course they encorporate bits and pieces of people I know or have known. People are the best models for people. But I have never taken any one person I know and put him/her in a book. That could lead to serious legal problems.
November 18th, 2011 at 9:28 am
#3 I’ve been lucky with travel. So much of it was by invitation to speak. My specialty took me far and wide. I was a Professor of Music. My books were widely used in many countries and I was often invited to speak about them or to offer courses based on them. And then as well I studied in Europe and taught in Australia, and did research in numerous interesting places. It’s been a great life.
The characters seem to spring fully developed into my mind. When I’m writing a new book I can’t seen to stop talking about them to my family. They are utterly real people to me when I’m working on a book.
November 18th, 2011 at 9:42 am
This sounds like a book I would really enjoy!
If you could time travel where would you go and when?
How long does it take to finish a story?
November 18th, 2011 at 11:17 am
What is your favorite time period in time that you would love to write about.And where would it take place.
November 18th, 2011 at 12:57 pm
#7 to Carol M
If I could time travel–hmm. My heroine in Delighting In Your Company goes back to 1810 in the Caribbean. I think I’d like to go back a little earlier myself. I’d like to be in Vienna and Prague to see the premiers of my favorite Mozart operas. Although I’m not at all sure I’d like to cope with either the medical practices or the sanitary practices of that time and age. All in all, I think the best time is right here and now.
November 18th, 2011 at 1:00 pm
#7 Carol M–How long…? The memory of Roses took me two years and three major revisions before I was satisfied with it.
My little Christmas short story, Abigail’s Christmas, only a week.
Delighting In Your Company, four months. It practically wrote itself. I had so much fun writing it.
November 18th, 2011 at 1:04 pm
#8 to Peggy
I said earlier to the late 1700′s early 18oo’s. But as I reflect, I think perhaps ancient Greece. To the period of the great writers, philosophers and statesmen. But I’d have to go back as a man. The place of women in those days would not suit me. Our ancestors in earlier days didn’t have an easy time of it.
November 18th, 2011 at 3:17 pm
Hi, Blair. We must have been separated at birth because I adore combining travel & writing too. Your story sounds wonderful.
What does your workspace look like? Do you have a view?