Interview with Jackie Lee Miles and a giveaway

Hi Ms. Miles - thanks so much for sharing your time with us today.  I loved Roseflower Creek and would love to share a bit about the author behind the book with my readers. 


1. Can you tell us what inspired you to write Roseflower Creek?

Roseflower Creek is my debut novel. When I decided to try my hand at writing, I signed up for a class at the University of Georgia’s Continuing Education Center. The only class they had that wasn’t filled up was Murder and Mayhem for Money. It wasn’t exactly what I wanted to write, but what could I do? It was the only one available. I immediately signed up.

When I showed up for class, there were thirty-five people in attendance. Most of them had substantial and multiple degrees and had been writing for years. Some were even published. Being the new kid on the block, they were curious about me. One of them asked what genre I was writing in.

I said, “John who?”

The class had a good laugh, but they let me stay on and suggested that I sign up for the writer’s conference coming up on campus that would feature editors and agents from all over the country including New York. There would be four-hundred students in attendance.

Soon, I found out we could take a portion of our work to the conference and have it evaluated by a professional. I immediately got to work on a mystery genre, creating the Kate Ferrington Mystery Series, which I billed as a Killer Series, since all of the titles had the words Kill Her in it: Kill Her Dead, Kill Her Gone and Kiss Her, Tease Her, Kill Her, Squeeze Her.

After finishing each chapter, I wasn’t sure it was what I really should be writing, but I persevered. I had nearly one hundred pages and was getting rather excited about attending the conference when I picked up the local newspaper one morning and spotted a United Press article on the front page. It went on to tell of a ten-year-old boy who had lost his life when his mother and step-father beat him to death for stealing five dollars in the lunch room.

I was reduced to tears. Having four children myself, all I could think of was how awful this was for this little boy: physically, psychologically, spiritually and mentally. Holding up the paper, I remember saying, “You poor little boy. It must have hurt so bad.”

A little voice in my head said, “Yeah, it did, and the morning I died it rained.”

I went to my computer and threw Kate Ferrington out and started writing what became Roseflower Creek. My story was one that featured a ten-year-old girl in the 1950’s who loses her life when her alcoholic step-daddy takes things too far. I wrote the prologue, the first fifty pages, the last chapter and the epilogue without stopping.

A few weeks later at the conference, I met Ron Pitkin, the President of Cumberland House Publishing. He was enamored with the opening line: The morning I died, it rained, and asked to see the manuscript. I gave him what I had. He instructed me to finish it and send it to him as soon as possible. I finished the manuscript and sent it off. He called me a week later to tell me they were bringing in out in hardcover. I consider it a miracle. I was absolutely in the right place at the right time. Last year, Cumberland House was bought by Sourcebooks, Inc., and Roseflower Creek has been re-released.

 2. What book is currently on your nightstand?

I just attended Joshilyn Jackson’s appearance at the Margaret Mitchell House and I have on my night stand her latest: Backseat Saints. It’s a fabulous southern gothic tale that follows a protagonist who discovers she must kill her husband before he kills her. I highly recommend it. I’m also very excited as Joshilyn is reading my current novel All That’s True (coming out from Sourcebooks in January 2011) and is scheduled to give a blurb for the front cover. What joy!!

3. What's the day in the life of Jackie Lee Miles like?

The first thing I do is head to the coffee pot. My husband leaves very early but is always so sweet and sets up the pot so all I have to do is press “on” and my coffee is brewing. Isn’t he a sweetie? After that I walk two miles on the treadmill which I absolutely hate, but make myself as I’m terrified of getting fat as the years go on. From there, I pick up my emails and answer any correspondence that has been still sitting from the day before. Once I shower and put my face on I sit down at the computer and start writing. I take a break for lunch, read what I’ve written and get back to it about one o’clock. By three I’m done for the day and go about whatever errands I have to run. Not too exciting, but that’s my day. Usually I manage to write three or four double-spaced pages a day, so I can get a first draft out on a book in about ninety days. Of course it takes many drafts, but at least the first one is finished and ready for a rewrite.

4.  If you could see Roseflower Creek made into a movie who would you cast as Lori Jean and Ray?

Casting Lori Jean for me would be the hardest as I’m not familiar with too many young actresses lately that could play a ten-year-old. I guess for Ray it would be Leonardo DiCaprio. He always seems to play the good guys and I’d love to see him as an alcoholic lowlife that ruins everybody’s life. Wouldn’t that be something? I guess Lori Jean would have to be played by a newcomer that hopefully would “break out” because of her role playing the part of Lori Jean. That would be so rewarding! 

 5. What do you like to do when you’re not writing?

We have a condo on the ocean in Cape Canaveral and I love to go there and just veg out, though I always take my computer and do sometimes end up writing. I’m praying that the oil spill won’t float around to the Atlantic and spoil the beach like it’s done to so many others. Such a tragedy. When I’m not writing I also like to visit my grandchildren who now live in Indiana. It’s about an eight hour drive and gives me lots of time to plan new plots for new novels as I’m driving. My husband and I also love to take cruises and are headed to St. Kitt’s this December. That’s about it. I used to snow ski, but as I’ve gotten older I’ve given it up as my bones just don’t cooperate.

6.  If you could only choose one, what would it be, and why? Chocolate, Coffee or Tea

Definitely coffee! I used to write into the wee hours of the night and would brew delicious gourmet coffee and add all sorts of yummy flavored creams, like French Vanilla, or Hazelnut. Now when I do get a hankering to write late in the night I still have to brew coffee or I can’t put one word down on the page. Habits die hard. Sounds like a good book title, no?

7. What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?

I can’t begin a new novel if my desk is a mess and most of the writers I know have scads of paper stashed all over the place.  So I’m obsessive compulsive about being neat before I start a new novel. My desk has to be in perfect order and then I sit down and open a document and type the opening line and then I’m fine. I can mess up the desk as much as I want, so long as everything is in order before I begin it.

8. Are you currently working on another novel?

Yes, I’m working on Summer Ridge, my latest. In this novel, twelve-year-old Mary Alice Munford struggles with the knowledge her mother plans to marry her father, a man who abandoned them before she was born.

Here’s the opening:

            When I was very little my mother told me stories about why my father wasn’t with us. First she said he was away in the war going on in Asia. Vietnam. Then she said he was trying to heal from the wounds in his head that made him forget us. Later she said he was on assignment with the Secret Service.

“Hogwash,” Granny Ruth said. “She’s filled your head with garbage.”

Back and forth all day long. They still can’t agree on anything. They can’t decide what bread to buy. They can’t decide on which church to go to. There are many in Summer Ridge. One thing’s for sure, they don’t agree on my father. My mother insists he’s perfect.

Granny Ruth says, “And pigs can fly.”

Ours is not a happy household. There’s me, my mother, Granny Ruth and Aunt Josie, whose husband, my Uncle Earnest, fell under a combine when I was four, so I never got to know him good. The day he died, I climbed up on Aunt Josie’s lap and wouldn’t leave even when it was time to go to bed. Mama tried to pick me up.

“You been sitting there all day, sweet thing.”

“Leave me lone, Mommie,” I said. “I’m helping Aunt Josie cry.”

About the Author

Jackie Lee Miles lives in Georgia with her husband, where she is a featured speaker at book clubs, schools, and writer’s workshops. The author of three novels, Roseflower Creek was her first, published to critical acclaim. When not writing, Ms. Miles tours with the Dixie Darlin’s, four nationally published book-writing belles. Her next novel, All That’s True, will be published by Sourcebooks Landmark in early 2011. For more information, please visit http://jlmiles.brinkster.net/.

 

The Giveaway

Sourcebooks is sponsoring a giveaway for my readers to win Roseflower Creek.  There are going to be two winners.  

USA and CANADA only.

You must be a Minding Spot follower to enter. (Google Connect, or Twitter, or Networked Blogs)

Leave a comment and/or question for Ms. Miles for an extra entry.

Winners will be announced on July 20th.

THIS CONTEST IS CLOSED.