Let's start with a quick story time. I (Suzie) arranged this week's interview with Laura Nelson Selinksy at the beginning of 2022, however, I didn't think to get Laura's email address. So, when December rolled around, I reached out to her on Facebook. Well, Laura was taking a social media break, but thankfully, she saw my message. But then...we had some email issues. Thankfully, Laura reached out to me because she hadn't received my emails (Gmail sometimes doesn't like to play nice with other email services) and we figured it out.
I tell you that story because it demonstrates how much Laura looked forward to visiting us here on the Diamond Mine. I so glad everything worked out in the end, and I get to introduce you to Laura and her stories.
About Laura Nelson Selinsky
Laura Nelson Selinsky lives in the Philadelphia area with her husband Barry. Her favorite companions are her grandson Remy, her children Rachel and Peter and their partners Kyle and Margy, her sisters, her nieces and nephews, and JRR Tolkien. She recently retired from teaching Shakespeare, Chaucer, mythology, and where the apostrophe goes. She grows too many tomatoes, bakes excellent Scotch shortbread, and recently won second place in the writing competition that resulted in her inclusion in the anthology "Beach Dreams."Find Laura online: Facebook | Twitter
SW: Welcome, Laura. We are delighted to have you. Let's kick things off with a couple of would you rather questions. First, would you rather write in a rooftop garden surrounded by city noises — or in a quiet studio with cows as your neighbors?
LS: I'm a gardener, but man-made racket would send me out to the country to enjoy the company of cows.
SW: The quiet in the country is definitely a plus. Would you rather read a book with no page numbers or no chapter numbers?
LS: A book without page numbers is interesting; I've seen chapbooks designed like that to enable the reader's engagement with the poetry, but I miss the numbers. I'm not sure that I'd miss chapter numbers. The beats, reveals, and cliffhangers that end chapters exist independent of the numbers.
SW: Interesting. I feel like you're in the minority with doing without the chapter numbers (most people like that it's a stopping point).
Alright, that’s enough of those. Tell us a little more about yoursel.
LS: Recently I retired from 27 years of teaching English. Teaching is the reason I became a fiction author. I had a knack for encouraging my students to get published and realized I should follow my own advice. Since then, I have published Season of Hope, a Christmas novella with Anaiah Press, I've been broadly anthologized, and I've even published a little nonfiction, relating to my work with autistic students. My favorite teaching assignments were British Literature and Mythology, so writing fantasy is an obvious step. I am blessed to have a wonderful family that runs from independent 90-year-old parents to a toddler grandson. My husband of 42 years is the key support for all my ventures. Each year, I judge a children's writing competition and direct a children's Christmas puppet show, and working with all those kids is a joy!
SW: Congratulations on your retirement, and what a wonderful way to set an example for your students.
What are three books on your current tbr?
LS: Yesterday, I started reading A Brightness Long Ago by Guy Gavriel Kay, one of my favorite
authors. Last Christmas brought Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro, and I'm always waiting for his next book. Naomi Novak's His Majesty's Dragon just hit my nightstand, but it has to wait for me to finish A Brightness...
SW: (Runs to look up all three of those titles).
Okay, I'm back. What does your writing space look like?
LS: I write in a cluttered spare room under a little skylight. Seriously, my writing space is straight out of Dickens.
SW: Would you share with us a little about your road to publication?
LS: When I was a young pastor, I published a little nonfiction, but then I didn't write for publication for 25 years! For my 50th birthday, I started writing fiction for publication, and sold the first four short stories I queried. Right on my 60th birthday, I sold Season of Hope. That sounds great, but it hasn't been easy--I also have tens of thousands of unpublished words, including three novels.
SW: I think many authors can relate. There is so much to publishing now that has nothing to do with actually writing the book.
You write both romance and speculative. Do you prefer one over the other? What do you like most about each genre?
LS: The pleasure of writing romance like Season of Hope is the delightful break I imagine giving to my sisters who are otherwise swamped by busy lives. The pleasure of speculative fiction is weaving my little thread into the tapestry with Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Never Let Me Go.
SW: Tell us more about your latest release.
LS: My latest release was my short fantasy in A Whitstead Harvestide, and I have another piece in A Whitstead Summertide, which is minutes from publication. These continue my stories of a found family sharing a farm on the edge of Whitstead. At Christmastide, the lady of the farm re-acquired concern for others and reached out to orphans and employees on her farm, like Scrooge to Cratchet. In Harvestide, those orphans began to heal from the loss of their mother, and in Summertide, the farm's housekeeper was kidnapped by fairies on the eve of her wedding.
SW: What are you currently working on?
LS: I better start figuring out what happens in Springtide, but meanwhile I am working on a massive historical fiction with romance and fantasy elements.
SW: Sounds like you have a lot on your plate. Thank you so much for taking some time out of your schedule to chat with me. I pray you have a blessed holiday season.
About Season of Hope
The Christmas lights in the mission’s front window are burning a little dim. So is Pastor Nick
Mayfield’s hope. Managing a down-on-its-luck mission in a tough neighborhood in Philadelphia isn’t easy, and not for the first time, he questions his decision to leave a promising law career to follow his calling.
Across the street, Claudia Delacorte works day and night in her abusive stepfather’s store. She’ll do anything to assure her beloved half-sisters have a happy and safe future, even sacrifice her own happiness. So when the new pastor shows interest in her, she scoffs at his naïve overtures—she doesn’t have time for love. Or Christmas.
But when a series of crimes throw the neighborhood into turmoil, Claudia becomes an easy target. During a robbery gone horribly wrong, Nick and Claudia must work together to save her sisters, the store, and each other. Will this tragedy restore hope to their community? Or will they lose everything they’ve fought so hard to keep?
We appreciate you dropping by each week and hope you've found some great reads through us. We hope each one of you has a very Merry Christmas as you celebrate with friends and family.
