Guest Blog Author R. Patricia Capitain
My guest author for the month of April is R. Patricia Capitain. I met Patricia almost 2 years ago at one of my first book signings. Her published works include The Princess on a Cloud and The Secret of the Golden Orbs, both children’s books.
Thank you, Patricia, for your blog post.
Last year Sandra asked me to be a guest on her blog. I agreed, because I don’t say ‘no’ to requests that have to do with the art of writing. I had forgotten about Sandra’s blog until this week, when she reminded me. Having never been on anybody’s blog before, I asked her what it entails. “Go and check out my blog,” she wrote, and I did. It was interesting reading. I met a couple of writers there whom I knew personally and others I had never heard of before, but will probably check-out further as the books they have written sounded interesting.
Why had I not heard of those books before, I wondered? They are largely self-published by authors who may have much to share with potential readers but few possibilities to get the book into large circulation, unless they are blessed with the kind of luck Terry Fallis and Louise Penny had, however, after I attended Terry Fallis’s workshop, last year, I can tell you: that man worked overtime to arrive at where he is today. He did the whole caboodle: self-publishing, pod-casting, serialization, etc. before McClelland and Stewart, and the CBC became aware of him.
The downsizing and closing of publishing houses is largely blamed on the arrival of self-publishing, on e-books, even on an attempt to save trees, though the latter is rather silly when we use a handful of napkins with every hotdog or hamburger we eat, a paper towels for a drop of spilled water, and over-sized boxes that are only half-full in food packaging. It makes one think.
Enough grumbling about the way things are… at least I didn’t mention the T…. word which is being used like a trump-card in every conversation that lasts more than ten seconds.
I met Sandra at the Lansdowne fair a couple of years ago where she introduced her first book. She joined Writers Ink a year later and has contributed much to our monthly meetings.
I grew up with a mother who made up stories, and I did the same for my children, nieces and nephews. “Stories from the mouth,” they called them. I have been writing since I learned how to, and won my first writing contest when I was ten years old. After I retired from almost thirty years of working as a family psychotherapist, I wrote a trilogy of chapter books for the middle reader. The last book will see the light in 2018. I am now working on an adult novel which will reflect my life on both sides of the Atlantic, however, it is total fiction. It will be a challenge to find a traditional publisher for it with nothing but children’s books to my credit. I hope luck finds me!
Patricia’s Website - www.rpatriciacapitain.com