Falling in Love
I have a card on my desk that I look at every day. It says:
“The first thing to do is to fall in love with your work.” Wouldn’t it make life so easy if we could all
do that? It’s a great idea and a worthy
goal, but unfortunately few of us ever get a chance to do what we love. I’m the exception. I’ve spent my working life doing exactly what
I love – on two fronts.
First I was a history teacher. I can’t tell you which I loved more, history
or teaching fifteen-year-olds about the world.
I did that for twenty-two years while raising my own family and doing
all the things a working mother does.
But always in the back of my mind was the yearning to write. I wrote a little while I was a teacher, but
being a task oriented, single-minded person, I devoted myself entirely to
teaching while I taught. I find it suits
me to stick to one goal at a time, and my first goal as a teacher was to
teach. So I waited. Bided my time. Enjoyed what I was doing but told myself
someday I would write.
Someday came in 2004 when I retired from teaching and
decided it was now or never. If I wanted
to write, here was the chance. It was up
to me to make something of it. I thought
at first I wanted to write for the YA market, but I soon felt constrained by
that, even though I’d finished two YA novels. My life-long interest in history – any history
– anybody’s history – came to the fore.
What did I really want to write about?
History.
I also hoped to follow the traditional path to getting
published. I got an agent. I expected to find a publisher and live
happily ever after. But the whole
process was frustrating to me because it was so s-l-o-w. By the time I’d been retired for six years,
writing all the time, hoping, wishing, attending writers’ conferences,
garnering honors there, but little else, I started to wonder if it would ever
happen. The idea of self publishing
occurred to me as it does, inevitably, to many writers. But by then things were changing rapidly in the
publishing world, and we had come to a time where writers could place
themselves in control of the process.
I’ve always liked being in control. Just ask my husband! So I decided that, past retirement age, I
didn’t have time to wait around to be discovered. I had to act.
So I took the chance of publishing my own work, and Glory Be! It worked.
My first book, Redfield Farm
sold moderately well at first, but when I put it out as an e-book, it took
flight. I was living the dream.
It would be hard not to love what I’ve been doing for the
past eleven years. I love writing. I love historical fiction. I love hearing from my readers. And I love success. So it follows that I smile every time I look
at that card on my desk. The first thing
to do is to fall in love with your work.
How lucky I am to know that.
The Furnace (Juniata Iron Trilogy, #1)
Publication Date: October 1, 2014
Fox Hollow Press
Formats: eBook & Paperback
Pages: 336
Fox Hollow Press
Formats: eBook & Paperback
Pages: 336
Series: Volume One, Juniata Iron Trilogy
Genre: Historical Fiction
Elinor Bratton, young, beautiful, and privileged is pregnant and cast aside by her lover, the wealthy and spoiled scion of a eastern Pennsylvania family. As a result she is forced by her father into an arranged marriage to a man she barely knows. Adam MacPhail, a common iron worker whose only wish is to become an iron master agrees to the match as a means of realizing his dream. Ellie’s father, Stephen Bratton, well to do, well connected and determined to save his daughter’s reputation, orchestrates the union — not as Ellie would have it, but as he sees fit. So begins a marriage in a time when a woman had no voice, no rights, no say in matters directly pertaining to her. Ellie, exiled to the wilderness of western Pennsylvania with a man she would not have considered three months before, declares her intention to make Adam’s life miserable and make her father pay for his high-handed disregard for her rights. Adam, unschooled in dealing with women, chooses to focus his energy and attention on turning a down and out iron furnace into a profitable, well-ordered producer. Through the first half of the nineteenth century, the couple struggle to establish a life, disentangle an ill-conceived marriage, and make a success of a derelict furnace through the ups and downs of an unpredictable industry. Volume One of The Juniata Iron Trilogy, The Furnace chronicles Ellie and Adam’s efforts to find a balance and build an enterprise worthy of Pennsylvania’s iron industry, producing Juniata Iron, the finest in the world.
Buy The Furnace
Looking for Jane
Publication Date: December 21, 2012Fox Hollow Press
Formats: ebook & Paperback
Pages: 238
Genre: Historical Fiction
"The nuns use this as their measuring stick: who your people are. Well, what if you don’t have no people? Or any you know of? What then? Are you doomed?” This is the nagging question of fifteen-year-old Nell’s life. Born with a cleft palate and left a foundling on the doorstep of a convent, she yearns to know her mother, whose name, she knows, was Jane.
When the Mother Superior tries to pawn her off to a mean looking farmer and his beaten down wife, Nell opts for the only alternative she can see: she runs away. A chance encounter with a dime novel exhorting the exploits of Calamity Jane, heroine of the west, gives Nell the purpose of her life: to find Calamity Jane, who Nell is convinced is her mother.
Her quest takes her down rivers, up rivers and across the Badlands to Deadwood, South Dakota and introduces her to Soot, a big, lovable black dog, and Jeremy Chatterfield, a handsome young Englishman who isn’t particular about how he makes his way, as long as he doesn’t have to work for it. Together they trek across the country meeting characters as wonderful and bizarre as the adventure they seek, learning about themselves and the world along the way.
Buy Looking for Jane
Waterproof: A Novel of the Johnstown Flood
Publication Date: May 1, 2012Fox Hollow Press
Formats: ebook & Paperback
Pages: 266
Genre: Historical Fiction
Fifty years after an earthen dam broke and sent a thirty foot wall of raging destruction down on the city of Johnstown, PA, Pamela McRae looks back on the tragedy with new perspective.
When the flood hit, it wiped out Pam’s fondest hopes, taking her fiancé and her brother’s lives and her mother’s sanity, and within a year her father walked away, leaving his daughter
—now the sole support of her mother—to cope with poverty and loneliness.
The arrival of Katya, a poor Hungarian girl running away from an arranged marriage, finally gives Pam the chance she needs to get back into the world; Katya can care for her mother, and Pam can go to work for the Johnstown Clarion as a society reporter.
Then Davy Hughes, Pam’s fiancé before the flood, reappears and, instead of being the answer to her prayers, further complicates her life. Someone is seeking revenge on the owners of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, the Pittsburgh millionaires who owned the failed dam, and Pam is afraid Davy has something to do with it.
Buy Waterproof
Amazon
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Redfield Farm: A Novel of the Underground Railroad
Publication Date: April 2, 2010Formats: ebook & Paperback
Pages: 280
Genre: Historical Fiction
Ann Redfield is destined to follow her brother Jesse through life – two years behind him – all the way. Jesse is a conductor on the Underground Railroad, and Ann follows him there as well.
Quakers filled with a conviction as hard as Pennsylvania limestone that slavery is an abomination to be resisted with any means available, the Redfield brother and sister lie, sneak, masquerade and defy their way past would-be enforcers of the hated Fugitive Slave Law.
Their activities inevitably lead to complicated relationships when Jesse returns from a run with a deadly fever, accompanied by a fugitive, Josiah, who is also sick and close to death. Ann nurses both back to health. But precious time is lost, and Josiah, too weak for winter travel, stays on at Redfield Farm. Ann becomes his teacher, friend and confidant. When grave disappointment disrupts her life, Ann turns to Josiah for comfort, and comfort leads to intimacy. The result, both poignant and inspiring, leads to a life long devotion to one another and their cause.
Buy Redfield Farm
About the Author
For more information please visit Judith Redline Coopey’s website. You can also find her on Facebook, Twitter, and Goodreads.
Judith Redline Coopey Blog Tour Schedule
Monday, March 16
Spotlight at Literary Chanteuse
Spotlight at What Is That Book About
Tuesday, March 17
Review, Interview, & Giveaway at A Virtual Hobby Store and Coffee Haus (The Furnace)
Wednesday, March 18
Spotlight & Giveaway at So Many Precious Books, So Little Time
Thursday, March 19
Review at 100 Pages a Day (Looking for Jane)
Friday, March 20
Review at Rainy Day Reviews (Waterproof)
Monday, March 23
Review, Interview, & Giveaway at A Virtual Hobby Store and Coffee Haus (Looking for Jane)
Wednesday, March 25
Interview at Layered Pages
Friday, March 27
Spotlight & Giveaway at Susan Heim on Writing
Saturday, March 28
Spotlight at Mythical Books
Monday, March 30
Guest Post at Historical Fiction Connection
Spotlight at Satisfaction for Insatiable Readers
Tuesday, March 31
Review at Beth’s Book Nook (Looking for Jane)
Review, Interview, & Giveaway at A Virtual Hobby Store and Coffee Haus (Waterproof)
Wednesday, April 1
Review & Interview at Jorie Loves a Story (Redfield Farm)
Guest Post at A Literary Vacation
Friday, April 3
Review at Book Babe
Saturday, April 4
Review at Book Nerd (The Furnace)
Monday, April 6
Review, Interview, & Giveaway at A Virtual Hobby Store and Coffee Haus (Redfield Farm)
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