Author Interview With Sandra Stoner Mitchell
I had the privilege of reviewing a delightful children’s book. It is called “The Day Before Christmas Eve.” It is a tale of how some unlikely young characters find themselves in the position to help Santa Claus finish the work needed to get the presents ready for Christmas Eve. They pitch-in and save the day. It is an enjoyable read and sure to get the kids in the holiday mood.
Then I had the honor of interviewing the author of the book, Sandra Stoner Mitchell. I learned so much about her and her journey as an author. Below are the Highlights.
When did you decide to become an author and what impact has it had on your life?
I decided I was going to be the next Enid Blyton when I was eight years old. It took me a few years to get started, marriage and babies seemed to take control of my life for a while. My writing began many years ago, I love to write stories in poetry and wrote a lot of personal poems for friends and family. Just small ones to start with. It was after my husband died, I wrote a poem about my feelings at the time and attached it to his wreath. Suddenly I was being asked for spiritual poems from friends of friends. Just recently I had a little book published on Amazon called ‘Spiritual Moments.’ It was my editor, and close friend, Carol Aston, who encouraged me to do it and since then she has been with me, helping and encouraging, in all my writing.
Tell us something about one of your books and what motivated you to write it.
My first published book was called ‘Hedgerow Capers’ about these little hedgerow creatures and the fun they had together. This started about twenty years before I even thought about publishing. After my husband died, I needed to go back to work, that in itself was a challenge after fifteen years out of the work place, in fact to get a job I had to go back to college and re-learn short-hand typing as well as computing. Once I had my degree, I found a job as company secretary for a small soft drinks company, based in the countryside near my home. It was while I was sitting looking out of the window, I saw a mouse run across the yard outside. My imagination took over, she became, Mummy Mouse in my future book. She was nipping away to have some time on her own. The first story was, Mummy Mouse has a Day Out. Over the next few years I would bring her out and write more stories, her sons, Timmy a and Tommy, and Daddy Mouse and soon friends came into the stories. My first book had eleven stories in poetry and was published with Melrose Books in October 2012.
Where do your ideas and inspiration come from?
My ideas come from everyday life. What I did as a child and later what my sons did. Now I take ideas from my grandchildren to keep up with the times. I moved to Spain for a few years with my new husband, (not so new now!) and more ideas flooded my brain. I have written another small book for adults of short stories. It was my first attempt and now I am trying to write more of them. Children’s stories are my strongest area of writing, probably because I am a bit of a child myself. As I said earlier, Enid Blyton was my inspiration. I thought it sad that her books became a target for the politically correct brigade, they were just fun little stories, but now we have to be so careful what we do and write.
What would be your best advice to new or want-to-be authors?
If you want to be an author badly enough, do it. It is harder to find a publisher these days, as they tend to go mainly for the well-known and recognized authors, but there are many self-published authors out there that have made it into the big time, so never, never give up.
Tell us about your latest work in progress.
At the moment I have another twenty stories in the Hedgerow series. I am writing them as a collection and each book will have just the one story or in the case of a shorter story, I will put two in. They will be illustrated and should be ready early next year.
How can people contact you?
My e-mail address is: sandramaureenmitchell@gmail.com
I am on Facebook and Twitter, but I am far more likely see any messages on my e-mail account.
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