Interview Diana Lee Johnson

by

Evanell

1. What's the title of your newest/latest book, and what is it about?

Though Just Deserts is my 6^th release with Wings, it is my earliest manuscript. I started it to be a short story, many years ago, but it grew to novella length, and sat for years, then I recently lengthened it to a short contemporary. It’s about a divorced mother, struggling to make ends meet, trying to be unnoticed, falling for a Prince Charming she’s sure she can’t have and doesn’t deserve.

2. Are your characters based on real people, or are they imaginary?

There are always real components to my characters, though they all come from my imagination. Without the attributes, characteristics, or feelings of real people, they wouldn’t be believable. They may be composites of many, or a small slice of only one person who would be too complicated to understand in a whole.

3. How long did it take to get your very first book published?

Years and years and rejection after rejection from publishers and agents alike. I guess I started sending manuscripts, or, more often just pieces of manuscripts, out as that was all anyone would accept, at least 15 years before I had my first book published with a, now defunct Canadian publisher.

4. How did you find Wings ePress?

I was negotiating with another on-line publisher, and became rather disillusioned, when I saw a posting by one of my writing groups that there was a new publisher looking for manuscripts. When I opened the link to learn more and send a query, I recognized names from previous encounters and inquiries and felt comfortable contacting them, even in their newness.

5. What information can you share with new, aspiring authors?

Not information so much as advice. Lorraine Stephens likes to say “Opinions are like noses--everyone has one.” So try to pick the constructiveness out of critiques or reviews or rejections, and flush the rest out of your mind. Please yourself with writing you’re proud to put your name on, not someone else’s idea of what you should say.

6. Do you belong to any writer's groups/organizations/critique groups?

Yes, National Association of Women Writers; EPIC; Romance Writers of America--but only so I can be a member of my Virginia Romance Writers, Washington (D.C.) Romance Writers, FF&P, and ESPAN.

7. What does the non-author in you do for fun?

I’ve held down a full-time job for 38 years, ever since I graduated from high school, 37 of those in Public Purchasing for which I studied hard, took courses and many tests and gained an international certification, so with writing, that doesn’t leave much in the way of “fun” time. I sang for 36 years. I enjoy my grandchildren and my cat. I enjoy fixing things around my house, but I hate house cleaning.

8. What makes it most difficult for you to write?

Time, never enough of it with the job and all the other duties of this life.

9. Who is your favorite author?

My tastes are very eclectic, and I have little time for reading, so I listen to audio books as I commute to and from work--John Jakes, John Grisham, Nora Roberts, Jude Devereaux, Jonathan Kellerman, Mary Higgins Clark, Robin Cook… and on and on. If I had to name one author, I guess I’d say Edgar Allen Poe, because I didn’t like to read growing up, except for his prose and poetry.

10. Do you have a favorite book? If so, what is it?

No, I don’t really have A favorite, but perhaps Robin Cook’s Acceptable Risk is worth mentioning. It has a flashback story to the Salem Witch trials… as a direct descendant, I feel the connection.

11. If your newest story were made into a movie, who would you like to be your hero and heroine?

I can’t think of a pretty, chubby actress, so I haven’t a clue for the heroine; David James Elliot would make a good hero for it.

12. What experience in your life has most affected your writing?

All of it--good and bad, perhaps the bad the most because I could escape in my words, and even get bits and pieces of pain out in each story; as for the good, I think the senses of humor I grew up around in my family, especially my Dad who’s been gone for over 23 years.