Tag Archives: Eve Gaddy

Get to know the Amalfi Night Billionaires Authors!

September 21, 2015 · Posted by Tule Publishing

We’re celebrating the Amalfi Night Billionaires with all five authors in the series! Keep reading to learn more about a few of your favorite writers and the latest stories from Holiday Books.

What’s your favorite place and time to write?

KatherineGarbera-Amalfi-300dpiKatherine Garbera: I love to write first thing in the morning.  When I’m in the middle of a book I usually wake up around 4 or 5, hop out of bed, go downstairs and settle into my recliner.  It’s super comfy and I write on my iPad using an app (Hanxwriter) that makes a typewriter sound.  I love it.

Nancy Robards Thompson: Any place except my office. Unfortunately — no, let me rephrase that, fortunately, that’s where I get the best writing done, but sometimes it feels like a cave. It can feel cozy or like a prison depending on the day. I’m a night owl by nature, but I’m trying to get on a regular work-days and sleep-nights schedule. I just can’t pull the all-nighters like I used to.

Kathleen O’Brien: My back porch, in the rain, late afternoon. Unfortunately, I also have to write inside, when it’s dry, morning and sometimes late into the night.  Deadlines are like that.MimiWells-Amalfi-300dpi

Eve Gaddy: My favorite time is when the words are coming. My favorite place is wherever I am when the words are coming. (Seriously, I’m so erratic I don’t have a favorite place or time!)

Tell us something personal that not many readers know about you?

KG: When I worked at Disney as  VIP tour guide I got to meet Dan Marino (my teenaged crush) and got a picture with him. :)

Mimi Wells: There’s not much people don’t know about me (I’m quite the talker), but I will say that I’m quite good at movie dialogue. And when it comes to movies like Monty Python and the Holy Grail, The Princess Bride, Raising Arizona, or Better Off Dead, you can listen with the sound off. I’ll be sure you get everything!

NancyRobardsThompson-Amalfi-300dpiNRT: When I was in college, I worked as a stand-in on the New Mickey Mouse Club television show, which filmed at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. It was such fun and I made a nice wage. Also, I met George Burns, Bob Hope, Annette Funicello and Milli Vanilli, among other celebs when I worked on the show. (KG: insert I worked on the New Mickey Mouse Club as well but our paths never crossed!)

KOB: I’ve never lived anywhere but Florida.  Tampa, Miami, Orlando.  I belong here.  I’m not a “bloom where you’re planted” kind of person.  I need to look around and see the trees I love, smell the flowers I’m used to, watch the same old birds.  Vacations, yes.  Relocate, probably not. :)

EG: I’m a sucker for happy endings.

What is your life motto?

KG: My life is full and blessed.  I love those words because they make me take stock every day in all the good things that I have in my life.

MW: Don’t panic, and always know where your towel is.

NRT: The race is long, and, in the end, it is only with yourself.

KOB: The person who enjoys the most stuff wins.  I’m not big into  pooh-poohing anything automatically.  The family I grew up in believed that, if you couldn’t find something to appreciate in a person, style or idea, you weren’t trying hard enough.KathleenOBrien-Amalfi-300dpi

EG: Enjoy your family and friends. They are your rock that will get you through the bad times and make sure you remember the good ones.

Name five items on your desk right now.

KG: 1) My Jane Austen quote mug

2) Sally Hansen Hard As Nails (writing is tough on my nails)

3) Over the Moon candle

4) Framed photo of my hubby & kids

5) Pop Vinyl figures (Wonder Woman and Luminaire) given to me by my kiddos.

MW: 1) My UCF Knights Tervis cup full of iced tea

2) A pile of CDs

3) Pictures of me and my Puffs (Katherine and Nancy)

4) Way too much paper

5) My tiara.

NRT: 1) A stuffed corgi that my daughter gave me.

2) A glass dish from Murano, Italy.

3) A small bag of lavender.

4) A tube of Burt’s Beewax Lip Balm.

5) An acrylic cell phone stand

KOB: 1) A Ferdinand the Bull figurine, to remind me to stop and smell the flowers, just quietly.

2) A wretched mound of papers waiting to be filed. I try not to see this, ever.

3) Winston Graham’s ROSS POLDARK, in paperback, rippling from a recent dousing on my porch, in the rain. :)

4) My fat, furry cat, Purrsia, who thinks she should sleep where my keyboard should go.

5) A Mary Englebreit desk calendar, torn off to today’s date.  Today’s quote is, “It’s just a bad day, not a bad life.”

EveGaddy-Amalfi-300dpiEG: 1) Several medium sized notebooks with notes

2) TV remotes

3) Cell phone

4) Charger cords

5) Nail file

6) Pens! Oops, that’s six! (KG: that’s because EG is a rebel!)

What makes your billionaire different from the others?

KG: Rocco is a man who goes through life determined to conquer all things. His fears, his competition, Steffi! But really he lives for the challenge and as he gets older he finds the challenge isn’t conquering and moving on as much as it used to be.

MW: Shel’s a bit of a tortured artist underneath all that testosterone that makes him take crazy risks and drive too fast. He made his fortune as a writer/producer and composes improvised jazz piano pieces.

NRT: Matteo De Luca is the oldest and probably the most responsible of the five De Luca brothers. He’s also stubborn, laser focused on what he wants and very passionate.

KOB: Declan Muldoon has recently discovered that much of his family’s fortune was built on corruption.  He has no interest in being a part of all that anymore. As he tries to start his own landscape design business, he’s living down-to-earth, literally and figuratively.

EG: Luke is first generation Italian American and lives in Texas. He got out of the family real estate business to become a private investigator.

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Thank you for joining us, ladies! Find the Amalfi Night Billionaires series at your favorite  online retailer.

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auth_KathyGarberaKatherine Garbera is the USA Today bestselling author of more than 70 books. She’s the mother of two fabulous kids who make her feel blessed every day to be their mom, the wife of one dynamic games producing husband and chief-treat-giver to one demanding miniature dachshund.  The misplaced Florida girl lives in the midlands of the UK.  Find her on the web at www.katherinegarbera.com, FB: KatherineGarberaAuthor, and on Twitter: @katheringarbera.

unnamedMimi Wells worked as a mother’s helper, an aerobics instructor, an arts magazine editor, a project typist, a grammarian, a graphic designer, a waitress, a lingerie saleswoman, and a soda jerk before finding her niche as an award-winning high school English teacher and writer of young adult and Southern women’s fiction and romance. Mimi reigns as Empress of the Barefoot Domain in sunny Central Florida with her husband, two children, and two Brittanys—all of whom are spoiled completely rotten. Visit Mimi online at http://www.mimiwells.com, like her on Facebook (Mimi Wells Author), or follow @mimi_wells on Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest.

auth_NancyRobardsThompsonNational best-selling author Nancy Robards Thompson has worked as a newspaper reporter, television show stand-in, production and casting assistant for movies, and in fashion and public relations. She started writing fiction seriously in 1997. Five years and four completed manuscripts later, she won the Romance Writers of America’s Golden Heart award for unpublished writers and sold her first book the following year. Since then, Nancy has sold 30 books and found her calling doing what she loves most – writing romance and women’s fiction full-time.

auth_KathleenOBrienKathleen O’Brien is the bestselling author of more than forty-five books.  She lives just outside Orlando with her former newspaper-editor husband.  Their two terrific grown children–and their own great spouses–live nearby, which, for her, constitutes the perfect world.  She’s a five-time Rita finalist, and the winner of the Maggie, the Holt and the Colorado Romance Writers Award of Excellence.

auth_EveGaddy3Eve Gaddy is the Bestselling, Award Winning author of more than twenty-three books. She’s the mother of two great children and the grandmother of three absolutely adorable girls. She lives in East Texas with her husband of many years and her Cocker Spaniel, who her husband says is incredibly spoiled and who thinks she is the Queen of the Household.

An Interview with “Whiskey River” authors Katherine Garbera and Eve Gaddy!

May 13, 2015 · Posted by Tule Publishing

K and E photoKatherine Garbera and Eve Gaddy
take over the Tule Blog!

WTAW-300dpiSerendipity brought the two authors together more than 15 years ago when they were assigned to room together at a writers conference in Savannah, GA.  Their friendship was cemented by arriving late to a publisher get-together and being forced to drag chairs across the lobby to join the gathering.  It was the kind of thing that has happened more than once to the two friends.

Eve is a lifelong native Texan and Katherine moved there in 2005.  Their love of the south has always been one of the many things the authors have in common.  The best-selling, award-winning authors had long wanted to collaborate on a series and so Whiskey River was born.

They have filled the town with all the things they love about Texas.  Sexy Texan tycoons and cowboys with smooth southern drawls, feisty women who go toe to toe with magnates and know how to keep those smooth talking cowboys in line. Experience the beauty of the Texas Hill Country and the sexy men who live there with them.

How do you come up with your heroes?

Eve: I think about what they are, what they do, their profession, hobbies, background and a general idea of what they look like starts forming. Then I pick pictures on Pinterest, but sometimes I’ll think it’s one picture but the hero winds up being another. Sometimes I’ll know their backstory, but often it comes to me as I write.

Kathy: I always start with what I find attractive in a guy.  I like them strong, a little-bit alpha, and determined to have the woman they want no matter the cost. Because family is at the core of every story I write I sometimes am mean and make the hero feel responsible for the loss of his family—trying to give him an extra barrier to overcome while he is falling for the heroine.

How has Pinterest influenced your writing?

Eve: 1)Pictures of good-looking men. What’s not to like?

2)Time sink—pretty pics, animal pics, funny things, clothes, houses, cakes, sand sculptures . . . hot guys . . .

3)Helps me visualize my characters, helps a lot with the setting and   descriptions of the characters’ houses, place of business, etc. For instance     I had to go looking for my hero’s horse in the next book. That was great. Now I have all sorts of horse pictures. I love all sorts of animal pictures.

4) Sometimes I’ll get an idea from some random picture on Pinterest.

Kathy:

  • I love to find photos that really capture the emotion of my characters and then I pin them to the board.
  • Then I add in quotes that capture what I think of as the core of my characters.
  • I think Eve already covered this, but good-looking, hot guys. :)
  • I love finding places that I didn’t know existed. Like for Whiskey River we found fields of lavender in Texas even though normally you think of fields of bluebells in Texas. :)

How do you get the ideas for your stories? (Yes, that question!)

Eve: Sometimes it’s a movie, or a TV show, or a song, or an article from a newspaper, or a conversation with a friend, or a conversation overheard:), or when I’m looking for something specific for one book something will catch my eye that I think might be interesting, so I put it in a file for later. Or there’s always surfing the web and clicking on links that lead to strange stories that you find when you click on each link and it sends you to more links and before you know it (usually hours later) you’re looking at an article on alien babies birthed by celebrities with bad plastic surgery results. What, I haven’t written that story yet? Well, I might. You can’t tell.

Kathy: The ideas of my stories come from everywhere.  Usually from a combination of interesting news stories I’ve read, conversations with my hubby and kids, movies I watch, TV shows…pretty much everywhere.  I have written a lot of books and so sometimes people are surprised I still have stories to tell, but I don’t think I’ve even come close to telling them all.

I’m also really nosey about people so I will watch them from behind my dark sunglasses and try to figure out why they are doing whatever they are doing.  I have spent hours just watching people and being inspired by my version of their lives.  :)

Where do you work?

photo eveEve: Sometimes in my office. A lot of the time in my chair in the den. But if I really need to work and get a lot accomplished, then my office is the best place. With a laptop, though, you can work anywhere. I’ve written in the car while my husband drives when we go to Colorado. A long trip as I’m in Texas.

 

Kathy: I work wherever I can.  I have an office which I use most every day for my daily page count, I either sit at my desk or in my big comfy chair.  I’ve been using an app for the iPad called Hanx Writer (it’s named after the actor Tom Hanks).  The app turns my iPad into a typewriter with the old typewriter sounds.  I love it!

Sometimes I really need to get out of my regular space, especially if I’m distracted by a new book being released and then I go to the café and write.  I find that I’m unwilling to sit on Facebook or play games when I think someone else might see me!

Describe your office

photo (8)Eve: That depends on a lot of factors. I usually try to clean my office after I finish a book. Sometimes I manage to do it, but sometimes I don’t. I am not neat. I have piles of stuff to be filed, a bunch of SWAG for giveaways, books, of course. Notes! Notes everywhere on every kind of paper. Stickies everywhere, scratch paper that might have something important on it or might be junk. Small notebooks that are each supposed to be for a certain book or project. Yeah, I try but that doesn’t happen. They’re all jumbled up. I have a whiteboard with a bunch of colored markers. (I don’t always use it but it helps a lot sometimes.) Printers, TV, magazines, dog bed I just had to get rid of because cute little Ellie peed on it again. Sometimes my laptop is even in there!

 

 

My DeskKathy: I have a huge counter top that I used as my desk.  It’s set to my height and I have two monitors on it.  On my desk are post-it notes from my husband and my kids.  One reminds me to “stay fresh”—not sure what that means, but I do try!  I also have stuff my friends have given me over the years and little figurines I collect.  Above my monitor on the wall I have a quote by Carl Sandberg “Nothing happens unless first a dream” and an affirmation.

I have a bookcase to the left of where I sit that is jammed full of my favorite books on writing (Stephen King’s On Writing and Dwight Swain’s Techniques of the Selling Writer) and then my binders where I keep everything that is involved in my story.  The synopsis, the letters from my editor, my research and then when it’s released reader letters.

What is a “best thing about writing”?

Eve: I can work in my pajamas, or my shorts, or my old shirt that should be thrown out. I don’t have to wear make-up. I can work anytime I want, and often do. Sometimes one a.m. Or during the day. Whenever I feel like it. (Well, unless life interferes and I have to do something else.) But to me the best thing is the feeling I get when everything is falling into place. The characters are talking to me, the plot is writing itself, I write a particularly touching scene. Or a funny one. Or one I know is good. When the writing is going well, there’s nothing else like it.:)

Kathy: Truth? It’s that I get to make up stories for a living.  That’s it for me.  I’ve always loved telling stories and the fact that I get paid to do it makes me very happy.  Readers who take the time to write to me and let me know how my books helped them or cheered them up make all those hours by myself in my office worth it. I also really love that I am can call myself a writer.  They are the most fascinating people I’ve ever met and I like being part of that group.

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Thanks so much for joining us, Kathy and Eve, and thank you Book Lovers for visiting with us! Start reading the first book in the Whiskey River series, Where There’s a Will, now!