10 Questions for Teresa Slack
1. Tricia: I read on your website that you said readers want characters they can in identify with and learn from. In your novel, Streams of Mercy, what do you hope readers identify with? What can they learn?
Teresa: We’ve all been in a situation where we need to forgive someone who doesn’t care if we forgive them or not. They often don’t even think they’ve done anything wrong. Forgiveness isn’t for the other person, it’s for ourselves. If we expect to receive mercy from our Heavenly Father, we need to be willing to give it. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that if mercy were earned, it wouldn’t be a gift, it would be wages.
2. Tricia: You say writing has always been a lifelong dream. When was the moment you decided to turn this dream into reality? What was your first step?
Teresa: My main motivation to quit work when I did was that my son was in high school and I wanted to spend the last few years he was at home with him. It would also be the perfect time to find out if I could actually make something happen with my writing. I still managed to pilfer away a year or so before I got down to business. I feel for those writers who want to write but still have to juggle a career and small children. I am fortunate to be in the situation I’m in where I can write fulltime.
3. Tricia: I love your idea behind your soon-to-be released novel. How did you get the idea for Darcy Carter?
Teresa: I walk my dogs in a cemetery next to my house. It’s on a very steep hillside and getting to the top is quite a workout. Ideas often come to me there. As I was walking along one day, reading headstones and listening to the wind in the trees, I thought of an overworked writer who begins to wonder why she’s doing what she’s doing. She wants to reevaluate her life, but she likes the money and the relatively easy life her writing has afforded her. So she decides to go somewhere to write one last book and then walk away. Maybe I just wanted to know what I would do when I got to the top of that hill.
4. Tricia: What is one book you’ve read recently and thought, “Man, I wish I would have thought of this idea?”
Teresa: I’m currently reading Vanishing Point by Marcia Muller. It’s about a woman who seemingly walked away from her life more than 20 years ago. I love those kinds of stories with cold cases and missing persons. Every time I read one, it motivates me to start another mystery of my own.
5. Tricia: You’ve lived your whole life in Southern Ohio. For those of us who’ve never been there, how would you describe the setting in one paragraph?
Teresa: My area of southern Ohio is in the foothills of the Appalachian Mtn. It is very beautiful and diverse. To the west the land flattens into expanses of farmland and urban sprawl fighting for dominance. Heading east into the old Steel Belt, the secondary roads wind and twist around mountains, forgotten river towns, and each other. Autumn is gorgeous. Photographers have pulled over in my driveway to take pictures of the changing colors on the hills around my house.
6. Tricia: When it comes to personal reading . . . mysteries or romances?
Teresa: My favorites are suspense where the mystery is primary and the romantic element secondary.
7. Tricia: If you were to make the cover of a magazine which would you choose? Why?
Teresa: Dog Fancy because they would probably put my dogs on there with me and they are truly better looking than I am. And of course I could plead my case in the importance of animal rescue and adoption.
8. Tricia: Vanilla or Chocolate?
Teresa: Can I pick Dark Chocolate?
9. Tricia: If you could spend the day with one Biblical person (not counting Jesus, we’d all pick Him!) who would you pick and why?
Teresa: Martha, Lazarus and Mary’s sister. Between the two of us, we might learn to focus on what really matters when it comes to pleasing God and not sweat the small stuff.
10. Tricia: If you had to choose someone to play the movie of your life thus far, who would you pick?
Teresa: Nicholas Cage. Oh no, wait a minute. That would confuse people. Let’s go with someone smart, clever, funny, beautiful, and with a twenty-six inch waist. Female, of course.
Teresa
Teresa Slack http://www.teresaslack.com
http://www.tsabahouseauthors.blogspot.com
http://www.teresaslack.blogspot.com/
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