Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
Well, aside from fiction writing, I also do non-fiction writing. Currently, I am working on a newsletter promotion and if The Institute For Natural Healing likes it, I’ll have my first client. While working on promoting my books and even writing them, I will freelance as a health writer. Writing was always a go to for relaxation and tranquility. It felt to be one of the only ways I can be myself. The novel I just submitted to you is my first. And I plan to compose more in the future.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
Aging Storm Clouds : An Assimilation Memoir
It started out as a poem I wrote when I was 17. And I have always had great interest in history, and indigenous people’s literature. It’s about the forced assimilation of Native Americans into Westernized society, a part of American history that is rarely discussed. I knew I wanted to expand the poem but just wasn’t sure how exactly I wanted to do it. At first, I wanted to turn it into a play and was pretty confident that it would be a very great and anticipating one. But as I started to practice dramatic writing, I realized the dialect just doesn’t come very natural to me. When I started writing small chapters, however, it ended up becoming a novel, I really love.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
None that comes to mind. But perhaps, this is one…
Whenever something comes to mind. Anything. Just recently, it was a branch scratching a window. Or the liquid wax of a candle – anything – I write it down. And I always find some way to use it in my non-fiction writing.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
Books I remember reading in school, such as “The House On Mango Street” and “Homage To Catalonia”. A couple years ago, I read a poem by Frank Marshall Davis, entitled, “Four Glimpses of Night.” I gathered many ideas from that one piece that was hardly long. I even gathered some ideas from watching “Cosmos”. Most of my inspiration comes from just simply going out and watching both the man-made and nature scenery.
What are you working on now?
My freelancing and promoting my book. Also, I’m an Independent Contractor for a new writing service known as American Wordsmiths. We write personal bios for people and/or their families, especially for special occasions such as weddings and births. Along with promoting my book, I would also like to promote American Wordsmiths (it’s fairly new).
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
I have a page on Facebook. Currently, my publishing house is working on my website which will be featured on their site. Using Kindle, my book is about to be released to 85,000 readers. I am also in the process of submitting it to review outlets and literary magazines. The publishing house is going to release my name to the public through 4000 press releases, once they are finished developing the eBooks, which will be in about a month or two. But still, I would like get my name out there even before they release it. The more the merrier.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
I myself am a debut novelist. As a writer, however, my advice is to be persistent. You don’t get anywhere in business by being passive, timid or lazy. You need to be quite the opposite.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
I can’t really answer that right now. That’s something I’ll have to think about it.
What are you reading now?
Health science publications and an anthology of poems collected from around the world
What’s next for you as a writer?
Besides, the freelancing and promoting, my second novel will probably be about a neighborhood in which the children who stayed past 18, were cursed. And it is inspired by true events. Or I may write a sequel to my current novel.
If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
Well, one would have to be my own.
As for the other 3 or 4…
Homage to Catalonia
A Farewell To Arms
Poems and short stories by Edgar Allan Poe
Author Websites and Profiles
Areese Woodson Amazon Profile
Areese Woodson’s Social Media Links
Facebook Profile