Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
The highlights of my life include working passage on a tramp freighter, fending off sharks on the Great Barrier Reef, filming lowland gorillas in Africa, capsizing a sailboat in the Bermuda Triangle, mushing sled dogs in Alaska, exploring the Amazon, writing an award winning play, an autobiography and Ardennia. I am also the founder and president of Save the Rainforest. https://savetherainforestnow.org/
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What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
Ardennia / The Unlikely Story of Cinderella’s Prince, a YA fantasy. It was inspired by DIAMOND GIRL – a play I wrote and produced about a modern day Cinderella who could not remove a fabulous diamond necklace until she found her Prince Charming. It got me thinking about retelling the Cinderella fairy tale in a historical context.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
Waking up in the middle of the night to write, working out plots etc. while I bicycle for hours on country roads. Going years without writing, then cranking out literary works like there is no tomorrow, and the way climate change is accererating there may not be too many more tomorrows for a lot of us.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
Jack London and Ernest Hemingway at first because I was young and wanted to read about adventure. I actually ended up going to college in Alaska because I loved CALL OF THE WILD so much. As I matured and majored in literature at UW Madison I took more interest in authors like Victor Hugo, Tolstoy, H.G. Wells and Oscar Wilde. I don’t read much contemporary fiction, mostly non/fiction and the classics.
What are you working on now?
Ardennia – Volume 2 – Sir Guy Goes on Crusade., a YA fantasy. Also working on CARLOTTA OF SAN JAVIER
This literary novel set on the Central Plateau of Mexico, has just about everything; romance, heroic rescues, an eccentric sculptor, colorful campesinos, sadistic nuns, breathtaking scenery that includes a volcano and endless fields of agave azul (tequila) plants, an unforgettable fiesta, a haunting prologue and a truly tragic ending.
I am qualified to write on this subject because I lived in Mexico for 12 years and cultivated agave. If you ever drank Jose Cuervo tequila, it might have come from my plants.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
So far, the Chick Lit bloggers have been of the most help https://chicklitcafe.com/ . They put me on to you guys.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
You cannot please everybody so you’ve got to please yourself. And forget print. Write ebooks and target your niche readership with marketing. Draft2digital.com is doing a great job for me with no upfront costs and a 10 percent piece of the pie, if there is a pie.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
You got to pay your dues if you want to sing the blues. Ringo Starr.
What are you reading now?
A book about Custer. Just finished a very good book about Kit Carson and the Indians that I am going to post a review about on my new blog. Check out my blog at https://thebooksandadventuresofbrucecalhoun.blogspot.com/
What’s next for you as a writer?
Maybe Hollywood. The CEO of Broadway Across America told me he thought DIAMOND GIRL would make a great movie, so I converted it to a screenplay. ARDENNIA would translate to the big screen too.
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?
Iliad, War and Peace, Paradise Lost, Zorba the Greek, Lolita, Catcher in the Rye, Les Miserables
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