Cynthia Ulmer

Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I come from a family of story tellers. My grandmother used to make up stories to tell my daddy and his siblings to entertain them. I grew up with my parents making up stories to tell me and them listening to the ones I made up. I created, but didn’t write, my very first “series” before I started school. It was called the Grumpfaires, about the Big Bad Wolf’s background, and yes, it was spelled Grumpfaires. When I got old enough to write, that’s how I spelled it. My sister used to draw pictures for it and I wrote the story. I can remember following my parents around telling them about Big Bad and his brother, Breeze who was a good wolf. Big Bad was eventually arrested for blowing the little pigs homes over and for punishment he had to huff and puff on peoples clotheslines to dry their laundry. I had a very active imagination.
I wrote my first full length novel when I was a freshman in high school. Later, I thought it was no good so I tore it up and swore to never write again.
I couldn’t get away from the stories that kept coming into my head. So I begin to write again years later after I was married. I woke up one night, seeing a young boy walking down the dirt road of a farm. I recognized the farm as my granddaddy’s. In the background, way off in the distance was an old fashioned water well, looking deceptively innocent. I woke up and knew the story I had to write.
As a child, I used to listen to my aunt and my father talk about their neighbor who was an alcoholic and held his children over the well, threatening to drop them to their deaths when he got angry with them. His wife would come get my granddaddy to help her talk him out of killing whichever child he had over the well.
That was the inspiration of my first book, Todd, and from there the story grew and became The Cedar Cove Chronicles.
I have published 6 novels, all part of the Cedar Cove Chronicles. Todd, Book One, Clyde and Wanda, Book Two, Cella, Book Three, Trudy, Book Four, Mark, Book Five and Lilly Jean, Book Six.

What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
My latest book is Lilly Jean, The Cedar Cove Chronicles, Book Six. It brings the story of the community of Cedar Cove full circle. In book one, Lilly Jean is only five, and she is the one who suffers unjustly at the hands of their alcoholic neighbors. Afterwards, her parents, become overly protective of her and always see her as their baby. When book six opens, she is getting ready to graduate from high school and has been accepted into nursing school, something she has kept secret from her family. Book six chronicles her maturing and her family struggling with the fact that their baby is no longer a baby but a grown woman. They also face people from their past, people they have great distrust for, but have to learn how to live with them again.

Do you have any unusual writing habits?
Honestly, I’m not sure. I do not force myself to write every day. I’ve tried that and what comes out is absolute junk. So I do write when inspired, which goes against most of the advice I’ve read. But I have to be me. It has to be from the stories flowing in my head. When that’s happening, I just watch the words come up on the computer screen.
I do like to get all alone, have a good cup of flavored coffee and just let the words flow.

What authors, or books have influenced you?
Betty Smith and Harper Lee. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and To Kill a Mockingbird are my absolute favorites of all time. I also love Stephen King. His short stories are some of the best ever. I love the way he pulls the reader in, of how you feel a part of what’s going on.

What are you working on now?
I’m working on a follow up series to the Cedar Cove Chronicles. It’s called Beyond Cedar Cove and I want it to contain three novels, but we will see. The first book will be The Broken Circle, Beyond Cedar Cove, Book One, and the next Underneath the Honeysuckle Vine, Beyond Cedar Cove, Book Two. After that, who knows.

What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
I’m learning about all that. Right now I’m working with Cat Lyon of Cat’s Reading and Writing Den.

Do you have any advice for new authors?
Don’t give up and don’t try to be like anyone else. Be yourself.

What is the best advice you have ever heard?
Keep writing. Believe in yourself.

What are you reading now?
The Secrets of Lost Stones by Melissa Payne

What’s next for you as a writer?
I hope to keep writing and to be more successful with my work.

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?
The Holy Bible, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, To Kill A Mockingbird, any of Stephen King’s short story collections along with a big box of paper and some pens or pencils so I could write too.

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