Interview With Author Joyce A. Connelley
Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
I am a highly successful author, journalist, and marketing professional with two previous books to my credit. I have also published hundreds of articles for national and regional periodicals and numerous trade journals. I began my career as a journalist for the Whittier Daily News and served as Managing Editor of Business Software, a consumer-oriented technology magazine. In 1986, I launched her own marketing agency serving Silicon Valley companies in the fields of technology, consumer electronics, and medicine. During this period, I co-authored “The Black and White Solution: Bar Code and the IBM PC” (Helmers Publishing, 1986), an authoritative guide to automatic identification technology, and “Our Century: 1960-1970,” an historical overview of the 1960s published by David S. Lake Publishers (1989). I have a B.A. in Journalism from San Jose State University. Currently, my husband and I own Marshall Grain Company, an independent organic garden center and landscaping business in Colleyville, Texas where I am the V.P. of Marketing. I’ve been recognized by numerous civic groups, including the Daughters of the American Revolution for my conservation and animal welfare efforts. My husband I serve every whim of our six cats (3 who live in their retail store and 3 who live at home).
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
Reunion in Stringtown: Finding Faith, Family, and Healing is the result of more than 25 years of search for the mother who abandoned me and put me up for adoption. More than anything, I hope my story will help dispel the hurtful and shaming lies about the “blessing” of being adopted perpetrated by our society, which keep adoptees mired in trauma.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
I do not have writer’s block and I love working with a good editor, which I am told makes me unique among authors.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
As a life-long journalist, I have been more influenced by the pages of premiere newspapers such as the Wall Street Journal and (once upon a time) the Los Angeles Times. My heroes were my very first editor, Betty Schaumbacher of the Whittier Daily News and, of course investigative reporters Woodword & Bernstein, authors of All the President’s Men. Sadly, such good journalism is dead.
What are you working on now?
#1: promoting my book. #2: marketing our organic garden center and landscaping business.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
I wish I knew.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Nothing writes itself. And nobody writes a masterpiece on the first draft. You have to allow yourself the freedom to write whatever comes into your mind regardless of quality. The joy of writing is knowing you can revise it and perfect it later.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
“Start at the beginning, write until you get to the end and then stop.”
What are you reading now?
almost exclusively history, sciences, and other non-fiction
What’s next for you as a writer?
I have an idea for a book about sustainable landscape practices.
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?
Shelby Foote’s series on the civil war. Carl Sandburg’s biography of Abraham Lincoln, the works of Edgar Allen Poe.
Author Websites and Profiles
Joyce A. Connelley Amazon Profile
Joyce A. Connelley’s Social Media Links
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