N. N. Light’s Book Heaven is celebrating its tenth anniversary. Isn’t that wonderful?
I’d like to introduce prolific author Beth Henderson.
Question 1: Where were you ten years ago in relation to your author/writer career? If you weren’t writing, what were you doing?
2015 was the year I managed to crawl back onto the writing bandwagon. It fell to the wayside as I was 24/7 caregiver to my parents. A few days into January, my mother passed away that year at four months shy of hitting 95, but I’d just recently finished manuscripts (like just before Christmas) for both RAVEN’S MOON my first urban fantasy and SUPERSTAR, the longest novel I’d ever written. Life was preparing to jumpstart for me again creatively.
Question 2: Looking back on the past ten years, how has your writing grown?
I think I’d say in every way! Much more involved stories, and different genres being spun. I started out writing romantic suspense comedy and historical romantic adventure (at the tail end of the bodice ripper era). Today I have an urban fantasy series as JB Dane, wrote a cozy mystery/romantic comedy/ paranormal lite series as Beth Henderson, and two other romantic suspense mysteries under the Henderson name. Back when I was first published there was no internet, no Amazon or reviews with stars involved, no eBooks, and to even think about doing any independent publishing was to label yourself an amateur with an inflated ego. How the times do change. A few years ago, one of the reviews I got said, “…Henderson, known for creating detailed settings and infusing deep emotion into her characters’ lives and loves…” and my reaction was “I do?!” So, how have a grown as a writer over the decades, particularly these past ten years? Seems I write deep POV without even realizing I do while playing with words.
Question 3: What are you doing now? How many books have you published?
This coming May it will be 35 years since my first novel was published by a small traditional press, but that means I signed my first publishing contract 35 ½ years ago. This year the final novel in my Raven Tales series will release. Its arrival will bring the count to 40 novel length stories. But I’ve also written novella and short story length tales, too, and have had a finished Steampunk Weird West novel collecting dust. And it’s doing that because it’s supposedly the first in a trilogy, hence the count continues to get added to.
Giveaway -
In celebration of our 10th anniversary, the authors have each donated a prize (sixty in total) and they range from free books to swag to gift cards.
Open internationally but some prizes are only open to US residents
Runs March 1 - 31, 2025
Winner will be drawn on April 1, 2025
Author Biography:
As many writers have done, I began writing stories when in elementary school. I’d run out of Nancy Drew to read and decided to write my own, though the intrepid Ms. Drew wasn’t featured in it. And it was only the length of a short, short story. That was in the 7th grade. I went “full novel” in the 8th grade, which was too long to be a short story but too short to be a novella.
In high school I was into spies and wrote something longer. Still not as long as I’d write in the future, but it got handed around for my fellow students to read because they couldn’t believe someone would write something when it wasn’t an assignment, much less be more than the required length for an essay in our classes. At reunions former students don’t remember my name but come up to me and say “you’re the writer.” Yep, I’m the writer. They still say that, but I now whip the latest published book from my purse for a show and tell.
Writing fiction is the only thing I ever wanted to do, and I count myself lucky to have been welcomed into the company of published writers. Next life, I’m going to start working on it earlier though.
Where can readers follow you:
Rather than be all over the place in social media (which steals time to write stories away), I’ve trimmed things down. Currently you can find me on Facebook at http://bit.ly/2GvFyog for Beth Henderson; for Beth Daniels https://bit.ly/3WZf4lk; and JBDane Mystery and Fantasy http://bit.ly/2GJtejL