Authors Road Interviews George R.R. Martin

As we’ve traveled the country talking with writers and experts on authors, we’ve come to understand that this remarkable group is first and foremost storytellers. Since earliest times, these are the people in our cave-clans, tribes, castes and social circles who have that special gift to enrapture, instruct and inspire us with tales of myth, truth, daring and insight.

George R.R. Martin is one of the world’s modern storytellers who has for years spun his legends and kept us watching, listening, and reading. He has been telling fantastical tales since he was a child, and his genres are most often fantasy, horror, and science fiction. His mediums have included comic books, short stories, bestselling novels, and episodic as well as epic television programs and series starting with Twilight Zone and continuing to the current HBO blockbuster series, Game of Thrones. And his art has been acknowledged with bestselling worldwide sales, and numerous awards, including his selection in the 2011 Time 100, those people the magazine named as the most influential people in the world.

This last summer we had the great fortune to visit Martin at his writing studio in Santa Fe, New Mexico. We filmed our interview with him in an elegant room with two walls filled with dioramas of miniatures engaged in medieval war, science fiction disasters, and flights of fancy – a fitting backdrop for our talk.

We are so very pleased and proud to share with you our interview with our 38th writer, George R.R. Martin.

And more:

Recently the tables were turned on us as we were the subject of two media interviews. If you’re interested in hearing us, or reading more about us, please check out the following:

On Oregon Public Radio’s, Think Out Loud: https://soundcloud.com/thinkoutloudopb/the-authors-road-chronicling

And in a Portland Tribune newspaper, Boom: http://portlandtribune.com/bnw/21-news/202348-george-and-sallis-excellent-adventure

And last, to one and all: Thanks for your continued support and encouragement, and our fondest wishes to all for a Most Happy New Year.

George, Salli & Ella

Next Up: Bestselling author and writing professor,

Pam Houston

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Authors Road

Authors Road, Tony Hillerman, as told by his daughter, Anne Hillerman

Once again we traveled to Santa Fe, New Mexico to meet and interview several authors about their work and insights.

This time we lucked out with a two-for-one special: We had arranged to speak with Anne Hillerman, daughter of bestselling Southwest mystery writer, Tony Hillerman (1925 - 2008), and we discovered that she too was an accomplished writer. Like her father, she worked as a journalist in New Mexico and published several books, including two photo books working with her husband, noted photographer Don Strel. One of these books, Tony Hillerman's Landscapes, was their effort to capture the beauty and magic of the same Southwest landscapes depicted in her father's books.

Anne recently published her first fiction novel, Spider Woman's Daughter. The book picks up where her father left off in his 19 mysteries. Anne's novel features Bernadette Manuelito, one of the Navajo police officers working with her father's legendary characters, Jim Chee (Bernadette's husband) and Joe Leaphorn. Published by HarperCollins earlier this month, the book immediately reached the New York Times Bestseller List.

In this interview, Anne talks about her father's start as a journalist, his transition into becoming one of the most famous writers in the Southwest, and his continued impact on writers through an annual conference and writing prizes dedicated to him and his legacy. Stay Tuned: Our next interview is with fantasy, horror, sci-fi and screenwriter George R.R. Martin.

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Jean Auel Interviewed by The Author's Road

More than a century ago, H.G. Wells wrote a classic tale about a time machine and a time traveler who rides it into the distant future to meet the fate of humans, and farther still to witness the end of earth and all living things.

We are pleased to present our interview with another time traveler, Jean Auel. She is a writer who, like Wells, researched history and wrote a series of books that have become our time machine into the distant past where we get to meet the roots of our human species and culture.

She is a tireless reader, a problem solver, a lover of physics and math and dozens of other subjects that catch her fancy. She was also a young mother who had to help meet the financial needs of a growing family. So she went off to work as an upstart woman in the rapidly growing world of technology. It was there she wrote her first book, a training manual for circuit board engineers.

Years later, Jean became obsessed with the idea of trying to write a short story based on a young woman living among others who were different. Very different. But her efforts to spin a story were thwarted with questions. And so she plunged into the labyrinth of research, emerging much later without a short story, but rather a lengthy book about a female character who has now lived with Jean for more than thirty years, and appeared in six volumes read by an estimated 60 million people worldwide.

The Clan of the Cave Bear is the first of her Earth’s Children series, and in 1986 was made into a movie with Daryl Hannah in the lead. Jean’s historical fiction has not only developed a loyal following of readers, but some of her ideas and plot elements have preceded scientific discoveries in strange and wonderful ways.

We’re certain you’ll enjoy this fascinating interview as much as we enjoyed meeting and talking with this prescient and engaging writer, Jean M. Auel.

George & Salli

Our next interview: San Francisco's Poet Laureate,
Alejandro Murguia

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Fresh Brewed Willamette Writers Conference percolates in Portland August 1-4

By Cornelia Becker Seigneur

The WILLAMETTE WRITERS CONFERENCE percolates at Portland's Sheraton Hotel at the Airport Friday August 2 through Sunday August 4, with prep events starting Thursday August 1. With this year's theme "Fresh Brewed," you know the creative adrenaline juices will be flowing. As always, there is a fantastic lineup of speakers offering workshops, and literary and film agents are on tap to hear about your book project.

Ken Sherman, who represents David Guterson, the author of Snow Falling on Cedars, is a featured literary agent.

And, Saturday's key note banquet speaker, Kelly Williams Brown , who shared her book idea Adulting with a literary agent at the 2011 Willamette Writers Conference, and it quickly went to auction. The book was released this year and Williams Brown has been featured in the New York Times, among other publications.

The 2013 Willamette Writers Conference is for writers of all genres and levels. There is truly something for everyone. Come for a day, or two or all three. For more information on the agents attending, visit the website at WILLAMETTE LITERARY AGENTS 2013 OR email the conference director Stefan Feuerherdt at: chair@willamettewriters.com or the Willamette Writers Office manager Bill Johnson at: wilwrite@willamettewriters.com.

Kelly Williams Brown to be Keynote at Willamette Writers Conference

“From Here to There: Write Like It’s Your Job”

Kelly Williams Brown started with a blog (now with 140,000 followers), a dream and a manuscript. In 2011 she attended the Willamette Writers Conference, landed an agent, and then watched her book, Adulting: How to Become a Grown-Up in 468 Easy(ish) Steps, sell at auction. It was published in May 2013. In the fall of 2012, Adulting was also sold to Hollywood for a TV comedy (JJ Abrams’ Bad Robot Productions/ Warner Bros TV with a put-pilot at Fox).

Brown will be the Keynote speaker at the Willamette Writers Award Banquet on August 3 at 7 p.m. sharing her experiences and tips. The banquet will be in the Mt. Hood Ballroom at the Airport Sheraton Hotel in Portland. Doors open with a no-host bar at 6:30. Tickets must be purchased in advance through Willamette Writers for $45 per person.

Brown graduated from Loyola University, New Orleans in 2006. An author, journalist, and copywriter, she lives in Portland Oregon.


About Willamette Writers: Willamette Writers is the largest writers’ organization in Oregon and one of the largest in the United States. Founded in Portland in 1965, it has grown to over 1,800 members with branches in Southern Oregon, Mid-Valley, Salem and the Oregon Coast, and the Cynthia Whitcomb Writing House in West Linn. More detailed information is available at www.willamettewriters.com or by calling 503-305-6729.

Author's Road Interviews Tom McGuane

Tom McGuane

Writer #34

Most of us have a favorite cowboy movie, one of the greats like Rio Bravo, Shane, perhaps one of the versions of True Grit or the ever amusing, Three Amigos. And of course endless arguments have been waged at high noon in many a saloon over which was best.

But for me, two favorites stand tall above all others. To me, all other westerns wore a black hat when the 1976 classic, Missouri Breaks hit the screens. Directed by Arthur Penn and starring Jack Nicholson and Marlon Brando with a herd of other famous actors, this strange tale about horse thieves and land barons ended all debate for me about what Western was best.

And a few years later, over the horizon loped along the classic, Tom Horn, (“I ain't never ete a bug that big before….”) one of Steve McQueen’s last movies.

And both were written (Tom Horn was co-written) by a real-life Montana cowboy, Tom McGuane. He's a master storyteller and writer who is a Wallace Stegner Fellow, a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, leaden with arm-loads of other literary awards -- and he's in both the National Cutting Horse Association Hall of Fame and the Fly Fishing Hall of Fame.

Come on you scribblers and cowboy wanna-bes, top that!

So it was most exciting and a great honor when McGuane invited us to visit him at his ranch in the wilds of Montana, and to sit in his writing studio to chat with him about his life as a reader and a writer of novels, short stories, and of course screenplays.

And it with great pride that we share with you the results of that chat, and the insights and remembrances that he shared with us on that warm summer day.

George & Salli

Our next interview: Jean Auel

The Authors Road

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http://www.authorsroad.com

Ooligan Press to Attend Willamette Writers Conference

by Mary Breaden

Last year, Ooligan Press had the pleasure of attending the Willamette Writers Conference pitch room for a busy Friday. Ooligan Press, for those of you who don't know, is Portland State University's student-run press for students enrolled in the Master's in Publishing program. During the summer months of 2012, I was the co-manager of the press's acquisitions department and managed the press's slush pile.

With slush pile management comes certain tales of woe from both the stand-point of the writer and the acquisitions editor. Writer: Why can't my (unsolicited) manuscript get in the door with any publisher? Slush pile manager: Why does my press never receive any publishable works? Ooligan Press's front-list provides a refutation to this paradigm, for in recent years, all of our increasingly popular titles have come from the slush pile, even Oregon Book Award winning young adult novel, Blue Thread, by Ruth Tenzer Feldman.

The WWC gave our press a chance to get into a more active role; with agents and other publishers, we waited for the conference's dear authors to walk up and pitch their manuscript. The first pitch of the day was a woman named Karelia Stetz-Water, who I didn't meet because I was lost at nearby Portland Airport trying to get to the conference. But lovely Laura received Karelia's pitch and handed me her proposal for her literary fiction novel, As Though Our Beauty Were a War when I arrived. "Read it. I think you'll love her," she told me with a grin. I read in silence and responded, "I want this."

After the conference--where we met heaps of talented authors--I emailed Karelia and solicited a copy of As Though Our Beauty Were a War. She responded with a characteristic good-nature and professionalism that we would later know her for (writerly dramatics, this one has not, outside of her fiction, that is). I read the manuscript and did not want to stop. I fell into the charms of her main character Triinu, a young girl in the Willamette Valley who was trundling along her path to understanding her body and sexuality with great intelligence among less artistically sensitive classmates. The kindness of Triinu, her nostalgia and impatience for the future was something I could relate to. The author's lyrical grace was a technique that I admired/envied.

During the fall and winter months, Karelia very kindly worked with the acquisitions department to developmentally edit As Though Our Beauty Were a War, which would help the new department managers to pitch the novel to the rest of the press later on in the spring of this year. When managers McKenzie Workman, Drew Lazzara, and Whitney Smyth presented the novel to the general assembly of Ooligan Press, they told us, "Here is a heroine that any reader can love." The book was unanimously accepted. And now, almost a full year later from when we first found Karelia at WWC, the real fun begins!

Here at Ooligan Press, we are very grateful to have been present at the Willamette Writers Conference. Our presence at the conference meant that our program's young publishers would have a chance to work with a novel that truly resonated with them.