Interview with Sharlene Maclaren, Historical Romance Author

Q: Thanks for the taking the time to chat with us today, Sharlene. Why don't you give us a little background about yourself?

A: I'm a graduate of Spring Arbor University. I graduated about a hundred or so years ago. Ha-ha. I have two married daughters and one grandchild. I've been married for 31 years and am a retired schoolteacher. Loving retirement, I might add!

Q: According to your biography, you spent thirty-one years in elementary education. The protagonist in your soon to be released historical romance, Loving Liza Jane, is a school teacher in a one room schoolhouse. Did you find yourself drawing upon your experiences as a teacher to create Liza Jane?

A: Oh, yes! Actually, none of the events I portrayed in the story actually happened to me, but knowing children as I do, I easily imagined each one.

Q: What was your first break into the writing world; was it a short story, a novel - some poetry online?

A: Ha-ha. My first break in the writing world came way back in high school. I filled spiral notebooks with silly, silly teenage romances, and those "books" went from girl to girl in Civics and Government classes-always with the teacher's back to the class. Those books never amounted to anything, but my friends kept hounding me to write another story, and another story, and another story, so I knew even then that I was "onto something". Much later in life, I picked up the writing bug again. Actually, I'd have to say God watered and fed that seed that had lain dormant for all those many years. In the year 2000, while experiencing the 'empty nest' for the first time, God urged me to give writing another try. In 2002, I published my first book titled Spring's Promise with PublishAmerica. I continued writing more and more manuscripts, familiarized myself with the writing industry and how it worked, then started sending out one proposal after another-until I finally landed a contract with Whitaker House in early 2006. My first book with them, Through Every Storm, came out in January 2007. Loving Liza Jane, the first in a three-book historical series, is set for an April 2007 release.