Today we are interviewing author Patti Lacy. Her most recent book, What the Bayou Saw, is available through Kregel Publications.
In 1955, Ann Qualls gave birth to her daughter Patti in the front seat of a Buick. By pure coincidence, Ann claims, their daughter was named Patti Day Qualls, PDQ.
This moniker has served Patti well, as she’s moved at least ten times, traveled to forty states, and changed occupations with a liberality unusual in native Texans. However, Patti thinks her latest profession will stick awhile.
The Still, Small Voice encouraged Patti to write after a brave Irish friend shared memories of betrayal and her decision to forgive. In 2008, An Irishwoman’s Tale was published by Kregel Publications. Patti’s second novel, What the Bayou Saw, draws on the memories of two young girls who refused to let segregation, a chain link fence, and a brutal rape come between them.
The secrets women keep and why they keep them continue to capture Patti’s imagination. She writes full time, teaches Bible studies and seminars, and attends book signings. Patti and her husband Alan, an Illinois State faculty member, live in Normal. They have two grown children and a dog named Laura.
You can reach Patti at patti@pattilacy.com or www.pattilacy.com.
What the Bayou Saw: Since leaving Louisiana, Sally Stevens has held her childhood secrets at bay, smothering them in a sunny disposition and sugar-coated lies. No one, not even her husband Sam, has heard the truth about what happened to her and her best friend, Ella Ward, when they were twelve years old.
Now a teacher in Normal, Illinois, Sally has nearly forgotten her past. Then Shamika, one of her students, is violently attacked, and memories of segregation, a chain-link fence, and a blood oath bubble to the surface like a dead body in a bayou. Lies continue to tumble from Sally’s lips as she scrambles to gloss over the harsh reality of a betrayal that refuses to stay buried.
Finally cornered by the Holy Spirit and her own web of lies, Sally and Shamika embark on a quest to find Ella in post-Katrina New Orleans. With the help of friends, family, and God, Sally can glimpse a life free of the mire of deceit and truly begin to live with joy. Will she pay the price for a lifetime of deception? Can she save Shamika?
Patti took a few minutes to talk about publishing from a writer's perspective with Tiffany Colter.
Tiffany Colter: What do you do other than writing? How do you maintain balance?
Patti Lacy: It’s easy to maintain perfect balance when you live in Normal, Illinois, with two very normal American males who insist on eating normal home-cooked meals every night and love a normal and orderly home. So I get up early, like 5:00 to 6:00 a.m., fall to my knees and ask the Holy Spirit to counsel and console and all the cool things He does. I bang on my keyboard until the allotted number of pages click into a Word file, then stick on the caps of mom and wife and friend and sometime teacher. Laura the dog also demands walks and occasional brushing. What could be more balanced—and normal—than that?
TC: Upcoming projects?
PL: Reclaiming Lily. Kai Wang, a Harvard-educated physician, battles an American pastor and his wife Gloria for custody of Lily, the sister wrenched from the Wang family during China’s Cultural Revolution. My fourth novel will explore China’s one-child policy, adoption, and the Christian and secular notions of sacrifice.
Lord willing, I’ll travel to China in spring of 2010 and experience a slice of Lily’s life.
TC: How do you market yourself and your writing?
PL: I’m so blessed to rely on Jeane of Wynn & Wynn fame and Kregel’s great staff. The rest of it? The “simple” concept of respecting and loving on one reader at a time.
At Milwaukee’s Irishfest, God gifted me with a parking lot friendship when a lovely family helped me find my car. Thirty minutes after my dirty vehicle had been found, my new friends had bought an autographed copy of An Irishwoman’s Tale. Yes, we gabbed on and on for quite awhile!
After a precious e-mail, I sent my rescuers a packet of pictures and information about the real Irishwoman. I try to connect with EVERY reader and will soon comprise a list for VIP mailings. In this way, we writers really do have a personal ministry. Isn’t it EXCITING?
TC: Who has really influenced you?
PL: Lynn Austin, the acclaimed Christy winner, who encouraged me to write for the Audience of One. She told me, using Robert Frost’s words, that “it would make all the difference.” Friends, she was right. God bless!!
Read more of Patti’s interview here at WritingCareerCoach.com.
YOU COULD WIN!
Leave a comment on this posting and you could win a copy of What the Bayou Saw. The drawing will take place on Sept. 21, 2009. This give away is for US residents only. There is no fee to enter.
Another book by Patti Lacy:
An Irishwoman's Tale
Tiffany Colter is a writer, speaker and writing career coach who works with beginner to published writers. She can be reached through her website at http://www.writingcareercoach.com/
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