Interview with Daniela I. Norris, author of 'Recognitions'

12:00 AM



 We're happy to be hosting Daniela I. Norris on her RECOGNITIONS virtual book tour throughout the month of February with Pump Up Your Book!

Daniela I. Norris is a former diplomat, turned political writer, and with age and wisdom - inspirational author and speaker. Her award-winning stories, articles and essays have been published in numerous magazines and anthologies.
 
Published books include -
- Crossing Qalandiya - Exchanges Across the Israeli Palestinian Divide (Reprtage Press, 2010)
- On Dragonfly Wings - a skeptic's journey to mediumship (Axis Mundi Books, 2014)
- Collecting Feathers: tales from The Other Side (Soul Rocks Books, 2014)

Recognitions, part of a trilogy, is her first novel.

Daniela lives with her family near Geneva, Switzerland, and is co-director of the Geneva Writers' Conference and part of the International Grief Council panel (www.internationalgriefcouncil.org).

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About the Book:

Title: Recognitions
Author: Daniela I. Norris
Publisher: Roundfire Books
Pages: 200
Genre: Inspirational/Women’s Fiction

Amelia Rothman, a foreign-rights editor from New York, has a turbulent personal life. She juggles a divorce and two teenage kids, and decides to seek hypnotherapy to help her deal with insomnia and anxieties. But when during the session an unexpected event emerges, she tries to understand how it is relevant to her current life and why it suddenly triggers a series of synchronicities that take her on an unexpected personal journey to the depth of her subconscious. 

At once a spiritual and psychological novel, Recognitions explores the concepts of past lives, recognition of people and their roles in our present lives and life lessons. 

Praise for Recognitions:

Think Cloud Atlas, a classic story of rebirth, many lives, and reincarnation on a level that involves protagonists in other lives – but take it a step further in Recognitions, the first novel in a trilogy, which presents a woman under hypnosis who sometimes encounters a French girl on the cusp of marriage and sometimes an African shaman facing a village’s struggles with illness and slavery.
  
Then take these diverse lives and weave them together in the story of a modern-day woman, Amelia (who must deal with these other lives and her own daily challenges, and who faces her own struggle to understand the connections and messages that lie in her dreams and hypnotic state), and you have an emotionally charged saga filled with three threads that lead back to one tapestry of wonder.
  
Under a different hand, this saga of birth, death, and afterlife could have easily proved confusing: it’s no simple matter to create three disparate, very different lives, and weave them together with purpose and discovery; no easy venture to bring all these pieces to life and then meld them into one… a story that is quietly compelling: a moving saga highly recommended for any reader interested in predetermination, past lives, and how three disparate worlds weave together.

-- Midwest Book Reviews

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Q: Welcome to The Writer's Life!  Now that your book has been published, we’d love to find out more about the process.  Can we begin by having you take us at the beginning?  Where did you come up with the idea to write your book?

Recognitions has several themes – starting with the possibly pre-destined role of people we meet. This is something I always wondered about – why do some encounters feel as if they were ‘meant to be’. Recognitions is my first novel, but I’ve written other ‘inspirational’ type books in which I always had to be careful about how I write about the mysteries of life, as I always wanted them to be grounded books – as I consider myself a grounded person who needs proof before I can believe in anything.

But in Recognitions, I felt free to explore concepts such as past lives, and the connections we have with people who are important on our life journeys. After all, it’s just a story, right?


Q: How hard was it to write a book like this and do you have any tips that you could pass on which would make the journey easier for other writers?

My main tip is: let your stories write themselves. Allow then to come out on paper, or on the screen, and then worry about shape and form and publication. At least that’s the way things worked out for me – I now write only about topics I am passionate about, and trust that the right kind of readers will find my book, or it will find them.

Q: Who is your publisher and how did you find them or did you self-publish?

My publisher is John Hunt in the UK, and I actually met John Hunt himself at the Geneva Writers’ Conference - in Geneva, Switzerland, where I live.

I was impressed by the man and by the publishing company he created - which is forward thinking with its online publishing communication system and authors’ forum and community, and as it offers not only publishing contracts that have relatively generous royalties but also publishing services to authors whose books do not make the cut but who’d like to improve them. And now – after John Hunt’s retirement, John Hunt Publishing is run by a community of authors-turned-publishers, editors, proofreaders and even publicists! They know that it is very difficult to make a living out of writing and offer their authors extra gigs such as editing, proofreading and promoting books for other authors. This creates a wonderful sense of community.

Q: Is there anything that surprised you about getting your first book published?

Recognitions is my first novel, but my fourth published book – so I was surprised by how a novel does feel like first book in many ways. It is very different from publishing non-fiction or short stories, because it is such a unique and different writing process.

I was also surprised by how the characters in the novel feel as if they’re real people – especially as Recognitions is part of a trilogy and I am now working on the sequel, Premonitions. I really enjoy spending more time with these characters and see how their story develops while I write it.

Q: What other books (if any) are you working on and when will they be published?

Premonitions, the second book in the trilogy, will be publishing in 2017 and Transmissions, the third book, will be out in 2018.

Q: What’s your favorite place to hang out online?

I am a Facebook addict, as I have friends all over the world and it’s a great way to catch up with them and with what’s going on in their lives. I try to limit my facebook time so it does not get in the way of my writing, but it’s not always easy!

Q: What’s your nightly ritual before retiring for the night?

Read, read and read some more.

Q: Finally, what message (if any) are you trying to get across with your book?

In the end, everything works out for the best…. whether you believe in Karma or whether you don’t!
  
Q: Thank you again for this interview!  Do you have any final words?

I am always amazed by how open minded people are to concepts such as past lives and contact with the other side – things which I wasn’t very open to myself until life forced me to stop and look into them. I hope readers of general fiction enjoy Recognitions as it was meant for them, and not written as a particularly spiritual novel, although it does touch on some spiritual themes.

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