Interview with Bobbe Palmer, author of Can This Be Home? And Four Other Stories

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Inside the Book:

Can This Be Home
Title: Can This Be Home? And Four Other Stories 
Author: Bobbe Palmer 
Publisher: iUniverse 
Genre: Fiction 
Format: Ebook

Annie has just suffered an unimaginable loss. While she spirals into the darkness of grief, her rancher husband, Ray, appears to lack emotion. But as a storm approaches their Wyoming ranch, Annie finally sees something in Ray's blue eyes that transforms everything.

In a compelling collection of stories, Bobbe Palmer shines a light on five women of different ages and circumstances as each faces unique challenges. After little Ally witnesses a fight between her father and another farmer over water, she soon discovers what happens when a man thinks he can do everything for himself. Janie was once happy with Brad. But that was before he let the drink overtake his life. Now all she worries about is which one of them it will kill first. Odd Ida does not like boys. But when one appears at her door, she invites him into her home-and unwittingly, into her life, where she learns loneliness can be cured. Sandy knows something is visiting her farmhouse at night. Now all she has to do is determine its identity and what it wants.

Can This Be Home? is a compilation of tales that offer powerful descriptions, tormented characters, and heartbreak as five women bravely confront their trials.

1.Can you please tell us about your book and why you wrote it?

This is a book of short stories about women of a variety of ages,  in different places, each with a unique problem to solve.  They are character sketches, actually, drawn from  women I have known over the years.  I wrote them for my own satisfaction about a love of stories and being able to create them.  I had no great earth-shaking reason to write them except that it gave me pleasure to see what I could do with them - no great cause to support,  no crusade against injustice, no exposure of evil  – all good reasons to write, but not my reason for these stories.

2. What were some of the biggest challenges you faced writing it?

It was a challenge to create believable characters, and plausible plots.  Sometimes I wondered if I had gone beyond reasonable belief. I needed to get inside my people and try to express who they are and how they would be likely act following particular happenings.  Sometimes I wondered if I had gone beyond reasonable belief..  I found it a little hard to anticipate how what I wrote would touch readers.      


3.  Do you plan subsequent books?

I don’t have anything in mind at this point.  I will still be writing for the fun of it, but whether I will ever again have something worth another book remains to be seen.


4.  When and why did you begin writing?

 I always loved stories and had fun creating them in my head as I grew older. I had a fine teacher in high school who thought I had potential and encouraged me to be a part of the creative writing courses he taught through the three years there.  I didn’t find similar encouragement through college, but I kept writing things for my own pleasure, and have continued to do so. 


5.  What is you greatest strength as a writer?

I think I am able to” paint with words,” as some friends have said.  I like describing things in detail and making them come alive with word and phrases.  I believe I do that well. My readers admire my ability to describe the world around my characters so that they feel transported to that place and time.  I observe the world around me in detail, and take pleasure in bringing that  to my stories as well as I can.  I think that in doing that I use words and the rhythm of language to give reality to stories and their characters.

6.  Did writing this book teach you anything?

.  Writing and rewriting the stories over long years of  polishing them taught me many things about how to create a believable plot,  how to present characters in a believable way, how to prune out  what was not valuable to the story.  Just practicing over and over made my writing much better. I learned lots about publishing as iUniverse  helped me to get that done.  I knew little about any of that before



Meet the Author:
Bobbe Palmer attended Grinnell College in Iowa and the University of Denver. After teaching school one year in Kansas, she married a Presbyterian minister. She assisted him as he served churches in Wyoming, and then in mission work in Alaska. Now a widow, Bobbe lives in Estes Park, Colorado.

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