Patti, tell us about yourself.

I’m a fifty-something transplanted Southerner with a professor husband, two grown kids, and a dog named Laura. Though we miss the warm front porch and drawly talk of Louisiana and Texas, we’ve found community in the wonderful town of Normal, Illinois (perhaps not the expected place for an abnormal woman who darts out of the house during rainstorms to save drowning worms!)

Until 2005, I carried the tattered briefcase of my teacher mother and father and husband to Heartland Community College here in Normal, where I taught Humanities 101. Then God whispered in my ear to write an amazing story I’d heard in Terre Haute, Indiana, of all places. I picked up my “writer’s pen” and did my best to capture that story on paper—actually, a computer file. An Irishwoman’s Tale began my writing career, and I hope to keep on writing as long as God keeps whispering.

What type of jobs or careers have you worked in the past?

I taught junior high earth science and coached a junior high boys’ tennis team, then temporarily closeted my briefcase and purchased a court reporter’s machine. For twelve years, I tapped on that tiny keyboard to capture the words of expert physicians, bitter divorcees, and injured plaintiffs. Proofreading over a thousand pages a month prepared me well for this writing career. And oh, do I have some stories to tell. Like the exploding toilet…

Who are your favorite authors?

As a fellow bookie, Renee, you know we’d be here forever if I gave you a complete answer, but I’ll give you a few to get you drooling! In the CBA, I read Stacy Hawkins Adams, Athol Dixon, Tosca Lee, Julie Lessman, Charles Martin, Francine Rivers, Lisa Samson, and sooo many more!

I’ve always gobbled down the classics: Atwood, Austen, Bronte, Cather, Ellison, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Hugo, Hurston, Kingsolver, Morrison, Stegner, and Walker.

During my master’s studies in African-American literature, I devoured Angelou and Butler and Jones and Gaines and Larsen and Naylor and Petry.

A favorite activity is to scour Barnes & Noble shelves, load up my arms with a foot-high stack, and settle into the coffee bar chair with a latte and my pretend fortune. Then I begin the complicated sorting-out process to find the one or two new friends that I can afford to feed and nourish and call family.

What are your favorite books?

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, To Kill a Mockingbird, Les Miserables, The Poisonwood Bible, anything by Morrison and Austen. Recent discoveries? The Madonnas of Leningrad, The Passion of Mary-Margaret, The Memory Keeper’s Daughter, The Shape of Mercy, the At Home in Mitford series. There’s always an about-to-topple-over stack on my nightstand, so this list may change…next week!

When did you begin to realize you wanted to write?

Not until 2005, when God whispered for me to write the story of Mary, a feisty Irishwoman I met when we were yanked from our warm Southern porch and plopped in Terre Haute, Indiana. Before then, I’d only penned maudlin poetry and embarrassing love notes, some of which I keep stashed at the bottom of a basement storage box.

Tell us about your journey to publication.

In the spring of 2005, I attended the Write to Publish conference in Wheaton with a partially complete manuscript of An Irishwoman’s Tale and high hopes to sell that manuscript in three days. Boy, did God have a thing or two to teach me! What I did gain at Write to Publish was an inkling of how the market worked. I hired a professional editor, changed my story from first to third person, made countless revisions, resubmitted to the tired editor, then sent out a proposal and sample chapters to The Writer’s Edge. In the fall of 2006, Kregel Publications e-mailed a request to see the full manuscript. Six weeks later, a contract offer buzzed across the electronic lines.

In 2009, my second baby, What the Bayou Saw, hit the bookstores. I’ve written a third book, My Name is Sheba, and the gray matter has drummed up a fourth, Reclaiming Lily. It’s been a wild ride!

Are you a full-time writer? If so, describe your day.

In the spring of 2006 I resigned my community college job to write full-time. During the draft stage, I get up at 5:00 a.m., pray, then write until I meet my page requirement. Until that’s done, do not pass go. Do not check e-mail. DO have coffee.

If the Muse lingers, sometimes I write until noon, when I stop to eat lunch with my son and play Yahtzee or Trouble. If words and ideas have clogged up my brain, I eke out my minimum page quota, then head to my second office, a local coffee bar, and chat with friends or people-watch. Sometimes that looses the traffic jam and I return to my computer and tap away a few more pages.

Afternoons pass with publicity details, phone calls. I try to stop by four o’clock, because someone’s gotta cook the big dinner we Southerners love!

Right now I’m between books, so there’s much more emphasis on research, reading…rest! After all, a girl’s gotta live! There’s Bible study and my daughter’s wedding to plan and running with my dog and smelling the wonderful lilacs that frame our living room window.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Segregation and a chain link fence separated twelve-year-old Sally Flowers from her best friend, Ella Ward. Yet a brutal assault bound them together. Forever. Thirty-eight years later, Sally, a middle-aged Midwestern instructor, dredges up childhood secrets long buried beneath the waters of a Louisiana bayou in order to help her student, who has also been raped. Fragments of spirituals, gospel songs, and images of a Katrina-ravaged New Orleans are woven into the story.

Visit Patti on line at www.pattilacy.com.

View the full blog tour schedule at http://bitly.com/WhatTheBayouSaw