INTERVIEW | Tamera Alexander
By editor on Jul 28, 2008 in Interviews
Tamera, describe yourself for our visitors.
I’m very tall, extremely thin, and have heroine-like blonde hair cascading down to my— Oh wait! You mean describe myself and my life as I really am. Oh…well, that’s not nearly as fun but here goes…
Right now it’s 11:00 o’clock on a Sunday evening and I’ve just gotten off the treadmill and finished lifting weights. I’m back on my exercise routine again—still trying to lose these last stubborn ten pounds, with little success—and I won’t allow myself to go to bed without exercising. Of course the Weight Watchers chocolate éclair that I had at 5:00 for dinner doesn’t help any. It was only 140 calories but still…I should have carrots instead. I reward myself while exercising by getting to watch my favorite shows. I’ve Netflixed Christy (the TV mini-series) and also The Closer (love that Deputy Chief Brenda Johnson) and watch those episodes while I glisten.
My husband just returned from a month of being gone (to Japan, where we developed a new appreciation for Skype.com), so the family was finally together at home again. Our college-age kids are also living with us for the summer, so Friday night we cooked out, enjoyed homemade ice cream, played Scattergories, and shot off our own fireworks. We usually do the driving thing and go to see them somewhere, but this year we decided to stick closer to home, and I’m glad we did. It was really a nice change of pace.
Some of my favorite things are—spending time with friends & family, strolling through cemeteries reading gravestones, visiting historical sites (more recently, the antebellum homes and mansions of Franklin, TN). By the way, I’m now munching on carrots and feeling quite self righteous! Of course I love to read, that’s a given. I love watching movies, baking yummy Southern-style pies, hiking, eating those yummy desserts, house hunting when it’s not me who has to move, and being surprised again and again by the humbling and transforming power of the living, breathing Word of God.
How do you find time to connect with God?
Discipline. Plain and simple. If I don’t schedule time to connect with God (formally, in Bible study and prayer), it doesn’t happen. Unless I’m in extreme pain in some area of my life, and then I seem to crave His Word and crave the comfort of being cradled like a child in my Father’s lap as I listen to Him speak.
I wish I could say that I constantly desire His Word above all else, and that I never seek to fill the void inside of me with anything else, but that’s just not the case. Yet, every day I renew my commitment to be closer to Him and ask Him to draw me closer, to make me more like Christ than I am, and to give me more of His vision for my life.
I’m reading the Bible through this year with some writer friends and that kind of accountability works well for me too. I love accountability—except when I’m not living an accountable life. But I’m old enough to realize that that’s when I need it most of all, so welcome it with open arms. Knowing your weaknesses is part of knowing your strengths.
Who are your favorite authors? Favorite books?
My favorite romance, by far, is Francine Rivers’ Redeeming Love. If you haven’t read this book, run to get it now. You’ll devour it and then want to read it a second time just to experience Michael and Angel’s emotional journey all over again. It’s Francine Rivers at her most splendid, aided by the foundation of God’s unconditional—and breathtaking—love!
Tell us about your journey to publication.
I first considered writing a novel in 1999, as mentioned above. But I need to go back a bit further to really get to the “seed” of where all this started for me. In 1995, my mother-in-law, Claudette Harris Alexander, shared a book with me, one she thought I would really enjoy. I was busy and let time go by without reading it. She asked me again if I’d read it. Several times. I said no, but that I would.
The best laid plans…
Very unexpectedly, Claudette died that same year from a brain aneurysm. Weeks passed, and as I was cleaning bookshelves downstairs, I happened across that little volume and immediately sat down and read it. Claudette was right! I felt an immediate connection with the thread of hope woven through that gentle love story—Love Comes Softly, by Janette Oke, originally published by Bethany House Publishers in 1979. That sent me searching for more inspirational fiction published not only by Bethany House, but elsewhere in the Christian Booksellers Association market (CBA). I devoured the stories, and developed a real affinity for historical fiction.
A few years later my husband and I were driving back to Colorado from Texas late one night. I finished a novel, turned to him and said (only joking at the time), “I think I could write one of those.” Without blinking, he said, “Well, do it.” Competitive at heart, I nodded and said, “Okay.”
My first novel made it to the review board at Bethany House Publishers in 2001, after which I received a very nice rejection letter. That novel WAS safely tucked away in my desk drawer until Women of Faith fiction (Thomas Nelson) approached my agent, Natasha Kern, months ago about writing a historical for them—the first historical for their fiction line.
I wrote a fresh proposal for The Inheritance (my very first novel reworked), incorporating all I’d learned in the past few years while also correcting the problems in that original manuscript and…I recently finished The Inheritance. Thomas Nelson will release it in March 2009.
Tell us about your current book?
Here’s a peek at the back cover blurb of From a Distance:
What happens when dreams aren’t what you imagined,
And secrets you’ve spent a lifetime guarding are finally laid bare?
Determined to become one of the country’s premier newspaper photographers, Elizabeth Westbrook travels to the Colorado Territory to capture the grandeur of the mountains surrounding the remote town of Timber Ridge. She hopes, too, that the cool, dry air of Colorado, and its renowned hot springs, will cure the mysterious illness that threatens her career, and her life.
Daniel Ranslett, a former Confederate sharpshooter, is a man shackled by his past, and he’ll do anything to protect his land and his solitude. When an outspoken Yankee photographer captures an image that appears key to solving a murder, putting herself in danger, Daniel is called upon to repay a debt. He’s a man of his word, but repaying that debt will bring secrets from his past to light.
Forced on a perilous journey together, Daniel and Elizabeth’s lives intertwine in ways neither could have imagined when first they met . . . from a distance.
From a Distance takes place in 1875 Colorado Territory, ten years after the Civil War ended, yet repercussions of the war echo through the character’s lives as they did across our country at the time. When Elizabeth Westbrook, who wants to be the first photographer/journalist for the Washington Daily Chronicle, meets Daniel Ranslett, a former Civil War sharpshooter who went west in hopes of leaving behind the events of the Battle of Franklin (the briefest and bloodiest battle of the Civil War), their lives are already intertwined in ways neither could have imagined.
I live in Franklin, TN so was able to research the battle and history extensively, writing about places I’ve been many times, and about homes/mansions that still stand today (love that!). I’m originally from the South so blending my love for Colorado history and Southern history in From a Distance was pure pleasure!
How did you come up with ideas for this book?
Stories are journeys, and each story I write is a journey for me.
Rekindled began with a dream—the image of a man returning home on horseback. He came upon a freshly dug grave and when he knelt to read the name carved into the roughhewn wooden cross, he discovered the name was…his own. The inspiration for Revealed grew from two characters in Rekindled whose stories needed to be told. But even more, whose stories I needed to tell. Writing Revealed was a very personal journey for me, and a healing one. For Remembered, I met that story’s heroine (figuratively, of course) while strolling the ancient cobblestoned pathways of a three hundred-year-old cemetery in northern Paris, France. And From a Distance came from a question I was struggling with in my own life at the time, “What happens when the dream you asked God for isn’t what you thought it would be?”
For me, the greatest thrill of these writing journeys is when Christ reveals Himself in some new way, and I take a step closer to Him. And my deepest desire is that readers of my books will do that as well—take steps closer to Him as they read. After all, it’s all about Him.
List your most recent books.
- From a Distance, Timber Ridge Reflections, Book 1
- Remembered, Fountain Creek Chronicles, Book 3
- Revealed, Fountain Creek Chronicles, Book 2
- Rekindled, Fountain Creek Chronicles, Book 1
What’s next for you?
Now I’m busy writing Beyond This Moment, Book 3 in the Timber Ridge Reflections series. Then I’ll be returning to my “roots” and writing Southern historicals, which I’m very excited about!
Where can visitors find you online?
- www.tameraalexander.com (website)
- www.tameraalexander.blogspot.com (blog)
- www.writespassage.blogspot.com (historical writer’s group blog)
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