What makes Carolyn Howard-Johnson so frugal? Why her series of “Frugal Books” of course! (A listing of them follows the end of the interview.)
But this author also has a passion for Danes –as in the Great variety. I thought it was maybe because she was a Scooby-Doo nut, but, nope, a real life Great Dane got her hooked on the breed.
Read on to learn more about author Carolyn Howard-Johnson and the pets in her life.
Courtney Mroch: What kind of things do you write about? (Genre, subject matter, themes, what have you.)
Carolyn Howard-Johnson: I write about anything that grabs my interest. Fiction, nonfiction. I review movies for the Glendale News-Press, occasionally books. I write the “Back to Literature” column for MyShelf.com. I write poetry, short stories, novels, essays. As you can see, that allows me lots of room to squirm.
CM: What kind of pets do you have? (Or have you had.)
CH-J: I adore my animals. So real pets have included an assortment of animals as a child including a chicken who lost its head on the sharp end of an ax when my grandmother needed her for stewing. My husband and I had a really ugly guy named Max who was probably part black lab and part Australian shepherd. One blue eye, the other kind of half brown and half blue. Sorry, no pictures of him. I can’t imagine why not.
Then we’ve had three Great Danes. We adore them. They are like little people–two-year-olds to be precise. Demanding. And not at all elegant except to look at. Our present one is Malibu (the blue-black one you see in the picture). Our last one was Trixie. She was my husband’s favorite. The spotty one in the pictures. Sheeba was a fawn. She’s the one who was so adorable she got us started on them.
I have to mention another Max. He is my daughter’s dog. We dogsit him. He is half pub and half English bull. Boy, is he a corker. I even wrote a poem about him, weird little guy that he is.
CM: Do animals appear in your work? Do you ever use your pets as the basis for any animal characters?
CH-J: Besides the pantoum about Max, I’ve written short stories featuring animals. A dog appears briefly in This Is the Place. My grandmother used to always have a dog named Tippy. My memory doesn’t delineate between them but my sense is they couldn’t have all been the same dog!
CM: Do your pets contribute to your work methods and help with the process?
CH-J: Malibu keeps me company while I write and lets me know when it is time to stretch so my back won’t ache tomorrow. She is very insistent when she thinks I have had enough. You just don’t ignore a Great Dane.
CM: What are you working on now? Any new releases?
CH-J: The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success was just released. I hope it will help tons of writers sell their books faster and better (meaning get more money for them!). There is a whole chapter of information gleaned from our nation’s top agents on how not to write a query letter.
And Amazon just published a Short called The Great First Impression Book Proposal. A Short seemed the perfect format for this. Everyone hates learning to write proposals but it’s gotta be done. Still no reason to buy three books and spend three weeks learning to do it. My plan is better than most and takes only 20 minutes and 49 cents.
Other Titles By Carolyn Howard-Johnson
NOTE: All of the following are award winners!
The Frugal Book Promoter: How To Do What Your Publisher Won’t
The Frugal Book Editor: Put Your Best Foot Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success
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Photo credit: Photos provided by Carolyn Howard-Johnson and used with her permission.