Interview with author Roland Yeomans PART 1

Roland Yeomans, talented author of Writing In The Crosshairs has released his debut novel-- THE BEAR WITH TWO SHADOWS available on Amazon HERE.

Those of you who follow his blog already know that he is a poet at heart. He writes with elegance, creating drama, mystery, compelling characters and always with an underlying philisophical beauty. His new book is no exception.

Today and tomorrow he is gracing my blog with an interview. Enjoy. (=

Jo:
Roland, tell us a little bit about yourself and when you knew you wanted to write

Roland :
My family left Detroit when I was quite young so my last memories of Detroit are hub cabs and knee caps. The further south we went, the hotter it got. So I was glad when we stopped in Lafayette, Lousiana, because I was real sure the next stop would have been Hell.
A year there taught me to say "sir and ma'am" and to pronounce David and Richard in really strange ways when they were last names. And it was not a pretty sight when I said Comeaux for the first time.

Lake Charles was the next stop. I remember standing in the front yard of our new home, watching the neighbor across the street beating in his front door (his wife had locked) with a fence post.
I looked up to Mom and said, "You know, if I had a degree in Psychology, I would probably understand what's going on there."
She ruffled my hair and said back, "Lot's of luck with that."
And she was right. A master's degree in psychology hasn't unlocked the why's of the pain I see. It just helped me put fancy labels on them.
I have been everything but a pirate, but since I once worked for a tax preparation firm, I guess you could say I've been that, too. I was a teacher for awhile. Then, a family counselor. My mother contracted cancer, and I emptied my savings, opening my own bookstore to give me freedom to go with her for her out-of-town treatments.

Mother died. The reason for my store died with her. I saw an opening at Lifeshare Blood Center in the Product Management department (We try not to say "blood" out loud, it gets people queasy -- LOL.) I applied and was hired. And the rest is infamy, ah, I mean history.
I've been writing most of my life. In Lafayette, a wealthy neighbor took me in for a time when my mother was hospitalized.
She saw me reading a GREEN LANTERN comic and pulled me to her study. There she asked me to make up a story of Green Lantern where an enemy used his greatest weakness against him.
As I spun the tale, she typed it, fingers flying across the keys like magic. She gave me the story to read aloud.
And I was hooked. From that day on, I was a storyteller. Mrs. Hilton, I owe you.

Most of my old writings burned up when my home burned to the ground. But now, I have an e-book, THE BEAR WITH TWO SHADOWS, on sale at Amazon.

Jo:
Sounds like your mother and Mrs. Hilton both had a lot of influence on you. Do you have Muse? What drives or inspires your writing?



Roland :
That childlike sense of awe and wonder I had as a lonely only child, wandering the lush rolling rises and long, wide stretches of nothing but trees and bushes. I would imagine myself Ulysses wandering some fabled lost island in search of his lost men. I would sit under a tall pine, my back to it, my nose in a book of mythology or volume on legends.

I want to create that sense of awe and wonder and adventure that enveloped me and drew me into a journey where I walked beside giants and legends.
I want to spin tales for the child in all of us. I want to make you seat on the edge of your seat as laughing Victor Standish leads evolved raptors on the chase of their lives along the rooftops of the French Quarter.

I want to introduce you to Hibbs, the bear with 2 shadows, and draw you into his world so well that you smell the death-lotus blossoms on the air, feel the tickle of the summer grass underneath Hibbs' bare paws.

I want to make the magic real in the darkness of yor mind.

Jo:
I love how sensory your writing is. Give us a short synopsis of what your book is about.

Roland :
In a land just beyond your mirror lies a realm few discover.

It is a magical, dangerous dimension. There lurks your darkest nightmares and your fondest hopes.
The race called Whyte is not even a memory. Except to Estanatlehi, The Turquoise Woman, once named Gaia, Goddess of the Earth, by the People she alone remembers.
All of which means exactly nothing to the young bear Hibbs. For as long as he can remember, he has been raised by The Turquoise Woman, whom he simply calls GrandMother.
Trained by her, hunted by the Lakota, accompanied by the strange hawk, Little Brother, Hibbs has happily ambled from mountain to desert to forest, even sometimes across the great waters.
Often he has asked GrandMother why she has led him to so many different lands. The answer has always been : Because a moving target is harder to hit.

But now, Hibbs finds himself unable to avoid his destiny : to rescue the lost Whyte race from oblivion.
And all it will cost the bear is everything he holds most dear.

Jo:
Thanks, Roland. This book is fascinating and original. I look forward to finishing it. (=

Tomorrow I will post PART 2 of my interview with Roland and you can read more about his book THE BEAR WITH TWO SHADOWS.