Interview Fran Shaff

by

Linda Lattimer

Hello Fran. I understand you have a new release with Wings for September, A Partners Promise. I was able to read this and offer a review and I must tell you that I really enjoyed it. I know other readers will, too. Just the blurb has a way of enticing the reader.

BLURB: When a boy is forced to leave New York to take the orphan train to Iowa, he promises his best friend he will return.

1) Can you tell readers, what inspired you to write this story?

Linda, thanks for your kind words about A Partner’s Promise, my new children’s novel. With many of my books I get an idea and one thing leads to another until I’ve got an outline on my hands. With A Partner’s Promise I was inspired by an article I’d read in a newspaper about children who had ridden the orphan trains which ran for the mid 1800’s into the early 1900’s. I was so fascinated that I had to learn more. Once I’d researched the deplorable conditions children were living under in eastern cities and the solutions offered for problems of that time period, I knew I had to tell the story of one child’s experiences. The difficulties eleven-year-old Axel O’Grady faces in A Partner’s Promise are the trials I imagined a boy of his time had to deal with in order to survive. Life for those children was dreary and unimaginably difficult. We should not forget their struggles or their triumphs. They are an important part of our history.

2) Is there a particular scene in this story that grabs you the most?

Linda, Axel’s life, like the lives of the real children who lived in his circumstances, was full of serious challenges. When he has nothing to eat but table scraps, when he loses the little he has and when he must leave his best friend, I can’t help but admire the strength he continues to show. Yet, Axel and the children he represents would probably deny that they were courageous. They merely did what they had to do to survive. Challenge equaled life for them.

3) Fran, your writings have a way that reach out and touch the reader’s heart. Do your stories come from real life experiences?

Thank you, Linda, for saying that. I have had many readers make the same comment. I believe characters should be as real as possible. When characters are true, when readers feel they know the characters as friends (or enemies), the stories become a part of them, and readers find themselves engrossed in a compelling world. In the case of A Partner’s Promise the story is inspired by the real life experiences of the homeless children of New York during the Nineteenth Century.

4) When writing, do you outline or does the story just begin and flow from there?

I usually lay out the basics of my plots before I begin to write. It’s easier to get where I’m going if I have a map.

5) When did you decide to become a writer?

I’ve always enjoyed writing, but I didn’t get serious about being a writer until the late 90’s. Since then I’ve written constantly. A Partner’s Promise is my eighth published book, though it is my first published children’s novel.

6) What do you think of Internet Publishing?

The Internet is all about communication. Where, if not there, do books, magazines and articles belong? (And I happen to love reading e-books on my palmer.)

7) What does your work area look like, Fran?

Probably pretty much like everyone else’s home computer station. Post it notes here and there, papers, clips, and a “to do pile” that has no bottom.

8) Do you have any other releases planned with Wings?

In November, 2007 my children’s novel Little Greek Gods will be released by Wings.

9) Do you have a website?

Yes. My address is: www.members.aol.com/frnshaff People may contact me through that site as well.

10) What are some of your favorite things to do?

I enjoy quilting very much, both by machine and hand. It is my favorite hobby. I also enjoy scrapbooking, knitting, reading (of course), crocheting, and a few other activities.

Fran, thank you for this delightful interview. I look forward to reading A Partner’s Promise again.

Thank you, Linda. I appreciate your taking the time to talk with me.