🏰 Author Interview Featuring Mary Lawlor, Author FIGHTER PILOT'S DAUGHTER #authorinterview #interview #puyb @marylawlor @pumpupyourbook

 


I have a very talented lady here today to tell us all about her new memoir, Fighter Pilot's Daughter. Her name is Mary LawlorEnjoy the interview!

First, find out more about Mary and her hot new book...



Mary Lawlo
r is the author of Fighter Pilot’s Daughter (Rowman & Littlefield 2013, paper 2015), Public Native America (Rutgers Univ. Press 2006), and Recalling the Wild (Rutgers Univ. Press, 2000). Her short stories and essays have appeared in Big Bridge and Politics/Letters. She studied at the American University in Paris and earned a Ph.D. from New York University. She divides her time between an old farmhouse in Easton, Pennsylvania, and a cabin in the mountains of southern Spain.

You can visit her website at https://www.marylawlor.net/ or connect with her on Twitter or Facebook.


FIGHTER PILOT’S DAUGHTER tells the story of the author as a young woman coming of age in an Irish Catholic, military family. Her father, an aviator in the Marines and later the Army, was transferred more than a dozen times to posts from Miami to California to Germany as the government demanded. For her mother and sisters, each move meant a complete upheaval of ordinary life. The car was sold, bank accounts closed, and of course, one school after another was left behind. Friends and later boyfriends lined up in memory as a series of temporary attachments. The story highlights the tensions of personalities inside this traveling household and the pressures American foreign policy placed on the Lawlors’ fragile domestic universe.

The climax happens when the author’s father, stationed in southeast Asia while she’s attending college in Paris, gets word that she’s caught up in political demonstrations in the streets of the Left Bank. It turns out her strict upbringing had not gone deep enough to keep her anchored to her parents’ world. Her father gets emergency leave and comes to Paris to find her. The book narrates their dramatically contentious meeting and the journey to the family’s home-of-the-moment in the American military community of Heidelberg, Germany. The book concludes many years later, after decades of tension that had made communication all but impossible. Finally, the pilot and his daughter reunite. When he died a few years later, the hard edge between them had become a distant memory.



Can you give us an excerpt?

Yes, sure. Here’s the first page:

The pilot’s house where I grew up was mostly a women’s world. There were five of us. We had the place to ourselves most of the time. My mother made the big decisions—where we went to school, which bank to keep our money in. She had to decide these things


often because we moved every couple of years. The house is thus a figure of speech, a way of thinking about a long series of small, cement dwellings we occupied as one fictional home.

It was my father, however, who turned the wheel, his job that rotate- rotated us to so many different places. He was an aviator, first in the Marines, later in the Army. When he came home from his extended absences—missions, they were called—the rooms shrank around him. There wasn’t enough air. We didn’t breathe as freely as we did when he was gone, not because he was mean or demanding but because we worshipped him. Like satellites my sisters and I orbited him at a distance, waiting for the chance to come closer, to show him things we’d made, accept gifts, hear his stories. My mother wasn’t at the center of things anymore. She hovered, maneuvered, arranged, corrected. She was first lady, the dame in waiting. He was the center point of our circle, a flier, a winged sentry who spent most of his time far up over our heads. When he was home, the house was definitely his.


If you could tell your younger writing self anything, what would that be?

Be brave! Have confidence in your passion for writing and in your ability and desire to write. Pursue the vision of yourself as a writer and don’t get sidetracked by jobs, relationships, errands, distractions, or anything that takes you away from your work as a writer, even if it means you have some trouble paying the bills for a while.    

What would you say is one of your interesting writing quirks?

Interesting question. I have a tendency to explain more than I need to, but fortunately, I also have a good editorial antenna that zeros in on those unnecessary explanations during rewrites and gets rid of them. Maybe it’s a left-over from my years as a professor…

Do you hear from your readers?  What do they say?

Yes, I’ve heard lots from the readers of Fighter Pilot’s Daughter. Many have told me how much they resonate with the depictions of life during the later years of the Cold War. It was a time that taught many of us to be fearful of what we didn’t know, of what might be coming tomorrow, and what people in power were doing. It left many of us with a sense of fragility and insecurity, traces of which I think we still live with. I heard from several readers saying they appreciated the story for picturing those things and for sharing my story of shaking myself (somewhat) free of them.


I’ve also heard from several readers who enjoyed the stories of my idiosyncratic mother and my glamorous father. They were larger-than-life characters, and I miss them very much; so it gives me great pleasure to read these comments.

What is the toughest criticism given to you as an author?

Someone once told me I was disrespectful toward my parents and the military as an institution in writing this book. That stabbed me in the heart, mostly because I love my parents and was trying hard in writing the book to sort out the complexities of our relationship and to show how rich and complicated they were as human beings. The last thing I wanted to do was disrespect them. I think the person who said this was too ideologically bound up by the wrong, unthinking kind of patriotism and didn’t get how appreciative I was of my parents—and of the opportunities I had growing up in the Army.  

What has been your best accomplishment?

Raising my step-daughter.

Do you Google yourself?

No.


How many unpublished and half-finished books do you have?

Good question! I have one unpublished novel (The Time Keeper’s Room) that’s sitting in my agent’s hands, one half-finished novel (The Stars Over Andalucía) which I’ll take up again later this year, and one I’m working on as we speak (The Translators—A Novel of Medieval Spain).

Fun question – if you were a princess or prince, what’s one thing you would do to make your kingdom a better place?

I’d have everybody vaccinated and boosted and reading books as much as we watch TV!


Do you have anything specific that you would like to say to your readers?

The book I’m working on now, The Translators, is a historical novel set in Spain in the 1100s. It’s a work of literary-historical fiction, and the central characters are based on historical figures—a pair of mathematicians, astronomers, and Arabists working together as translators. I’ve taken what little we know about these figures (Robert of Ketton and Hermann of Carinthia—they were the first translators of Muslim religious works, including the Koran, into Latin) and created a story centered on the pursuit of forbidden knowledge, the contradictions of medieval spiritualities, and the hazards of love and friendship.

 


 

 


🏰 {BOOK TRAILER} FIGHTER PILOT'S DAUGHTER BY MARY LAWLOR #booktrailer #PUYB

 



BOOK DETAILS

Title: FIGHTER PILOT’S DAUGHTER
Author: Mary Lawlor
Publisher: Rowman and Littlefield
Pages: 323
Genre: Memoir

BOOK BLURB:

FIGHTER PILOT’S DAUGHTER tells the story of the author as a young woman coming of age in an Irish Catholic, military family. Her father, an aviator in the Marines and later the Army, was transferred more than a dozen times to posts from Miami to California to Germany as the government demanded. For her mother and sisters, each move meant a complete upheaval of ordinary life. The car was sold, bank accounts closed, and of course one school after another was left behind. Friends and later boyfriends lined up in memory as a series of temporary attachments. The story highlights the tensions of personalities inside this traveling household and the pressures American foreign policy placed on the Lawlors’ fragile domestic universe.

The climax happens when the author’s father, stationed in southeast Asia while she’s attending college in Paris, gets word that she’s caught up in political demonstrations in the streets of the Left Bank. It turns out her strict upbringing had not gone deep enough to keep her anchored to her parents’ world. Her father gets emergency leave and comes to Paris to find her. The book narrates their dramatically contentious meeting and the journey to the family’s home-of-the-moment in the American military community of Heidelberg, Germany. The book concludes many years later, after decades of tension that had made communication all but impossible. Finally, the pilot and his daughter reunite. When he died a few years later, the hard edge between them had become a distant memory.


Watch Book Trailer!



 Fighter Pilot's Daughter is available at:

https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Baby-Second-Chance-Stillwater/dp/1335456252/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8 

About Mary Lawlor


Mary Lawlo
r is author of Fighter Pilot’s Daughter (Rowman & Littlefield 2013, paper 2015), Public Native America (Rutgers Univ. Press 2006), and Recalling the Wild (Rutgers Univ. Press, 2000). Her short stories and essays have appeared in Big Bridge and Politics/Letters. She studied the American University in Paris and earned a Ph.D. from New York University. She divides her time between an old farmhouse in Easton, Pennsylvania, and a cabin in the mountains of southern Spain.

You can visit her website at https://www.marylawlor.net/ or connect with her on Twitter or Facebook. 

🏰 {BOOK TRAILER} THE WITCH OF RATHBORNE CASTLE BY VIRGINIA BARLOW #booktrailer #PUYB

 



BOOK DETAILS

Title: THE WITCH OF RATHBORNE CASTLE
Author: Virginia Barlow
Publisher: The Wild Rose Press
Pages: 330
Genre: Paranormal Romance

BOOK BLURB:

Lady Jane Lenwood is abandoned and alone in an empty castle in the middle of a dark twisted forest. The locals call her a witch because she has the “sight.”

When a wounded stranger is found within the gates, she is warned he carries secrets and their lives will be intertwined.

Lady Jane walks with a limp following a riding accident the night her mother left her. And had given up on having a normal life. She blames her misfortune on the current Duke of Rathborne.

Max Radley is sent by the king to find a traitor. His search leads him to Rathborne Castle and the beautiful woman living there. He must keep his identity a secret to find the traitor.

Lies, deception, and a grand scheme to relieve him of his wealth have the real villains framing him for treason.

Only Jane and her supernatural ability can save him, but to find the answer, she must face her past and the feeling she has for him.


Watch Book Trailer!



The Witch of Rathborne Castle is available at:

https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Baby-Second-Chance-Stillwater/dp/1335456252/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8 

About Virginia Barlow


I love being an author. It’s all about where your characters lead you. I start with a general idea. As the story unfolds, I type as fast as I can in hopes I keep up with my characters. They have had me jotting on napkins, making notes while I’m waiting in a line, and waking me up in the middle of the night. The hard part is always the ending. My characters live with me and when I reach the end of the story, it is hard to say goodbye. Sometimes, I let the story sit for a few days to make sure I’m okay with them leaving home to get published. Kind of like when your kids move out. LOL

I enjoy my grandchildren, and the time I share with them. They make me smile with their antics. I like to quilt, crochet, knit, and sew. Cooking and baking are occasional itches I scratch. The rest of the time, they are necessary evils. LOL.

My greatest support comes from my husband. He has been my sounding board for all my stories. My daughters are also a great support to me. I couldn’t do it without my family.

Virginia Barlow’s recent release is the paranormal romance, The Witch of Rathborne Castle.

You can visit Virginia’s website at https://www.virginia-barlow.com or connect with her on TwitterGoodreads and,  Facebook.


🏰 {BOOK TRAILER} AWAKENING THE AVATAR WITHIN BY DR. DARREN STARWYNN #booktrailer #PUYB

 



BOOK DETAILS

Title: AWAKENING THE AVATAR WITHIN: A Roadmap for Uncovering Your Superpowers, Upgrading Your Body and Uplifting Humanity
Author: Darren Starwynn
Publisher: Desert Heart Press
Pages: 348
Genre: Spiritual Awakening/Meditation/Energy Healing/Personal Development

Awakening the Avatar Within offers a practical roadmap for deeply healing yourself and living an awakened, actualized life as an Avatar. An Avatar is Divine consciousness expressing itself as a human being, and this book will help awaken your awareness of this vital part of yourself.

You will learn many transformational practices for raising your level of consciousness and upgrading the health and functioning of your body. Many of these practices are based on the cutting-edge science of epigenetics. From this place you are able to become a vital part of the movement to heal and uplift the human race.

The information and energy transmissions of this book can empower you to:

  • Identify and express your superpowers
  • Become a powerful catalyst of healing for yourself and others on the Quantum level
  • Increase your inner peace and clarity of mind through awareness of the Fifth Dimension and the Quantum Field
  • Identify your “job description” as a Lightworker
  • Create a fulfilling daily practice of meditation and self-development
  • Activate your Light Body (Merkaba)
  • Augment your self-love and come to peace with your shadow self
  • Be a planetary healer, and join with other Avatars in uplifting the human race

Dr. Darren Starwynn has had a long career as acupuncturist, inventor, writer, healer and teacher, integrating therapeutic systems from around the world. He has written four groundbreaking books, led hundreds of workshops and seminars, invented several vibrational devices used worldwide and helped develop advanced mind-body healing systems.


Watch Book Trailer!



Awakening the Avatar Within is available at:

https://www.amazon.com/Secret-Baby-Second-Chance-Stillwater/dp/1335456252/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8 

About Darren Starwynn


Dr. Darren Starwynn
 has been aware of the Quantum Field of consciousness since childhood, traveling to India to study with a spiritual master during his teenage years. Since then Darren has had a long career as acupuncturist, medical device developer, writer, healer and teacher, integrating therapeutic systems from around the world. He has written four groundbreaking books, led hundreds of workshops and seminars and invented several vibrational devices used worldwide. Darren’s workshops and retreats weave laughter and playfulness with profound personal healing and transformation.

Thousands of people have been directly or indirectly touched by Darren’s offerings, and he has inspired many colleagues to expand the scope of their work to include energy medicine and consciousness-based healing systems. His work integrates vibrational energy medicine with multi-dimensional quantum healing to help people rapidly release old trauma, pain and limitations to their self-expression.

Darren serves as a Reverend through the Lightworker Ministry, empowering healers and Lightworkers to live as Avatars and participate in the currently unfolding planetary ascension of consciousness. He is a graduate of the Tri-State Institute of Traditional Chinese Acupuncture and received a doctorate in Chinese Medicine in 1995 through the National Academy of Advanced Asian Medicine. He has been ordained as a Knight through the Sacred Medical Order of the Knights of Hope, a branch of the historical Knights Hospitaler from Europe.

Darren also loves playing and composing music, hiking, writing and dancing.

His latest book is Awakening the Avatar Within.

Visit his website at www.drstarwynn.com.

You can connect with him at Twitter or Facebook.