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ALISON STROBEL INTERVIEW - AUTHOR OF COMPOSING AMELIA

 




ABOUT ALISON STROBEL: Alison inherited the writing gene from her father, Lee, and grew up composing stories on everything from napkins to typewriters. Her talent earned her awards throughout school, a two page spread featuring her work in her senior yearbook, and even saved her from failing college chemistry. But it wasn’t until she moved to California after college that she wrote her first full-length novel, and that’s when god made alison’s oldest dream come true.
Waterbrook Press (now Waterbrook Multnomah) picked up Worlds Collide and published it in 2005, Violette Between followed in 2006 and earned Alison a nomination for the prestigious Rita Award from the Romance Writers of America – a shock, since she hadn’t realized she was writing romances. After taking a break to become a mom to Abigail and Penelope Jane, she landed two contracts with David C. Cook and Zondervan to write a total of four more novels that released in 2010 and 2011.
Parenthood turned Alison’s head (as well as her husband Daniel’s) to children’s books, and together they penned the award winning That’s where God Is, the first in a series of children’s books on spiritual formation, which released in 2010 and was followed by That’s When I Talk to God.
Alison and her family live in Colorado. When she’s not writing, she’s reading, obsessively stalking her favorite online parenting forum, playing pet store (or reading books or homeschooling) with her daughters, or out with the whole gang exploring their new home state.


How did you come up with the idea for Composing Amelia? Were you happy with the book cover? I love it.
My best friend in college developed bipolar disorder our junior year. Her family was in complete denial, and I was the only friend close enough (we were roommates) for her to really open up to about what was going on. It was an incredibly rough time for both her and me, and there were no Christian resources at all for either of us to walk us through what was going on. I thought at the time, "Someday I'm going to write a book about Christians and mental illness." This was long before a writing career was even a blip on my radar! But I was so frustrated by the misinformation and lack of understanding that so many Christians around us had of mental illness, and I really wanted to change that. I always expected to write a non-fiction book about it, but God had a different idea. :)
And yes, I do love the cover. The book went through a couple different titles before landing on Composing Amelia, and once we had that and I saw this image, I knew this was the perfect cover. If I remember correctly, though, the girl in the original image had hair with kind of purply-pink highlights. I was like, "Um, Amelia's a natural redhead, think we can fix that?" :D The wonders of PhotoShop! 
Can you give us a sneak peak into what book you are working on right now?
I don't have another contract at the moment, but I proposed four books to one of my publishers, so when I have time I'm working a little bit on each of them. My favorite so far is tentatively titled "The House That Built Me". The first time I heard this song by country music singer Miranda Lambert (I love country music!) the wheels started turning. My second favorite was inspired by my favorite TV show, Leverage, and features a single mom taking on major corporation with the help of a thief-gone-good. 
What was your favorite scene in to write in Composing Amelia?
My favorite scene to write didn't make it into the final version of the book! There are essentially two Composing Amelias. The first one was a travesty that my editor rightfully shredded with her notes, and then there's the second one ....TO READ THE REST OF THIS INTERVIEW AND ENTER THE DRAWING TO WIN A COPY OF THIS BOOK CLICK THIS LINK http://psalm516.blogspot.com/2011/09/composing-amelia-alison-strobe...
 
Nora St.Laurent
The Book Club Network

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