An Interview with Barbara Whittington

This is a reprint of a blog post by Munir over at her blog. Hope you enjoy! And again, thanks to Munir for doing this interview.

Saturday, March 17, 2012

An Interview with Barbara Whittington

Hi everyone. One of the biggest fears I have in life is the day when there will be no one to write things for people to read. To me writers have a very big place in my heart and in this world. We should never fail to remember that. Like my father's gardener always said, "We leave our words behind, our deeds and the trees we planted."


I recently had a chance to interview Barbara Whittington about her recently published book, Vada Faith.


It is my utmost pleasure to have known you. Your book Vada Faith seems like it is heart warming and has some very nice reviews. I am glad that I have the opportunity to ask you some questions as I am always very much interested in understanding authors.


1)  How long have you been interested in writing?


FIRST,  let me say thanks to Munir for asking for an interview. My first blog interview - and I'm excited!!! So a big thanks. I've been writing for over 20 years. I started out writing essays and I 
took a creative writing class at the local college. I was thrilled that I sold one of the first essays I wrote  to The Cleveland Plain Dealer, Ohio's largest newspaper.  The essay was about trying to get a sun tan in cloudy Cleveland. It was a cross between fact and fiction. Or "faction." The newspapers were more accepting of essays and slice of life pieces than they are now in this depressed economy. 
My interest in writing began in high school when I had to write a short story for an assignment for English. It was love at first word. The story was pretty pitiful but I realized then that I loved writing stories.



2) What motivates you to write?


I'm motivated by many things. When I came up with the idea for Vada Faith, at the time I was intrigued by the topic of surrogacy. Who could carry a baby nine months and give it up to another mother. So I started doing research, learning about the issues of surrogacy, the procedures at that time, 10 years ago, and I must say it's changed much in the last few years with surrogacy centers now found in many large cities. When I started this book it wasn't this way. So much was left
to the individuals who wanted to participate in this way of having a child.




3) What has motivated you to write this particular book?


As I said I was interested in the topic of surrogacy and that lead to the story of Vada Faith Waddell and how she got involved with Roy and Dottie Kilgore - small town criminals - and went down the wrong path of being a surrogate mother. With no contract, and flying by the seat of her pants, she got in more trouble than she bargained for. Plus she used her own egg to create this baby, unbeknownst to her family. You'd better believe this caused some battles at home.




4) What other books do you read ? What genre?


I love women's mainstream fiction and read mostly that. Though I have to admit I have several friends who write romantic suspense and I enjoy that as well.


My favorite authors include Anne Tyler, Elizabeth Berg, Jeanne Ray (Eat Cake), Southern author Lee Smith, and Irish writer Maeve Binchy, who writes beautiful fiction.




5) Can you give us a clue as to what your next book is about?


I have several books in the hopper. I believe I'll to do a book of short stories next because they're ready. Then I have a follow up book about Vada Faith. This one is called SWEET BABY JAMES and returns to Vada Faith's family after the surrogacy story ends. Vada Faith goes on to have a baby boy named James and he is kidnapped from her front porch in Shady Creek, West Virginia. This is not a REAL kidnapping story. The child is taken by mistake by someone who cares for him and only wants to get him home safe.


VADA FAITH is offered for $2.99 at Amazon.com


Paperbacks will be available in the next month or two.


My advice if you want to write is to READ READ READ.


I hope that every one enjoyed this interview.