Interview with Ada Brownell and #giveaway!!!

Today we welcome Ada Brownell to my blog. Ada is very graciously giving away one copy of WHAT PRAYER CAN DO to one person who comments. Please leave contact information.

Ada, glad you stopped by. Tell us about your book – a brief blurb:

What prayer can do

By Ada Nicholson Brownell

Pray. God answers.

True testimonies of events where God intervened.

Ennis Surratt, known as the “meanest man in town,” changed in a moment. John Feliciano, blinded in an industrial accident, sees instantly. Marjorie Eager’s family escapes death when God stops a forest fire. A mother prays on her deathbed for her sons to meet her in heaven, and years later God grabs Gary Hilgers out of sin and turns him around. More amazing chapters originally published in The Pentecostal Evangel, enough for every week of the year, with three bonuses. Buy here: http://ow.ly/9CEI30h4IdL

What inspired you to write this book?

I didn’t want these true testimonies of God’s miraculous answers to prayer to be lost. I was inspired to write the beginning article when I was asked to speak to a youth group about prayer. When I started to prepare, I thought, What can I tell them about prayer they don’t already know? So I began asking people in my church, “What’s the greatest answer to prayer you’ve ever had?” I was amazed! The testimonies were so wonderful I wrote an article about them and it is the first chapter in this book. It appeared in The Evangel in 1969 and was reprinted in 2013.

Do you have a specific writing style?

I spent much of my life as a daily newspaper reporter for The Pueblo Chieftain, but I had free lanced for Christian publications before I became a journalist. My brand is “Stick-to-Your-Soul Encouragement and that’s probably why I write fiction as well and non-fiction. I learned years ago writing a true story often is better when fiction techniques are used. But I was an old-fashioned objective news reporter which is “just the facts, Ma’am” compared to subjective reporting where the writer interprets the facts for the reader. I figure it’s best to allow the reader to decide what the it means, because so much of the news affects people.

Is there anything you find particularly challenging in your writing?

The biggest thing is enough time, but also allowing words to show instead of tell is so important.  Too often the narrator pops in, trying to take over.

 Is there a certain type of scene that's harder for you to write than others? Love? Action?

My romances are squeaky clean. In my college law and ethics class I had to study obscenity laws and maybe because I understand it, I am offended by Christian writers who  talk like sexual tension is a desired aspect of a novel. Sexual tension in nothing but arousing the prurient interest which is one way to define obscenity. If they enforced obscenity laws today, I imagine some books labeled “Christian” would be banned.

I’d rather for the romantic moments to be like how the viewer felt when Almanzo Wilder reached over, touched and held Laura Ingalls’ hand for the first time. Real romance and abstinence before marriage has an electricity that supersedes people hopping in bed or having to fight a lover off.

What is your least favorite part of the publishing / writing process?

The absolute worst is formatting my own indie book. It’s hard work, even though Amazon provides a great guidebook and technical folks you can contact for free.

What writing advice do you have for other aspiring authors?

Think about what you want to write. Pray and let God bring ideas and a new angle to something common. Join a writers’ group. Go to writing conferences. Be picky about your words.Create likeable amazing characters and put them through many complications when they’re trying to reach their goals. Or do a great interview (non-fiction) or write something God gave you, other people need, all based on God’s Word. Then polish, edit and find a publisher or go indie with Kindle Direct Publishing (Amazon).

Do you have a favorite writing conference to attend? What is it?

 I’m a member of Ozarks Chapter of American Christian Writers and American Christian Fiction Writers. OCACW is a great group for personal interaction and info trading. ACFW is amazing. The membership fee isn’t that much for what you receive. You can join critique groups, go on the internet loop to ask questions, get a guest blog spot, take writing courses, and much more. I went to one ACFW conference and loved it, but I’ve been to many different writing conferences over the years, met agents, spoke to publishers, and met other writers. But for the cost to a retired person who doesn’t make that much from books, conferences cost way too much, especially with travel and hotel fees. Writers groups, for me, are a much better investment of time and money.

Bio:  MEET ADA BROWNELL

The sixth redhead in a family of achievers, Ada Nicholson Brownell writes with stick-to-your-soul encouragement from her Missouri home where she lives with her handsome husband. They have five children—not one of them with red hair or freckles. One is in heaven.

Ada gained experience before becoming a writer and newspaper reporter. The youngest of her parent’s eight children, she was the family tattle tale!

Her career started when she was age 15, when as a youth leader she wrote ideas for a leadership magazine. She expanded to articles for youth and then to full-length stories in Christian magazines and Sunday school papers. Her first news job was as a correspondent for the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel—from Thompson, Utah, population 98.

The author of eight books, she loves inspirational historical suspense. She’s in the middle of her latest plot against her leading characters in the third book in her Peaches and Dreams series, Love’s Delicate Blossom. Plot is all about putting challenges and disaster into the lives of fictional characters, and it sometimes hurts her as well.

 She retired from her “real job” at The Pueblo Chieftain, but still writes occasional op-ed pieces for newspapers as well as devotions for a teen magazine, articles for Live, blogs and does other freelance writing.

Her Amazon Author Page: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001KJ2C06

Her blog: www.inkfromanearthenvessel.blogspot.com

Links for social media and to buy

 Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/#!/AdaBrownellWritingMinistries

Twitter: @adellerella

Blog: http://inkfromanearthenvessel.blogspot.com Stick to Your Soul Encouragement

Amazon Ada Brownell author page: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001KJ2C06