Title: Walls for the Wind
Author: Alethea Williams
Genre: Western historical
Alethea Williams:
Hello, I’m happy to be here on ActuallyAlethea today.
Even though I wrote Walls for the Wind,
I still have a few questions for some of the characters. Let’s try to interview
the newspaperman and photographer for the Evening
Post who came west from New York City with the orphan train, Mr. Henry
Rawlings and Mr. Joshua Simpson. Gentlemen, let me start by asking if you feel
you present a true picture of the West for your readers?
Joshua Simpson:
Photographs don’t lie, Mrs. Williams.
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http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/patterns/1878sacksuitinfo.html
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Alethea:
Perhaps. But they can be staged. And
the words that accompany them can be slanted in whatever direction the writer
wishes the reader to lean.
J.S.:
I think we’ve just been insulted,
Henry.
Henry Simpson:
Are you referring to anything in
particular that I have written, Mrs. Williams? Or do you just enjoy indulging
in general character assassination?
Alethea:
I had no idea your feelings were so
easily bruised, gentlemen. I just wanted to know if you dressed up your reports
a bit, in order to attract readers or perhaps even to assist the government in
its efforts to settle the vast interior of this continent. Do you confess to smoothing
the rough edges sometimes?
H.R.:
I usually do the interviewing, Mrs.
Williams. I never realized until this moment that I don’t much like being
interviewed.
J.S.:
Nor I being put in the glare of the
footlights.
Alethea:
“All the world’s a stage,” as has
been noted.
H.R.:
And you think we serve up the news As You Like It, eh, Mrs. Williams? All
right, I acknowledge that upon occasion I leave out the ugly bits in order to
polish up the bright spots. Didn’t you do as much with your little book?
Alethea:
My book is fiction, sir. I tried to
show the bad as well as the good of a train of orphans leaving charitable
institutions for distribution to settlers.
H.R.:
Yes, well, we haven’t the luxury of
thousands of words like you. Newspapers measure words by column inches, and we
have a deadline. If there is a certain point I wish to make, I must make it in
a few hundred words. I haven’t the freedom to invent the facts, as, for
instance, fiction writers are permitted to do.
J.S.:
And just one picture can convey in
just the briefest glance the feeling, background, and circumstances of a
situation that would take many hundreds of words to describe.
Alethea:
Do you ever consider that your words
inspire people, especially young people, to come west with unrealistic
expectations?
H.R.:
Don’t all words inspire expectations
of some sort in the reader? Whether that expectation is to be instructed,
inspired, or merely entertained, there is a definite bargain struck between the
writer and the person who takes the time to read and digest the writer’s words.
Alethea:
Well said, Mr. Rawlings. I can see
that’s as far as we’re going to get on this subject today. So on that parting
note, I thank you gentlemen for bearing with me and my questions as much as you
have done. And thank you to readers from all of us connected with Walls for the Wind!
Author bio:
Western history has been the great
interest of my adult life. I've lived in Wyoming, Colorado, and Oregon.
Although an amateur historian, I am happiest researching different times and
places in the historical West. And while staying true to history, I try not to
let the facts overwhelm my stories. Story always comes first in my novels, and
plot arises from the relationships between my characters. I'm always open to
your response to my writing and you can reach me in many of the social media.
Website: http://aletheawilliams.weebly.com/
Twitter: @ActuallyAlethea https://twitter.com/actuallyalethea
Amazon author page: http://www.amazon.com/Alethea-Williams/e/B0077CD2HW/
The Romance Reviews author page: http://www.theromancereviews.com/ActuallyAlethea
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