Interview with Best Selling Author Marilyn June Coffey

Interview with Marilyn June Coffey
By G.K. Fralin


“As we call your numbers,” Sister Ursula said, “please step forward to claim your child. Examine the child we selected for you. If it’s satisfactory take it to your home and treat it as you would your own flesh and blood.” Marilyn June Coffey reading from Mail-Order Kid. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mK5hNAKEdPM

What a glimpse into the eyes and emotions of a child in flux. The coldness of the nun comes through Marilyn’s voice as I listened to her read. Marilyn wrote this honest biography of a girl displaced from New York to Kansas on the Orphan Train.

Marilyn’s works have won awards and recognition as she pioneered her career as a female author refusing to bow to the acceptable gentility expected of women.


This is an interview with bestselling author, educator, poet and fellow member of the Nebraska Writer’s Guild: Marilyn June Coffey. I ask Marilyn about her latest bestselling book
MAIL-ORDER KID.


I’m so pleased with the acceptance of my MAIL-ORDER KID, Glenda. Book clubs, in particular, seem to love it. And the National Orphan Train Complex gave me its Special President’s Award.


Marilyn, I am bouncing in my seat with excitement that you have agreed to this interview. There are many reasons including all your awards and accomplishments. Although, for me it’s because I listened to you read from your book MAIL-ORDER KID. You made me feel like I was sitting in a group around your feet on the floor engrossed in your story. All I had to do was close my eyes and listen.


Glenda, I’m so pleased with your response to my reading. I love to read. I studied how to do it when I was in New York City in the mid-1970s reading my poetry. I took lessons in diaphragmatic breathing so I could control my voice.


I did ask for an interview, so I should ask some
questions. I am anxious to ask questions, but I cannot deny my joy that I know you even if only through the banter of the Nebraska Writer’s Guild forum, and it’s events.

I’ve noticed others have written about the Orphan Trains, but your book does not focus on the Orphan Trains. You chose to do a biography of someone who lived it. What prompted you to focus on the girl Theresa Martin?

Other writers, including Marilyn Holt, had written so well about the orphan train movement that I didn’t see the need. Teresa Martin, an orphan train rider, asked me to help her write her story. I hesitated, but she was bright and eager. A librarian, she had saved and dated much of the information we would need. So I chose to write about her primarily for personal reasons. Politically, I looked forward to writing a biography about a common person rather than a celebrity. I liked the challenge.


I watched an interview of Theresa Martin from YouTube. In the clip, I noticed immediately her ease as she spoke about that time of her life and the humor she brought to it. I could imagine the two of you chatting, sharing coffee or tea and getting off subject with your bubbly personalities.


Our collaboration was much like that. We talked a lot about dogs. We both loved to research, so one of us was always following the other into some library or museum.


What kind of kinship have you developed with Theresa after delving so deeply into her life?


I grew to love Theresa. I probably know more about her than anyone, even her daughters, so I feel like a familial appendage, a niece, perhaps.


What is it about MAIL-ORDER KID that you want me, as the reader, to glean from Theresa’s life or her view of life as a Mail-Order Kid?


I want you and every reader to glean what she/he will from reading this book. And I hope readers are left with a bit of awe for the life Teresa led and the adjustment she made to it.



I want to change direction for a bit here and ask about some of your other works such as the poem “Pricksong,” which won a Pushcart Prize, and your novel Marcella.

Why have you taken the hard road as a female author and chosen to reveal graphically honest views of atrocities in your stories and poems?


Mari Sandoz, author of OLD JULES, and Henry Miller, in many books, taught me through their pages that no subject is forbidden to the serious writer.

Let me speak to you of MARCELLA.

I wrote this controversial novel after a successful psychoanalysis that unearthed a suicide attempt I had made when I was about sixteen. I decided to write about that experience. MARCELLA started as a memoir but morphed into a novel, albeit an autographically based novel.

I was shaking in my boots to be writing MARCELLA, but a close writer friend, now Kate Yarrow, said to me, “Marilyn, this is the most important thing you’ve ever written.” She became my first reader, lovingly editing each rewrite of the entire book twelve times.

Today I consider Marcella the most daring book I ever wrote. It also reaped me the most rewards. I was published by a major New York publisher, distributed overseas with a paperback in England and with published excerpts in Danish and Australian publications.

Here in the states, MS. excerpted my chapter on menstruation and Gloria Steinem called my novel "an important part of the truth telling by and for women."

To my astonishment, MARCELLA made literary history. It is the first novel written in English to use female autoeroticism as a main theme. Autoeroticism. That’s fancy language for masturbation.

I believe the masturbation described in my novel is lyrical and sometimes funny. But of course my views don’t match everyone’s. MARCELLA has been censored in Nebraska libraries. Even my publisher told me he didn’t want to take on the book; however, he’d promised his editor that he’d publish the next book she selected. She selected MARCELLA and didn’t back down.



Thank you Marilyn June Coffey for taking your time to do this interview. I owe you big time as now you have become a huge inspiration to me as a person and a writer.

Dear readers, I hope you appreciate as much as I the unassuming way in which Marilyn has opened herself up to us in this interview. She has graced us with her unabridged honest approach to life through her writing. I feel honored that she not only agreed to this interview, but seemed to relish in it.

Visit her web site about MAIL-ORDER KID at www.mail-orderkid.com where you can listen to her reading from the book.

When I listened to her voice during her reading, I ended up with tears in my eyes.


At www.marilyncoffey.net is a complete listing of her works, biography, and find where to purchase her books.

Now, to Great Plains Writer - Marilyn June Coffey, thank you and of course, we want more.

ART CONTEST FOR LUNIS FLOWER

*NewContest for Lunis Flower:

Dear readers,

We are hosting a contest for amateur artists to submit their vision of the Lunis Flower. Since the Lunis Flower is a large part of the mystery in the story, it is only fitting to give it the distinction of being a character rather than a prop.

My book The Search: Lunis Flower of Hidden has been out for a few weeks now. For those of you who have not read it yet, I will list places where you can purchase it, or check it out, below this announcement.

The contest is as follows:

1. Entry must be an image of the entrant’s own making. It must not be a photograph or an image from the internet. The only true way to portray an image of the Lunis Flower is to read the book as there is no Lunis Flower to photograph. (We will accept photographs of images of your version, as certain kinds of art are difficult to scan for upload.)

2. Entrants must send entries via email to an address for upload to a site available to all involved.


3. No staff member of lulu.com or of Amazon.com will be awarded any prize.


4. No family members of the author or other judges or their extended families will be awarded prizes for entries.
5. No judge of the contest is eligible to enter.

6. Anyone not able to receive an award or win may still send an entry to be displayed on the www.luisflower.blogspot.com web page.


The criteria for judging will be as follows.

1. 20% for demonstration of artist’s attention to image.

2. 50% interpretation of the elements of the Lunis Flower as described in the book The Search: Lunis Flower of Hidden.

3. 30% demonstration of characteristics (i.e. Emotional impact on reader) by the Lunis Flower. A short explanation from the artist of their vision will help us understand and appreciate your interpretation.

4. Entries must be emailed by: November 15, 2011 to gkfralin@gmail.com

First Place = $25

Second Place = $10

Third Place = $5


The Search: Lunis Flower of Hidden is available in print and ePub format at:

http://www.lulu.com/browse/search.php?fListingClass=0&fSearch=The+Search%3A+Lunis+Flower+of+Hidden

Amazon Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/kindle/dp/B005FCIQKO

Available at Wymore Public Library, Tecumseh Public Library and Peru State College Library

E-mail all entries to gkfralin@gmail.com

I will try to post entries as they come in. The order of the portrayal will not reflect status in the contest until after the contest is complete.

Have fun reading, and good luck with the contest.



All entrants must be of amateur status meaning they have not been paid professionally for their art. If you do not have a scanner and need to use one, you will need to search your library or other’s who may help you with that task.

Photographs of the artist’s entry will be accepted. Please make a note of the fact that it is indeed a photograph of your work.

Name of artist should not be attached to the work, but must be included in the body of the email along with mailing address.

For your own sake, back up your work and keep a the original for your own records and display.

Thank You reader,
GK Fralin

June 15, 2011 Newsletter

G. K. Fralin Short Read

Newsletter
6/15/11

Dear Friends,

I am so happy to be at a level with marketing that I have worked out a plan. Thus, the business end of my writing is keeping me busy, but not so much that I can’t spend much more time writing.

Who Be Charlie B is a long awaited project that I’m now devoting a large block of my writing efforts to. It’s been years of researching the life of a man who once lived in our home here in Wymore. His story is fascinating. As I work through the writing, I’ll give you little blurbs of the upcoming book. The working title is just that, a working title. It may end up being the final title, but we are a bit away from that decision.

I am also working on a premise for another Christian fantasy.

I’m happy to announce that the cover for The Search: Lunis Flower of Hidden is now fixed and for sale at www.lulu.com A full length review of the story may be found at http://catacombbookshelf.blogspot.com/2011/04/very-short-bookshelf-review-search.html Thank you Kristopher for your wonderful comments. I posted an excerpt of the review with my book at lulu.com

We set up a display and handed out free first chapters during Sam Wymore Days at the Community Center. All copies of the chapter were gone before 1 ½ hours passed. I was thankful to have plenty of cards, copies of Kristopher’s review, and a copy of the print version. Many people were curious about the book including the school librarian. She may not be able to buy it for the school, but she loves to read and I hope she will enjoy it.

Right now, there is a news story about the families affected by the spring tornados. My prayers go out to all of them and other’s who have been affecting by the flooding. If you have family or friends in the area, they are included in my prayers with all others. Add your own to mine and you can add the names. Hey, it works. God knows what’s going on.



I leave you with a short excerpt from The Search: Lunis Flower of Hidden:

From Chapter 4: Things:

Catch’s tone changed quickly from a disturbing; almost whisper to an easily audible instructor. “As to your question, this room is like a museum of previous guests. They all come in with things they think they can’t do without and they all leave them behind when they go, just as you will.”

“Catch, you and Tailor are beginning to scare me. What have I walked into here?”

“It’s just a place, Sheridan, nothing here for you to concern yourself about.”

Sheridan shrugged and walked around the room looking at tables full of electronics that could tell a story of the history and progression of technology. From the end of a table set a small abacus and, other tables full of watches, laptops, PDA’s, and all sorts of paraphernalia.

A cabinet held items that had probably been very dear to the previous owners. She saw small teacups and saucers hand painted with family crests, antique bronzes, gold encrusted statuettes and busts likely of some family’s member. Some of the items that set around the floor of the room were so large that Sheridan questioned how people managed to carry them into the town including: a marble statue of Grecian design, an old Hollywood camera standing like a monolith of the age, even the tables, bureaus and display cabinets were left behind by one visitor or another.

“Very funny Catch, truthfully, where did you get all this stuff? There are some valuable and ancient items here. Nobody is going to carry a giant Chinese urn around with them. Does one of those books of yours teach you how to steal riches of the world?” Sheridan laughed.

“Sheridan, I can’t answer your questions. I didn’t lie to you. I can’t explain people’s behavior. Some people carry so much on their backs just trying to protect things like this. Then when they leave, they leave it all behind.”

“So you are into some kind of acquisitions?”

“In a fashion, I suppose you could say that. This is a lot of stuff here. I wish I could get rid of it, but it seems to have its purpose because Shepherd won’t allow me to dispose of any of it. He says it serves to tell a story to those who enter here about the lack of importance of the items they carry. None of those who visit this room gets the idea until they go on their way to the next stop.”

“Next stop, what do you mean, next stop?”

“Sheridan, I am an old man. I say things wrong sometimes. I guess I should have said when you leave here.”

Catch was old but Sheridan had the feeling he definitely said what he meant. “Ah,” was all she said, nodding her head. She’d heard Shepherd mentioned before, and remembered the Shepherd’s Closet in the front hall.



Bless all,
G. K. Fralin
gfralin@yahoo.com

http://www.epubmaker.net/epub-to-kindle-converter.htm

The Search: Lunis Flower of Hidden Promo

*New

The Search: Lunis Flower of Hidden Print Version

PP presents The Search: Lunis Flower of Hidden*New

Kristopher Miller review of The Search: Lunis Flower of Hidden

Kris Miller did a review of my book The Search: Lunis Flower of HIdden on his web site. The link is below. I thank Kris for his positive review.