Dark Legends Block Party!

Muffy Wilson

Featured Book: The Para-Portage of Emily

Thank you so much for inviting me here today. You know, the longer and more that I do interviews, it never gets easier to talk about myself. I think writers are inherently private, why? I don't know, because everything we write is revealing in some way. But, I love talking about my books and characters, so I guess, someday, I'll get used to talking about myself too!

How long have you been a writer and how did you come to writing?

In many respects, I have written most of my life. I was in sales and marketing before I retired and I had to write proposals, proformas, presentations, contracts, and employee reviews so I had to have some command of the English language. It was only after I started writing provocative romance that I realized how little command I actually have!! But, I started in earnest, writing stories and books, in 2010. My first story, The Storm, was published in 2010 by Oysters & Chocolate, an online magazine now defunct. The $10 I earned made me a pro, but just a writer, not an author! I hope that isn't a sign of things to come!

How did you come up with this story?

I wrote a very short workshop teaser, The Bath, for a group I am in in which the woman bathing dozes and feels hands on her, soothing her tired muscles and becoming more insistent, erotically. She gives herself over to the sensations and then as she drains the tub thinks she sees a face in the water. It was the beginning or a romance that spans a century about a seafaring man that keeps returning to his home to try to find his beloved, Amalya who died in childbirth. He mistakenly thinks that Emily, now in his home, is she. That is how this all started and these two characters literally swept me away.

What are the best and the worst aspects of writing?

As always, the agony of a blank page and the ecstasy of two little words, "The End". In all fairness, writing is a solitary endeavor, so the loneliness gets to me occasionally, but I have taken to the couch and write beside my husband as he does his crossword puzzles and watches sports. And I have my characters to keep me company.

What inspires you to write?

I know writers always say 'everything' but for me, that really isn't true. A melody might, something that happened to me in my life, someone, or something I saw. Once, on the day that JFK was assassinated, my Mother and I were shopping in Paris. My Dad was an Air Force colonel and we were stationed there for three years, but that is another story in and of itself! Anyway, I saw a man strike a woman across the Champs Elysees in front of the Arc de Triomphe. The 'City of Love' changed for me forever in that one moment. Things like that inspire me. Politics, for example, do not -- so everything is not inspiring to me. I suspect, to sum it up, the human condition is fascinating to me; how people treat and react to one another at their best and worst, is inspiring.

How did you conduct your research for The Para-Portage of Emily?

Humm, I really didn't. This is another time when much of what I wrote, I lived. The same is true of Moonbeams of Unintended Consequences, although not all, for sure. But, the setting in The Para-Postage of Emily, is on an island between Lake Michigan and Green Bay. For many years, my husband and I lived on an Island in the middle between both of those bodies of water and the ferry had to cross "Death's Door, so named by the Indians because of the treacherous currents. It is a small 36 square mile island settled by Nordic settlers many generations ago so many of the current residents are related. Small Island, big gossip! Anyway, we lived there for nearly 20 years. That is where this story takes place, in a small part of my heart.

What are 3 of your favorite quotes from The Para-Portage of Emily?

~ Will they face eternity together or love in secret as dark things are to be loved between the shadows and the soul?