(Almost) Debut Author Spotlight + Giveaway: Erin Stevenson – Fiction Aficionado

Thanks for joining my on my blog today, Erin. We’re going to start with a little flight of fancy. How would you finish the following sentences?

If I could assign one household task to the fairies forever, it would be… oh, how could I choose one? I’m so deep into writing right now that I have told my fellow writing friends NOT to send the board of health to my house! I guess it would be cleaning the toilet!

If I could only eat one type of fruit for the rest of my life, I would pick… red cherries.

If I could say one thing to my younger self, it would be…  Don’t obsess. Most of what you worried about didn’t matter.

I think we’d all probably like to tell our younger selves that, wouldn’t we!

Okay, let’s get down to the bookish business. What’s the first story you remember writing?

I’ve been writing all my life. I wrote a master’s thesis and a doctoral dissertation, and had some academic articles published. I made the switch to fiction about five years ago.

Who or what has influenced you most as a writer?

I’m so fortunate to be a member of a close-knit group that is part of the Des Moines (Iowa) Writers’ Workshop. Five of us meet monthly and critique 5,000 words from each writer. These amazing people have encouraged me and helped sharpen my skills. I know I never would have taken the leap to finish and publish these books without their support.

What genre do you write, and what draws you to this genre?

I write inspirational fiction. As a Christian, I seek to fill my mind with things that follow the admonition in Philippians 4:8 (…whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely…). This is what I read, so it’s what I wanted to write. One of my goals when I began writing was to give more options for readers who are looking for clean, wholesome fiction. My main characters have a faith walk, but I don’t hit anyone over the head with theology. I hope aspects of their lives (how they seek God in the midst of trials, how couples respect Biblical teaching to guide their relationships, for example) encourage my readers.

What would you say has been your steepest learning curve on the path to publication?

Coming to realize how many books are out there in my genre. It’s hard to stand out, to get noticed.

Tell us a little bit about the St. Clair Family series. Who is the St. Clair family, and what inspired the series?

Oh, this series came from a most unexpected event! In December of 2017, I was driving down the highway one day (on my way to the library, go figure) and a car passed me with a license plate that read NOPLANB. It reminded me that my mother had always taught me to have a Plan B, advice that has served me well. By the time I arrived at the library, I had a story arc about a jilted bride who goes alone to the honeymoon resort (where she’d paid for the reservation) to hide out and figure out her “Plan B” and—of course—meets a handsome jilted groom who’s there for the same reason.

The St. Clair family are four siblings—Landon, Brandon, Reagan, and Sara. Book 2 in the series (Home to You) is Brandon’s story, and book 3 (Bait and Switch) is Reagan and Sara’s. I always carry the main characters in previous books into subsequent books (to a minor degree) so readers can catch up on their lives—which is something I love to experience when I’ve connected with characters.

What have you enjoyed most about writing this series?

I always, ALWAYS guarantee a happy ending with my stories, because life is already filled with enough pain and unhappy endings. The challenge I love most about that is figuring out how to get there. I always want to keep the reader guessing. One reviewer paid me a great compliment when she said that you can pretty much guess what the ending is in my books, but you can’t put it down until you see how I get there.

What can readers look for next from Erin Stevenson?

In 2014, I began writing a four-book series about an intelligence operative and a senator’s daughter. I took a break from that to write the St. Clair series, and picked it back up again in 2019 with the intention of following it through to completion. However, in May of 2019, another routine trip in the car (to pick up donuts for our security team at work) resulted in another story taking root in my mind about two girls who each live with their single parent, and decide to do a little matchmaking. It may be a little bit autobiographical. 🙂 There is some fun along the way, but it packs a big emotional punch. I think readers will fall in love with the characters! The first draft is almost done and the plan is to release that sometime in 2019.

I guess the moral of the story is that I should always be prepared for inspiration to hit when I’m in the car driving!