FEATURED AUTHOR: BILL FENTRESS

 

ABOUT THE BOOK

The Yellow Honeysuckle is the Sweetest is a salute by the author to a lifetime of outdoor experiences in eastern North Carolina and beyond. It encompasses 14 true short stories about family, friendships, and the emotions involved in hunting, fishing, and other outdoor-related topics. It is not a how-to book, nor just a compilation of hunting and fishing stories, it describes how simple family and personal interactions, with the outdoor sports and unmatched natural beauty as a backdrop, can result in treasured memories like perhaps no other pursuits. If you hunt and fish or grew up enjoying histories of family traditions and friendships revolving around either of the sports—whether it be in North Carolina, or elsewhere—The Yellow Honeysuckle is the Sweetest is for you.

Book Details:

Title: The Yellow Honeysuckle is the Sweetest

Author: Bill Fentress

Genre: sports/outdoors/hunting and fishing

Publisher: William C. Fentress (February 3, 2022)

Print length: 272 pages

    


LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT WITH BILL FENTRESS

Things you love about writing: it is emotional and cathartic for me.
Things you hate about writing: it is a little frustrating when it is not clicking. My last story in the book was like that. Then, finally I got it. But actually,  no story is ever “finished.”

Things you love about where you live: New Bern is a beautiful small town. And I am close to my boyhood farm and the nature I crave.
Things that make you want to move: only the Rockies.

Favorite foods: the Edwards chocolate pie my wife buys every Thanksgiving.
Things that make you want to throw up: Brussel sprouts. I am a collard man.  

Favorite song: “Love Song” written and performed by my daughter, Sarah.
Music that make your ears bleed: Rap.

Favorite beverage: Diet Sun Drop.

Something that gives you a pickle face: Sardines . . . still remember seeing those little fish being eaten by traveling salesmen in our country store . . . looks like cat food to me.

Favorite smell: wood stove smoke.

Something that makes you hold your nose: skunk on my dog, and then in my truck (numerous times).

Something you’re really good at: being a smart aleck with my wife.

Something you’re really bad at: understanding that she can be a better smart aleck than me when she wants to. 


Something you wish you could do: hand tie a fishing net. I still remember seeing men in yards during my boyhood mending their nets. I was always curious how they could do that. Still am.
Something you wish you’d never learned to do: nothing . . . wish I knew how to do more. Love to learn new things . . . as long as I want to do them.

Something you like to do: have intelligent conversation and laughter around a fire pit with good friends.

Something you wish you’d never done: handled a few personal situations the wrong way.


Last best thing you ate: my chickens’ eggs.

Last thing you regret eating: ham my wife left in fridge for my dog Luke. It was 3 months old, and I did not realize it was for the dog . . . woops.

Things you’d walk a mile for: view around Silverton, Co., or to get to a good, scouted bow stand . . . or behind any good bird dog with quail in the hedgerows .
Things that make you want to run screaming from the room: Roto calls.

Favorite places you’ve been: Grand Canyon and San Juan Mountains in Colorado.

Places you never want to go to again: never been there.

People you’d like to invite to dinner: my daughter Sarah and her idol, Taylor Swift, just to listen and watch . . . and make Sarah happy. 

People you’d cancel dinner on: pretentious people—of course I doubt if they would ever invite me. Pretty much set in my ways and they could probably  tell.

Favorite things to do: spend time with my family; hunt; fish; piddle on my farm with my tractor.

Things you’d run through a fire wearing gasoline pants to get out of doing: inside painting.

Things that make you happy: walking my farm with my wife or daughter or dog.

Things that drive you crazy: not much drives me crazy anymore. I just deal with it. As you get older the trivial things seem a lot less important. I do hate the loud mufflers some of the young bucks have on their trucks though. But then again, they will never sneak up on a turkey in a rig like that . . . so that’s good.

Proudest moment: birth of my daughter—by far. Nothing close.

Most embarrassing moment: asked a friend if she was pregnant, in a restaurant, in front of people—she wasn’t. Yep, did it. That’s me. Yessir.

Best thing you’ve ever done: marry my wife.

Biggest mistake: not meeting her sooner.

Most daring thing you’ve ever done: wrapped a boa around my neck to get a customer to join the Chamber of Commerce.

Something you chickened out from doing: retiring from banking sooner.

The last thing you did for the first time: write a book.

Something you’ll never do again: ask ANYBODY if they are pregnant.



EXCERPT FROM THE YELLOW HONEYSUCKLE IS THE SWEETEST

       There is something special about hunting, that sears in place our memories with others. Maybe it’s the vivid nature where our grand experiences take place or the team efforts we go through to make it all happen? Maybe it’s the getting up early, the black coffee, the smell of eggs and bacon in a cabin, the swoosh of ducks over decoys or the violent uprising of a big covey followed by the delirium of released bird dogs? Maybe it’s the sunrises, the sunsets, the gobbles at dawn, the split oak fires or the oysters? Maybe it’s the bonds we have over lifetimes? I’m not really sure.  But I do know we’re blessed when these partners come into our lives.

Like many boys, my first hunting partner was a dog, Pepper. I wish I could say Pepper was the granddaughter of King Rothschild’s Sire of Pepper Creek, but I cannot. Pepper was a fittingly, albeit not uniquely, named black and white pointer-mix stray who took up at Miss Jo’s house in Bayboro. Somehow, through either constant brow beating with her pathetic brown eyes or via her constant hanging around the back door looking for food, Pepper convinced Miss Jo to call me—not my mother, her friend—but me.

“Billy,” she commanded, “I have a beautiful dog you would just love!”

Of course, I immediately got off the phone and begged Mom to take me to Bayboro. “Miss Jo’s got a dog she says I need!” I always thought Miss Jo should have led many of the sales classes I attended in my banking career. Let me tell you, she talked directly to the buyer, and went right around the secretary. While I’m not sure how long it took for Mom to talk to her again,  we came home with Pepper in the Chevy wagon and me with a smile as broad as the cuff on my dungarees. Pepper was one of the smartest dogs I ever owned. She followed me everywhere—from our store to Grandmamma’s house to the woods behind our house to the tractor shelter woods across the road, down Swan Point Road, and of course behind our neighbor’s house. Pepper was smart enough to look both ways before she crossed the road. Don’t smirk; I saw her do it a hundred times. She also knew how to be quiet as I planned a sneak-up strategy on the local robins and wrens. But her mind absolutely took the day off when it came to our neighbor’s chickens.

--- Excerpt from The Yellow Honeysuckle is the Sweetest by Bill Fentress.  Copyright © 2021 by William C. Fentress. Reproduced with permission from Bill Fentress. All rights reserved.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR 


Bill Fentress is a retired banker and current Finance Officer in eastern North Carolina. He graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill with a BS Degree in Geology in 1983 and worked all over eastern North Carolina in the banking business for 26 years. He grew up in Pamlico County where many of his hunting and fishing experiences in The Yellow Honeysuckle is the Sweetest  take place. He has enjoyed nature's beauty and God's gifts of family and the outdoors throughout his  lifetime, in North Carolina and elsewhere.




Connect with Bill:
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Buy the book:
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FEATURED AUTHOR: ANDRA DOUGLAS

ABOUT THE BOOK 

For as long as she can remember, “Toady” wanted nothing more than to play football.  But for Toady, the love of football is bittersweet – because Toady’s given name is Christine. She’s a girl, and girls “can’t” play football. Despite her exceptional abilities, she watches bitterly as the boys play on the high school team and win scholarships. Reluctantly, she gives up her football dream and moves to New York City – where she finds that life is full of surprises. Christine learns of a group of women playing flag football and, before long, they have the opportunity to become part of a professional women’s tackle league. But the challenges to women playing football remain intense. Finding a coach who isn’t abusive is a struggle. Rallying team spirit is an endless quest. Add to that the loss of her one true love, the devastation of the September 11 attacks, and the sudden death of one of her players, and her dream seems doomed. Does Christine have the guts and the stamina to spite the odds?

Sports icon Billie Jean King says “Black & Blue will strike a chord with anyone who grew up before Title IX, but its poignancy and appeal go beyond that.” A story of empowerment loosely based on the author’s own life, it will inspire anyone to pursue their dreams.

Book Details:


Title: Black & Blue


Author: Andra Douglas

Genre: Fiction

Publisher: BookBaby (July 2019)

Print length: 296 pages






INTERVIEW WITH ANDRA DOUGLAS

Andra, what’s the story behind the title of your book?
Black & Blue are the team colors of the New York Sharks – the football team I played on and owned. They are also the colors of bruises; something football players get in games and what female football players get fighting for the chance to play.

Do you have another job outside of writing?
I am a retired VP/Creative Director in the Entertainment Industry. I am currently a mixed media fine artist. (Andradouglasart.com)

Who are you?
I am constantly reinventing myself. I have so many interests and so little time. I still want to be a certified wine sommelier and learn how to create a delicious cabernet in California. And maybe a pilot. As of late, I am most comfortable calling myself an author. It feels right.

Where’s home for you?
New York City and Florida. I am peacefully comfortable in either place.

Where did you grow up?
Zephyrhills, Florida on a cattle ranch. Which is also the setting of the early chapters of my book.

What’s one thing you wish your younger writer self knew?
Take more notes!

What’s your favorite line from a book?

It’s actually from a song by the Counting Crows: “Plain old Jane told the story about a man who was too afraid to fly so he never did land.”

How did you create the plot for this book?
It created itself. Life imitates art? Art imitates life? I wrote the book because it’s a wonderful story of women’s empowerment that I watched unfold through the years. I began writing short pieces, little shards of the humor, joy and heartbreak that was common in my life and on the team. It was very cleansing to me. The plot more or less revealed itself as I wove the snippets together—controversial, athletic, witty and fresh—a story of women powering through significant, life-altering obstacles and, in the end, finding their ‘home’ and their voices.

Are any of your characters inspired by real people?

Yes, all of the characters are. In several instances, I’ve combined several personalities into one character but all are taken from real people.

Is your book based on real events?
Yes. It is loosely based on my life experience as a girl who wanted to do more in life than society thought appropriate. My sojourn to NYC and the Sharks adventure is my personal story, but ultimately the book is about women everywhere who are told ‘no’ but do it anyway. Football is the vehicle but I hope it gives voice to every woman who has ever felt suppressed or stifled.

Are you like any of your characters? 
Yes. Christine is basically me. She is named after my mom who was a brilliant woman who was held back by the times she lived in. She encouraged me to live a ‘big’ life and bravely supported my interests even when they weren’t quite aligned with society’s norms for a girl. I think she lived somewhat vicariously through me. We had fun.

Do you have a routine for writing?
No. I write whenever the creative spirit moves. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and have some thoughts that I get up and write down before they disappear—and they quickly do! If I am driving down the road and feel some words coming to mind that I like, I’ll pull over and write them in a journal I keep in the car.

Where and when do you prefer to do your writing?
I prefer writing in a quiet setting. I have a cottage in the Hamptons and have done much of my writing there. I also rented an adobe in Santa Fe one winter and found that to be a good place for the creativity to flow.

What’s the best compliment you’ve ever received about your writing?

I was told that reading my book was an emotional roller coaster; that the reader laughed one minute and cried the next. I try to put a lot of emotion into my writing so this was great to hear.

What are you working on now?
I am just starting my second book called Changing Cadence. It’s a sequel to Black & Blue but focuses on a time in my life when I was facing major, but inevitable changes: the selling of the team that I’d had for 20 years; my parents passing; my athletic body betraying me; friends and teammates battling cancer, etc. Yet in the midst of these monumental life shifts, the Sharks embark on their last season of existence and put together the ‘Grand FINale’ which turns out to be the most magical year yet!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Andra Douglas is a native of central Florida and a graduate of Florida State University and Pratt Institute. A national champion athlete in rugby and women's tackle football, she was the owner of the New York Sharks Women's Pro Football team for nineteen years and is the founder of the Fins Up! Foundation for Female Athletes, a non-profit to benefit at-risk teens. In addition to her love of football, Andra is a professional artist and served as a Vice President/Creative Director at Time Warner for many years. Today, she lives with her parrot, 'Pie' in New York’s Greenwich Village where she creates mixed-media artwork.


Connect with the author:
Website  |  Goodreads

Buy the book:
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FEATURED AUTHOR: PAMELA Q. FERNANDES

ABOUT THE BOOK

English cricket captain, Mathew Anderson is a star, both on and off the pitch. But a smart, mouthy teacher just might be the one to make him see that he’s only a man.

Mathew has enjoyed the life as a cricket superstar. With fame, fortune, adoration, and a beautiful girlfriend that comes with the territory. Until he’s been accused of domestic abuse and he’s arrested. Now, Mathew is very careful about the people he surrounds himself with. Especially women. Then Rose Cavendish tweets him and he can’t help but get bowled by her simplicity, honesty, and grit.

As a teacher surviving a vicious break-up, the last thing Rose needs is a man holding sway over her life. Rose knows she’s way out of her league getting involved with the red-haired English skipper. Even though Mathew is kind and a perfect gentleman, she doesn’t know that he hates being kept in the dark. All she knows is that she has fielded before in this game of love and lost big. She doesn’t intend to do that again.

But when Mathew plays an inning, he only plays to win. And when he gets a second chance, he’s going to play an inning of a lifetime to win Rose back.

Book Details: 


Title: Bowled


Author: Pamela Q. Fernandes


Genre: Sports, Romance


Series: To Love a Sportsman


Publisher: Touchpoint Press (April 30, 2019)


Print length: 284 pages

LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT WITH PAMELA Q. FERNANDES

A few of your favorite things: kohl and shoes! I love wearing kohl, not eye liner but thick kohl.
Things you need to throw out: all these lipsticks that I never wear and a few pairs of stilettoes that I can’t seem to walk in. Why did I ever buy them?


Things you need in order to write: water, quiet, a desk and chair, window.
Things that hamper your writing: noise, interruptions, internet, family. I write better when I’m alone.


Things you love about writing: the process, the finished product.
Things you hate about writing: bad reviews and the emotions you go through while writing.

Easiest thing about being a writer: Imagining, mine’s very colorful. 

Hardest thing about being a writer: feedback. When the edits come back, I almost always allow myself a good cry.


Things you love about where you live: the neighborhood, Prospect Park, the quiet, the ease of everything nearby.
Things that make you want to move: my roommates! Nah, they’re good too. But I’d only move out of here if I was getting married or something. I like being close to the Park.


Things you never want to run out of: kohl, coffee, cheese, chocolate!!!
Things you wish you’d never bought: brown rice, pointed toe shoes, and carrots! I can barely get the brown rice below my throat. 


Words that describe you: punctual, happy, honest.
Words that describe you but you wish they didn’t: OCD, naïve.

Favorite foods: French fries.
Things that make you want to throw up: anything gelatinous, I hate that texture.

Favorite music: piano music like Yiruma and Einaudi, although I love 80s music like Eddie Rabbit’s “I love a rainy night.”
Music that make your ears bleed: Metal and rap!

Favorite beverage: chocolate milk shake.

Something that gives you a pickle face: rose milk.

Favorite smell: the smell of rain on the ground, Marc Jacob’s Daisy, Atelier’s Orange Blossoms.

Something that makes you hold your nose: vinegar.

Something you’re really good at: writing.

Something you’re really bad at: playing the piano.


Something you wish you could do: play Canon in C on the piano.
Something you wish you’d never learned to do: I wish I had never learned how to use Facebook.


Last best thing you ate: Spanish chicken stew, one of our attendings bought us lunch.

Last thing you regret eating: Prosciutto, made me sick, like diarrhea-inducing sick! Ughhh.

Things you always put in your books: anything, tissue, bookmarks, prayers, my pen. It all seems to fit in my book.

Things you never put in your books: flowers. Never!

Favorite places you’ve been: New York.

Places you never want to go to again: Oman.

Favorite things to do: long walks, sit at the beach, lie down at the park, play with other people’s dogs, bake, and read!

Things you’d run through a fire wearing gasoline pants to get out of doing: study, laundry and changing sheets. I have the elastic bordered ones, and I can never get them on the mattress in one go. So I tend to spend an hour changing sheets, and it’s a huge time suck. Now, I hate changing sheets.

Things that make you happy: good music, good food, good company, great conversations.

Things that drive you crazy: traffic, people who touch me on public transport, dirt!

Most daring thing you’ve ever done: delivered a baby alone during my fourth year internship.

Something you chickened out from doing: head rolls in aikido class. I still can’t do it.

BOOK TRAILER

ABOUT THE AUTHOR 

Pamela Q. Fernandes is a doctor, author, and medical writer. She hosts The Christian Circle Podcast and plays the piano. When she's not writing or practicing medicine, she's baking or traveling the world. 
She started as an author with Seoul-Mates and since then has written many romances, Under A Scottish Sky, Cinders of Castlerea, The Milanese Stars, Painting Kuwait Violet and other short stories. 
Her Christian non fiction series, "Ten Reminders" is based on her own conversations and life with fellow Christians. Pamela writes romance, speculative fiction, women's fiction and Christian non-fiction.



Connect with Pamela:
Website  |   Facebook  |  Twitter  |  Goodreads 


Buy the book:

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FEATURED AUTHOR: STEVE MYERS

ABOUT THE BOOK

Dreaming .400, like baseball itself, exists outside of time. Its 11 short stories are infused with the magic of the game—in the seductive swing of a girl who turns tinsel into gold; in the passion of an orphan on a quest to reach the Astrodome; in a vision of the future in which players are made, not born.

Dreaming .400 spawns pen pal love between friends that grows into poetry; it shrinks the gap between the head and heart of a Brewers’ fan; provides a way out for a teenager stuck in the shadows; inspires a vagabond to an impossible dream to be lived out between the white lines.

GUEST POST BY STEVE MYERS

Writing fiction is medicine. A window opens. There's access to an often closed, cut off world of dreams, memories, and motivations. The bluesy side of that window opening is that when a story ends, the window shuts. There's an emotional let down. The hunt and feast are finished. The carcass sits like some bony exposure beside the water. 

This is where the title of my recently published collection of short stories -  Dreaming .400 becomes more than a name. It becomes like a raft in water to get me going again, towards more trouble and tranquility, round and round, gathering up debris along the way which became new memories to explore and write about. 

I don't find many absolutes in this process of writing, but the intoxicating effect of a smell is definitely one of them. A smell hijacks and transports me to far away forgotten places in my past. I can see things in ways I've never seen before. I can be courageous. I can be honest and discover my real motives and fears and transform them into the traits of characters I create. 

Let me talk about smells some more. We have so many ways to store data and sounds. So many efficient ways but when it comes to smells, we have perfumes and after shave and cleaning sprays, but is there any way to store the smells we generate? So darn elusive. Like a vapor or water or sand slipping between our fingers and yet so potent and powerful.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not knocking Mr. Clean or Endust. No way at all. I can be walking along and get hit by a spray from one of those bathroom cleaning sprays and well, I'm transported back to being 11-years old, in my friend's attic, playing strat-o-matic simulated baseball. All the wonderful details float through my mind like a slow mo parade – my friend's fat cat in the window sill looking orange from the sun, the cemetery across the street, my fears.  I'm not sure how this happens, olfactory speaking, but the smell is definitely an ol' factory of memories. That's for sure.

It's for this reason I keep anywhere from 20 to 30 stories, maybe more, active in my mind, in notebooks, on the backs of envelopes, as wordpress posts or Word documents, all of 'em waiting to be smelled again and if they are and if I'm lucky, they go epic and my mind and pen gushes. The story picks up speed and behaves like snow melting down a mountainside in spring and other times, it gets snagged and fizzles out of existence.

I think stories definitely have finish lines. It may take 23 years but it's out there somewhere in the fog and this has nothing to do with improving a sentence or adjusting the flow. That could go on forever. I'm talking about a theme. Often times, I am not aware of one during that initial gush, but as I read over what has happened...what I have written, what I have spit out on the page, I begin to see one there. Then I begin fleshing it out, the theme that is and making it clearer to the reader.

Don't get me wrong, I never want the message or whatever to be too obvious. I'm not writing Cliff Notes of crystal clarity here. I want the reader to do some work, to think a little, to connect some dots,  but at the same time, being cryptic is not my style. There's nothing sadder to me than a reader saying, “I didn't get it.” That means I failed them and I don't want that. Then again, I don't write with readers in mind, not when it comes to subject matter and themes. That's the stuff of dreams and subconscious. I can't control that, but I can read and reread and read some more what I've written and make sure it flows so the reader doesn't have to be bobbing for apples while reading what I've written, up and down, gasping for air. I want their experience to be more like sledding down a winter hill or a water slide;  weeeeeeeeeee. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Steve Myers grew up in Milwaukee, walking distance from Lake Michigan. There was no other side, not visible anyway. The water went on and on. The cliffs were savage. The trees left to die. The abandoned boat houses not bothered.

Steve attended the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and earned an honers degree in history. He studied in southern Spain, lived in San Francisco, Brooklyn, and for the last eight years Montreal, Canada.



He recently completed a Graduate Diploma in Journalism. He is the author of two blogs. Brewers Baseball and Things is where Steve experiments with baseball and fiction. Broken Bats is home to his poetry.





Connect with Steve:
Website  |  Blog  |  Facebook 

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