Meet Michele Stegman

My guest today is author Michele Stegman. Michele was here in March and shared stories of her passion for crafts, as well as books. Most memorable for me was the picture of the beautiful circular shawl she made from wool she spun on tiny drop spindles. Michele is back with more stories and a new book.


Please welcome back this very talented lady who claims to be

Different, not necessarily weird

I have always enjoyed being just a little different. Not weird, just different enough to elicit that, “Oh, wow!” response of appreciation. For instance, when my husband, Ron, and I bought a piece of property and wanted to build a house, we didn’t want “just a house.” We wanted something unusual. We finally bought, moved, and rebuilt an 1840’s log cabin.

I also have a lot of hobbies, some of which fit right in with our antique house and decor. I have a spinning wheel and a couple of looms, which I use. And I make my own soap and bake everything from scratch. I knit socks with yarn I have spun. My daughter calls the place Pioneer Village.

But I am also a sucker for new technology. My husband calls my iPad my “boyfriend” because I spend so much time with it. I also spend time trolling the aisles of Best Buy asking questions about what’s new.

Art has always been a love of mine and I enjoy painting with water colors and acrylics, as well as creating cards with my many rubber stamps. Playing the piano is also something I enjoy and feel privileged to be our church pianist--even though I only hold that position because they are desperate. :)

With my writing, I am trying new things and want my writing to stand out because it is different. Again, not weird, but different enough that people think, “Oh, wow!” and want to buy my next book.

For instance, my short story, A PIRATE’S TALE, has a very different point of view. Normally, in romances, you are in the head of the hero or heroine. Maybe, in a longer book, the villain or secondary character might have a brief point of view. In A PIRATE’S TALE, the whole story is told from the point of view of a minor character. This might not work in a novel, but for a short story, I think it works quite well. I hope you give it a read and let me know what you think!

CONQUEST OF THE HEART is my upcoming book. Again, I wanted to be different. This is a “Conquest” book. You know, a book set during the Norman conquest of England. Normally, a Conquest story is about one of William’s knights who is landless because he’s a bastard. He comes conquering and the heroine marries him to protect her people. I wrote down every cliché I could think of in these books and turned them around. My hero is a Saxon, one of the conquered, not a Norman. He is not a big, brash, never-defeated-in-battle, bulging with muscle kind of guy. As the third son, he was studying for the priesthood. He has to learn all this macho stuff really fast when his brothers die. He’s also a virgin. And he ends up having to marry a Norman woman in order to keep his land and protect his people. As you might guess, there are a lot of humorous situations in the book so I call it, “a light-hearted romp through the Dark Ages.”

Diane wanted to know how I come up with my ideas. For me, it’s different with each book. Sometimes, like CONQUEST OF THE HEART, I work it all out. For MR. RIGHT’S BABY, I didn’t have to work on it at all. I was driving along not thinking about anything in particular, and suddenly, the whole story popped into my head. I’m not kidding you. It was just there.

For A PIRATE’S TALE, I was just lying down to go to sleep wondering what I could write about next, when this pirate began telling me his story. I was intrigued! But I was also tired and asked him if he could please wait until morning when I was at the computer to tell me the story. The next morning I sat down with fingers poised and he told me this tale which I transcribed for him.

Diane: I loved A PIRATE’S TALE. It reads exactly as you describe it—the pirate telling the story.

FORTUNE’S FOE was a book I had to work for. I love pirate books, but usually, the Spanish are the bad guys in those books. I decided (me, being different again!) to write a historical romance with a Spaniard as the hero. Believe me, it took a lot of finagling to make it work, but history helped out by fitting right in with the story I came up with. Which is something that seems to happen to me a lot. I don’t research ahead of time, but write and research as I go.  In FORTUNE’S SON, I needed a pirate to capture the hero’s ship, The Fortune, just before the pirate gets captured himself. I found a real pirate in the right place, the right year, and even the right month to capture the ship. But he was pretty famous. It was probably a matter of record just which ship he captured last. So I looked it up. Would you believe the last ship Stede Bonnet actually captured was a ship called The Fortune?

To see some of my art and to read excerpts from my books, you can go to my website at: www.michelestegman.com

Thank you, Diane, for asking me to guest blog with you!

My pleasure. Readers, be sure to check out Michele's art. Just gorgeous. Here are other places where you can find Michele:

Twitter: @michelestegman

Facebook: MicheleStegman

And here's a little glimpse into Michele's books.

MR. RIGHT’S BABY

Short description

He wants to marry her for all the wrong reasons. If she finds out what they are, she just might walk away forever...

Extended description

He wants to find his child. Carly was put up for adoption without his knowledge or consent, and Adrian Wright is determined to get her back. What he doesn’t count on is an unexpected attraction for her now widowed, adoptive mother, Katie Simmons. But Adrian worries that the attraction he feels is more for his daughter than for Katie. Even more worrisome is how Katie will react when she finds out that the man who has been courting her is her daughter’s natural father. Will she think he only wants to marry her to get his daughter without a lengthy court battle?

MR. RIGHT’S BABY is available at Amazon ~ Barnes & Noble ~ Smashwords

FORTUNE’S FOE

Short description

Historical Romance set in 1740 In the midst of a raging war, Mariette Fortune is torn between saving the life of her brother or the enemy Spaniard she has come to love.

Extended description

Mariette Fortune knows her brother will die if she doesn’t rescue him--especially if the Spanish discover they hold captive the son of the infamous privateer, Sean Fortune. But she didn’t count on falling in love with the man whose life depends on keeping the English prisoners from escaping. Now she had to choose between them.

Alejandro de Silva knows there is more to the lovely Mestiza woman he has hired to keep his house...more than she will admit. Regardless, he cannot help falling in love with her. But he never dreams she is an English spy and that her presence in Spanish St. Augustine will put both their lives in deadly peril.

FORTUNE’S FOE is available at Amazon ~ Barnes & Noble ~ Smashwords

A PIRATE'S TALE

Short description:

A short story of betrayal and revenge.
In 1720 along the Cornwall coast the captain has come back for vengeance—and for Bess. He was forced into piracy when he was framed for smuggling. Now pardoned, he has returned to confront his enemy and force a confession from him. And then there’s Bess--she's been living with his enemy.

 

A PIRATE'S TALE is available at Amazon ~ Barnes & Noble ~ Smashwords

Michele, I'm so glad you came back. I hope you'll come back when CONQUEST OF THE HEART is out. Now, who writes about Norman conquests? Different but not weird. LOL

 

Meeting New Authors

One of the amazing aspects of being a member of Romance Writers of America is the camaraderie between members. I noticed this when I joined waaay back in 1993. Not just a warm friendliness but a truly genuine desire to help one another. One such author is Michele Stegman. She posted on an RWA loop about an opportunity for authors to tell how they met their husbands which she posted on her blog all during February. As I hope you recall, I participated. What a terrific way to be introduced to new readers. Turn-about is fair play so I would like to introduce you to Michele.

Welcome, Michele Stegman! Thanks for stopping by and sharing your passions.

I think it is wonderful when an author has a passion about something and puts it into her books.  For instance, a friend likes to do beadwork and wrote a book where the heroine does beadwork.  Another author writes books about quilters.

  I have a lot of interests, as you will see with a quick look at my website. www.michelestegman.com Two of my passions are hand spinning and weaving. As an author of historical romances, I enjoy “living in the past” as I card and spin up a fleece, then use the yarn I spin to weave a shawl or scarf.  And I think it is wonderful to know the name of the animal a piece of my clothing came from!

Before the Industrial Revolution (late 1700’s) a lot of time was taken up with spinning and weaving.  It was the only way to make cloth for clothing.  In some colonies, there were even laws about how much wool each person, including men and children, had to spin each week.

Clothing, bedding, and linens, are listed in old wills as important items that are passed on to the next generation.  A well made, homespun dress might last two or three generations.

But very seldom do I read anything about the heroine, or anyone else in a book, spinning or weaving.   I seldom see a spinning wheel or spindles in movies, either. 

So have I put a lot of spinning and weaving into my own books?  Well, I’m working on it.  In my next book, Conquest of the Heart, set in 1067 England, there is some mention of it.  And I’ve started a book about a woman whose profession is a hand spinner in 1665. 

Another passion of mine is cooking and baking and I have made use of this passion in my books.  In Fortune’s Foe, the heroine is a disaster in the kitchen and has to be rescued by another woman, who becomes the heroine in the next book in the series, Fortune’s Pride.  In Mr. Right’s Baby, my heroine also likes to bake--which is much appreciated by the hero.  What are your passions?  Do you like to read about them in romance books?  Or, if you are a writer, do you include your hobbies and passions in your writing?

Michele Stegman loves history and enjoys writing historical romance.  She also enjoys living her history in an 1840’s log cabin complete with spinning wheel, looms, and her own homemade soap.  Her daughter calls the place “Pioneer Village.”  But Michele appreciates modern technology, too, and could not get along without her laptop and iPad!

Mr. Right’s Baby is Michele’s only contemporary romance, a genre she never planned to write.  But one day she was driving along and the whole plot for the book popped into her head and she knew she had to write this one!  Mr. Right’s Baby can be found at http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/102049 and http://www.amazon.com/Mr-Rights-Baby-ebook/dp/B00655TAFA/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1330303934&sr=1-1

For information on Michele’s other books as well as her passions (on her My Art page) visit her website at www.michelestegman.com

Cupid or Scrooge?

Some people think Valentine’s Day was invented by Hallmark and Hershey’s. Is that the equivalent of “bah, humbug” in February? It could be just a bright break in an otherwise gray month. Or, is Valentine’s Day a time to celebrate love? I think it’s a little of all three. God knows, we need a little brightness in February where the monthly amount of sunshine is measured in minutes. If you don’t live near the Great Lakes, consider yourself lucky that you actually see the sun, and see it often, this month. Without being too cynical, Valentine’s Day is a boon to the flower, candy and restaurant industries—not to mention greeting card and jewelry stores. That’s not to say I would turn down a bouquet, some Lindor truffles, or an invitation to dinner.

As a romance author (what? you thought I only write space adventures?) I’m fond of any celebration of love. Romantic love, filial love, platonic love. There’s not enough of it in the world. Experiencing love, of course, is the best. Coming in second is reading about love. In a time when the news shrieks of war, strife, murder and mayhem, isn’t it great to lose oneself for a few hours in a story with a happy-ever-after-ending?

Some say romance stories are unrealistic, that life isn’t happy ever after. I agree, to a point. In all good fiction, there has to be conflict. The story would be pretty boring otherwise. Real life has conflict, too. Relationships have their ups and downs, trials and sufferings. But relationships also have times of happiness, joy and contentment. And that’s what Valentine’s Day celebrates.

At this time of year, many blogs are devoted to stories of romantic love. One author, Michele Stegman, offers up stories each day in February of how lovers met. Interestingly, many of the stories include how long the couple has been together. At a time when one out of two marriages end in divorce, how refreshing it is to read about people who are still together after twenty-five, forty, or more years. Those people have found not just something special, they found someone special. Michele’s blog is at http://michelestegman.com/thoughts  If you haven’t already read it, my story was posted on February 9^th. I told part of that story back in November when Nancy Gideon interviewed me for her blog. Both times, it was fun reminiscing about a pivotal moment in my life. I wouldn’t be the person I am today without the love of my life. So, Happy Valentine’s Day, sweetie.