Pump Up Your Book Chats with Connie Corcoran Wilson

ABOUT CONNIE CORCORAN WILSON

Connie (Corcoran) Wilson (www.ConnieCWilson.com) graduated from the University of Iowa and Western Illinois University, with additional study at Northern Illinois, the University of California at Berkeley, and the University of Chicago. She taught writing at 6 IA/IL colleges and has written for 5 newspapers and 7 blogs, including, currently, as a Featured Contributor to Yahoo. (2008 Content Producer of the Year). Her stories and interviews with writers such as David Morrell, Joe Hill, Kurt Vonnegut, Frederik Pohl, William F. Nolan, r. Barri Flowers, Eric Bogosian and Anne Perry have appeared online and in numerous journals. Her work has won prizes from “Whim’s Place Flash Fiction,” “Writer’s Digest” (Screenplay), as well as numerous E-Lit Gold medals, Silver Feather awards (from IWPA/NWPA, Illinois & National Women’s Press Association) and NABE Pinnacle awards. She was the film and book critic for the Quad City Times (Davenport, IA) for 15 years and was named David R. Collins Midwest Writing Center Writer of the Year (March 20, 2010) and IWPA Silver Feather winner (June 6, 2012), as well as winning an ALMA (American Literary Merit Award) for a short story within “Hellfire & Damnation.” She was recently a presenter at the Spellbinders’ Conference in Honolulu, Hawaii (Labor Day, 2012).

To find out more, please visit http://www.ConnieCWilson.com

To purchase The Color of Evil, click here.

To purchase Hellfire and Damnation II, click here.

The Interview

Q: Can you tell us why you wrote your book?

I was bored.

Q: Which part of the book was the hardest to write?

All of it.

Q: Does your book have an underlying message that readers should know about?

“Sometimes you walk away from your life; sometimes, it walks away from you.”

Q: Do you remember when the writing bug hit?

Sixth grade.

Q: Besides books, what else do you write? Do you write for publications?

I was the Content Producer of the Year for Associated Content (which is now Yahoo) in politics. I covered the Chicago Film Festival recently for Yahoo and had 90,000 “hits” on one article. (My latest review, which has not run yet, is of Brad Pitt’s new film “Killing Them Softly.” I have written for 5 “real” newspapers and 9 blogs. (I have a Journalism degree and an English degree.)

Q: Do you have a writing tip you’d like to share?

Keep writing and don’t let the bastards see you sweat. Also, learn who you should be sucking up to. I always find out when it’s too late.

Q: Can you tell us a little about your childhood?

It was long and uneventful, other than growing up in a town with the largest mental health institute in the state of Iowa.

Q: Where’s your favorite place to write at home?

My favorite place to write is in a condo in Chicago bought especially for that purpose.

Q: What do you do to get away from it all?

See answer above. When I’m not writing, Cancun.

Q: Are you familiar with the social networks and do you actively participate?

I have a blog (www.WeeklyWilson.com) that I’ve maintained since 2007, but I write about many things other than books. I have a presence on Twitter (ConnieCWilsonSMM@gmail.com) and on Facebook (Connie Corcoran Wilson).

thecolorofevil-199x300 ABOUT THE COLOR OF EVIL

Tad McGreevy has a power that he has never revealed, not even to his life-long best friend, Stevie Scranton. When Tad looks at others, he sees colors. Thee auras tell Tad whether a person is good or evil. At night, Tad dreams about the evil-doers, reliving their crimes in horrifyingly vivid detail.

But Tad doesn’t know if the evil acts he witnesses in his nightmares are happening now, are already over, or are going to occur in the future. All Tad knows is that he wants to protect those he loves. And he wants the bad dreams to stop.

This is a terrifying, intense story of the dark people and places that lurk just beneath the surface of seemingly normal small-town life.

hellfire and damnation ABOUT HELLFIRE AND DAMNATION II

Hellfire & Damnation II is another tour of the 9 Circles of Hell described in Dante’s Inferno. It picks up where the first collection of short stories (2011) left off and gives us a remarkable collection of somber, nourish, flat-out scary and altogether satisfying stories that seek to find peace in a dark world that defies it. Her subtle irony and penchant for finding terror in the least expected places will generate comparisons to Stephen King and Ray Bradbury, with just a hint of Philip K. Dick thrown in. But don’t be fooled: Wilson has a wondrous voice in her own right and her tight, twisty tales establish her as a force to be reckoned with.


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