Good afternoon, everyone!
I hope everybody is enjoying summer as we grow closer to the month of August. This year is truly flying by! I feel like I was celebrating the start of 2024 just yesterday.
Today, I have a special author interview to share with you all. This week's interview is with a very talented author whose authentic voice always shines through in her work.
I'm talking about Padgett Gerler, who has quite a few novels under her belt. Her latest novel from 2023, titled She's the Same, follows pregnant teen Kate O'Conner as she purchases a ticket to the end of the line on the next bus leaving the local Greyhound bus station. She has never heard of Palmetto, North Carolina, but it's as far from her judgmental hometown and disappointed parents as her boarding pass will take her.
Rescued by Al Riley, Palmetto's beloved doctor, and his housekeeper, Comfort, Kate settles into this idyllic town on the Pamlico Sound to await the birth of her child. Even Kate says she feels as though she has fallen into a Hallmark movie. But the movie ends abruptly when Kate gives birth to twins, Riley and Bailey.
Bailey has Down syndrome.
Kate wants desperately to be the perfect mother for her children, but it is the innocence and wisdom of six-year-old Riley that teaches Kate all the really important things she needs to know about parenting.
She's the Same is a heartwarming read about family and loving each other as we are, and it can be purchased through Amazon here.
Now, without further ado, please enjoy the following interview with Padgett.
BOOKMARKED: Tell me about your background with writing. When did you know you wanted to become a writer?
PADGETT GERLER: I’ve always enjoyed writing; however, as a student at North Carolina State University, I majored in accounting. All of my professors, even my accounting professors, thought I was a creative writing major, one of them even writing on my term paper, “You ought to get a job writing accounting mysteries.” Thinking, though, that accounting would be a more stable and lucrative career than accounting mystery writer, upon graduation I sat for and passed the CPA exam. I enjoyed a productive and satisfying career as a CPA, first as an auditor and tax preparer in public accounting and then as a CFO in corporate accounting.
In 2006, my college professor husband said, “Let’s write a book together.” He’d been writing all his adult life, but I hadn’t written a creative word since that accounting mystery back at NC State. But always up for a challenge, I agreed to write a book with him…just for fun. But once I began writing, I found that I couldn’t unwrite. After we finished our “test book,” I continued to write at night and on weekends, while still maintaining my day job. However, in 2010, when my love of writing leapt way ahead of my love of accounting, I left my very stable career to write full time.
And I’ve never looked back.
I released my first novel, Getting the Important Things Right, in 2012, and since then I have published six more novels and a piece of historical fiction, The Girl Who Feared Trains.
One of your more recent novels from 2022, The Girl Who Feared Trains, paralleled the situation going on in the world with the Covid-19 pandemic. What made you want to write this novel, and was it therapeutic at all?
While we were housebound during Covid-19, I did not handle the isolation well. I needed people in my life, and all my people were elsewhere, isolating in their own homes. I couldn’t go to the gym or the mall or to church. I couldn’t have my hair or nails done, nor could I lunch with the girls. I felt deprived. I cried. I whined. I did everything short of throwing a temper tantrum.
During one of my selfish, immature periods, I thought of my mother who, at the age of three, had lost her mother to the Flu Epidemic of 1918. It certainly put my situation in perspective. I was grateful that I had not lost a single loved one to Covid-19, and I realized what I was experiencing was simply an inconvenience. So, to honor my mother, I chose to write her story. I based it on tales she told my brother and me when we were children, and in the book, I included many cherished photos of my mother and her family.
All of my mother’s immediate family is gone, but writing their story brought me close to them, helped me to remember cherished memories, and made me grateful that I was able to share their lives because my mother was, herself, a gifted storyteller. As I wrote, I cried a lot and laughed a lot and found the experience most emotional and therapeutic.
Another of your novels, The Summer the Air Changed, is a coming-of-age tale with a touch of mystery. What memories do you have of writing this novel, and what did it mean to you at the time?
Bit Sizemore, the protagonist and narrator of The Summer the Air Changed, was the first character I created back in 2006. Her story took many turns and reconfigurations and rewrites while she and I wrote together for 15 years, until our novel was published in 2021. Bit was most patient when I put her aside to work on other projects, but she was always there waiting when I returned to her. Bit will forever be my favorite character, my alter ego, perhaps. She is kind, smart, talented, witty, and a good friend—all the things I’d love to be.
Bit and her sidekick, Wisteria Calliope Jones, came of age in the Appalachian Mountains, as did I. I drew upon my memories of loving families, small-town life, best friends, first crushes, and an abundance of mischief to write their story.
Wisteria Calliope Jones first appeared in the short story, “I Know This Happened 'Cause Somebody Seen It,” which was included in the anthology Self-Rising Flowers, published by Mountain Girl Press (subsequently acquired by Jan-Carol Publishing, Inc.). I loved Wisteria’s spunk and felt that she and Bit simply had to become best friends.
I mentioned that Bit and I wrote together. I can create a character, certain I know who she is and what she is going to do from the first page until the last, but it never works that way. Once I commit that character to the page, she has a mind of her own. She may take me in directions I never dreamed and didn’t even know existed.
My characters remind me of a memory of my daughter, Amanda. When she was around four, she came running into the house from playing, flung her arms around me, and said, “Oh, Mommy, we had so much fun! We just ran around like wildflowers!”
That’s what my characters are… wildflowers. I never know where they are going to grow and where they are going to take me. And I’m glad they are wildflowers, because often they know where they should go better than I do.
Your novels tend to take place in the South and feature a Southern/Appalachian feel that many of us who live here can relate to. Why do you love to write about this area?
I was born near my parents’ childhood home on the coast of South Carolina, raised in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, and have lived in the Piedmont region of North Carolina for nearly 40 years. I love the South, the southern voice, and the southern experience. I also love a sense of place and feel that a setting can be as much a character as an actual character. I enjoy creating a setting that comes to life, along with its people. And nothing comes to life better than a small southern town.
I am currently working on a compilation of short stories, all taking place in the South. Its title will be, My Southern Voices: From the Mountains to the Coast.
Who are some of your favorite authors of all time? Favorite novels?
Since Pat Conroy wrote his first book, The Water Is Wide, he has been my all-time favorite author. His writing is brilliant. Sadly, he left us much too soon, long before we were ready to stop reading. And though each of his novels is as powerful as the next, The Great Santini is my favorite.
Since I have been writing, I have discovered and met two brilliant southern writers whose works I dearly love. Minrose Gwin (The Queen of Palmyra) and Donna Everhart (When the Jessamine Grows, The Saints of Swallow Hill) write southern fiction with a breathtaking talent that is enviable.
But… 'southern' has never been written better than Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. I first read it when I was in high school, and I still own my mother’s tattered copy 60 years later. I pull it out each summer and give it a read. It never disappoints.
Is there anything you’d like to say to all of your fans and supporters over the years?
I came to writing late in life. I began writing because I had to. I did it for me. But, along the way, all you readers joined me, and now I write for you, as well. And I do it with an abundance of gratitude. Nothing is more satisfying than being stopped in the grocery store or the gym or a restaurant by a reader who says, “You’re Padgett, right?” and wants to comment about or discuss something I’ve written. And I will happily sit and chat with readers and answer any questions they may have about my writing, or writing in general. Readers are a glorious gift.
Not long ago, Joanna Monahan, the wonderful author of the coming-of-middle-age novel, Something Better, said, “Padgett, I hope my writing makes people feel the way your writing makes me feel.”
And that is why I write.
***
Thank you again, Padgett, for a lovely interview! And be sure to listen to this Friday's podcast episode from Bookmarked, because I got the opportunity to have a wonderful chat with Padgett there as well.
Everyone, stay safe out there, and have a great week!
Allison Chudina
Editorial Assistant
Jan-Carol Publishing, Inc.
Bookmarked
😁
Excellent!