Congratulations to the winner of last week’s Author Spotlight giveaway of Murder at the Courthouse by A.H. Gabhart, JUDY FRITZ. Please email info {at} suzannewoodsfisher {dot} com to claim your prize.

Welcome Bonnie Calhoun, author of Lightning, to Author Spotlight! Keep reading to find out how you can enter to win a copy.

Introduce us to you as an author: When did you get bit with the writing bug? How would you describe your writing style?

I have written most of my life. I especially had a lot of stories to tell when I was a teenager and in the throes of teenaged angst. My writing style is Bonnie. I don’t know how else to say it. I don’t have anyone whose style I mimic or try to identify with. I don’t do romance or women’s fiction. I write action, adventure, suspense, mystery, loud noises … blood, body count and blowing things up. Can’t help it. I’m not a gentile writer.

Tell us about your new release:

This series takes place in the future of the former United States. All that remains of the country is a sliver of the East Coast. The rest was destroyed 150 years ago in a week called the Time of Sorrows; 3 suitcase nukes detonated in Washington, DC, a tsunami wiped out most of the East Coast from Canada to South America, the California shelf slipped into the Pacific Ocean, and the Super Volcano in Yellowstone national park erupted and took out four states. People long ago said God created the world in six days, but it took man only five to destroy it.

My latest release is the second in the series, Lightning: A Novel (Stone Braide Chronicles), a YA dystopian fiction continuing story of Selah Rishon. She thought her life would improve when she found her real father, but now the rest of her family has gone missing and the mystique of becoming a novarium is tempered with the fact that it could drive her insane in nine months. Can she reach the secret that so many others have sought?

There is also a FREE e-book download that should be read BEFORE Lightning. The short story is called Aftershock. It tells the story of what happens between book#1—Thunder and book#2—Lightning.

How can readers connect with you online?

They can go to my website: bonniescalhoun.com and all of my social media links are available there.

Anything new for you on the book horizon?

Presently I am working on the third short story and the thitd book in the series. The third and final book will be called Storm, bringing together all the opposing forces for the final battle that will decide if they are all to be changed forever … or will they have to wait another 150 years.

Do you prefer reading physical books or e-readers?

Well let’s just say that my eyes aren’t what they used to be, and the back lighting on my iPad really turns reading into an enjoyable experience again. I read about a book a week on my iPad, when before I began using the device my reading had dropped to about 5 or 6 books a year.

Why do you write?

To entertain. The Lord made me an outgoing, over-the-top entertainer, and if I can string enough words together to impart a life-affirming lesson of the Lord I’m that much happier.

If you weren’t able to write, what would you do?

Dictate … LOL … there’s a ton of voice identity software out there that could type it … Oh … you mean if I didn’t write at all. Well before and during my writing career, I was for many years a clothing designer and seamstress. My mother was a master pattern maker for the clothing factories in my home town of Scranton, Pa., so I’ve sewn since I was 7. But I have officially reached retirement age and I would probably just retire … and read.

Right this moment, what does your office look like?

Ugh … let’s put it this way … there are at least a dozen characters in my head waiting for their chance at a book, and at the same time they each have their own mess in my office.

Ever had a bad review? How did you handle it?

Well I look at it this way … I write a certain kind of action adventure with certain kinds of protagonists and pacing and I work my hardest to please the people that would also like those same styles. Those people would be in my target readers group. If someone doesn’t like my style then I don’t have any hard feelings, they are just not in the target readers group that I’m writing for.

What are your biggest distractions?

My biggest distractions by far are all story related … reading, movies, reading, binge-watching Fringe on Netflix, reading, binge-watching X-Files on Netflix …well, you see the pattern,

What advice would you give to new writers?

Just keep wring and keep honing your craft, and most of all, think big because story rules!

Are you an introvert? Extrovert? In-between?

Most definitely an extrovert. I can … and have … wound up starting discussion groups about books in the airport! And my grandma used to say, “There are no strangers in this world, only people you haven’t met yet.”

What drives you to succeed?

The love of story. Stretching my imagination to come up with new twists on old stories that will carry people away to different life experiences.

My great adventure has been…

Finding the “sweet spot” of where my writing should fit, and creating a brand.

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Bonnie S. Calhoun is the author of Thunder. She teaches workshops on Facebook, Twitter, HTML, and social media at writers’ conferences. In her everyday life she is a retired seamstress and clothing designer. Bonnie and her husband live in a log home in upstate New York with a dog and two cats who think she’s waitstaff. Learn more at

www.bonniescalhoun.com.

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