Rita Sims Quillen's Blog
March 1, 2022
INTERNATIONAL PULPWOOD QUEENS!
It's March 2022, so that means that my novel WAYLAND is one of the Bonus Picks for the International Pulpwood Queens and Timber Kings Book Club. I'm honored and excited!
If you are not already a member, you can join for free and belong to another fun community of readers. They do a monthly online magazine about all things bookish called READING NATION that you would enjoy.
To watch a wonderful book trailer, read excerpts, hear some of my music, read some of my poetry, and find out all about my beautiful home in the Appalachian mountains, I hope you'll visit my Facebook page - Rita Sims Quillen - and drop by my website - ritasimsquillen.com.
If you are not already a member, you can join for free and belong to another fun community of readers. They do a monthly online magazine about all things bookish called READING NATION that you would enjoy.
To watch a wonderful book trailer, read excerpts, hear some of my music, read some of my poetry, and find out all about my beautiful home in the Appalachian mountains, I hope you'll visit my Facebook page - Rita Sims Quillen - and drop by my website - ritasimsquillen.com.
October 15, 2019
Historical Fiction blogger C.P. Lesley --Guestblogging
Dear Readers: I would be thrilled if you'd go check out my little blog on the backstory to both my novels, WAYLAND and its predecessor HIDING EZRA. I'm so grateful to C.P. Lesley for inviting me to guest-blog and meet her readers, and I bet many of you would enjoy reading her blog about your favorite kind of books: historical fiction. Check it out at the link below! And thanks for your interest!
http://blog.cplesley.com/2019/10/writ...
http://blog.cplesley.com/2019/10/writ...
October 2, 2019
Pedophilia--Timely Topic in WAYLAND
People say, what's your new novel about? My mind whirls. The answer would be too long if I told it all. It's about characters from my first novel, HIDING EZRA, that I love dearly and wanted to give some joy, peace, hope that they didn't have in that novel. It's a love story wrapped inside a marriage in trouble. WAYLAND is a study of sociopaths and mental illness, in general, versus eccentricity. It's about the world of the hobos and their culture during the Great Depression in a tranquil and quaint little community in the Appalachian Mountains. It's about the beautiful, unique and good-hearted country people of my community, people of deep faith and deep thoughts about life's most important questions. The book is an illustration of the way that the Bible and its language are so integral to the daily lives and daily thoughts of Appalachian people in the world I grew up in.
The subject receiving the most attention, however, and the one that took tons of research and thought was pedophiles and how they choose, then manipulate, their victims and their family in order to gain the trust necessary for the kind of access they need to fulfill their twisted fantasies. In hobo Buddy Newman, I wanted to create un unforgettable and engrossing evil character. I used Shakespeare's conniving, diabolical Iago as inspiration for the way he pitted people against one another, whispering in vulnerable ears whatever lies that would take him closer to his target. I thought about Hannibal Lector and his cruel games, about Faulkner's Abner Snopes and his furious resentment of those who were more successful, his psychotic violence and sense of entitlement.
But the bottom line is, I wrote a book to entertain and keep you on the edge of your seat as you watch the tale unfold--- suspense! If I can do that while also giving you the ability to recognize a pedophile's efforts at grooming your child or grandchild, well, that's a good year's work.
The subject receiving the most attention, however, and the one that took tons of research and thought was pedophiles and how they choose, then manipulate, their victims and their family in order to gain the trust necessary for the kind of access they need to fulfill their twisted fantasies. In hobo Buddy Newman, I wanted to create un unforgettable and engrossing evil character. I used Shakespeare's conniving, diabolical Iago as inspiration for the way he pitted people against one another, whispering in vulnerable ears whatever lies that would take him closer to his target. I thought about Hannibal Lector and his cruel games, about Faulkner's Abner Snopes and his furious resentment of those who were more successful, his psychotic violence and sense of entitlement.
But the bottom line is, I wrote a book to entertain and keep you on the edge of your seat as you watch the tale unfold--- suspense! If I can do that while also giving you the ability to recognize a pedophile's efforts at grooming your child or grandchild, well, that's a good year's work.
September 14, 2019
NEW RELEASE-HISTORICAL FICTION--Novel WAYLAND
Dear GOODREADS friends--I want to invite you to read my new novel WAYLAND, sequel to HIDING EZRA. This book continues the saga of the characters that so many grew to care about in that first novel. I'm so grateful to all my readers and to those who have cheered me on to write the sequel. It's been a long, hard road! I hope you enjoy it! Thank you for stopping by my blog
Wayland
By Rita Sims Quillen
Category: Fiction
$20.00
Description
Additional information
Description
Wayland is the story of a perfect life interrupted by a chance encounter with pure evil. Eva and Andrew Nettles are a couple who found each other in the unlikeliest of circumstances and married in mid-life, now living a blissful country life with their adopted daughter—until one day a hobo happens by. Buddy Newman cannot believe his good fortune: this family has everything he needs, including the most beautiful little girl he’s ever seen or dreamed of. Newman sets his plan in motion to charm and deceive the family and possess the object of his desires. Can they see through his elaborate deceit in time to save their daughter?
Praise for Wayland
In Wayland, Rita Quillen writes of a Depression-era Appalachian community with immense vividness and immense empathy, but like the best novelists, her characters transcend their geographical locale to evoke concerns that touch upon the lives of all people. Whether as poet or as novelist, Quillen is a writer to be revered.
—Ron Rash, author of Serena
“I stare at this white page and try to form the words right to name what I’m feeling to be able to explain myself to myself, as crazy as that sounds,” says a character late in Rita Quillen’s gorgeous new novel, Wayland. In language as poetic as it is fierce, anchored in the Appalachian mountains of the 1930s, Wayland explains a lost world to us, recreating it, revivifying it—crazy as that sounds. This is a beautiful and moving novel and deserves a wide readership.
—Mark Powell, author of Firebird and Small Treasons
In the pages of Wayland, Rita Quillen takes the reader deep into the characters, history, and landscape of her native hills. Quillen is a storyteller of prodigious gifts, one of Appalachian literature’s truly authentic voices.
—Amy Greene, author of Bloodroot
A stranger comes to town—and the world is never the same. Wayland tells the story of an ideal family’s entrapment in thrall that slowly turns to horror because of one man’s wickedness and another man’s blindness. These characters and places are richly drawn, and the tension keeps building until the end. As Quillen writes, “When you are Mars and Venus, you spin on, hurtling through stardust and blackness, suspended by the dark energy that binds everything together.” We are bound here, too, by this dark energy and good story.
—Jim Minick, author of Fire Is Your Water
Wayland quantity
1
Wayland
By Rita Sims Quillen
Category: Fiction
$20.00
Description
Additional information
Description
Wayland is the story of a perfect life interrupted by a chance encounter with pure evil. Eva and Andrew Nettles are a couple who found each other in the unlikeliest of circumstances and married in mid-life, now living a blissful country life with their adopted daughter—until one day a hobo happens by. Buddy Newman cannot believe his good fortune: this family has everything he needs, including the most beautiful little girl he’s ever seen or dreamed of. Newman sets his plan in motion to charm and deceive the family and possess the object of his desires. Can they see through his elaborate deceit in time to save their daughter?
Praise for Wayland
In Wayland, Rita Quillen writes of a Depression-era Appalachian community with immense vividness and immense empathy, but like the best novelists, her characters transcend their geographical locale to evoke concerns that touch upon the lives of all people. Whether as poet or as novelist, Quillen is a writer to be revered.
—Ron Rash, author of Serena
“I stare at this white page and try to form the words right to name what I’m feeling to be able to explain myself to myself, as crazy as that sounds,” says a character late in Rita Quillen’s gorgeous new novel, Wayland. In language as poetic as it is fierce, anchored in the Appalachian mountains of the 1930s, Wayland explains a lost world to us, recreating it, revivifying it—crazy as that sounds. This is a beautiful and moving novel and deserves a wide readership.
—Mark Powell, author of Firebird and Small Treasons
In the pages of Wayland, Rita Quillen takes the reader deep into the characters, history, and landscape of her native hills. Quillen is a storyteller of prodigious gifts, one of Appalachian literature’s truly authentic voices.
—Amy Greene, author of Bloodroot
A stranger comes to town—and the world is never the same. Wayland tells the story of an ideal family’s entrapment in thrall that slowly turns to horror because of one man’s wickedness and another man’s blindness. These characters and places are richly drawn, and the tension keeps building until the end. As Quillen writes, “When you are Mars and Venus, you spin on, hurtling through stardust and blackness, suspended by the dark energy that binds everything together.” We are bound here, too, by this dark energy and good story.
—Jim Minick, author of Fire Is Your Water
Wayland quantity
1
August 30, 2019
BOOK TRAILER! For WAYLAND by Rita Sims Quillen
IT's ALMOST TIME! WAYLAND, my new novel, sequel to HIDING EZRA, will be out in the world in a couple of weeks! Have a look here at the AMAZING BOOK TRAILER my very talented family (of filmmakers and video producers! How lucky am I?) made for the book. I'm thrilled with it! Hope you'll add WAYLAND to your bookshelf!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_qQ0EfdS3s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_qQ0EfdS3s
August 8, 2019
ALMOST HERE! TIME TO PRE-ORDER --New Novel WAYLAND
A dream soon to come true: A SEQUEL to HIDING EZRA, my 2014 novel set in southwest Virginia's beautiful Appalachian mountains during WWI. Now, we pick up with these same characters a few years later, as new opportunities and new challenges arise, as the looming cloud of the Great Depression gathers.
I'm thrilled to join the wonderful publishing family of IRIS Press in Oak Ridge, TN, home for some of my favorite writers, such as RON RASH, LINDA PARSONS, BILL BROWN, DANA WILDSMITH, SUSAN UNDERWOOD, and many more!
TO PRE-ORDER-- go to www.irisbooks.com?products/WAYLAND.
Be sure to click on the amazing book trailer link on the book's Iris page---all done by my amazingly talented children and their friend!
For more information on all my work, see ritasimsquillen.com
Wayland
by Rita Sims Quillen (Goodreads Author)
0.00 · Rating details · 0 ratings · 0 reviews
"Wayland is the story of a perfect life interrupted by a chance encounter with pure evil. Eva and Andrew Nettles are a couple who found each other in the unlikeliest of circumstances and married in mid-life, now living a blissful country life with their adopted daughter-until one day a hobo happens by. Buddy Newman cannot believe his good fortune: this family has everything he needs, including the most beautiful little girl he's ever seen or dreamed of. Newman sets his plan in motion to charm and deceive the family and possess the object of his desires. Can they see through his elaborate deceit in time to save their daughter?"-- (less)
I'm thrilled to join the wonderful publishing family of IRIS Press in Oak Ridge, TN, home for some of my favorite writers, such as RON RASH, LINDA PARSONS, BILL BROWN, DANA WILDSMITH, SUSAN UNDERWOOD, and many more!
TO PRE-ORDER-- go to www.irisbooks.com?products/WAYLAND.
Be sure to click on the amazing book trailer link on the book's Iris page---all done by my amazingly talented children and their friend!
For more information on all my work, see ritasimsquillen.com
Wayland
by Rita Sims Quillen (Goodreads Author)
0.00 · Rating details · 0 ratings · 0 reviews
"Wayland is the story of a perfect life interrupted by a chance encounter with pure evil. Eva and Andrew Nettles are a couple who found each other in the unlikeliest of circumstances and married in mid-life, now living a blissful country life with their adopted daughter-until one day a hobo happens by. Buddy Newman cannot believe his good fortune: this family has everything he needs, including the most beautiful little girl he's ever seen or dreamed of. Newman sets his plan in motion to charm and deceive the family and possess the object of his desires. Can they see through his elaborate deceit in time to save their daughter?"-- (less)
June 28, 2019
BOOK GIVEAWAY on AMAZON!
Hello friends---because it's summer reading season and because the sequel WAYLAND is coming out in a few months, I thought I would give away a free e-book copy of HIDING EZRA.
This novel, based on a true story from my husband's family, concerns some interesting history of WWI you probably don't know. You can learn all about it and read a sample chapter if you like at my website www.ritasimsquillen.com.
Click on the link below to enter and good luck! Thank you for all your support and feedback on my work!
Rita Sims Quillen
https://www.amazon.com/gp/f.html?C=RN...
This novel, based on a true story from my husband's family, concerns some interesting history of WWI you probably don't know. You can learn all about it and read a sample chapter if you like at my website www.ritasimsquillen.com.
Click on the link below to enter and good luck! Thank you for all your support and feedback on my work!
Rita Sims Quillen
https://www.amazon.com/gp/f.html?C=RN...
June 20, 2019
Only Two Stories....
The old canard about fiction is that there are only two kinds of stories: a man goes on a journey or a stranger comes to town.
In my first novel HIDIND EZRA (Little Creek Books 2014) Ezra was a man on the run, trying to get back home. In the next novel WAYLAND a hobo shows up in the life of Ezra's sister Eva and turns her life upside down.
Coming this fall from Iris Press, WAYLAND picks up the story of Ezra and his family. Eva Teague is married and raising her brother Ezra's little girl when "a stranger comes to town" in the form of a hobo named Buddy Newman. Despite all his charm that enchants them all, it turns out that Buddy is not at all who he presents himself to be.
Because it's vacation time when you've got time to curl up by the pool with your favorite beverage and lose yourself in a story, I hope you'll get a copy of HIDING EZRA for your reading shelf. It's time to get prepared--You want to be ready when WAYLAND is, right?
HIDING EZRA is based on a true story that even seasoned history buffs tell me is news to them--about the 175,000 men across the south who went AWOL during WWI. It is a classic coming-of-age story as the young man at the center of the storm, Ezra, must grow up fast as he finds himself an outlaw, alone and scared and confused. You can learn more about it on my website -- www.ritasimsquillen.com.
Thanks for your interest in my writing and for taking the time to help other readers by reviewing books!
In my first novel HIDIND EZRA (Little Creek Books 2014) Ezra was a man on the run, trying to get back home. In the next novel WAYLAND a hobo shows up in the life of Ezra's sister Eva and turns her life upside down.
Coming this fall from Iris Press, WAYLAND picks up the story of Ezra and his family. Eva Teague is married and raising her brother Ezra's little girl when "a stranger comes to town" in the form of a hobo named Buddy Newman. Despite all his charm that enchants them all, it turns out that Buddy is not at all who he presents himself to be.
Because it's vacation time when you've got time to curl up by the pool with your favorite beverage and lose yourself in a story, I hope you'll get a copy of HIDING EZRA for your reading shelf. It's time to get prepared--You want to be ready when WAYLAND is, right?
HIDING EZRA is based on a true story that even seasoned history buffs tell me is news to them--about the 175,000 men across the south who went AWOL during WWI. It is a classic coming-of-age story as the young man at the center of the storm, Ezra, must grow up fast as he finds himself an outlaw, alone and scared and confused. You can learn more about it on my website -- www.ritasimsquillen.com.
Thanks for your interest in my writing and for taking the time to help other readers by reviewing books!
October 7, 2017
Reader Reviews
I just had to say a public 'thank you' for this really thoughtful, well-written review by fine poet Lana Austin. It makes me teary that another writer, teacher, wife and mother is willing to take time out of her busy life to say, "Well done. Congratulations. People should read this."
I have been blessed to know several of these "angel women" and will always be grateful.
Here's the review--if you haven't added THE MAD FARMER'S WIFE to your bookshelf, I hope you will after this fine review!
https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-re...
I have been blessed to know several of these "angel women" and will always be grateful.
Here's the review--if you haven't added THE MAD FARMER'S WIFE to your bookshelf, I hope you will after this fine review!
https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-re...
July 7, 2017
THE MAD FARMER'S WIFE review
Onc!e again, bookblogger Christal Rice Cooper outdoes herself with a thoughtful, engaging look at my book THE MAD FARMER' S WIFE, accompanied with beautiful and provocative photographs.
Where would we be without sites like Goodreads and bookbloggers like Christal? Where else can we find out about all the wonderful reading opportunities out there outside of the NYT bestsellers list?
I'm so grateful for the interest and support--thank you to Christal and all her blogging colleagues!
Where would we be without sites like Goodreads and bookbloggers like Christal? Where else can we find out about all the wonderful reading opportunities out there outside of the NYT bestsellers list?
I'm so grateful for the interest and support--thank you to Christal and all her blogging colleagues!
