Featured Interview With Rusty Blackwood
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I was born in St. Thomas Ontario, Canada on October 5, 1949, and had the pleasure of growing up on my paternal grandfather’s farm in southwestern Ontario. Looking back, I was truly blessed to have been given the life I led there, where I could run to my heart’s content, share friendship with assorted animals, and really be in touch with nature. I am Mom as well as friend to two wonderful sons, grandmother to three beautiful granddaughters, one handsome grandson, and one dear great grandson. I have always loved the Arts in their many unique forms, and graduated with two diplomas in Interior Decorating & Design. I love music, and spent many years spent on the south-western Ontario stage performing with my family’s country music band, ‘The Midnight Ramblers’, and the country – rock – blues band, ‘MIRAGE’ as an accomplished vocalist, bassist, and rhythm guitarist. I still enjoy music, and I miss that life, but I still perform occasionally to help keep my skills intact. I now live in St. Catharines, Ontario, and besides writing, I enjoy art, gardening, nature walks, horses, and spending quality time with family, friends, and my loyal cat, Tipper.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I would say my love of writing began around eight or nine, while I was in elementary school, and I attribute my passion for it to my late father James Beecroft, who taught me colour and texture in everything around me, and the late Gladys Carroll, my elementary teacher who taught me the love of written word and saw my ability to create unique stories during composition time in class, however, I didn’t follow that love of writing as a career for it was unfortunately not an offered career for women in the early sixties, so I’m unprofessionally trained in the field of writing, but I have always had an affinity for the written word and God-given gift to express it, which I have done many times since becoming a serious writer in 2001. I love to express myself in four genres, poetry, children’s short stories, adult comedy, and romantic fiction drama, my favorite genre and the one for which I am best known.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
It greatly depends on the mood I’m in, but I have different authors whose work I enjoy. I don’t read as often as I should, as I will not read someone else’s work when I am writing a manuscript of my own. But when I do, I very much enjoy local author’s in my area as I am a firm believer in supporting local talent. My favorite author in my area is Niagara romance novelist, Gina IaFrate, whose incredible work takes you to exotic settings around the world, and whose work can be found on Amazon. If I were to name my favorite genre it would be expressive romantic fiction drama. I suppose because it my favorite genre to write. I have also enjoyed the work of Stephen King – I find it interesting how he can always get inside a reader’s head – and I have always enjoyed the classics. I don’t take inspiration from other authors, but instead from nature, and my own imagination.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
I am truly excited about my latest novel, ‘The Perils of Autumn’, published by Tellwell Talent, a Readers Favorite 5-star awarded novel, and now a 2019 International Book Awards Finalist in romance, as it combines a few of my favorite topics, my favorite being horses and stable life, especially English discipline. I have always admired nurses and all they do, as well as single mother’s whom for whatever the reason, endure incredible hardship to stand by their child, and endure whatever they must to give their child the best they can.
In ‘The Perils of Autumn’, I combine all three of these subjects, and they certainly continued to inspire me throughout their interactions within the book, which in turn has inspired me to continue the story in the coming, ‘Return to Autumn’. I think there’s nothing more rewarding than to create a piece from something that you greatly admire, or have an affinity to, and have it become something that makes you extremely proud.
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