Interview with Deb Gorman and a Giveaway!

Welcome to Readers Write to Know! I asked you, my readers, what questions they would ask their favorite authors if given the chance, and the authors visiting my blog answered them! This week, I’m so pleased to have Deb Gorman as my guest. I always love meeting people from the Pacific Northwest. Both of my parents were born and raised there, and to me, despite being an Army brat who has claimed first Florida then Kentucky as hers, the Pacific Northwest will always be “home”. I loved Deb’s writing purpose statement, and hope you enjoy her interview as much as I did. Read on to see how you can enter to win a copy of her latest release!

Tell us a little about yourself: Hi! My name is Deb Gorman and I was born and still live in the beautiful Pacific Northwest. I actually live in the town where I spent my childhood—a medium-sized metropolis of about 100,00 if you count the surrounding county—in central Washington.

I did live in southern California between 1972 and 1980, where I went to college. I was married to my first husband and had three children while living in the LA area. We moved back to my hometown in 1980, just in time to experience Mt. St. Helens.

I am now married to my second husband (thirty-one years!) and we have twenty-three grandchildren. I recently retired from my career in healthcare and am busy building my writerly business. My husband has been retired for ten years and has his own business also. We have a very lively four-year-old German shepherd named Hoka.

Tell us about your current release: I have three books released. They are written in the devotional style, with study questions. The books contain stories of biblical characters, some well-known, some not. The stories are fiction, but based upon real events in the Bible.

Currently, I’m working on two novels—my first! The first novel—The Master’s Inn—is presently with my editor, the lovely and talented Dori De Vries Harrell. The second—the sequel to the first—is in first draft stage. I hope to write a third in this series. We shall see.

The Master’s Inn is the story of three families who are stranded together in a freak blizzard in northeastern Washington State. Tom and Bill are Marine combat veterans from the Vietnam era and Iraq, respectively, and who still chase their demons. They and their families meet the God who planned the storm and brought them together, learning that no tragedy, no deep secret, and no loss is beyond his capacity to forgive and heal.

What’s the first major news headline that you can remember and what do you remember? I was nine years old when President Kennedy was shot. I remember my teacher gathering all of us on the playground to tell us. I remember watching the news that night with Mom and Dad. And I remember days and days of headlines, grownups talking and arguing about it. Not much different than today!

What inspired you to start writing, or did you always want to write? I’ve always been a voracious reader, since about age six. I didn’t think about writing books until about 2013. I decided to try writing a Christmas play the year before. I worked on it most of that year and in December of 2013, my church produced it with me as the director. What a hoot! It was very well received. The characters in that play—the imaginary ones in my head–then started hounding me to put them into a novel. I’ve been working on it ever since, with three devotional-style books published in 2016, 2017, and 2018.

What made you take the plunge and finally do it? I’d had some ideas for stories half-written on my laptop for a long time. I wrote them just for my own pleasure. We have two published authors who attend our church, so one day I looked up their websites. One website mentioned the name of her editor, so I looked up her website. I sent her a sample of my writing and she replied saying she’d like to work with me. That’s all it took!

Where’s the strangest place you’ve ever had a great writing idea? The Master’s Inn—the play—was outlined on the back of the church bulletin, character and scene sketched, and cast while I was sitting in the worship service one Sunday at my church. I’m sure my pastor was very proud of how vigorously I was taking sermon notes!

Do you have a particular character that you fell in love with and keep them alive in your mind? My favorite character is from the first chapter of my first book—”Who Are These People?” Her name is Ariella—meaning Lioness of God in Hebrew—and she is the heroine in the story of the little girl in 2 Kings 5:2-3 who was stolen from Israel and taken to Syria as a slave. She appears in just those two verses. Her story in my book takes place between those verses. The reason I wrote her story is that I was curious what would make a little girl who was ripped from her family and taken to a foreign country compassionately tell her captor about the man of God who could heal him of his leprosy. Such bravery! Her story captivated me, so I had to write it.

What do you think is lacking in Christian Fiction? I’m not sure it’s a lack, but I think Christian writers must begin to tackle the encroaching evil of our times—and tackle it loudly. There’s nothing wrong with writing novels that are light-hearted and entertain us, that help us to escape this dark world for a while, but we are called to be Kingdom-bearers. If our fiction writing doesn’t point clearly to Jesus, Messiah—and denounce the enemy loudly and unapologetically—then what is the purpose? If God has given me the gift of storytelling, I’d best be using it to lay another brick for eternity, not just another buck in my bank account.

Here is where you can find Deb online:

https://www.debggorman.com/

https://twitter.com/@bikerdebo

https://www.facebook.com/debggorman

Deb is giving away a copy of one of her ebooks (readers choice) see below how to enter to win:
a Rafflecopter giveaway

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8 comments

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  1. Thank you for your generosity in the giveaway! I currently have 9 of your novels. So excited to be able to possibly win another one of your books!

    • Paula Marie on May 8, 2019 at 11:13
    • Reply

    This devotional looks wonderful! Thank you for sharing

    1. Thank you, Paula! I had great fun researching the stories, from the Bible and other sources, then immersing myself in all the what-ifs of creating that character’s possible backstory. My hope is that my readers will take that story, step into it, wear the character’s shoes for awhile, and apply lessons to his/her life. My mission is to re-gift God’s Word to my readers.

    • Linda Palmer on May 8, 2019 at 11:30
    • Reply

    I know I’d love to read Deb’s books. Enjoyed reading the interview with her. Great stories of her history and how she started writing.

    1. Thank you, Linda! So nice to meet new fans.
      Deb Gorman recently posted…For The LeastMy Profile

    • bn100 on May 8, 2019 at 21:22
    • Reply

    interesting premise

    • Lisa Stillman on May 9, 2019 at 01:26
    • Reply

    I found your idea on where Christian fiction needs to go very interesting. Do you have any particular issues in mind?

    1. Hi, Lisa! Thank you for your question. I think for every author there is an issue for which he/she feels passionate. There’s an underlying question in the author’s mind that needs an answer. Whether it’s fiction, non-fiction, or a mix of the two (creative non-fiction), the author attempts to answer that question. And I would have to say that I believe authors aren’t the only ones who attempt to explain life and its issues. We all do. It’s part of the journey of life. There are a couple of issues playing out on the current world stage that have grabbed me by the throat. One is abortion. Another is the current debate over gender. I don’t view either of those subjects as political-heavens, no! I don’t know if either of those issues will find their way into any future stories. God may ask me to, and if so, he will supply the tender words to reveal his loving character through them. Thank you again, Lisa, for asking this question.
      Deb Gorman recently posted…For The LeastMy Profile

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