Carrie Stuart Parks Interview

Q: Let me start with asking you to tell us a little bit about yourself.

A. I’m a fine and forensic artist living on the ranch where I grew up in the mountains of north Idaho. I met my husband in the romantic halls of the FBI Academy. We currently travel across the US and Canada team-teaching forensic art to law enforcement professionals. In between classes, I work on cases for law enforcement agencies, paint watercolors, and exhibit my Great Pyrenees show dogs.

Q: When did you first realize you wanted to be a writer? Could you give us the highlights of your professional writing career including how you got your first writing break?

A. I wanted to do an art book based on the techniques I’d developed to teach the human face. In 2001, my dream came true with a contract with North Light to write and illustrate Secrets to Drawing Realistic Faces. That book just passed its 10^th anniversary and has been translated into several languages. Four more art books followed, including my first book on painting portraits in watercolor. Exciting, but how hard is it to write, “you will want to sharpen your pencil by firmly….”

Back in 2003, as a Christmas gift to my girlfriend, I wrote a short story. She read it to her husband. I’d like to share the forward that this event generated, has the husband tells it so much better than I:

Well, Barb read it and passed the pages to me as we lay in bed. Hmmm, I thought.   Not bad. No, you lost me here. Ah! I like this! Ohh, Carrie, don’t do that. Now this works.

Finally, I responded to the question Carrie never asked but … you know … sort of did.

Okay. I’d help her. (It was a no-brainer.)

From then on, every few weeks, she hollered at the back door, “Knock knock?” then brought in a case full of pens, highlighters, post-it notes, her computer, and pages of manuscript – her homework, a copy for her, a copy for me. She read aloud, I followed.   I commented, she listened and scribbled notes all over her work. She dubbed me “Master” and herself “Grasshopper” after that old Kung Fu TV show, but we were both new at it: she’d never written fiction and I’d never taught it. The learning was mutual.

And I guess it worked out.

Her perseverance alone was deserving of success, but she became a writer because she knew – and I knew – she could do it. She had the flair, the imagination, the whimsical, inventive, sometimes zany ability to go to other places in her mind and come back with the unexpected. She was a creative explosion sure to go off somewhere; all I had to do was aim her.

So … Ka-Boom! Here it is, Carrie’s first novel of the unexpected, mysterious, and shocking, drawing (pun intended) upon the highly specialized world of forensic art, and featuring a heroine very much like herself. Hang on for the ride.

Oh, and, Carrie? Well done.

Frank E. Peretti – October 16, 2013

With Frank Peretti endorsing me, I was able to land a wonderful agent with Terry Burns. He, in turn, landed me a three book deal at auction between two top-five publishers, with Thomas Nelson (HarperCollins Christian) winning the bid.

Q: Would you tell us about your current book release A Cry From the Dust?

A. Here’s the story: In the shadow of the Mormon church, a 19th-century conspiracy is about to be shattered by a 21st-century forensic artist.

In 1857, a wagon train in Utah was assaulted by a group of militant Mormons calling themselves the Avenging Angels. One hundred and forty people were murdered, including unarmed men, women, and children. The Mountain Meadows Massacre remains controversial to this day—but the truth may be written on the skulls of the victims.

When renowned forensic artist Gwen Marcey is recruited to reconstruct the faces of recently unearthed victims at Mountain Meadows, she isn’t expecting more than an interesting gig . . . and a break from her own hectic life.

But when Gwen stumbles on the ritualized murder of a young college student, her work on the massacre takes on a terrifying new aspect, and research quickly becomes a race against modern-day fundamentalist terror.

As evidence of a cover-up mounts—a cover-up spanning the entire history of the Mormon church—Gwen finds herself in the crosshairs of a secret society bent on fulfilling prophecy and revenging old wrongs.

Can a forensic artist reconstruct two centuries of suppressed history . . . before it repeats itself?

Q: Where did you get your inspiration for A Cry From the Dust?

A. I’m not sure the exact trigger. I suspect a host of things were brewing in the back of my head. I’d done extensive research on the LDS (Mormon) church and found several areas that would make a great novel. I also liked blending true history with fiction. My facial reconstruction instructor had reconstructed some of the faces over the skulls dug up from the Battle of the Little Bighorn. I got to wondering…what if some of the bodies were dug up from the Mountain Meadows massacre in Utah? And what if, after reconstructing the faces, one turned out to look like Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon church? Oooooh, yeah, that sounds like a start……..

Q: What is the main thing you hope readers remember from this story?

A. I would love for readers to say, “I’ve found a new author! I can’t wait for the next book…”

The theme of the book revolves around everything happens for a reason. We may not know what that reason is in this lifetime, and it’s a blessing if we do.

Q: What is your favorite scene/chapter from the book?

A. Gosh, that’s hard! I think I really love the scene where Gwen (protagonist) finds a message inscribed into the bottom of a drawer by a young woman who was murdered. She summed up her life in twenty-five words. Gwen tries to sum up her own life. Accomplishments? Challenges? Regrets?

Q: What inspires you to write?

A. I had a story to tell.

Q: How has being a published novelist differed from your expectations of the profession?

A. I’ll let you know. J Book due out in August.

Q: What advice or tips do you have for writers who are just getting started?

A. Writing is a lot like painting in watercolor. When I first started out, I painted the same things, over and over. As in fifty to a hundred paintings. I had to learn how to gage the wetness of the paper, the temperature of the room, the way this particular color would blend, bleed, or stain. Application of water. Paper response. Brush pressure. It’s only when these things moved from my conscious to my unconscious thinking that I could focus on the creative nature of the work.

So it is with writing. So much to remember: dialog, setting, tension on every page, plot, hook, point of view, characters. I had to learn enough about writing so that I would unconsciously do these things, allowing me to enjoy the process.

Frank Peretti, my mentor, worked with me for over ten years to be a better writer. I read books, took on-line classes in the areas I felt weak in, attended writing conferences, and had awesome feedback and help from Kelly Mortimer

And I didn’t give up.

Q: Would you share with us what you are working on now?

A. I finished the second in the series, working title of Lone Wolf, about the Christian Identity movement, and am deep into research and plotting into the third book.

Q: When you’re not writing what do you like to do?

A. I’m currently president of the Great Pyrenees Club of America and am showing three of my Pyrenees in confirmation. Woof.

Q: Where can readers find you on the internet?

A. CarrieStuartParks.com is my web page. Facebook is Carrie Stuart Parks, Author.

Q: Anything else you’d like to tell or share with us?

A. Feel free to drop by and say howdy.