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I write because I have a story to tell and a message to communicate. I write because I want to produce literature of quality with real heroes and heroines who hold real values.

Daphne Woods   ABOUT THE AUTHOR: I live in a small township in beautiful, rural Hunterdon County, New Jersey, with my husband and 17-year-old daughter. I hold a doctorate in Nineteenth-Century Studies with a concentration in English literature from Drew University, but for the last ten years I have home-schooled my daughter. She remains the best student I ever had! My love of nineteenth-century English literature is the inspiration for this work. While I can never hope to compare with those extraordinary geniuses of the past, and I do not try to model my writing style on any of them, I hope, like Dickens, Eliot, and Brontë, to embed an exploration of social and cultural issues in a great narrative. It is very possible that a little of the irony and humor of Jane Austen can also be detected. I love hiking, biking, swimming, gardening, and traveling. I’m also an avid photographer, and for a while I had my own studio business. I still enjoy nature photography. Last winter I captured a great picture of a red fox right out in my back lawn. I’d waited 16 years to get that picture! That makes up for the one I missed in Prince Edward Island. I’d love to hear from you. Drop me a note to share your thoughts about the novel or about anything of interest. Meggie Brooks by Daphne Woods. Published by Heather Press, Princeton, NJ. http://www.daphnewoods.com           Books-and-Authors.net: Where did you grow up and was reading and writing a part of your life? Who were your earliest influences and why?  Daphne Woods: I grew up in Sodus, New York, a sleepy little town between Rochester and Syracuse, NY. I lived 5 miles from Sodus Bay and Lake Ontario, and was surrounded by cherry and apple orchards.  Behind my house was a woods I played in.  Yes, definitely reading was a part of my life, though not so much writing, except literary analysis in high school and college. But I read by the hour, and I read everything I could get my hands on. I read Jane Eyre in 5th grade, and Gone With the Wind in 7th. I read Dickens, Hardy, George Eliot, Mark Twain, Willa Cather, and Mildred Walker—just everything.  One of the strongest influences on me  was Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, which I even reference in Meggie Brooks, but other important influences have been Charles Dickens and Jane Austen (also mentioned in the novel) for different reasons. I love Dickens' menagerie of characters, and Austen's eminent wit. Both create great plots and usually orchestrate happy endings. Jane Eyre is simply awesome. Each time I read it I get more out of it. It was revolutionary for its time and remains so today. It's not only a terrific love story, it's a story of a woman in search of liberty and equality. Its language is lyrical and amazing. I wanted to write a novel that reintroduced beauty into language, told a terrific love story with a mystery, and incorporated the political and social issues of a Dickens.     Books-and-Authors.net: Why do you write  Daphne Woods: I write because I have a story to tell and a message to communicate. I write because I want to produce literature of quality with real heroes and heroines who hold real values.     Books-and-Authors.net: Briefly tell us about your new novel Meggie Brooks .  Daphne Woods: It is the story of a girl growing up in a small rural township in New Jersey, living an almost idyllic life, enjoying the beauty of her country environment, dealing with her sometimes dysfunctional relatives, and sorting through a family mystery. But that is only one side of the story. Growing up in a politically minded household, Meggie learns to confront political correctness in public school, college, and the media. At first she struggles and is afraid to share her views. But eventually she learns to speak out, to make her voice known, and finally to lead in the fight for free speech and to articulate the values of our country’s founding that made America unique in history. Meggie is a hero for our times, a conservative who won’t be cowed but will instead fight back for truth.  It is also a love story. Meggie overcomes her attraction for the wrong man and finally finds the right one, but before their love can be fulfilled she must solve yet another mystery, and this one, when revealed, rocks the nation.   Books-and-Authors.net: Who is Meggie Brooks?    Daphne Woods: She is a fictional character, but her childhood prototype is my daughter. I based some of Meggie's early childhood experiences on my own daughter's childhood, but she definitely becomes her own character early on. For instance, Meggie undergoes several traumatic school experiences. I homeschooled my daughter since 2nd grade, so those are not my daughter's experiences.     Books-and-Authors.net: Meggie Brooks crosses over many genres - If you had to select one genre that best describes Meggie Brooks what would that be and why?   Daphne Woods: I have published this under literary fiction for several reasons. One, the writing and style is elevated. It is not inaccessible to the everyday reader, but it is a cut above the writing of general fiction. I have been told my vocabulary is impressive. I was concerned with the beauty of the language, the cadences of phrases, the metaphors chosen—all were important to me as I wrote this novel, and I've been told that definitely comes through. Secondly, the novel probes political and social issues and even offers tiny bits of literary analysis in the dialogue. I think anything even remotely smacking of literary analysis should be categorized as literary fiction. Third, it contains a powerful love story but is not merely or perhpaps even predominantly a love story, so it cannot be classified as romance. And finally, although the reader is eventually taken to Iraq, that is only at the end, so it is not a political thriller per se. My novel does cross over many genres, but I think the best category is that which I've published it under: literary fiction.       Books-and-Authors.net:What advice do you have for other authors working on their first novel? Daphne Woods: I believe every author has to write what he or she feels compelled to write. Write what you love and what you want to see more of. Worry about publishing it later, and if you can't find an agent or publisher, then self-publish. But write what you write best and feel most passionately about. Through the ages, that is what has best served authors, even if their work doesn't become famous until after they're dead!       Books-and-Authors.net: What do you hope to achieve with Meggie Brooks? Daphne Woods: I hope to entertain, educate, and inspire. I want people to become engrossed in the mystery of the story and in Meggie's life, as sheer entertainment. But I also want to make people think about political correctness and realize the tyranny inherent in it. I want people to come away thinking, "Wow, what a great story, and how inspiring. Maybe if I think global warming is a lot of hooey or that people actually benefit from capitalism I can actually say these things out loud!" I also want them to remember this as a great love story, as a novel about a girl who was fairly normal and tried to make decent choices and for whom it paid off.  There is so much literature about neurotic, dysfunctional, anti-heroic types. There is an abundance of literature about people who can't figure out right from wrong, or for whom most of life is pretty depressing or confusing. Meggie certainly has her share of lonliness, isolation, and depressing episodes, and she is faced with temptations and a motley collection of relatives who serve primarily as negative examples, but she is ultimately a heroine who figures out her mind and isn't ashamed of it. This is refreshing in today's liberal, existential environment.       Books-and-Authors.net:What was the last book you read?  Daphne Woods: Godly Materialism, by John Schneider.     Books-and-Authors.net: What's next? Daphne Woods: I'm working on a novel called The Redemption of Father Drew. It's set in Laredo, Texas, and will deal somewhat with border issues, but it will primarily be a love story. It will also be shorter than Meggie Brooks, because editing that was a bear!

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