I once again have a brave author from the Enid Writing Club who has come forward to be interviewed. My writing club, the Enid Writers Club, will be 100 years old January 6, 2023, and the interviews are part of our celebration. Our author this week is Paula Benge.
To celebrate the publication of our anthology, I wanted to interview the authors of the book. Paula’s work is in the book, Prose Colored Glasses Prose Colored Glasses: Writers Club, Enid + Free Shipping (amazon.com) available on Kindle and paperback.
Hi, Peggy. Thank you for this opportunity!
PC: Glad to have you, Paula. My first question is what genre(s) do your write, and why?
PB: My introduction to writing fiction was a Young Adult contemporary novel because my life was immersed with college softball at the time that a EWC member encouraged me to start a novel. I’ve since written a fantasy romance and begun a middle grade fantasy.
PC: What genre(s) do you read, and why?
PB: I read or listen to books constantly, everything except horror. I really enjoy fantasy more than science fiction, but I’ve loved middle grade stories, historical romance, young adult, suspense, women’s fiction, biographies, and nonfiction. For me, the writing itself, and word of mouth, determine what I’ll read next.
PC: Give us a glimpse of the surroundings where you write. Separate room? In the kitchen? At the dining room table?
PB: My writing desk is actually on my treadmill. I also sit at the treadmill and write, mostly because there’s a large window there and I need sunshine. I’m very productive at a coffee shop, too.
PC: How did you come up with the plotline/idea for your current work in progress.
PB: The idea for the middle grade story I’m working on came from a news story about a renovation at an Oklahoma City school that revealed a chalkboard from 1917 with writing still on it. My character is a little boy made of chalk who has been lost in a school for decades.
PC: Tell us one interesting thing about you not related to your writing.
PB: Something interesting about me? I once bought an old German hymn book at an antique store, and when I leafed through it later, I found a letter from my husband’s grandmother tucked inside.
My published novella, A Neapolitan Fairy Tale at Lake Okoboji, Amazon.com: A Neapolitan Fairy Tale at Lake Okoboji (One Scoop or Two) eBook : Benge, Paula: Kindle Store is set in one of my fondest places, Lake Okoboji, Iowa. We’d visit their actual nutty bar store daily (no Neapolitan flavors, sadly, nor fairies), and we didn’t leave without buying Okoboji shirts from Three Sons. Wild Rose Press requested stories about ice cream parlors set around lakes or oceans and Okoboji was it for me. 
I’m currently going through a last edit on my softball novel, At the Heart of the Game. And my middle grade The Weird Life of Chester the Chalk Boy is about half written.
For the EWC anthology, Prose Colored Glasses, I included a children’s story about Milly, a bat with silver wings. I dedicated it to my grandmother, also named Milly. We lost her a few years ago, but her love and support made a huge difference in my life. The story was a pleasure to write, and I especially treasure it.
I’d love to keep in touch. You can reach me at paulabenge.com or on Facebook or Instagram. It’s been an honor to share this time, Peggy. Thank you!
Thank you, Paula, and best of luck with your upcoming works.
We’ll have another author from our club next week. What are you reading/writing this week?
My writing club, the Enid Writers Club, will be 100 years old January 6, 2023. We have accomplished a few things in celebration of this event and one of them is to publish an anthology. We gave each author a certain number of pages in the book to showcase their talent and then listed them alphabetically by last name. Our first author is James C. Arnold.
It’s almost Halloween and time for a little spookiness. I wrote a novella a few years ago that was set in Vermont during the fall at a quaint inn. Penny is running away from something or maybe running to something else. Time will tell. But even a witch needs a little advice now and then.
Yesterday was full of fun! I started the morning with a workshop hosted by the Enid Writers Club. We had 3 dynamic speakers: Stephen Jones, John T. Biggs, and Rilla Askew. There were about 35 people in attendance at St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church and we enjoyed the intimate setting. I met some new people and as always gathered some new ideas.
Happy fall! It has finally cooled off in Oklahoma and we are hoping for some rain. But the temperatures are wonderful. Sweater weather has arrived.
I did a girl thing this week—a mother/daughter/cousin thing. And we had so much fun! My daughter and I flew to Oakland, California and stayed at my cousin’s daughter’s (would she be a cousin or second cousin?) house and then drove to Sonoma, California for wine tasting. We had a darling Airbnb and shopped, tasted wine, and ate fabulous food. The youngest of the bunch did the driving in California and we saw San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge from a distance. We toured the Jack London home/museum and his surrounding ranch. We sampled wine from exquisite cellars. My cousin and daughter might or might not have gotten lost in a hedge maze. (We could hear them giggling so we knew they would eventually come back.)
When my first child was two years old, I enrolled in a yoga class at the local church. They had continuing education classes and that seemed like a good idea for a stressed-out mother of a two-year-old. And I loved it. It gave me stress relief and I soon found out it also enhanced my strength. I had never been an athlete, but I soon learned how much better I felt when I exercised.
The air went from crisp to heat again this week. Thursday is the first day of fall and someone needs to tell the Oklahoma weather. I wrote about how cool it was last week, and of course we’re back to heat again.
On October 15, in Enid, Oklahoma, the Enid Writers Club will host 100 Years of Writing a day-long workshop held at St. Matthews Episcopal Church featuring three very different writers. There will be something for everyone.
Today is a somber day, 9/11 or September 11, Patriots Day. I thought about reminiscing about that horrible day but decided to go with something a little more upbeat.
I told you last week that my writing club will soon be celebrating 100 years of writing. And we’re doing a few things leading up to that day.
Peggy Chambers "Views from the Hammock" site 