This Author Spotlight was originally posted on March 29, 2019.
Annie’s Book Stop of Worcester is thrilled to shine our Friday spotlight on author Debbie Macomber, who is one of today’s leading voices in women’s fiction. Debbie is a regular on every major bestseller list, with more than 200 million copies of her books in print. Her novels have spent over 1000 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. Debbie celebrated her thirty-fifth year of publishing last year, as well as her fiftieth wedding anniversary.
Debbie loves to read, cook, knit, cheer on her beloved Seahawks team, and dote on her eleven grandchildren. She lives in Port Orchard, Washington with her husband, Wayne, and her writing partner, Bogie.
We really appreciate your taking the time to answer these questions for us, Debbie. The first one is, where can people find your work? (Besides Annie’s Book Stop of Worcester –though they should totally check here first!)
The best place would be my website. You can find information about my books, follow my blog, and find links to all my social channels.
How can we follow your work and share your awesomeness?
In addition to visiting my website, you can join my newsletter or my Facebook group We Read Debbie Macomber.
What was the inspiration for Be a Blessing: A Journal for Cultivating Kindness, Joy and Inspiration? What were the steps you took to bring it from initial inspiration to the finished book?
Be a Blessing: A Journal for Cultivating Kindness, Joy and Inspiration is releasing April 2nd. I have journaled my entire life and have reaped the rewards from this daily discipline. My hope is that by creating this journal others will see the benefits of putting a pen to paper and taking a thoughtful look at their life in a way they may have never done before.
What piece of advice would you want to share with other writers?
Just keep writing and don’t give up. It took me five years to get published, during those five years, I got rejected more times than I can count.
What is/are your passions when you’re not writing? How do you make time for your non-writing hobbies/things you love?
I make time for other passions by maintaining my writing schedule. My writing schedule consists of setting page goals for my self every day. I do my very best to maintain this schedule and hit my deadlines. This allows me more freedom to travel with my husband, Wayne, spend time with my kids and grandkids, and of course, knit!
While you’re writing, do you prefer music, silence, other? Please elaborate!
I prefer silence, however, I realized I often am not silent. I hum when I write dialogue. Several years back, I was writing in my shared office space with Wayne and he asked me, “What are you writing?” I replied, “Dialogue. Why?” He said, “Well you’re humming.” To which I wasn’t aware. It was something I realized that day that I did in fact hum during this process.
Writers very often have furry or feathered or otherwise non-human companions to “help” them through their work. Do you? What do you have? How do they “help” (or, “not-help”) with your writing?
Bogie is my furry writing companion. I would say his biggest help to me is keeping my lap warm and my heart full.
Debbie, again, thanks for taking time out of your busy schedule to answer our questions! As you know, we are having a “Debbie Macomber Week” from March 30th to April 6th here at Annie’s Book Stop of Worcester, since so many of our customers read your books. We hope that you might consider stopping at our store on one of your tours sometime in the future!
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