Barbara Hancock has learned that when it comes to creating fantasy fiction, things are better when she lets her imagination run wild.
Or as she said, laughing, “Go ahead, write the magic mouse!”
Because she let the magic out of the mouse cage, so to speak, the author of Ferrum is about to embark on a whole new phase of her career, backed by a major publisher, writing in a new genre. , using a new name.
“It’s so exciting to be a ‘new voice’ in 2021 at the age of 50,” Hancock said.
“Wildwood Whispers,” which Hancock wrote under the pseudonym Willa Reece, debuts Tuesday in hardcover, e-book and audiobook editions from Redhook, which is an imprint of the sci-fi publisher and fantasy book Orbit, which is itself an imprint of the massive publishing company Hachette Book Group, referred to in the industry as one of the “Big Four”.
Set in present-day Appalachia, “Wildwood Whispers” introduces readers to a woman named Mel, who has returned to the fictional town of Morgan’s Gap where she grew up as an adopted child, brought back by the death of another young woman. whom she considered a sister. Mel’s adventure will lead to the discovery of dark secrets and the magic of witches.
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Witches, however, are on the side of good. Hancock described her book as a realistic and magical tale of “multigenerational cottagecore witches destroying the patriarchy in their small town”.
Cottagecore, for those like me who may not be familiar, refers to a movement that emphasizes rural lifestyles and artisanal products and clothing, ironically flourishing on social media sites like Instagram and TikTok.
Hancock said “Wildwood Whispers” is “my love letter to the artists and artisans of Appalachia because it has always saved my life – artists, writers, people who make things. Basically, that makes it actually magical, and not just metaphorically magical.
Although one might call the commercial breakthrough of “Wildwood Whispers” Hancock, his writing career actually dates back more than a decade. Her previous books, released under her own name, are romance novels published by Harlequin, which is why she is publishing this new novel under a pseudonym.
Fans of Barbara J. Hancock romances who pick up her new book anticipating the same might feel misled, she explained. “There’s romance in it, and it’s still my voice,” but writing under a different name, “that way people know it’s not a romance genre,” he said. she declared – in the same way that bestselling novelist Nora Roberts produces sci-fi police. proceedings under the pen name JD Robb.
A voracious reader, Hancock grew up in Roanoke County and spent her teenage years in Franklin County, where she graduated from high school. She married Todd Hancock, now a distribution system inspector at American Electric Power, and became a stay-at-home mom raising three sons. She wrote stories to “keep my sanity when I was home with all the boys”.
She considered writing a hobby until she sold a story to Harlequin in 2008. “It made me think, oh, maybe I should take this a little more seriously! ” She sold longer and longer romances to Harlequin, all gothic flavored. She signed with an agent, Lucienne Diver, and it proved a saving grace when the paranormal romance market began to dry up.
Diver directed Hancock to works such as Asheville, North Carolina, author Sarah Addison Allen’s New York Times bestseller “Garden Spells” and Alice Hoffman’s “Practical Magic,” which inspired the cult film classic starring Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman. Diver suggested that Hancock may well be writing in this vein. Divers told him: “Your voice would be perfect for that.
In fact, Hancock was already a fan of this genre and had already written the first chapter of what became “Wildwood Whispers”. As she progressed, she sometimes worried about pushing the fancy touches too far — say, bringing a crocheted mouse charm to life — only to find that her editor wanted even more of those touches. Hence his advice to budding writers: Go ahead and write The Magic Mouse. She has already written the second book in the series, “Wildwood Magic”, although a release date has not yet been set.
“Storytelling is magic,” Hancock said. “And I tell everyone that I’m more of a storyteller than a writer because that’s just the tradition here in Appalachia and in my family. We are all storytellers.
The COVID-19 pandemic has made circumstances difficult for authors and booksellers, whether they are part of a large corporation, a small independent business or self-publishers.
Here are some unusual and interesting books with local ties that you probably haven’t heard of, especially given the climate that has halted public readings and signings and pitted word of new book releases for months and years. months of national and global earthquakes. news.
“The Lambi’s Call: Breaking the Chains” by Salem immunologist Tom Fame is a self-published account of his experiences doing missionary work in Haiti. Founder and director of the Haiti Project for Our Lady of Perpetual Help Catholic Church in Salem, Fame continued the autobiographical narrative begun in his 2008 memoir “The Call of Lambi: A Haitian Journey.” Together, the two books cover 25 years of helping in Haiti, a country that Fame describes as “not so much a problem to be solved as a journey to be traveled.”
Both books in the Fame series can be found easily on Amazon.com. These next two companies, both of which have ties to Virginia communities west of Roanoke, require a bit more effort to research.
Mary Jane Umberger, author and editor of Wytheville, “Simply Grateful…A Snapshot in Time” is a short, spiral-bound anthology that Umberger describes as an “experiment” in which “a symphony of contributors” from diverse backgrounds, ages 6-94, provide short essays and anecdotes about things they are grateful for in life. More information about “Simply Grateful” can be found at www.wythegratitude.com.
In another self-published venture, Colorado author Joel Darin Vaughan, who grew up in Fries, updated and reissued his small 2007 volume “Memories of a Generation: Along the New River in Virginia,” in which the writer remembers growing up along the New River and shares stories from his extended family history.
“Locals are hungry for local flavors from an often overlooked region,” Vaughan wrote in an email.
For more information on “Memoirs of a Generation”, send an e-mail to joelvau@hotmail.com.