Author Spotlight week -Excerpt from Firesong

After Tommy finished his routine, amid waves of laughter, the music resumed and couples moved out onto the floor to try a few waltzes and slow dances. Dani sighed. It would be nice to dance, she admitted, but she didn't know how. She had hated square dancing in elementary school gym class, because back then boys were icky. Ever since then, she had been too busy. Besides, why need to know how to dance when she never went anywhere, never did anything, never dated?

Tom came over and claimed his wife, promising her she was safe, because how could anyone, even the inexperienced, mess up a slow waltz? Stephanie laughed and let him lead her away, in her stocking feet. Xander came over to claim Hannah -- saying they had to practice for their own wedding, if she would ever set a date. To which she retorted that he hadn't put a ring on her finger yet, and he still had two months to go on their agreement. Dani didn't think she wanted to know what agreement they were talking about, but it was nice to know Xander and Hannah were thinking marriage. Two people who looked as in love as they did had to eventually get married, didn't they? Jeannette and Claire took BJ out with them and made a trio, spinning slowly around in a corner, out of everyone's way. The little boy laughed, black curly head tilted back, mouth wide in a bright grin that made everyone else in the room smile too.

BJ put an aching hunger inside Dani's heart, sometimes. Jeannette had been widowed just after she found out she was pregnant. The thought of having a little boy like BJ made Dani wish she could have it all -- and vow never to have children, because the life of a musician meant too much time away from home. Thinking about Jeannette's estrangement from her vicious in-laws had long ago prompted Dani to vow she would never marry unless the man was an orphan.

Or he had really great relatives. Like Kurt did.
Stop that! she scolded herself.

"So this is where you've been hiding," Kurt said from behind her.

Dani glanced up at him, then around the table. Her face burned when she realized how stupid that was -- she was alone.
"Don't give me that innocent look. You've been hiding from me all day, haven't you? Don't you know it's tradition for the bride's cousin to dance with the maid of honor?" He held out his hand. Dani shrank back in her chair, making it creak.

"I can't dance -- I never learned how -- I'm clumsy."

"I've seen you on stage, Dani. You're not clumsy," he said, his voice thickening with a warmth that made her face hotter.
Dani was very glad there was no one else there to hear that particular note in his voice, or see her reaction. For several seconds, she could only stare into his warm, deep eyes. She had to clutch at the seat of her chair to fight a momentary sensation of falling. Falling into his eyes?

That idea created an oddly compelling, yet ridiculous image in her mind. Smiling, she shook her head.

"Come on." Kurt grinned, breaking the spell he had cast over her. "I mean, you've never fallen off, right? Let me teach you. Just one song." He moved closer, his hand only inches from her face, and Dani knew he wasn't going to leave until she relented or she gave him a good reason why she wouldn't dance with him.

"How would it look--"

"I already talked to Pastor Glenn. Special dispensation. Once a year deal." He gestured across the room to the table where Pastor Glenn and Rita sat chatting with Stephanie's parents. Dani glanced their way unwillingly. Pastor Glenn looked over at them at that precise moment. He waved to her -- and winked.
"But--"
"We'll go outside, okay? We can still hear the music with the windows open, but nobody'll see you."

"It's raining." She smiled as she said it, somehow knowing Kurt wouldn't let something like rain stop him.

"I happen to know there's one humongous porch out there, with plenty of room and no witnesses. Now, are you coming or do I throw you over my shoulder and carry you outside, kicking and screaming?"

"Cave man," Dani muttered. She leaped to her feet -- then snatched up her discarded slippers when Kurt reached for her hand. He muttered under his breath, but the scowl he wore as he herded her toward the door couldn't hide the sparkle in his eyes.
The chairs on the porch were all pushed up against the wall and stacked, leaving plenty of room on the redwood-stained boards. Dani sighed and looked around and considered for several seconds the damage to her bridesmaid dress if she made a dash through the raindrops to the front door, around the other side of the building. She grinned and shook her head, and knew Kurt wouldn't give up that easily.

Besides, she really did want to know what it would be like to dance with someone, period. The fact that it was Kurt Green didn't have anything to do with it. She hoped.

"When I stomp all over your feet, don't say I didn't warn you," she said, when he took hold of both her hands and backed her into the cleared center of the porch.

In response, the rain drummed harder on the roof. They could barely hear the music coming through the open windows in the reception hall.

"I've seen you on stage, Dani. You can dance just fine." That note of rough warmth returned to his voice.

"You've seen -- you've really watched me?" The dropping sensation in her stomach was pleasant, yet terrifying.

Kurt just smiled a little wider and nodded. He adjusted his hands, holding hers so their fingers were interlaced. She flinched a little when an electric sensation ran up her spine at the innocent yet intimate touch.

They danced that way, slowly turning around the porch floor, with six inches of empty air between their bodies. Dani found it hard to find some place to focus her eyes. Kurt's chin and lips were on the level with her eyes and looking at that soft, satisfied, slightly smirking smile made her sway between laughter and discomfort. She knew his lips would be warm and soft -- but there was no way she would ever let him kiss her.

Would Kurt want to?
No. We haven't even gone on a date yet.
Not that she had ever let him take her out.
This is a test, right, Lord?

Dani focused her gaze on Kurt's shoulder, just the right height to rest her head. But when would she ever get a chance?
Stop it! she scolded herself. She flinched back a little, and Kurt let her move away without letting go of her hands. That made it easier to look into his eyes. The laughter had faded, though he still smiled. That warmth, that glow she had seen during her walk down the aisle, filled his gaze now, and Dani felt her knees starting to get wobbly.

The funny thing was, she liked it.

Author Spotlight Week - Michelle Levigne shares her favorite 80's TV show

You honestly expect me to remember back that far?

Ugh!

Let's see, M*A*S*H went off the air when I was in college, and that was '83, so .... There were so many I liked, but they would die after one season -- I sometimes felt like a jinx, you know? If I loved a show, it was bound to die!

I'm going to have to say Stingray, just because it's one show that when it came out on DVD, I actually bought it. Of course, it's been sitting on my desk, waiting to be watched for ... not going to say how long. Essentially, Ray is a man of mystery, no known background, man of many faces, who moves around helping the downtrodden and helpless in exchange for "favors" -- when he needs their special talent to help someone else, they have to repay the favor. And he's Italian, wears a black leather jacket, and drives a vintage black Stingray. How can you miss?!?!?!

I have to admit that the Stingray influence has pervaded a number of my books. I have a humorous romantic suspense series with another publisher that can be directly attributed to a Stingray fanzine story I wrote. The characters would not die, and they launched a whole story line.

Author Spotlight Week - Michelle Levigne shares her passion for Inspirationals/Contemporaries

Hmmmm, more along the lines of I had these people and places in my head and they wouldn't shut up until I wrote them down! Then I kind of got hooked on them, and of course, when you create a place that starts to feel real, you meet other people inhabiting this place and they have friends, and you start putting together more stories, imagining other things happening in other lives. Kind of a geometric progression. Or maybe it's more along the lines of a batch of sourdough that just keeps growing, and growing, and growing, and ....

I like the chance to work out questions and issues, and have my characters do some things that I would like to try, or never got to do -- like Dani being in a real, functioning CCM band. The closest I ever got to having a singing group was a youth ensemble in high school at church, school choir, and the traveling choir with CBNU.

Author Spotlight week -Q&A with Michelle Levigne

STEPH: I don't know much about Firesong. What's it about?

MICHELLE: Firesong is a contemporary Christian band, started by cousins -- the Gibson brothers and their cousins, Andy and Dani Paul. Dani is the heroine. She's chosen music and her ministry over marriage, and honestly believes that's where God has called her. Then Kurt Green comes back to town, to prepare for a crusade taking place that summer, and also for the wedding of his cousin Katie, to Andy Paul. Katie also happens to be Dani's best friend. Kurt is also of the persuasion that marriage isn't for him -- mostly because a girl at crusade headquarters is doggedly pursuing him, to get him to trade in his life on the road for 9-5 domestication. Then Kurt sees Dani singing and remembers the feisty girl he knew 9 years ago, and realizes she's the perfect partner, in ministry and marriage -- but how does he persuade her of that?

STEPH: Where did the inspiration come from?

MICHELLE: Honestly, I can't remember. But I do know that for a long time, in junior high and senior high, I wanted to be in a traveling singing group. I had my records that I would sing along with constantly, and I tried writing music, and my friend Lynn and I invested in songbooks and would try to create harmony and ... somewhere along the way, we got distracted with life and college and dating and ... Then I was in the first choir at CBN University, and we had a week-long tour, which was fine, but I realized I did NOT like life on the road, a different bed every night, and spending long hours on the bus.

STEPH: How long did it take you to write?

MICHELLE: Years. Remember, all my Tabor Heights books (so far, anyway) have been rough drafted for years, sitting in my files, and every once in a while I take them out and revise, then put them away. I think Firesong was probably only in the second or third draft when I took it out to revise and polish for publication at DBP.

STEPH: What's your writing space like?


MICHELLE: I'm lucky -- I have what used to be my bedroom, in our finished basement. I have lots of space for bookshelves and inspirational/writing posters, and big maps I've created of the various towns or countries I'm writing in. I have this big sheet of spaces marked off by hexagons, with graphics of planets and "space events" that I created when I was making a game to tie into my SF universe, the Commonwealth. It kind of stalled out after the first test run of playing. Needs lots of work! I usually have a couple projects scattered on the floor, being sorted or organized. I have a drafting table I inherited from my father, that my "working" computer sits on, with notebooks and DVDs waiting to be watched, snacks, pens, tea mug. Then on the other wall directly behind me, I have my computer desk, with my old desktop computer -- I mostly use it for my bookkeeping for my editing business and the files for my web site. And tucked in among the bookshelves, which stick out into the room in little islands because I ran out of wall space, is a NordicTrack, to try to get at least one session of exercise in every day. I emphasize "try."

STEPH: If you could cast the movie, who would play the leads?

MICHELLE: You know, I never honestly thought about it.
If I could use a time machine .... maybe Antonio Sabato Jr. when he was in Earth 2, to play Kurt. And Amy Grant when she was in college -- and dye her hair of course. Or maybe Rebecca St. James -- she's getting into acting now, I've heard.

STEPH: Do you have an ebook reader? Which one?

MICHELLE: Palm Tungsten -- it still works, after taking a "sabbatical" for about 9 months. It died on me, just froze up, wouldn't let me access the screen, about 2 days before my Nook showed up. Now it works fine and I'm still reading on it, when I think about it. I have it open to the movie novelization of Serenity right now.

Nook -- I've had it for a year. A little peeved with it right now. It won't acknowledge all the books I loaded onto it in the My Documents folder -- it will only show me the books I bought from B&N. The thing is, it used to let me load other books onto it, until the last software upgrade. I'll figure it out. Eventually.

And of course, my iPod Touch. Love it. I actually have 6 e-reader programs loaded on it -- Kindle, Stanza, Ereader, Nook, Kobo, and iBooks. Plus I have Docs to Go, which lets me read PDFs. You know how convenient it is to have it in your pocket, and you're standing in line at the PO or somewhere, and you can pull it out and read without having to wait for it to boot up like the Nook and other proprietary readers? The only downside is the 3-hour battery life, say if I was on a plane or stuck somewhere with no access to electrical power to recharge ..... *sigh*

STEPH: How long have you been writing?

MICHELLE: Seriously writing for publication? Since my sophomore year of high school. Let's leave it at 30+ years, okay?
I was dabbling with stories and ideas and daydreaming for years before that, but never finished anything until then.

STEPH: What's the latest book you read?

MICHELLE: Carpe Demon, by Julie Kenner. Kind of a "Buffy retired, got married, had kids, and now she's been called back into action" kind of story. I think the sub-title is something like "confessions of a demon-hunting soccer mom." Told in first person. Actually, I had this one on my Palm, and stopped reading it about halfway through when my Palm died, then loaded it on my Nook, got distracted by lots of other projects and books, and finally opened it up and finished it. I loved Kenner's Aphrodite books, so I figured this would be fun, too. And it was.

STEPH:Fun question: Which country would you like to visit that you haven't yet?

MICHELLE: Toss-up between England -- to see where C.S. Lewis lived -- and Greece, most specifically, the area where Ithaca probably was. I wrote a book some years ago about Penelope's side of the Odyssey, and I'd love to walk Ithaca and see if I imagined the setting anywhere close to the "reality" that the people listening to Homer tell the poem would have known.