Author Spotlight - Excerpt from: Guilia Goes to War

Thanks so much for supporting Joan during her week in the spotlight. Enjoy this excerpt from Guilia Goes to War.

Moderator Steph

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Anna Maria DeBartolo shook her graying head as she marched up and down in the small space in front of the kitchen sink. "I am a loyal American. We have a Victory Garden. I send my cans to the surplus drive." With the wooden spoon she held in her hand, she gestured toward the front of the house and the dining room window facing Main Street and continued, "I have two blue stars in the window -- both of your brothers are serving or did you forget, Giulia? We are with the war effort so you working here, in your Papa's store, is helping the war effort."

With each word, Mama's voice got louder and louder, almost drowning out the music
signaling the ending moments of the Stella Dallas radio program.

Giulia, her daughter, ran a hand over her own dark hair. She hoped no one was walking
past the house. Whenever Mama shouted, Giulia worried the neighbors would hear her through the open windows. A light breeze ruffled the kitchen curtains, but did nothing to cool down her mother. Giulia tried to keep her own voice calm, even, and respectful as she answered. She wanted to be rational and build a good case for leaving Avocatown to work for the war effort in Pittsburgh or Washington, DC.

"Mama, I don't do anything that really matters at the store. Nothing I do is anything you and Papa couldn't do without me. They need people in the offices and factories in Pittsburgh and Washington, DC. Most of my high school friends, almost the entire class of 1942 left right after graduation and I could live with some of them in either city."

"No! E una disgrazia!"

As soon as her mother switched completely to Italian, Giulia knew that her logical
argument had not worked. When Mama got really upset, her voice became more and more heavily accented, as well as louder. At the peak of stubborn insistence, Mama switched entirely from English to her native Italian. Papa was the same way, although his fuse was shorter, so his timeline from hot and heavily accented English to full Italian was much quicker.

"Mama, it is not a disgrace to live with other girls in Washington or Pittsburgh if I am living there to help the war effort. Besides, I would only live with girls whose parents you know."


So, the story starts out with Giulia and her mother clashing over the modern world that Giulia wants to be a part of and the old world that is all her mother knows. The mother-daughter battle is a "war" most of us understand and many of us have experienced! The spies and boys come later!

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JOAN'S GIVEAWAY:

You can win a free copy of the book, Giulia Goes to War, by signing up to follow my blog and leaving your email in the comment section. You can find my blog at www.joanleotta.wordpress.com. I look forward to hearing from you and hope you win!

Author Spotlight - An interview with "Gina" from Guilia Goes to War

Question: Gina, you are the youngest of four children. Do you find that gives you a special place in the family?

Yes, of course. Italian families of that era, in general, gave boys more freedom than girls. My two older brothers, not seen much in the book, have a lot of freedoms that Giulia and I do not experience. As the oldest daughter, Giulia bears the brunt of all of the old world protective ideas our parents want to use in rearing us. Of course I support her efforts at independence--it makes it easier for me.

Question: You have red hair and so does your cousin Carmie. DO many Italian Americans have red hair?

Well, in the writer's family there are redheads--a long line of them descending from the grandfather on one side--and they are from the Naples area. Many Italian red-heads hail from Venice, but there is a large pocket near the Naples -Salerno area too. The author's mother was a green-eyed red head and all Italian.

Question: Does it bother you that Giulia seems to confide mostly in cousin Carmie instead of you?

She addresses that in the book--after all, Carmie is her exact age and I love her too. But as I get older, both Carmie and Giulia become closer to me. In fact, in Letters From Korea, I go and live with Carmie in Pittsburgh. Don’t forget, she is another red-head!


Question: A bit about the author and her writing habits

As a spoken word artist, story performer, I am on stage with original retellings of folk and fairy tales and one-woman shows that illustrate the lives of famous and regular people from various eras in American history.

Over the years, my writing has concentrated primarily in non-fiction to supplement our family income and fill my need, yes, need, to write. I write to explore ideas and learn about things that interest me and I write to entertain and edify.

I want people to laugh and learn when they see me onstage or when they read something I write. My "motto" is "Encouraging words through pen and performance."

With the series, Legacy of Honor, " I hope to illustrate the lives of ordinary people on the home front during various periods of American History--World War Two (Giulia Goes to War), Letters from Korea (The Korean War), and the last two (as yet untitled) will deal with Vietnam and Desert Storm. In each I hope to tell a love story between a man and young woman and show the young woman's road to independence and self discovery in a period of change in our history. For example, Giulia is one of the many young women who left home and went to work in a man's domain. She faced opposition from family not only in her relationship with someone from outside of her own ethnic group, but also as a girl who was in the workforce and living away from home.

We will see in the second book that her struggles paved the way for her younger sister to move more freely into the workforce. Of course, Gina will face other struggles in the early 1950s.

I like to add real incidents into all of my writing. History is a great interest of mine, and several of my short stories have won awards from the Lower Cape Fear Historical Society. Most of the details about each period are real. If my fiction deviates from reality, I note those deviations in the forward.

So, if you like light and sweet romance possibly with a bit of mystery, set in the latter half of the twentieth century, read Giulia Goes to War and get ready to read the others in the Legacy of Honor series.

Find Joan at:
www.joanleotta.com
Blog: www.joanleotta.wordpress.com
www.joanleotta.blogspot.com

Author Spotlight - Joan Leotta talks about researching "Guilia Goes to War"

Finding out about life during WWII was a labor of love since I love doing historical research.

The work for this novel is a bit different than for others since this one began as a short story. Y friend's actual event that inspired this was in the 50s. I set it during WWII(the short story) to honor the men and women of that era. My own Dad was a WWII veteran. I love the hairstyles, clothes and music of that era. I watched a lot of WWII era movies. To get the flavor of the era, I listened to radio shows at the Library of Congress a few years ago--that research was for another pieces of writing--a performance piece that I have given at several museums and other venues about life on the home front. So, I was ready with a file of information about life on the home front.

The internet was king for additional research since I now live in a rural area but I have made good use of memories of friends and relatives and local newspapers for Wilmington, NC . I also consulted several books on the war and mined the real experiences of people like my 92 year old aunt who told me some stories about sugar. I used the mock apple pie recipe that I found in one of her old books of clippings of recipes from the newspaper in other stories. I found it again on the internet and adapted that newer copy to this book. The recipe will appear in Desert Breeze's cookbook.

The spy story is my imagination inspired by stories of real life sightings of Nazi subs off the coast of NC during the war. Wilmington shipyard scenes were developed from historical research as were the scenes of rooming houses, and Castle Hayne.
The array of family relationships presented in the story may seem confusing at first but they were added into the original story for two reasons--to provide more depth for Giulia and her relationship with John and to introduce us to family members who will have starring roles in the other three novels planned for the series. The second one, already in progress, Letters from Korea "stars" Giulia's sister, Gina.

Find Joan at:
www.joanleotta.com
Blog: www.joanleotta.wordpress.com
www.joanleotta.blogspot.com

Author Spotlight - How Joan Leotta finds inspiration

Writers are often asked--where do you get your ideas. I am always puzzled by that question since ideas come from everywhere. It is simply a matter of looking and listening to the world around us and often , expanding those real observations into a story by asking the question, "What if?"

The initial inspiration for story came from a friend, Julia. She is Italian -American but spells her name the American way. She is younger then my heroine would be today. My friend, Julia was only a child during the war, not a teen.

But my friend did leave home (although later, in the 1950s) to go and work in a larger city where she met and fell in love with a non-Italian. She had to go back to her hometown from the big city where she was working (Washington DC, not Wilmington NC as in the book) and then, after dealing with parental objections, returned to DC to marry John, her sweetheart. The scene that set my imagination working was her description of John meeting her at the train station and sweeping her off the steps of the train onto the platform with a kiss. Yep, the most romantic scene in the book! And it was real! My friends are happily married and gave their permission for me to use their story as part of my book.

For this particular book, the scene in which John twirls Giulia around as she alights from the train was the inspiration for the entire book--and it is a true incident from the life of a friend. Sometimes an article, a photo, an object inspire me. I like to look at something or think about something that was said to me and ask myself "what if????" and that is how I expand the simple thought into a story idea and then an entire story or a novel.

Of course, inspiration is only a small percentage of the process of developing a book. For historical fiction, research is a good fifty-seventy-five percent and the rest is development of the characters and plotting.

Characters play an especially big part in a romance because you want the readers to like the main characters and root for them to get together as they face the various obstacles, I thrown in the path of their love. My daughter is my best sounding board for the plotting. She is an avid reader and loves to help.

Find Joan at:
www.joanleotta.com
Blog: www.joanleotta.wordpress.com
www.joanleotta.blogspot.com

Author Spotlight - Q&A with Joan Leotta

STEPH: TOday we have a Q and A with Desert Breeze Publishing Author Joan Leotta
Her first book with Desert Breeze came out on July 1.

The title is Giulia Goes to War. You can learn a little more about it on Joan's Facebook page.

https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Joan-Leotta-Author-and-Story-Performer/188479350973
It would be a great help to her if you could give it a "like" while you are there.

Here is my interview with Joan:

STEPH: I don't Know much about Giulia Goes to War--what is it about?

JOAN: The novel is set in World War Two and is a romance, a bit of a spy story and the tale of a young girl setting out to find her way, honoring her parents, but also finding her own self and independence.


STEPH: How long did it take you to write?

JOAN: This one is hard to judge. It was a short story that became a book so I had a lot of research done and simply expanded the descriptions of characters, added characters, and gave full play to themes I had to shorten in the brief version.

STEPH: How much research did you have to do?

JOAN: Probably more than necessary! I am an obsessive researcher. Need to stop myself sometimes. I read a lot about the era I am writing about, research various topics that will be included in the book, and study any documents I can about individuals in that time period.

STEPH: How does the cover reflect the story within?

JOAN: My cover artist, Gwen Phifer, of Desert Breeze, did a marvelous job. She found a photo of a young woman who IS Giulia--and set her face into a train window. Everyone who has seen the cover loves it and marvels over how it captures the essence of the book. Giulia is looking forward with fear and anticipation to her work for the war, leaving home for the first time and the future she will face.

STEPH: Describe the heroine.

JOAN: Giulia is the heroine. You can see what she looks like by taking a look at the book cover. She is strong and intelligent, independent and resourceful but still a bit too dependent on tradition and worried about what others think about her.

STEPH: What does the hero like about her?

JOAN: The hero, John, finds her attractive because of her intelligence and love of family. Of course, he does not miss that she is lovely as well!

STEPH: What is the theme of the novel?

JOAN: Independence and honor. (Two themes) The book explores girls going to work in what was a man's world and also the issue of people marrying outside of their ethnic groups--something which began to happen in America during and after WWII to a much greater degree than before.

STEPH: As a writer, where do you draw inspiration from?

JOAN: From my own life, my family history, stories friends tell me, historical research, the beauty and majesty of place, and objects. Yep, quote a few of my stories are built around my curiosity about an object or tell the story of how a group or person or event is influenced by food. I am also a food and travel writer and general topic journalist.

STEPH: Do you have an e-book reader?

JOAN: Indeed I do--a Nook.

STEPH: What is your favorite summertime fruit?

JOAN: That is a hard one because I love fruit!!!! Summer is a procession of fruits--late spring is strawberries, then blueberries open the summer season followed by peaches, peaches and more peaches. Elderberries and blackberries come in there but it is peaches that dominate the summer for me, along with melons (cantaloupe and honeydew and watermelon) but I guess I have to go with peaches. There is a farm fruit stand nearby and each week she brings a different kind of peaches to the stand. One year I wrote down the names of each kind and rated them for myself.

I do prefer freestone, but any kind is great. Mostly I eat them plain, but I do make pies, cobblers, jumbles and even savory dishes with peaches. My husband and I have a favorite memory of our first trip to Italy together than involves peaches, My favorite Garcia Lorca poem involves peaches and I have written several pieces of poetry about my grandmother's peach tree and my daughter's August birth, in the height of peach season. Hmm, I guess I should not even have bothered to mention the other fruits. Peaches do seem to take the cake ( served along with peach ice cream, of course!)

Find Joan at:
www.joanleotta.com
Blog: www.joanleotta.wordpress.com
www.joanleotta.blogspot.com