Author Bio:
Teresa Keefer is a self-published author by night and a ‘temporarily retired’ human resource professional during the day. Her primary interest is romantic fiction; however, she has been known to dabble in other genres when the mood strikes her. Being an avid reader of everything from non-fiction to horror to romance and erotica since she was young, her dream of becoming a published author herself became a reality in 2013 when she published a contemporary romance she completed in 2007. She is a current member of Romance Writers of America as well as the Indiana Chapter of RWA.
Coming Home was released in February 2013 through Amazon’s Create Space and Kindle Direct Publishing. Blood Vengeance-Book 1 Vengeance Trilogy was completed and released by the same platforms in July 2013 with the subsequent books due to release in 2014. On Valentine’s Day 2014 she released her second contemporary romance Yesterday’s Promises. She also has written several short stories and essays as well as poetry which may be found on www.fanstory.com.
First-hand experience breathes life into her stories because they are set in places that she has visited. Coming Home is set in the beautiful, peaceful Smoky Mountain area of East Tennessee, which is her favorite place to relax. Blood Vengeance is set in the steamy, seductive New Orleans, a place where she and her daughters visited and to which she hopes to return. We should also watch for locations such as Las Vegas, New York City, Washington D.C. as well as some fictional locations that she has created in her own mind. She says that if she is able to start working on her bucket list soon, there will also be a visit to Ireland and hopefully a story from there too. Her favorite author saying is ‘be careful what you say or do…you might end up in my next novel’. Not to say that her fictional characters bear any resemblance to actual people, living or deceased. Readers have said things like ‘she pulls at the heartstrings’ and ‘she makes you feel like you are right there’ when reviewing her books. She says between book ideas that are fed to her by friends, her own imagination is continually coming up with new book ideas and she has no less than three works in process at a time.
Teresa is a lifelong Indiana resident living in a rural community in the east central portion of the state. As a single mother of three daughters, she returned to college as an adult and earned an MBA from Indiana Institute of Technology. Teresa has spent over 25 years in the human resource profession and has often threatened to write a humorous depiction of life in the human resource profession. Oh, the stories she could tell! She has been known to debate political and social issues with passion and generally does not back down, sometimes resorting to dry sarcasm to prove a point. In addition to spending time with her daughters and grandchildren she has a lot of other interests that compete for her time such as cooking, sewing, gardening, crafting, studying spiritualism, and traveling.
What inspires you to write?
I am inspired by so many things…country songs…being outside in the woods…something I’ve dreamed in a dream or nightmare…suggestions from friends…my family…
Tell us about your writing process.
I am definitely not a planner or outliner! I write when an idea hits me and I keep writing until I have another idea which leads to a lot of WIPs for me! Now, I have found that because of the way that I write…jumping back and forth as new ideas come up…I am going to have to keep a log of the characters and places that I have included in a book. I am thinking of using an excel spreadsheet to do this and just create a tab for each WIP. I don’t like working in my home office at my desk so a whiteboard would definitely not do it for me…I’d forget to update it!
For Fiction Writers: Do you listen (or talk to) to your characters?
I think that I communicate with my characters more through my mind…mostly because if I talked out loud my dog would be up in my face thinking I was talking to him! I try to ‘make’ myself into the characters and write from their perspective so you will seldom see a male character portrayed as some wimpy whipped guy because that’s just not realistic…and if it is realistic then it wouldn’t appeal to me. So I guess you could say I ‘become’ the character in my mind when I am writing from their POV.
What advice would you give other writers?
Don’t give up…if you feel like you have a good story to tell and it’s written well then someone is going to like it. Don’t write to get rich financially…write to get personally enriched…do what makes your soul grow wings and soar regardless of whether you can make a living at it!
How did you decide how to publish your books?
After a bunch of rejection letters from publishers and agents after I finished my first book Coming Home, I set it aside for a few years..six to be exact…and I did some inquiries to vanity publishing houses but felt that they were awfully pushy. And in my eyes pushy means that they are only there to make money…whether it is from you in the way of fees or a share of the royalties. Then I did some research on self publishing and decided to give it a try. I would always suggest that an author continue to try to submit their manuscripts/queries to publishers and agents just because they are able to market your book in ways that you may not necessarily be able to but in the meantime…if they want to seriously get their book out there then go the self publishing route.
What do you think about the future of book publishing?
I think that overall the publishing industry is not really going to be affected by the ease in which an author is able to self publish. There are those established authors that have no desire to do their own marketing and there are some new authors who probably feel the same. Even though ebooks are really popular there are still going to be those die hard readers such as myself that still likes to hold onto a paperback or hard back and be able to stick it on a shelf in their personal library. As far as the ease of self publishing, it’s great, but it will be the really great authors who know that what they write is good to stay in for the long haul and do the marketing necessary to get their name out there.
What do you use?
Beta Readers
What genres do you write?
paranormal and contemporary romance, erotica, psychological thriller
What formats are your books in?
Both eBook and Print
Website(s)
Link To Teresa Keefer Page On Amazon
Your Social Media Links
http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7192736.Teresa_Keefer
http://www.facebook.com/TeresaAKeefer
