Interview with Erin Rainwater

» Posted on Jul 30, 2010 in Blog | Comments Off on Interview with Erin Rainwater


This week I’m hosting Merrillee Whren with Hometown Proposal, Grace Bridges with Legendary Space Pilgrims and Erin Rainwater with Refining Fires. If you want to enter the drawings, please leave a comment on one of the post during the week with your email address. I will not enter you without an email address (my way to contact you if you win). If you don’t want to leave an email address, another way you can enter is to email me at margaretdaley@gmail.com. The drawings end Sunday (August 1st) evening.

Interview with Erin Rainwater:

1.How long have you been writing? When did you sell your first book?
If you count the “book” a girlfriend and I wrote in grade school, much of which was shamelessly plagiarized from the movie “The Parent Trap” and from the “Black Stallion” book series, you could say I started then. But in reality I began writing about twenty-five years ago after getting back into the love of reading fiction, some of which was really good, and some of which was really bad. I didn’t write to sell at first, but then decided I would try to publish because I believed my stories had true and lasting merit, and that God would eventually bless it. Eventually became the key word, and it wasn’t until 2006 that I published my first two historical love stories, and now in 2010 that I contracted with a traditional publisher for my new novel, Refining Fires.

2.How do you handle rejections?
Much better than I used to, because over time my faith and trust in God’s will for me has grown so much. Not just in writing but in every aspect of my life. I’m not nearly so anxious about rejections, nor do I take them as personally. Not to say I don’t feel that awful pang of being rejected, because I do. But I more easily revert back to seeing everything as having gone through the hands of God, and seeking what He’d have me do next rather than obsessing over “what went wrong?”

3. What are you working on right now?
Collaborating with a theater producer who is turning a scene from my Civil War love story, True Colors, into a play for a showing this fall in Pittsburgh.

4. Do you put yourself into your books/characters?
If you mean do they have elements of autobiography in them, there is a touch of me and my experiences in them. It’s limited, though. More importantly, I definitely am on-scene as I write, watching as the story unfolds, sometimes as I planned it, sometimes not. I can’t imagine trying to tell a story without “being there” myself to witness it.

5. Tell us about the book you have out right now.
Refining Fires is genuinely distinctive in that it’s divided into three parts, each with it’s own protagonist but whose paths cross by God’s weaving hands. In the first
story, “Refining Fire,” a former Army nurse is forced by circumstances to work for a disfigured and bitter veteran.

The refining of this man is no easy task, but God is no quitter, and neither is the heroine in this romantic tale. Her determined efforts elicit renewed life from his body while evoking a raw yearning in his soul. Next you’ll meet a young girl who must delve into the deepest reaches of her soul to find the “Blind Courage” needed to face overwhelming odds if she is to save her mother’s life. Lastly, a “Kept Woman” must decide between following through on her plan for self-destruction or heeding the words of a lost love regarding just “who” has been keeping her all along.

I quote the prophet Isaiah who wrote these words: “Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tested you in the furnace of affliction.” Each of these characters undergoes a refining process in their own personal furnace of affliction. As their paths cross and their lives intertwine throughout these stories, God’s loving hand is evident, providing the courage and tools each needs to persevere, achieve victory,
and come out refined.

6. How important is faith in your books?
Very important, but not necessarily overt. I write from a Biblical Christian world view, of course, and that comes through in my stories. But only in this latest work is there what might be considered a salvation message, and it is truly born from the story, not contrived or forced into it.

7. What themes do you like to write about?
My first two novels contain the theme of Perseverance in trials. The characters in Refining Firesalso undergo Redemption in one form or another. Those are my two favorite themes to read about in any story in any genre.

8. What is your favorite book you’ve written and why?
I honestly don’t have a favorite—and it’s not because it would be like choosing a favorite child. Since I only write when I feel the passion inside me for a story that simply must come out, none of them were written for the sake of a contract or under deadline. All came from deep within my soul, and they are all equal in my eyes.