Around The Fire with author Alana Lorens.

Hi, everyone! I hope you all are staying warm and safe. I'm snow-birding and writing this from Northern Florida. It still gets a bit chilly here but nothing like in NJ. Pete, my DH, and I are loving the life style of seasonal camping. He's enjoying being a KOA Work Kamper. I am settling in and working on several different projects as a stay at home dog mom. Hali is getting more spoiled if that's possible. I know I've said it before but February is coming up and I have several different exciting events in the works. Get first hand information by joining my newsletter at mailchi.mp/1172dfb299fb/d-v-stones-around-the-fire You won't be sorry.
Now without further ado please join me and my lovely guest Around The Fire

Welcome back to the Fire, Alana. While I stoke the fire and pour cups of tea for us, why don’t you start by telling us who you are behind the official bio?
After 30 years as a practicing attorney handling divorces, custody, and adoption, I’ve moved into handling drama, death, and destruction in my fiction. Clearly, it’s an improvement. 😊
A great improvement. Certainly more fun. Is that where you get your inspiration?
I draw on that history for my writing, as well as a life having raised three natural-born children, several step-children, and three adopted children who are on the autism spectrum.
Where do you call home? And what’s it like where you live?
We’ve lived from Ohio to Montana to Florida to Pennsylvania’s famous Snow Belt. In each place, I’ve tried to establish a wonderful home with a garden. I love the process of gardening, especially in the spring. Getting your hands in dirt is holy and healing.
I agree. There’s peace and sense of being part of nature when you are on your knees with your hands in the soil. What else occupies your time?
Another priority I’ve always set is travel. My kids have been all over the country and up into Canada as well. I’ve managed to steer several of those trips into research for my novels, like the 1998 Mardi Gras for Voodoo Dreams, and long weekends in Pittsburgh finding locations for the Pittsburgh Lady Lawyers, with a side order of museums and interesting restaurants for the kiddies.
We love traveling in our camper and seeing the sights. I’ve gotten inspiration as well while hiking and exploring. Alana, who is your primary support system?
I’d love to say my family is supportive of my writing. I would. But none of the kids have taken it seriously. My father thought it was a waste of time, although he did read the one Star Trek fanfic novel I wrote and said it was all right. I did have a creative bond with my last ex-husband, and he was a tremendous help in my early writing, reading, and critiquing for me. Now, I belong to two Pennwriters critique groups that are both excellent and a staple of my social life since COVID, as they take place on ZOOM. The Fellowship of the Quill in Erie, PA, has been the single most important contribution to my writing career, and I always find new reasons to be grateful for them.
I understand. Most of my family are supportive of my writing, just not reading my books. I will say my hubby does read and give me input. What about other friendships?
My social life is really limited a lot to online friends these days, as I’ve developed some chronic conditions that have severely impacted my abilities to get out and about, so I’ve cultivated these friendships and appreciate them deeply. It seems a shame to live in the Blue Ridge Mountains and not be able to get out and hike like so many do, but I live vicariously through my online friends and also the characters I create for my readers. Each one has a little bit of me, and they venture into the world at my fingertips, discovering all that lies before them.
Online friendships have indeed become important. I have two groups that Zoom and get together to chat not only about all things writing but also living. I’m glad about the technology that helps us to connect with others. Here’s a couple of quick get-to-know-you questions. Do you have a particular object like a piece of jewelry or a keepsake of some sort? Can you tell us what makes it special to you?
When I was in New Mexico, I came across a polished stone that someone had carved a spider into. As the spider is the perfect animal spirit guide for a writer, I bought it and keep it on my desk while I’m writing.
What weird talent do you have? 
I can tell when we’re going to encounter a deer in the road. Both times we’ve hit one, minutes before, I’ve said, slow down, there’s deer around without ever seeing them.
If you could eat anything in the world right now, what would it be?
Roast turkey. I know it’s boring. But it’s my favorite.
Would you rather have unlimited international first-class tickets or never have to pay for food at restaurants? 
Definitely the restaurants. Even here in Asheville, it’s the amazing choices that I feel like I’ll never get to try. Everything from Ethiopian to the usual Asian types, El Salvadoran, meat, cheese, vegetarian, vegan, coffee, tea, sipping chocolate…so many, so little time. 
Did you ever win something? What? 
I did! We were staying with a friend on the beach in Fort Pierce, Florida, and we went down to Archie’s, which is a lovely little beach bar that has Bingo games, The place was packed, and my card won $1,000!
What was your hardest scene to write?
I have a hard time writing florid sex scenes. I’m not exactly a Puritan, but I’m better at the actual doing it than describing the mechanics of it. I like to trust that my readers can imagine even better than I could describe it.
What was the best money you ever spent as a writer?
Traveling to Golden, Colorado, to take a Master Immersion writing class with Margie Lawson. A week-long chance to learn a method of editing and all the tricks and trade of literary devices to improve all forms of writing. It’s applied to every manuscript I’ve written since.
Alana, thank you so much for joining me today. It’s always a pleasure to catch up. I’d love for you to let others know more about your work and where to find you.

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​A Rose By Any Other Name
by
Alana Lorens
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8qEjPOBzds&t=3s
Up-and-coming mommyblogger and single mom Marisol Herrera Slade returns to her old hometown in western Pennsylvania for her 20th high school reunion in 2005, reluctant and yet compelled to see her high school sweetheart, Russell Asher, who dumped her for the homecoming queen.
Russell’s marriage to the golden girl, however, ended in a nasty divorce, and he has been systematically excluded from his sons’ lives. In his Internet wanderings, he’s found feminist blogger named Jerrika Jones, who glorifies single motherhood, essentially putting a stamp of approval on what’s happened to him. His group of single dad advocates have vowed to take this woman down.
What Russell doesn’t know, when he thinks to rekindle what he had with Marisol, is that Marisol and Jerrika are one and the same. When his group discovers the truth, will their drive for revenge derail any chance the couple have to reunite? Or will they find they have more in common than they ever expected?

https://www.thewildrosepress.com/book-post/a-rose-by-any-other-name
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09KQWTDPF
https://www.amazon.com/Rose-Any-Other-Name/dp/1509239294/
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/a-rose-by-any-other-name-alana-lorens/1140380664
https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/a-rose-by-any-other-name-25
https://www.walmart.com/ip/A-Rose-by-Any-Other-Name-Paperback-9781509239290/182573222

More about the Author
Author Bio 
Alana Lorens has been a published writer for more than forty years, after working as a pizza maker, a floral designer, a journalist and a family law attorney. Currently a resident of Asheville, North Carolina, the aging hippie loves her time in the smoky blue mountains. She writes romance and suspense as Alana Lorens, and sci-fi, fantasy and paranormal mystery as Lyndi Alexander. One of her novellas, THAT GIRL’S THE ONE I LOVE, is set in the city of Asheville during the old Bele Chere festival. She lives with her daughter on the autism spectrum, who is the youngest of her seven children, and she is ruled by three crotchety old cats, and six kittens of various ages.
Author Links
http://Alana-lorens.com
https://alana-lorens.com/a-rose-by-any-other-name/
https://www.facebook.com/AlanaLorens/
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4829967.Alana_Lorens
https://www.amazon.com/Alana-Lorens/e/B005GE0WBC/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1
https://www.bookbub.com/profile/alana-lorens
Twitter:  @AlexanderLyndi
https://www.instagram.com/alexander_lyndi/ 

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