This is a sponsored interview
We recently interviewed Phyllis Edgerly Ring and are delighted to welcome her to e-Books India. Phyllis is an author of both fiction and nonfiction books and we asked her questions about her background and how she got into writing. We also queried Phyllis about her books, including her most recent release entitled The Munich Girl: A Novel of the Legacies that Outlast War and about her upcoming work. Read on to find out what the New Hampshire based author had to say.
Please tell us about you. Where are you from? What is your professional background and how did you become an author?
Thanks very much for this opportunity to share thoughts about my work. I grew up in a family of writers and storytellers. It was also a military family (my parents met in England during WWII), which means that my earliest experiences occurred in the Germany of the early 1960s. This left me with a deep affection for German culture, and a sense of myself as a citizen of the world. I’ve had a variety of work experience, most of which undoubtedly shaped my writing life, including work in the outdoors, working as a nurse, and a teacher, both in the U.S. and in China. Once I began writing and eventually editing for a variety of publications, I realized how much I loved this work. I later taught writing for 10 years, and gradually began to complete and publish book-length nonfiction and fiction.
What types of books do you write?
My first book was a collection of essays about striving for balance between the material and spiritual aspects of life (Life at First Sight: Finding the Divine in the Details). I later collaborated with two other authors on a book that explored the importance of investigating reality for ourselves, rather than blindly imitating the thinking of others, and of the past (With Thine Own Eyes).
I first published a novel in 2013 (Snow Fence Road), and my newest book, released in print last November and as a Kindle ebook this past January, is The Munich Girl: A Novel of the Legacies that Outlast War.
Could you please tell us about your most recent book, its overall plot, and the main characters in it?
The Munich Girl is about many things, including a secret friendship between two women, one of whom was Hitler’s mistress — later wife — Eva Braun.
But it’s really about several facets of human experience that matter a great deal to me. One is the inner reunion of “coming home to” our truest self that we all must eventually encounter. Another is the mysterious role that others play in that process in our lives, often in highly unexpected ways. And a theme that became increasingly important to me as I pursued the research for this novel is how vital it is that we train ourselves to look beyond the appearances of things, and the limiting assumptions those might lead us to if we don’t investigate more deeply.
Anna, my novel’s protagonist, grew up eating most family meals under her father’s war-trophy portrait of Eva Braun. This baffling situation has never been explained, other than that the portrait is a sort of emblem for her father of the Allies’ triumph over the evils of the Third Reich.
Everything in Anna’s life is turned upside-down when she discovers that her mother had a secret friendship with Hitler’s mistress, and that the portrait is a key to unwrapping all of the other secrets this enfolds. An added complication in the story is Hannes, a man whose Third-Reich family history is linked with Anna’s.
In the years I spent in Germany as both child and adult, some of the kindest, most morally courageous people I knew were those Germans who never wanted the war, or National Socialism, and found creative ways to outlast it and to help others as they did. They also found ways to endure, not lose heart, and keep faith and hope in times of enormous destruction and suffering. And, they made meaningful choices wherever they could, mostly on behalf of others, more than themselves. I always sensed that there was a lot waiting to be revealed under the surface of such stories as theirs. I just never could have imagined that the path to them would be linked with the life of Eva Braun, but that’s exactly the one that opened up before me.
Are you working on any other books(s)? If so, can you please tell us what we can expect to see from you in the future?
I’ve promised myself that, whether or not I publish it, my next book will be a memoir-style reflection about the process of writing this latest novel, which includes experiences I may never understand, let alone be able to explain. One of the most memorable, and critical, in the book’s development involved a phone call neither I nor the person on the other end initiated.
Can you please tell us about your approach to writing? For example, do you follow structures and writing rules? Or do you write in a free flow way? Do you have any particular time of the day you like to write? Or any specific environment you prefer to sit down and write in?
I definitely write in a free-flow way when I am capturing down a story. It is seldom in chronological order, at least not until certain segments begin to form themselves into pieces that show a relationship to each other and begin to reveal the story’s wholeness and coherence. It is a highly intuitive process for a long time, until enough takes shape and my inner editor can begin to apply both structure and logic. For the generative part of the process, I seem to work best in a very public environment like a coffee shop, in the early half of the day. By the time I enter the revision aspect of the work, which I love (and I often go back and forth between the two in the rhythm of the way I work), I need to work in a more private, retreat-like setting, also in the early half of the day. I’m a true “morning person,” rather like a farmer.
Do you have any favourite authors? If so, who are they and what do you like about their work?
The list is too long. For now, I’m currently immersed in Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear. The book’s premise is, and has long been, my personal operating system in life. And for the pleasure of fiction-reading, I’ve just started – and am thoroughly enjoying being enveloped by the world of – Barbara Davis’s The Wishing Tide.
What other things do you like to get up to when you’re not writing?
My husband and I are relentless travellers. Both of us love history, all of the arts, and discovering more about our world through learning more about the lives and experiences of others. I’m grateful we share all of these interests, otherwise I might be something of a mole who spends too much time at home in pajamas.
How can people find out more about you and keep in contact?
Readers can find more about me and my work at my blog, Leaf of the Tree: https://phyllisedgerlyring.wordpress.com,
on Twitter: @phyllisring,
at my Amazon Author page: https://www.amazon.com/Phyllis-Edgerly-Ring/e/B00IS9LEZA/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1
and at Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2890301.Phyllis_Edgerly_Ring
Author Bio
My palm’s lifeline accurately predicted a lot of different facets to my work life. I’ve experienced them with people of all ages in Asia, Europe, and the U.S., but through it all, I’ve also always been a writer. For years I did the writing that others needed or wanted done. I’m grateful to have lasted long enough to finally do what my heart wants: get lost with a few mysterious questions in the shaping of book-length fiction. Thanks so much again, Hiten, for this chance to visit at e-booksindia.
Books by Phyllis Edgerly Ring
The Munich Girl: A Novel of the Legacies that Outlast War is available at:
With Thine Own Eyes: Why Imitate the Past When We Can Investigate Reality? is available at:
Snow Fence Road is available at:
Life at First Sight: Finding the Divine in the Details is available at:
[author] [author_image timthumb=’on’]https://writingtipsoasis.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/hv1.jpg[/author_image] [author_info]Hiten Vyas is the Founder and Managing Editor of eBooks India. He is also a prolific eBook writer with over 25 titles to his name.[/author_info] [/author]