Featured Interview With Rusty Blackwood
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
It's nice to be doing a new interview as it's been a while since I have done one. I am Canadian, born on October 5, 1949 in St. Thomas, Ontario, and raised on my paternal grandfather's rural farm in Southwold Township of Elgin County. I was fortunate to have enjoyed my childhood throughout the 1950's where I did, though at that time, thought I was hard pressed because Grandpa's farm was the last farm located on the north/east side of Routh Road, a dead end road that meandered to the Thames River. When I was small, I can remember that road being dirt with a raised line of beaten grass down the middle, but in time it was covered in gravel from my grandfather's gravel pits located on the north/east side near the end of the actual road, that from there, one could walk down a dirt lane dividing flatlands on either side until you came to the banks of the muddy Thames River.
I took my elementary school in the same one room school my father had attened, and began secondary school in 1963, but I met my first husband when I was fourteen, married at seventeen and had my first son in 1968, but my marriage sadly ended in 1970. I met my second husband in 1974, and after a whirlwind courtship, moved to St. Thomas but we returned to the farm six months after I had my second son in 1976 to assist my then widowed mother. After my mom moved to an apartment in St. Thomas that she would enjoy for another thirty years up to her death in 2015 at 93, we moved to Niagara, just outside Beamsville in 1987, and then to St. Catharines in 1987 where I presently live. Time has a way of slipping by, and I am the proud grandmother of four wonderful grandchildren, 3 beautiful granddaughters and 1 handsome grandson, all ranging in age from 26 down to 11, and my pride has futher grown with my 2 great grandsons who are 4 and 6 months respectively.
I love animals, primarily horses and dogs, however, I was adopted many, many years ago by my now elderly black cat, Tipper, named for a white ball of fur on the tip of his tail and he has the largest jade eyes I have every looked into.
Life has proved to be a interesting journey with countless experinces along the way, both good, and not so good. But looking back to where I grew up, and how I often felt during that time, I would give anything to return, even for a day.
I would like to thank Awesome Book Production for this interview to assist readers in knowing me better.
– Rusty Blackwood
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I began my appreciation of books and the enjoyment they bring around the time of grade six. I always wrote, though it was not to become my career until later in life. I hold two Interior Decorating & Design Diplomas, and created and operated a Residential Cleaning Service in 1986 until 2015 when I retired. I have always loved to write, even as a child and would enter school competitions in writing at local fairs, but I was never professionally trained in that field but had been blessed with a great imagination, and the ability to express it. However, in 2001, I decided to see what I could do with it, and see where it might possibly take me, so I began writing poetry and set out to write a full length romance novel, which I did. I published my first collection of poetry in 2009, followed by my first children's short story collection that I bascially wrote for my grandchildren, and based many of the stories on my own childhood. It was after my first two self-published titles that I decided to publish the romance novel I had been working on since 2001. It was published in two parts, but I was not satisfied with the outcome as it was not the way I had envisioned. I decided to revise it under a new title, Passions in Paris: Revelations of a Lost Diary, that I published in 2013. I write in four genres, poetry, children's shorts, adult comedy, and romantic fiction, my favourite genre and for which I'm best known.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
I don't have any favourites per se, but I have always enjoyed the classics, and I do enjoy a few local authors in my area and try to keep up with their work and publications. I enjoy a well-expressed, heart touching romantic drama, or a good comedy, as well as suspense. I don't purchase an author's work simply for their name or who they are, I have to be intrigued by what they have written. There are so many gifted writers who are sadly overlooked because readers tend to gravitate to high-profiled authors, and in the process, they lose out on wonderful books that they might otherwise enjoy.
I find inspiration all around me. Nature provides the wonders God created, and they are there for everyone to enjoy however that might be. I also pull from experiences in my life, for I have witnessed and felt many. They have never let me down when a good storyline is needed.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
I have always had a great love of horses, a huge respect for nurses, and I applaud single mothers, that for whatever reason, find themselves alone with a child to raise. These three subjects were the bases behind my latest title, The Perils of Autumn, published by Tellwell Talent out of British Columbia, Canada, and released in late January of 2019. The main story is set in Kentucky during the seventies, though the novel begins in 1946, a time when society did not understand or accept a woman bearing a child out of wedlock, for whatever reason, therefore were condemed, ridiculed, and shunned.
However, Abigail Leeves is not detered by the negative treatment she receives, and raises her daughter Autumn to be as fully reslient and strong as she. Autumn becomes a nurse, and after a short stint in two Lexington hospitals, is sent on assignment to care for the terminlly-ill wife of English equestrian master, Cyril Landon, owner of Landon Lawn Stables, a celebrated racing stable appaluded throughout Kentucky for its exceptional Thoroughbreds, and Hunters, one of which is a Triple Crown winner who has made the name of their stables famous.
Landon Lawns also employs Duff Taylor, a world-renown jockey who is known for his exceptional amount of wins on the best tracks in both England, and the United States before coming to Landon Lawns as their exclusive jockey. However, Duff holds a dark secret surrounding an unsolved incident from his past, that he will go to any length to protect.
Autumn arrives to Landon Manor in time to be thrown into the fray of tending a woman who is facing her fate, the daily life of a working racing stable, and the intruding eyes of a jockey who could be a sought-after criminal.