- Tell us a bit about
yourself.
I am Italian and was born in Rome. In my adolescence I spent a
meaningful time in USA, Manchester, New Hampshire. For family reasons I came
back to Rome, where I ended my classical studies. I'm married with two children
and my life has always been full of "duties", like all mothers have. The house,
the husband, the children and an interesting work as functionary in the
Educational Field and in cultural exchanges. It was a great effort to manage
all this. And in my soul I have always had inspirations that only asked to
become stories, but there was never time for that. Until something happened...
- What inspired you to
write your first book?
In 2008 an accident occurred to me and I was motionless for almost
two months. My life suddenly stopped and, spending many hours alone in my flat,
from which I could see each sunset on the Mediterranean Sea, I started to
rethink about my high school time, my friends. I felt that those passions were
still alive in me, together with the desperate feelings of that generation. The
story came out and I wrote No Steps on
the Snow with my left hand, the only one that I could move.
- How did you come up
with the title No Steps On the Snow
for your title?
I just thought about our life as to a great expanse of snow, that we
trample on during our living, on which we fall in the worst days we live, while
we walk and walk. What if, at the end of our way, turning back we would realize
that we left "No steps on the snow"?
- Describe your main
character in five words.
Sorry, mean, passionate,
mock, naive.
- What was one of the
most surprising things you learned in creating your books?
An author discovers many surprising things since he/she feels that
caress in the soul that is the "inspiration". What most surprised me is how high
an author is able to fly while writing. In fact, I realized that I was inside
the scenes and among the characters I was creating, I saw them moving around me
and I was myself part of the whole. When I wrote the final chapter of "No steps
on the snow", I wiped my tears without realizing I was crying. Writing is a
magic.
- What is your work
schedule like when you're writing?
My work schedule is very simple. I just imagine a situation and start
creating something that gets its shape page by page. The truth is that I never
know, at the beginning of the story, how it will go on and in which way it will
end.
- Do you have any
writing rituals?
Well, for me it's important to write always in the same place, that
is my studio, maybe because from that window I can see the Bay, with its
magical scenery. When I need an inspiration I look at the sunset, discovering
that each day dies in its own way, like every human being does.
- What book are you reading
now?
I always read a lot, a book after another. When I was thirteen I
read Hemingway's whole collection. Now I'm reading a book of an interesting
Dutch writer, Saskia Noort. The title is
"The Fiver".
- Do you have anything
specific that you want to say to your readers?
A writer feels he/she has a mission, which is to convey
strong emotions and deep feelings to the readers. An author stays hours and hours alone,
writing and creating, sometimes forgetting even to eat at lunch or dinner, if
the story requires. What is the only reward that an author needs for all this
commitment? A smile from a reader that enjoyed reading the book or, as it
happened to me, receiving a letter from a reader of No Steps on the Snow:
"...I want
to talk about my emotions, the ones that
your book has caused me. How to start? Perhaps from the feeling that has bound
and imprisoned me since the first pages, from that deep sense of authenticity
that I felt from the very first lines... I have seen materialized before my
eyes the story described, and it didn't matter if I was sitting on the train or
standing on the subway, wherever I was, I could feel the moist air of the Tiber
river, the warm rays of the sun, the scent of the sea....".
A writer needs a return from the readers, that's his/her only real
award.
T.M. Franklin writes stories of adventure, romance, & a little magic. A former TV news producer, she decided making stuff up was more fun than reporting the facts. Her first published novel, MORE, was born during National Novel Writing month, a challenge to write a novel in thirty days. MORE was well-received, being selected as a finalist in the 2013 Kindle Book Review Best Indie Book Awards, as well as winning the Suspense/Thriller division of the Blogger Book Fair Reader's Choice Awards. She's since written three additional novels and several best-selling short stories...and there's always more on the way.
