Welcome Paula Peckham

Welcome Paula. It’s great to have you here today. Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Writing is what I consider my third major career. I held positions in customer service in various manufacturing companies for my first twenty years of working. During that time, I was going to college at night, getting a degree in Marketing. After 17 years of part-time classes, I finally graduated with a bachelor’s degree. That enabled me to take a job as a high school math teacher. I taught in my hometown for the next 19 years. Thank you, God, for your direction—I retired the year before Covid hit. I did NOT have to go through what all those poor teachers endured as they tried their best to keep school going during that time. With all my free time, I was able to complete my first novel, Protected. And I’ve never looked back.

Congrats on your first book! What genre do you write?

I write romance. My published books are all historical, set in the 1860s in San Antonio, Texas. But I’m working on a contemporary novel at the moment. We’ll see which one ends up being more fun to do. I love doing the research for the historical novels, but dang! Writing contemporary is so much easier to do, for me anyway.

I love writing and reading historical romance. 🙂 What do you enjoy most about the writing process?

I enjoy all of it. The excitement of the first, budding ideas; the satisfaction of laying out a plausible and exciting plot; and even the editing at the end. I love realizing I’ve written something weak and coming up with a better angle.

That’s wonderful! Tell us about your recent release.

My latest novel is book three in the San Antonio series, Accepted. It continues with the cast of characters introduced in book one and focuses on a different one. We met Jonathan for the first time in Protected as the best friend of the male main character. In Accepted, we dive into his life and we meet his love interest, Quenby. Accepted will be out on October 24.

What is your least favorite aspect of writing?

Worrying about the marketing end is stressful for me. There is so much to do, and we never truly know what will work and what won’t. If only we could just write the book and let the book fairies take care of the rest! I spend a lot of this time praying for guidance and asking for favor.

Chuckle. I can relate. What advice would you give to a beginning writer?

Find a critique group to join. You will learn so much from all of them, and they’ll all be completely on your side and will cheer you own.

Tell us a little about your research for this book.

So far with my books, I’ve been able to put something in that was new knowledge for me. I hope when readers discover my books, they’ll enjoy learning something new along the way.

A fifth-generation Texan, Paula Peckham spent two decades teaching math. She divides her time between her home in Texas and Rio Bravo, Mexico. She and her husband, John, have four children and nine grandchildren.

Her debut novel, Protected, Book 1 in a series, was published in April 2022. It finaled in ACFW’s Genesis contest and won the gold medal in the 2022 Global Book Awards. Book 2, A Father’s Gift, finished third in the 2023 Selah contest. Book 3, Accepted, is out in October 2023. She published two Christmas anthologies in 2021.

Paula is on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and at www.paulapeckham.com.