Featured Interview With Author Joyce A. Connelley
Tell us a little about yourself. Where were you raised? Where do you live now?
I grew up in the Los Angeles area, where I spent my summers getting sunburned at the beach and listening to the Beach Boy and the Beatles. I began working at 16 as a journalist for the Whittier Daily News. After high school I moved to the Bay Area to attend San Jose State University where I received a B.A. in Journalism.
Reunion in Stringtown: Finding Faith, Family, and Healing is actually my third book. Over my career as a journalist and marketing professional, I've published hundreds of articles for national and regional periodicals and numerous trade journals. I also served as Managing Editor of a technology magazine. For over 20 years, I ran my own marketing agency serving Silicon Valley companies in the fields of technology, consumer electronics, and medicine. While freelancing, I co-authored “The Black and White Solution: Bar Code and the IBM PC” (Helmers Publishing, 1986), an authoritative guide to automatic identification technology, and wrote “Our Century: 1960-1970,” an historical overview of the 1960s published by David S. Lake Publishers (1989). In 2004 my husband and I relocated to the Dallas-Fort Worth area and currently, own Marshall Grain Company, an independent organic garden center and landscaping business where I am the V.P. of Marketing. I'm proud to say that Marshall Grain Co. has been ranked nationally as a Top 100 independent garden center and is one of the largest independent organic garden centers in Texas. I'm also very proud to have been recognized numerous times by civic organizations, including the Daughters of the American Revolution, for my conservation and animal welfare advocacy. My husband serve every whim of our six cats — 3 who live in our retail store and 3 who live at home.
At what age did you realize your fascination with books? When did you start writing?
I started writing secretly in the middle of the night when I was around 8 or 10 years old. By the time I was a sophomore in high school I had decided to become a journalist. I can't really say I'm fascinated by books. But I am fascinated by certain books and writers.
Who are your favorite authors to read? What is your favorite genre to read. Who Inspires you in your writings?
My favorite fiction genre is espionage. The master at that is and always will be John le Carre. Most of what I read these days is non-fiction: history, archaeology, sciences, etc. I've been most inspired by great investigative journalism, which unfortunately is now dead.
Tell us a little about your latest book?
Reunion in Stringtown:Finding Faith, Family, and Healing" is the summation of more than 25 years of searching for my birth family and a lifetime of wondering who gave me up and why. I hope my story will help shatter the myths about adoption that it is somehow a "blessing" that you were unwanted and that your adopters are heroic saviors. In truth most adoptees are traumatized once by their original abandonment and abused again by the parents who supposedly "saved" them. My work attempts to show how we can become whole only by first acknowledging the truth and then by walking through the fire of recovery.
Connect with the Author on their Websites and Social media profiles
Joyce A. Connelley’s Website
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