Thursday, November 5, 2009
LITTLE ROCK — Tamera Alexander hasn’t always been a best-selling author. After graduating from Harding University in 1983 with a business degree, Alexander worked in banking and as a coordinator for corporate conferences.
“I loved writing when I was younger,” Alexander said.
After being told her writing wasn’t good, she shoved everything in a drawer.
“I stopped writing and shut that part of me down,” Alexander said.
But she never stopped reading.
“I love the power of a fictional story that will sweep you away,” Alexander said.
During her college years in Searcy, the Atlanta native met a woman who changed her life. Referring to Claudette Alexander as a surrogate mother throughout college, she fell in love with her future mother-in-law before she ever met her husband.
“My mom, June, and Claudette hit it off when they met,” Alexander said. “My mom said, ‘I wish you had a son,’ and Claudette said, ‘I do.’”
Although their paths never crossed at college, Alexander and Joe, who graduated from Harding in 1981, are still married with two grown children.
Claudette not only changed Alexander’s life by introducing her to her son, but she also changed her career path as well. In 1995, she gave Alexander a book, claiming it would touch a special place within. Alexander didn’t read the book right away; she didn’t believe it was a book that would interest her.
After Claudette’s sudden death, Alexander ran across that book. After reading Love Comes Softly by Janette Oke,Alexander was hooked on Christian fiction.
While riding in the car with Joe, Alexander finished up a book, tossed it in the back seat and said, “I think I could write one of those.” And she did.
Alexander carried on with her “soccer mom” duties, and over the next year and a half, she wrote from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. and finished her first novel.
Realizing that getting a book published isn’t as easy as it looks, Alexander approached it from a business view. Not only reading novels published by Bethany House, she studied them and a year later sent in her manuscript. After three rounds of rewrites, the publishing house sent her a rejection letter. But she didn’t let that discourage her. For the next year and a half, she studied writing and captured her writing voice, and began writing her second novel. She met her first agent at a writer’s conference and was on her way to getting her book published. This is where her business and marketing background came in handy.
Not only did she get her book accepted, she got a three book deal with Bethany House, which publishes 50 to 60 percent of all historical novels.
After six published novels, Alexander was working on her seventh when her mother was diagnosed with cancer in February. As she wrote by her mother’s hospital bedside, her mother woke up to her tapping on the keyboard and asked, “Honey, am I bothering your writing?”
“I shut my laptop and went into the hall and called my publisher, and said, ‘I can’t do this,’” Alexander said.
She spent the next four months with her mother, who died Aug. 17.
Alexander blew the dust off her first book she wrote that was rejected, and The Inheritance was later reworked in 2008 and published for the Women of Faith fiction line.
Believing that God designed her to write, she subconsciously incorporates a lot of herself into her characters.
“One of the most unexpected blessings (of writing)is the connection I make with my readers,” Alexander said. “They’ll write to me and have connected with one of my characters.”
To learn more about Alexander’s books, visit her Web site at www.tameraalexander.com.
Three Rivers, Pages 53 on 11/05/2009