Peggy Blann Phifer Interview

Q: Let me start with asking you to tell us a little bit about yourself.
A. I’m a re-planted Wisconsinite. By that I mean, after a divorce I didn’t want, I left the cold and headed to the desert southwest. Las Vegas, to be exact, where it’s warm and dry. I landed a great job, found a new husband, and remained there for thirty-three years. After hubby died, I returned to Wisconsin to be near my grown children, grands, great-grands and great-great grands. I love reading and playing challenging word games on my Kindle. They test my vocabulary, for sure.

Q: When did you first realize you wanted to be a writer?
A. Unlike may writers, I honestly can’t say I ever really knew I wanted to write. But one day, during a lunch break, I finished a book that left much to be desired. I tossed it down and muttered … “I can write better than that!” and a friend at the table said, “They why don’t you?” And I never looked back.

Q: Could you give us the highlights of your professional writing career including how you got your first writing break?
A. I didn’t start writing until I was fifty years old. (see above) At that time, Las Vegas was celebrating its Centennial anniversary and its history captivated me. So I bought up a bunch of books published at the time and decided I’d write a fictional story about it. Tat didn’t happen. But I’d been bitten by the writing bug, so I set out to try something else. The result of that was a book I self-published in 2012 titled To See the Sun.

Q: Would you tell us about your current book release Whispering Hope?
A: Here’s the back cover blurb:
1930 Chicago is no place for a Wisconsin country girl.

Virginia Hopewell visits her cousin in Chicago and gets caught up in a deadly gangster shooting at a speakeasy, barely escaping with her life. After learning of the tragic death of her father, brother, and sister-in-law, Ginny returns to Wisconsin and convinces her mother to reopen the resort her father had closed after losing everything in the stock market crash in 1929.

Ransom Blake, an agent with the Chicago Bureau of Prohibition, had been at the same speakeasy acting on a tip about the shooting. Rance is charged with finding the gangster responsible. He and his team are sent to Wisconsin where the man was reported being seen, and to investigate how illegal liquor from Canada is making its way to Chicago.

With the opening of Whispering Hope Resort, Rance registers as a guest and comes face to face with the lovely redhead he’d briefly encountered at the speakeasy during the shooting.

Q: Where did you get your inspiration for Whispering Hope?
A: In my ‘previous life’ in Wisconsin, there was this sprawling estate situated along the highway on Red Cedar Lake. It captured my imagination. Also, not too far away from where we lived was what’s referred to as “The Hideout” – built by the Capone brothers for an escape when things got too hot for them in Chicago. And, call me weird, but this era in American History always intrigued me. So, I combined all of this and started to write “Whispering Hope.”

Q: What is the main thing you hope readers remember from this story?
A: I hope they’ll fall in love Ginny and Rance as much as I did while creating and writing them. They lived in my heart through the several years it took me to write their stories.

Q: What inspires you to write?
A. I wish I could answer that. I’m a terrible procrastinator. I was once told that I often allowed the urgent to overpower the important. I guess that’s true. When other things pop up (blogging, for instance ?) I let my writing slide. I think it’s a deadline that prods me to get down to business and write. I work well under pressure. That could be either a good thing, or not so good.

Q: Would you share with us what you are working on now?
A. I am under contract with Forget Me Not Romances to write a four-five volume series of novellas. Series working title is Sweetwater River, mostly women’s fiction with a touch of romance and mystery.

Q: When you’re not writing what do you like to do?
A. As I wrote above, I love reading and I spend a lot of time playing word puzzles on my Kindle. Probably TOO much time.