Merida Johns

Midwest Book Review, Senior Reviewer Diane Donovan says, "Collections strong in women's literature and fiction surrounding domestic violence and recovery processes will find Flower Girl an evocative, compelling read that chooses no easy paths to resolution. Suzanna's changing choices and perceptions are outstanding examinations of the darkness that pervades her world and provide important keys to recovery that women will want to learn about."

Writing a novel of women's fiction is devoted to portraying and examining a woman's journey to a fulfilled self. Life is a highway with ups and downs . . . it isn't all straight, flat, or comprised of gentle grades. Instead, it is complicated by gnarly twists and turns, impeding the protagonist's self-discovery and ability to live and give voice to her values. Life can be beautiful, thrilling, and amazing . . . but it can also be messy, chaotic, confusing, and even dirty and ugly.

The stories I write show how the protagonist progresses in self-discovery and faces life's obstacles. Such self-awareness can be exhilarating and freeing. But it can also be unsettling when it demands accountability and commitment to change.

Writing Flower Girl was fulfilling . . . but to achieve that self-satisfaction and be true to my mission, I had to come to grips with writing about situations that are difficult and uncomfortable—narcissism, denial, emotional abuse, and sexual assault, among them.

To show the protagonist's mettle required to plunge her into self-discovery amidst tricky and sometimes terrifying circumstances and then hold her accountable in overcoming these. Self-awareness, accountability, and commitment to change, though difficult, had to be the foundation for the protagonist to achieve a flourishing life.

In Flower Girl, I show readers a journey of self-discovery and accountability, which I hope might challenge them, like Suzanna Jordan, to live their truth. Though sometimes bumpy and slippery, the road to achieving a life filled with engagement, satisfaction, positive relationships, meaning, and achievement is worth the trip.

As many know, I began writing a novel in late winter of 2018. Writing fiction was always a dream—to use my creativity in imagining and writing about regular people and how they faced and overcame challenges. However, it wasn't until meeting and overcoming a significant medical challenge myself that I put a computer keyboard to a digital screen and started writing my first story, Blackhorse Road. Writing this novel has been a journey of fulfillment, personal introspection, insight, and, yes, a stress reducer.

During this chaotic and uncertain time, polishing off my novel during its last round of copyediting has given me a quiet place to hang out with the book's characters. And my characters, in turn, have provided me with a therapeutic escape and the energy to come back and face the real world.

I think all people have a gift of storytelling—after all, we share stories every day with our family and friends! Give yourself a gift of time to put the computer keyboard to a digital screen and write a story, creating characters that will give you a therapeutic escape and a quiet place to hang out for a while. 

Originally published LinkedIn March 20, 2020

Tony Hoagland, author and poet, writes that "The glory of the protagonist is always paid for by a lot of secondary characters."

In Blackhorse Road, time is not an add on or a placeholder. Instead, it is a secondary character that adds depth and perspective to the protagonist, antagonist, and other secondary characters. 

Stories are about relationships with people, but people also have a relationship with the eras.  I wanted to make those relationships come alive in Blackhorse Road, whether it was a treacherous immigration period, a turbulent social justice era, or a time when many people lost all hope.

Readers tell me that they connect with the different time periods represented in the story in Blackhorse Road. Just as they form relationships with secondary characters that are people, they also form connections with different eras in the story.  For some, the association is most acute surrounding the Irish immigration to Canada between the 1830s and mid-nineteenth century. For others, it is the mid-1960s or even a sliver of time, such as the street dance scene.

Readers might ask, "How do you turn an era into a secondary character?"  I connect people to eras by reading old letters, diaries, or other firsthand accounts of the period. These documents reveal a relationship between a person and an inanimate object, and through this relationship, it becomes easy to turn an era into a secondary character.

It's my hope that that as readers connect with Luci, the protagonist, and Sam, Barry, Shelia, Chris, and the other secondary "people" characters in Blackhorse Road that they also feel a bond with the time eras in which the people in the story lived as well.

Thrilled with the new review of Blackhorse Road from Our Town Book Reviews: 

"A really nice read. What a picture of life in the 60's. This book deals with so many items, emotions really. From the moment I began to read about the true hardships, the real picture drawn by the people trying to immigrate I wanted to keep reading to see what happened. I wanted to see where this was going to lead. At first I thought the letters would create a back and forth kind of reading confusion. That didn't happen here. Everything centered around Luci in one way or another and the author seemed to be able to weave this story without any confusion, Even no hiccups to my reading which I thought surely would happen. This is an interesting book, suitable for all ages. "

https://www.ourtownbookreviews.com/2020/08/black-horse-road.html

Thrilled to announce that my novel Blackhorse Road is featured in the September 2020 issue of the WFWA (Women's Fiction Writers Association) reader-focused newsletter ReadON.  Check this out at https://www.womensfictionwriters.org/read-on--august-26--2020