Larada Horner-Miller Interview Published on: 23, Jun 2021

I was Dad’s little helper when we branded our calves each spring. With my cowboy hat pulled down on my head, I held the rope tightly attached to the calf’s hind leg as he did his job of branding and castrating. He made me feel so valuable as I worked along side him.

Nancy Drew stories were my favorites and I revisited them every summer. Early on, I loved reading and have kept it up as a life-long hobby.

As a child, I enjoyed a freedom to explore my environment and thoroughly enjoyed my family. Both of those traits have made my life rich and rewarding.

I wanted to be dressed up and work at a job like the ladies I saw on TV, not a stay-at-home mom like Mom.

Often, I write the content then the title comes from my meandering around the words. I usually have the first line of the poem come to me and away I go.

A great essayist ties the essay together with a strong introduction and a conclusion that circles back to the introduction. I love the opportunity to see where an essay is going, but the touchstone I use is tying it together.

Marshall Flippo and I had been friends for over twenty years when I wrote his biography. I was fortunate to have forty hours of recorded interviews with him before he died. We did two face-to-face sessions: one to start off our working together for a couple hours and then one more session that spanned about four hours. Each time I laughed often and loved every moment he shared his precious life with me.

I love historical fiction and the drive to research the history so the story matches it. I did a lot of research, especially about the homestead time in Colorado during the early 1900s which was a boon time with the open prairie a light with campfires. I also enjoyed researching the building of an adobe and rock house.

The rules for writing historical fiction are few. Enjoy enlarging the fiction side of the story with lively characters and an engrossing plot, while you must ground the fiction in factual history.

Reading and writing expose our culture for what it is. Without reading and writing, we would have no one recording, challenging and celebrating the direction our culture is going. Writers are priceless in keeping the culture honest.

One of my favorite characters is Scarlett O’Hara from “Gone with the Wind.” Margaret Mitchell captivated me as a young teen with her outlandish character. I loved her sassy, survival instinct, but deeply I identified with her connection to her plantation and the land. Our family ranch has the same place in my heart that Tara had for Scarlett.

Goals drive me. I work better with a words-written goal because I can see the number increase and that meets my goal-drive. It’s important to get words down then I can deal with editing and revising later.

My aunt read “When Will Papa Get Home?,” a historical fiction and called me, raving about the book. But she thought the main character, Maria, was real and wanted to know if she knew her. That told me I had succeed at making Maria a real person in the story.

My next book will be released July 2021, and the title is Coronavirus Reflections: Bitter or Better? It is a spiritual self-help/memoir collection of my reflections on the coronavirus and 2020. To incorporate a trauma into our lives, we need to retell our story, so that’s what I did. The reader will have the opportunity to read, reflect and respond.

I usually promote my books on Facebook and other social media. I have an email list I promote to. I also use a variety of promotional sites on the internet to highlight my books, and I have an Etsy Shop I promote where I sell my books. I really like AllAuthor and what they have done for me. I certainly would highly recommend it to other author friends.