Join us as we dive into the writing process and creative journey of author Gina Hogan Edwards. We explore how Gina overcame comparison and imposter syndrome at a transformative writing workshop, and learn about the inspiration and themes behind her historical fiction novel “Dancing at the Orange Peel.” Gina shares insights on the challenges of writing authentic voices in historical fiction, as well as the value of writing practice and experimentation. We also discuss Gina’s bold decision to serialize early chapters of her novel, facing fears to share her work in progress.

Throughout, Gina’s passion for world-building, research, and building supportive writing communities shines through. Whether you’re a seasoned author or aspiring writer, there’s much to glean from Gina’s creative journey. Tune in to be inspired and gain practical tips to elevate your own writing practice.

Gina’s links:

Ep. 47: Interview: Gina Hogan Edwards

Dave Hogan, Gina’s Pop
0:02
Welcome to Around the Writer’s Table, a podcast focusing on the crossroads of creativity, craft, and conscious living for writers of all ages and backgrounds. Your hosts are Gina, Melody, and KimBoo, three close friends and women of a certain age, who bring to the table their eclectic backgrounds and unique perspectives on the trials, tribulations, and the joys of writing. So pull up a chair and get comfortable here around the writer’s table.

KimBoo York
0:43
Hello listeners. This is KimBoo York. Welcome back to Around the Writer’s Table. In this episode, I’m pretty excited we’re doing one of our special interview episodes, and in this one, we’re actually interviewing—I’m actually interviewing—somebody who’s pretty familiar to all of us: my co-host Gina Hogan Edwards. So welcome. Thanks for joining us. 

I am KimBoo York. I am a professional author. I write romance, fantasy, science fiction, nonfiction, blogging.

Gina Hogan Edwards
All the things [laughing].

KimBoo
I do all the things. Right, right. I also do productivity coaching for authors, and I run the 1 Million Words Club, which is an online membership community for writers of all kinds, of all types, of all skills, to help them be productive. So I’m really looking at revitalizing that. I was just talking with Gina about that the other day and getting some more interaction going there. So please feel free to join us at the 1 Million Words Club. 

So Gina, we’re going to start with having you introduce yourself as always. But give us a little background and where you’re from, what your interests are. You write a lot about Appalachia. Why? So who are you, Gina?

Gina Hogan Edwards
1:55
So, a few things I’m going to leave to mystery, because a lot of that’s what we’re going to talk about today. But if you are a returning listener, you already know I’m Gina Hogan Edwards, and welcome to the new folks who might be listening for the first time. I am a writer. I’m a retreat facilitator; I host writing retreats for women down on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, south of here, of the Big Bend where we reside in Tallahassee. I do that a couple of times a year, and I am also, I have a history as an editor. I’m not doing quite as much of that right now, because I find that when I do a lot of it, it interferes with my own writing. I have to be in the heads of my own characters and not the characters of other folks while I’m trying to get my novel finished. 

So what have I left out of that? Editor. Creativity coach. I’m a certified creativity coach, and kind of tie that and my editing skills in to do what we do at the retreats, and I think that’s probably enough for now, because we’re going to be talking about a lot of the other stuff as we get into this discussion.

KimBoo
3:08
We totally are, and I’m looking forward to it, because I think one of the reasons people might be wondering why I chose to interview one of my co-hosts, and that is because so many times in our actual podcast recording—there’s three of us; we are missing Melody in this particular interview, and I will be interviewing her in a separate podcast down the road—but we refer a lot to what we’re working on, and sometimes we talk about what we’re working on, but we’ve never really gotten into the nitty-gritty details of what we’re working on as writers ourselves, and so I wanted to explore that a little bit with Gina, and that’s why I asked her if she would be my interview guest, and she graciously agreed. 

One of the things that I think I’m going to start off with, actually, I’m going to kind of backtrack a little because listeners who’ve been listening for a little while know that one of our recent episodes was about comparisonitis, imposter syndrome, perfectionism, and Gina, at the time, had not attended yet the Appalachian Writers Workshop. She talked a little bit about her experiences and fears of comparisonitis and things that she was experiencing going to that. But now, as we record this, which is actually August 7, 2024, she has returned from that workshop, and I’ve heard all about it. It sounds like a fantastic experience. I invite everybody to look up that workshop and the people who go there. But Gina, I’m really curious about what changed at that workshop about your feelings of comparisonitis, and did it affect you once you got there, or was that something that you were fighting with and dealing with throughout the whole thing?

Gina
4:53
Oh, those are all really good questions. So, yeah, comparisonitis really came up strong for me, and it’s a feeling that I think a lot of us are familiar with and tend to wallow in sometimes when we’re in a situation where we know we’re going to be engaging with people who are maybe doing the thing that we want to do, or that we’re trying to do. I’d written a little bit about this on my Substack, which is Gina’s Quill, and it was really strong beforehand. Part of that was because I did not know a lot about this workshop beyond the theme of it and the purpose of it. I wasn’t aware of like, who are the kinds of people that show up for this thing? 

This was, when I attended it at the end of July, the 47th year that they’ve been doing this workshop. Obviously, you know, an emphasis on Appalachia. All of the writers were either from Appalachia or writing about Appalachia. Actually, I don’t think I met anyone who wasn’t originally from that area, even though there were those of us who had traveled a long way to get there, because we’re not living there any longer. So not knowing the kinds of people that showed up, I made up all kinds of stories in my head about who could be there.

I did learn that an artist, a writer whose work I’ve read in the past was going to be there, and so that kind of amplified, because I really loved her book. Annette Saunooke Clapsaddle is an author who recently wrote a book, just within the last couple of years, called Even As We Breathe, which is set in the Grove Park Inn, which is in my hometown of Asheville, North Carolina, and my dad and I had actually met her prior to the pandemic. It turns out that my dad knew her grandfather. And so my dad had said, “Do you think she would be willing to meet us and be interested in the stories that I have about her grandfather?” So we did that. 

Having met her, having read her book, I just fell into this, Oh my gosh, what if she thinks what I’m doing is horrible, and can I ever live up to the kind of writing that she does? So I tried not to mire myself in that. But it was really easy to do beforehand. It extended beyond her, of course, because the only thing I knew was that there would be small groups of those of us who had picked a genre that we were focusing on, in my case, novel. There were short story writers, poets, lots and lots of poets attended this, and also creative nonfiction. When we were in those small groups, there would only be 15 of us, but when we were in the group at large, there were going to be about 100 writers. So imposter syndrome is very related to comparisonitis, perfectionism, all those things really flared up for me. 

Being familiar with those feelings, I did try to temper them and figure out what the reasons for them were. Once I got there, honestly, it was such… Ah, there’s so much. There’s so much. So let me parse this out here. First of all… 

KimBoo
8:21
You’ve told me a lot about it. That was a lot there, you went. Sounds amazing.

Gina
8:28
It was a little bit of overload for the introvert in me, because there were so many people. It was also a pretty packed schedule in terms of the things that we had to do during the course of the day. There was some downtime. There was some time when you had options of whether you wanted to participate or not, which was good, because there were times when I had to step away and say, I’m not going to do this, even though there was a great sense of FOMO. I didn’t want to miss anything, but I needed to in order to take care of myself. 

So the busyness was one thing that kind of got me out of that mindspin of imposter syndrome and comparisonitis. But also the main thing was I observed such an incredible diversity of personalities and backgrounds and writing styles. And it was just so wonderful to observe that variety of people. We had age ranges from the youngest folks who participate in the Hindman Settlement School in Kentucky is where this took place, and they have a young people’s program called Ironwood, and three or four of the Ironwood students who are probably seniors in high school, or juniors, seniors, freshmen and juniors in college, participated. Then we had a couple of ladies who were probably in their 90s. So all age ranges, all kinds of backgrounds in terms of race and ethnicity. And it was just… I came away from it, going, Why can’t the rest of the world be like this? You know?

KimBoo
Yeah, right. That would be awesome. 

Gina
In my novel class, there was a young woman who, this was like her first attempt at writing a novel, and it was so good! And it was so wonderful to see somebody who was that young and vulnerable come into a situation like that. I wish I’d been that brave when I was younger. I would have attended this many years before now. Then, it turned out that Annette was in my class too, which was incredible, because I got to know her better and got a little bit of a sneak peek at the novel, the new novel that she’s working on. So honestly, there was just no room for the comparisonitis and imposter syndrome to show up because I was having such a blast.

KimBoo
11:02
I think one of the things that really stands out for me, as you talk about that, is the appreciation you had for other people in the situation that you were in. It was so joyous and it was so motivational and inspirational that it kind of crowded out the comparisonitis. You could have easily sat there and said, Well, about that young writer, what if I had been that active at her age in this thing, and come to this at her age, then where would I be? Now, it would be easy to swing down into those kinds of comparison feelings or regrets, but it just sounds like that there were so many people joyously trying to work together and inspire each other and work with each other that, like you said, there’s just no room for comparisonitis, which I think is an important lesson for writers. We can take a lot from each other that helps us get over those types of emotions.

Gina
11:55
I think that is such an excellent point, because it wasn’t until I was describing this to you that I realized that the transformation that took place was, before I went, it was all focused on me and my fears and my work and my everything. And then when I got there, I had this sort of opening feeling of just, I’m going to let everything in. I’m going to just soak this up, let this experience fill me up. And so that transferred my focus onto the external, the folks that were around me, the environment that we were in. Certainly, I had those moments where, for instance, I had a one-on-one with my instructor, and then there was a day in class where all 14 other participants critiqued my pages. So there were those moments of the focus on me and my work, but most of the time was just allowing it all to sink in.

KimBoo
12:59
Opening yourself up and that vulnerability, and I think that gets back to Brene Brown’s work that I love so much, is that in order to live that whole-hearted life, you have to let that vulnerability happen as well and be open to those things, and a lesson I keep having to relearn myself. 

Gina
13:19
Apparently, me too.

KimBoo
13:22
Why can’t we just be one and done? Like, yeah, listen, move on with life. That’s whatever that happens. So I know that when you went to the workshop that you were taking—part of your application and then what you ended up working on—were parts of your book Dancing at The Orange Peel. Long-time listeners have heard of this book before. They know it’s historical fiction. People who this might be their first episode are just now finding that out, because I just said it. But tell us a little bit more about that book, and particularly this story I love, which is the inspiration for it. What you were working on there has been something you’ve been working on for a while.

Gina
14:03
I’ve been working on it for, well, you and I have joked that I started on this thing so many years ago that it wasn’t even historical fiction when I started it. The setting is 1968 when the novel begins. And the inspiration—there’s several aspects to this that I still, when I think back on this, it astounds me. I’ve recognized recently that one of the things that usually comes to me first when I have an idea for a story is the setting. I think that that’s not uncommon for people from Appalachia and sense of place in Southern fiction is always a big, big influencer. 

What had happened was my husband and I used to go to, and I don’t know if they do this anymore, the FSU, Florida State University School of motion picture—I forget the whole long name. But anyway, the motion picture school, the film school. They used to have a summer showing of undergraduate and graduate films, short films, and we had gone to see one of those. There was one film in particular that had both a title and a topic that really intrigued me. It all took place in a convenience store called Quick Check. There was something about that, that when I walked away from there, I knew that I was going to write a story that took place in a place that exists still today, in my hometown of Asheville, called The Orange Peel. 

It is a club. It has been many, many things over the years. It actually started out, the building that it’s in, was originally a skating rink. Then it became a nightclub. At one point, it was called the Country Palace, which my dad remembers well. I was a kid when that happened, so my memory of it is not so great, but he tells me that, I think it was Merle Haggard that had performed there, that he had seen there. Then it became a nightclub for Black people called The Orange Peel. 

Today, it is a very multicultural venue where they do all sorts of musical performances and other things. So I just knew, coming away from that short film, that I was going to write a story that took place in The Orange Peel of the 1960s.

Then—separate incident—my husband was traveling, and I was home alone. I went to bed one night, and literally in the middle of the night, I sat bolt upright and heard a voice in my head saying, “Now I know what people I come from.” And I was like, Okay, who are you? Why are you telling me this? What is it about your people, and why are you using that tone of voice? It was the exploration of those things that then led me to come to this storyline that is the basis for Dancing at The Orange Peel, which has main characters of Libby, who is nine years old, and her widowed mother, Gwen Billings. That’s the origin story of Dancing at The Orange Peel.

KimBoo
17:22
Still amazes me every time you tell me about it. That bolt of lightning inspiration. It’s just, it’s miraculous.

Gina
17:38
I had never had that happen before. 

KimBoo
17:41
Just, that’s, it’s fantastic, and now you’ve got a whole book building up around that moment. Yeah, yeah, yeah.. One of the things that really interests me with you, because I’m a genre fiction writer so I’m often deep into the tropes, right? And one of the things that really interests me is how you’ve been developing the themes of this book. I know that there’s elements of it that you don’t want to talk about as spoilery or whatever, but I am interested in, has the theme of the story, how has that developed as you’ve gone through the years of editing this and rewriting this and getting to the point now where you’re starting to share it?

Gina
18:26
Oh, gosh,

KimBoo
18:27
I’m not sure I phrased that question well, but I think you get the point about what I’m trying to get at.

Gina
18:31
I do, and there have been so many transformations in the story over the years. I don’t know if I can distill it. But it has always been Libby’s story, and even when I decided that I wanted to tell part of the story from her mother’s point of view, I still wanted this to be Libby’s story. And it may be, as a result of some of the things that I learned at the workshop, transforming yet again. But it will still be Libby’s story in terms of—I hesitate to use coming of age, because then I think that people naturally think this is a YA story, or middle grade fiction or whatever, but it’s not, and it’s more than just coming of age. 

There are themes in it around racism and family relationships, and the culture of the late 1960s with the civil rights movement and women’s rights, and all of those things have a place in the story. But it’s really focused on Libby trying to figure out those things and why the adults in her life have such different views from one another. And what path is it that she’s going to take? What are her, as she grows up, what are her values going to be that she’s going to take on from these adults that have shared with her their beliefs that are all so different and she has to parse out?

KimBoo
20:07
And that is such a transformative time in our history as a country, and especially going into elections this year, Oh, a little topical there. Well, that’s been, always been topical. Really. Like, the issues we’ve continued.

Gina
20:23
Yeah, you just pegged it. One of the big things that came up in the critique was a discussion about, how do we write historical fiction that contains themes that are still relevant or again relevant today, without overlaying modern perspectives on to that history, because there’s language around these issues that we have now that was not available to us. Then we have perspectives of so many years of history since then that have opened our eyes about things that were not available at that point. So being able to address those issues in the voice of authentic characters in a way that they would have experienced it in that timeframe, apart from how we experience it now.

KimBoo
21:32
Definitely, I can see how that would be a challenge, which kind of leads me into the next question that I really think is, I’m interested in hearing you saying, having heard you talk about this story for a while as your friend. What has been your biggest hurdle with writing this book so far? Rank them.

Gina
Point of view. 

KimBoo
Point of view? Oh, well, she answered that right on the dot. Okay,

Gina
21:52
So here’s how it started. Obviously, with Libby being the one that woke me up. It made sense to me that I was writing it in Libby’s voice, right? Okay. So then, at that point, I was still a very unseasoned writer. I was still experimenting with not only finding the story, but finding my voice and developing my writing skills. I had this hair-brained idea, which really isn’t so hair-brained, but I had this idea that I was going to introduce the mother’s voice, Gwen. I was going to introduce her voice into the story too. 

So me being ambitious as I am, I decided not only was I going to do alternating points of view, but I was going to do alternating verb tenses. I was gonna tell Libby’s story—because I wanted the immediacy of it—I was gonna tell Libby’s story in first person, present tense so that the reader would feel like they were experiencing her parts of the story just as Libby was experiencing them, right along with her right. 

Then, because I wanted to create a little bit of distance from Gwen, I was going to tell her part of the story in third person, past tense, again, because it’s Libby’s story, and I wanted the emphasis to be on her parts. But I realized that there were parts of the story that the reader needed to know that Libby couldn’t know, and so I wanted there to be this alternating—not necessarily a repeat chapter-by-chapter—but this alternating point of view between Libby and her mother. 

Then this issue of overlaying current perspectives onto the past arose. So there is also the option for me to write this as adult-Libby looking back on her childhood. What I’m doing right now is synthesizing all of these various options and deciding, is there some combination or a single approach that is going to work best in order for me to tell this story that wants to be told.

In considering all of those options over the years, as I’ve experimented, it’s been excellent, an excellent exercise for me to write from different points of view, to write in different tenses. So I encourage listeners, if you are still developing your skills, and even if you’ve already written a whole lot, that just simply doing those two things—writing from a different point of view and writing in different verb tenses—the same story, but rewriting them that way can open your eyes to so many aspects of writing skill. 

I really think that even though it’s been frustrating and it’s been hard and I get irritated with myself, sometimes, with the back and forth and the indecision, that all of those are going to really support the final product, because I’ve looked at it from so many different angles. 

I’m really parsing out now staying true to the original story idea that I had, because that still has remained the story that I want it to be. That hasn’t changed over time. 

KimBoo
The core of it.

Gina
Yes, that is the core of it. That is now my guiding light, looking at all of these options for point of view and and verb tense and all of that, I am looking at what is that story that I want to tell, and which one of those options is best going to serve getting that story out In the way that it needs to be told. 

KimBoo
26:03
There’s just so much there that you just went into that we can do another 30 minutes on talking about some of those things as hurdles. I think it’s very interesting you’re talking about having to experiment. I think that’s something that gets lost a lot of times with writers, especially as we’re trying to find our voice. We find our groove, and we just fall into it, and then don’t explore outside of it. I think that is where the value comes in of knowing other writers, going to workshops, doing retreats, whatever, however you make it happen. 

I know your opinions on critique groups is usually not really high. Long-time listeners know, and I agree. Critique groups can be wonderful, but there’s always danger there of people who are in it for their own egos and not for helping, contributing to other authors. That said, you run Women Writing for Change, which is a Facebook group for women writers, writing fiction, nonfiction, memoir, whatever they’ve got going on. I would like to hear—as you said, you came into this idea about the point of view and changing the point of view, and I know you’ve wrestled with the point of view for a long time; that was not a new issue—but you came into some new insights at the Appalachian Writers Workshop. As somebody who actually runs Women Writing for Change Facebook group and actually runs writing retreats, what is a strong lesson you’ve taken away from holding those communities for other writers?

Gina
27:46
Wow. Okay, there’s a lot there.

KimBoo
27:50
Yeah, me and my questions open up a big box, Pandora’s box there.

Gina
27:54
I see that sort of Pandora’s box thing going on a lot in our conversations. 

So yes, I am not wild about critique groups, and I will be honest that when I learned that we would be critiquing in my genre group, in my novel group at the workshop, at first, I was a little concerned that I was not going to get out of the workshop what I hoped for. The difference in that critique group and some others that I’ve been in and ones that I am, I’ll just say, opposed to, is that that group was in an environment with people who knew how to do it. I knew that it was going to be in a nurturing, supportive, constructive, effective environment. 

Having rules, guidelines for the group in advance is very important, and that’s been a big lesson for me. Over the years, as I’ve done many retreats—I think this will be the ninth one coming up that I’m doing since 2017— I have developed a set of principles that I have every writer who attends the retreat agree to in advance. We go over those principles when we have our one-on-one phone discussion prior to the retreat to see if it’s a good match for the individual who wants to attend. We go over them again as a group on the first night of the retreat. 

So I think when you’re in an environment with other writers, knowing when you’re talking about your writing, knowing how it is that you’re going to approach that, remembering that it is the writing that you’re talking about. And not the individual that you’re talking about. As a receiver of that information, remembering that it is about the work. That these people are not critiquing you there. I know it feels like that sometimes, but that they are addressing your words on the page, and that hopefully that is an environment that is going to help you. 

The other aspect of that, which you touched on in terms of me making so many revisions, and it’s a little off-topic from your question, but I think it’s still very relevant, and something that writers always need to hear: I am a huge proponent of the term “writing practice.” We do not as writers, embrace what pianists and sculptors and painters allow themselves to do, which is experiment and practice. Musicians do their recitals. We don’t give ourselves enough opportunity to just put words down on the page separate from: this may be something that I share or this may be something that I’m going to publish. Sometimes we need to write just to practice and just to develop our skills.

KimBoo
31:19
One-hundred-percent agree with you, and as long-time listeners know, I’m very involved in the fan-fiction community. In fact, I have a new fanfic that’s ongoing right now. Some people get this from critique groups. Some people get this from just friends they’ve made through workshops and everything, but the idea of just being able to sit down and bang something out for the fun of it, and explore and figure out how it works. Like you said, artists and sculptors, they work in different media. They might do pastels one day and oil paints the next, and watercolors the next. They may do their known work in one specific medium, but they’re always exploring and experimenting. For me, I was able to do that and I’m still able to do that, as you know, Gina, in the fan-fiction space. 

But I see that there’s definitely other spaces where people can do that, as long as people understand that this is about the practice. Maybe that’s what the difference is. You know, it’s like, oh, we’re not trying to make the perfect story; we’re trying to make the perfect practice. And I think that’s a huge difference.

Gina
32:25
Yeah, and the other thing, and we’ve talked about this in the past episodes that we’ve done on The Creativity Quest is—and I encourage listeners to go back and listen to the Emulating and Mirroring episodes [episodes 22 and 23]. 

KimBoo
Yeah, that was a good episode.

Gina
Off the top of my head, I don’t know which ones they are, but we can put that in the show notes. The idea—and painters do this a lot—they will look toward the masters and try to imitate their work. Now, you’re not imitating them in order to create a story that you’re gonna sell. You’re not imitating them in order to be the next Flannery O’Connor or whatever. You’re imitating them as a practice so that you can experiment and see what other writers have done, so that you can figure out what are the things that you enjoy doing, are good at, need to improve upon. It’s not about imitating for imitating’s sake. It’s about emulating those things that you know that you need to explore in order to get better at what you do. 

KimBoo
33:30
It’s deconstructing it and seeing how it’s done, which is, like you say, painters do with the great masters. How did they get the light to look like that on the ocean waves? Well, you’re gonna have to go in there with your paints and figure it out, buddy, and with us, it’s the same. 

I learned a lot about humor writing, and a lot of my writing these days does have humorous—I’m not a comedy writer, but I do love having humor in my stories, from basically copying Mark Twain. I went through a whole Mark Twain period where I was just trying to write like him. There were drawbacks, yeah. I had to pull away from that eventually, so I wasn’t channeling Mark Twain, but I learned a lot about comedy and timing in my writing.

Gina
34:08
And that’s the thing is that when you do that emulating and mirroring as a deliberate practice, there will be some point when you will go, “I got this, and I could do this in my own voice, because I have learned what to do and what not to do.”

KimBoo
34:21
Right. Yeah, that’s all so important. Well, we’ve up to over 30 minutes, which is usually what we try to go for. But I’d like to take a couple other minutes, not just so that you can tell people where to find you and what your work is, but you are doing some online serialization of early chapters of Dancing at The Orange Peel. Talk to us a little bit about why you chose to do that, because that’s not something a lot of other historical fiction authors are doing. 

She just—listeners, just be aware. Gina and I really are on the forward edge of this type of publication and what we’re trying to create, and we’re both very into sharing our work at this stage. But Gina is really breaking new ground. Because as a genre author, I can look at a lot of other authors who are doing this. Gina can’t. So tell us a little bit about that choice, and then tell people where they can find you and explore some of that on their own.

Gina
35:18
This whole process of serializing is a little terrifying for me, but—

KimBoo
35:24
You are so brave. You are. 

Gina
35:27
Okay. I’ll take that. So I’ve learned from my CliftonStrengths that my top strength is Learner, and so I love to explore and try different things. When the idea of serializing fiction appeared in front of me, largely from our conversations, KimBoo, because I didn’t know anything about this thing called serializing until probably, what’s it been now? A year and a half, two years ago, almost? I started looking into it and realized that there were several things that it could help me with. One is accountability. We talk about—you and I talk about—this idea of writing in public, and I knew that if I could commit myself to sharing what I’m working on, it would help me overcome perfectionism.

KimBoo
36:31
You’ve got to share it.

Gina
36:33
Yeah, you’ve got to share it. You’ve got a commitment to put something out at a given time, and so it may not be perfect. I’m very clear when I post online that this is a work in progress, and it may not, in its final form— and especially now after the workshop and some things that I’m considering doing with it—the final form, when I actually publish it as a book—because it will still be a book—may not look a lot like it looks like online right now.

So it is basically practicing in public is what this is doing for me, is I’m doing that writing practice. But I’m doing it in a very public and vulnerable and open way. And I’ll tell you what, it scares the life out of me. It’s tapping into some fears that I didn’t know I had, but it’s also helping me come face to face with them in a way that I can figure out how to address them, that I can determine whether they’re serving me or not, and I don’t know how this is going to unfold. 

On Substack is where I’ve been publishing these serialized chapters so far. I think I’ve got maybe 10 of them up so far. 10 chapters. I’ve requested that readers comment on them, because I would like to know what people think of them beyond, “Oh, I enjoyed it.” It would be helpful to know, “Oh, well, there was a place where I was confused,” or whatever. When I do get comments like that, I’m taking them to heart. Doesn’t necessarily mean I’ll act on them, but I’m definitely noticing, and so just being willing to put myself out there has been a scary thing, but I’m putting one foot in front of the other and just keeping myself out there. 

It is different. It’s not something a lot of more, I would say, literary, especially historical fiction writers are doing. So I don’t have any kind of model for this. I’m just kind of winging it, folks,

KimBoo
38:46
You are the model for this. And that’s even scarier, I think, when you’re breaking new ground like that, which is something I really admire about what you’re doing with that whole process. Because, like I said for me, it’s easier to look at some other authors, look at people on Wattpad or Ream or wherever, and go, “Look. They’re successful in this.” But you don’t really have that as much. 

So I really admire what you’re doing and the vulnerability and your willingness to try it. You know, you’re trying it. You’re seeing what happens. And I think that’s absolutely brilliant. So wrapping up from there, though, where can people find you and find out about you? 

Gina
39:23
Oh, yes. On Substack, my publication is called Gina’s Quill, and within that, I have two sections. One is called The Creativity Quest, which is touching on some of the things, many of the things that we’ve talked about in the podcast already. And then I have a section on the Kent Creek Chronicles, which is Dancing at The Orange Peel and other stories that take place in my fictional community of Kent Creek, North Carolina.

KimBoo
39:51
I love that. I love that. And y’all go check it out. She does so much, even as a world-building fantasy writer, where I create maps and do all this sort of stuff, I am always amazed at the level of research that you put into even the smallest things that show up in your stories. It’s really impressive. 

Gina
40:11
A lot of my research tidbits are also within the Kent Creek Chronicles on Substack. So that’s where my fiction is. Also on my website ginahoganedwards.com, there’s more information there about the Facebook group that you mentioned called Women Writing for Change, as well as the writing retreats that I do.

KimBoo
40:31
So everybody, if you have not checked Gina Hogan Edwards out, definitely do that. Thank you so much for playing along, Miss Gina, on being my interview topic. I really appreciate it, because even I learned some new things, and we’ve talked about some of these topics so many times I’ve lost count. But I knew it would be interesting for our readers, listeners. 

Gina
40:54
You’re a great interviewer. So thank you for the opportunity to do this.

KimBoo
40:57
Oh, so we appreciate everybody coming along on this journey with us. Definitely check out our website. Well, we do have a website: AroundTheWritersTable.com. Check us out there, because there, for the episode, you can listen to the episode there. You can get our transcripts, any resource links that we have to go with this particular episode. Check us out on our own spaces. There are links there on the website, or you can listen to this podcast, listen to back episodes on any podcasting distribution channel, such as Spotify, Apple podcasts, and also now we are on YouTube. So check us out in any one of those places. Give us a thumbs up, a star, a review, whatever they’ve got going on. Yes, please. It helps. It helps us get some traction and get us in the algorithm. So thank you very much, everybody. And thank you, Gina, I will talk with you again soon.

Gina
41:55
Thank you. Bye, listeners.

Gina’s Pop
42:00
Thanks for joining us around the writer’s table. Please feel free to suggest a topic or a guest by emailing info@aroundthewriterstable.com. Music provided with gracious permission by Langtry. A link to their music is on our homepage at AroundTheWritersTable.com. Everyone here around the writer’s table wishes you joy in your writing and everyday grace in your living. Take care, until next time.

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Around the Writer's Table and its co-hosts, Gina Hogan Edwards, Melody, A Scout, and Kimboo York own the copyright to all content and transcripts of the Around the Writer's Table podcast, with all rights reserved, including right of publicity. ​​You ​are welcome to share an excerpt from the episode transcript (up to 500 words) in media articles​, such as ​​The New York Times, ​Miami Herald, etc.; in a non-commercial article or blog post (e.g., ​​Medium); and/or on a personal social media account for non-commercial purposes, provided you include proper attribution and link back to the podcast URL. No one is authorized to use the Around the Writer's Table logo, or any portion of the transcripts or other content in and of the podcast to promote themselves.