Interview with Raspberries and Vinegar Author Valerie Comer

Julie’s Note: Valerie Comer is the debut author for Choose NOW Publishing. Her Farm Fresh Romance series begins with Raspberries and Vinegar, available now. I will review in a separate post, but let me say—I loved it.

Explain your tagline, where food and faith meet farm lit.

Over the past decade or so, I’ve become fascinated with the junction where food meets faith. So many Christians don’t think about how our beliefs play into our eating choices beyond a vague thought of “gluttony is a sin.” As I’ve delved deeper into the intersection, I’ve discovered food meets faith in our bodies in a variety of ways, in our churches, and also in our world…the latter in ways most believers haven’t ever considered. Click the link above for a primer on the topic! And I’d love to hear from you if you think of new ways to look at the junction.

As for adding farm lit to the mix, well, writing is my main form of expression. Because my husband and I have lived on the farm over half our married life, have raised gardens—and kids!—on the farm, and strive to eat real food grown locally and organically, writing this type of fiction is a natural fit for me. My life revolves around food, farm, faith, family, and the written word.

How much from your own life is featured in Raspberries and Vinegar?

My character, Jo, has very strong opinions on the subject of organics. Strangely, she gets her ideas from me, but, where she sees the world as black-and-white, I know that many times we have to flex to adjust to reality.

The mouse invasion that opens the novel is far too much from my own life. We had so much trouble with mice a few years ago (when our old cat was too sick to patrol, and before we got new kittens) that we lost track of how many we’d trapped. I was glad to pass off the problem to an unsuspecting character and let her deal with it!

Some of my critique partners have noticed that my characters often have major issues with their mothers. My own mom, who died several years ago, was a loving Christian mom. So that part of the story definitely didn’t come from my own life!

You asked about the illness. A good friend of ours contracted Guilaln-Barré Syndrome a number of years ago in a similar way that Steve gets it in the novel. You may notice that Raspberries and Vinegar was dedicated, in part, to Rick and Nancy. While they were believers before meeting Guilaln-Barré, their lives were forever changed by the disease and now they are in the pastorate. God turned a major trial into something good in their lives.

Where did you get the idea for Raspberries and Vinegar?

This novel came about as I considered how I might write contemporary romance that came from a world view more compatible with mine than the typical city girl of novels a few years ago, obsessed with shoes and handbags. I’m a country girl through and through and am more likely to be found wearing gumboots than stilettos. At that time my son and his wife were living in the city as university students. It amazed me how many of their friends were jealous when the kids decided to return to rural life after graduation. A lot of that generation is hankering for real food and getting their hands in the dirt. Choosing this scenario for my characters made a lot of sense to me. The upside to our kids’ choice? Our one-year-old granddaughter lives across the farmyard from us, and we see her nearly every day. That makes this grandmother a very happy lady!

Your publisher for Raspberries and Vinegar, Choose NOW, is issue driven. Explain that, and why it is important to you.

My agent approached publishers with Raspberries and Vinegar for two years. It came close to selling to a major house, but it was just a little too different from average. Most editors are looking for “same but different.” And really, they can’t afford to take a chance on very much different. They are hesitant to publish anything that might be offensive to their typical reader. I can understand that, but my environmental and local food themes were too important to me to change. These are the stories I feel God has given me to write—and share.

Choose NOW Publishing gets that. They’re not an edgy publisher, but they realize that “real life happens.” The whole mandate of the company is to make wise choices today for a better future. That fits my stories to a tee! I’m delighted to be Choose NOW’s debut author.

What can we expect to see next from you?

The sequel to Raspberries and Vinegar, Wild Mint Tea, will release in March, 2014, with the final installment, Sweetened with Honey, coming out in December, 2014. And if you’re watching closely, you’ll catch another piece of news about an unrelated story, also in 2014. I’m not free to divulge the details yet, but while it definitely follows similar themes, it’s a very different angle. I can’t wait to share the news with you!

Anything else you’d like readers to know?

Until midnight Friday (Eastern time), my publisher and I are running a Book Blitz. This means that if you order a paperback from one of the links on my publisher’s page for Raspberries and Vinegar, we’ll toss in the digital version of your choice PLUS a whole lot of other goodies. Check the graphic below for details!

Bio

Valerie Comer’s life on a small farm in western Canada provides the seed for stories of contemporary inspirational romance. Like many of her characters, Valerie and her family grow much of their own food and are active in the local foods movement as well as their creation-care-centric church. She only hopes her characters enjoy their happily ever afters as much as she does hers, shared with her husband, adult kids, and adorable granddaughters.

Valerie writes Farm Lit with the voice of experience laced with humor. Raspberries and Vinegar, first in her series A Farm Fresh Romance, released August 1, 2013. Visit her at http://valeriecomer.com.

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