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Multi-volume author, Clay Anderson introduces us to his latest novel, “The Palms”: Sixty-eight-year-old Ronnie Wells has recently been paroled for a murder he committed thirty-six years ago. He lives in a run-down trailer park outside Pensacola, Florida. Daily life for Ronnie changes when he befriends Mary, the seven-year-old girl who lives next door with her mother, Clara, a drug-addicted prostitute. In Mary, Ronnie finds the daughter he never got to raise. Clara is reluctant to the friendship at first but soon realizes Ronnie is the only man she’s ever known who didn’t want to use her. To escape Joe, Clara’s violent pimp, Clara and Mary move in with Ronnie. With Ronnie’s help, Clara gets clean, but her past still haunts her. Her relapse kicks off the series of events that lead Joe to kidnap Mary, putting her in the hands of human traffickers. Ronnie must decide if he will return to his old, violent ways to save Mary. Literary fiction is an interesting version of almost any genre. The writing is leisurely and permits more depth and texture in a story. Everything is more detailed and the emotions grow naturally. The Palms is no exception and fits well within this genre. Exploring the past of some of the characters provides a richly embroidered backdrop for their daily life and actions. The author captured the essence of his characters so well. I love the story and the writing, however, only 4.5 stars from me because I am so picky about some things. You can buy this book:
https://www.amazon.com/Palms-Clay-Anderson-ebook https://www.goodreads.com/-the-palms https://www.barnesandnoble.com/the-palms-clay-anderson You can follow the author: https://twitter.com/DClayAnderson https://www.dclayanderson.com https://www.instagram.com/clayanderson_author https://www.threads.net/@clayanderson_author Copyright © 2024 Mark L. Schultz except for the author’s introduction
40 Comments
5/5/2024 04:34:02 pm
Thank you for writing the review and allowing me the opportunity to be interviewed.
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Mark
5/5/2024 05:51:59 pm
Welcome to the Word Refiner channel, the home of the only live interview for authors on the internet.
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5/5/2024 08:18:41 pm
I am thirty-eight years old and live in the mountains of North Georgia with my two dogs. I hold a BA from Kennesaw State University, an MA from Mississippi State University in American History, and an MFA in Creative Writing.
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Mark
5/5/2024 08:50:48 pm
Higher education can be wonderful, the knowledge gained, the skills learned and connections that can last a lifetime.
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5/6/2024 03:06:30 pm
That is a challenging question for me to answer. I enjoy everything from Southern Gothic literature to Reece Witherspoon's book club picks. But, what I read the most is history. My favorite book is Ordinary Men by Christopher Browning.
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Mark
5/6/2024 03:46:05 pm
When I was much younger, I read sci-fi almost exclusively with an occasional fantasy story thrown in. I love stories about time travel and dragons. Since promoting books for nearly 10 years, I have become a fan of good writing in almost any genre. My favorite genres are, in order, sci-fi, fantasy, historical fiction, and cozy mysteries. I enjoy pretty much everything I read but that is as far as my list goes at this time.
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5/6/2024 07:06:06 pm
That's an excellent question. I started out writing The Palms to come to grips with this duality I found with my grandfather. Ronnie is based on him. Although my grandfather never killed anyone, he did shoot up a judge's truck with a shotgun (the judge was not in it at the time). He spent time in a Florida prison. He was not a good person to begin with. He abandoned my grandmother and mother.
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Mark
5/6/2024 08:34:48 pm
I think more than a few writers write for similar reasons. Dealing with serious questions such as your grandfather's different periods of his life are worthy of exploring. Most, if not all of us, have situations in our past that we would be happy to forget. But those events and choices are a part of us. Changing even one of those things could affect the rest of our lives in ways that may not be what we want. Unintended consequences happen frequently with decisions that we thought were well planned.
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5/7/2024 09:59:47 am
My work experience has influenced my writing. Since I now own a bookstore, I can see what people gravitate towards and what books they enjoy. I use that as a measuring stick to play with the creative ideas jumping around in my head.
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Mark
5/7/2024 11:16:11 am
There are so many genres. I have never heard of grit-lit.
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5/7/2024 02:14:07 pm
Excellent Question: Writers of Grit-Lit are primarily from the South or Southwest. Their work is hyperrealistic gothic literature that focuses on a sense of place. The narratives are dark, and the characters are highly flawed. The novels don't always have heroes; the bad guy often wins.
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Mark
5/7/2024 02:54:09 pm
Thank you for explaining about grit-lit. I am not acquainted with the writings of anyone in that group except for Cormac. I haven't read his book, but I did see the movie and it was dark and twisted in my opinion. I am not part of the target audience for that genre.
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5/7/2024 05:28:25 pm
I have never seen a UFO, but I am open to the idea that there is life on other planets. The universe is just too vast not to have something. I'm not sure who created the Universe either—perhaps some higher power or the God of the Bible. I heard a quote that struck me. "The reason God created billions of planets is the same reason he created billions of eggs, to allow for failure."
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Craig Crawford
5/9/2024 08:39:45 am
I like that quote. A lot. If "God" can make room for failure, so can we . . .
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Mark
5/9/2024 08:58:42 pm
Thanks for dropping by Craig. Haw are those stories coming along?
Mark
5/7/2024 05:45:53 pm
I have not seen a UFO either, though my sisters say we did but I have no memory of it.
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5/8/2024 11:39:55 am
Excellent questions. I designed the cover, and it took a lot of tweaking to achieve what I envisioned. There weren't drafts; I was just playing with what I made.
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Mark
5/8/2024 12:14:34 pm
Great! A lot of authors have in their mind what the cover should look like. Unless they are experienced with graphic design programs, they hire a cover designer and go through several iterations until reality conforms to their vision.
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5/8/2024 08:12:33 pm
The elements are just the desolation of the place. The trailer park, I think, is a character as well. The location drives the narrative, so I wanted to really highlight the poverty of The Palms.
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Mark
5/8/2024 08:38:16 pm
The cover does portray the poverty and hopelessness of the inhabitants by extension.
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5/9/2024 10:55:42 am
The characters names were easy to develop. Ronnie Wells was just a hybrid of two of my roommates names from college. Reggie Wells and Ronnie White. I didn't tell them ahead of time, so when they read the book it was a funny surprise.
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Mark
5/9/2024 01:40:32 pm
That was fun for your friends.
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5/9/2024 08:17:53 pm
I published two short-stories before finishing my novel. They were published in two different journals. One was called “El Nagual“ and the other “The Sow.” I also had an article published in an academic journal. I wrote them while working on my MFA, so I’d been writing before the novel was complete. Mostly though, my first foray into writing was academic.
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Mark
5/9/2024 08:52:22 pm
Short stories are a great way to polish your writing skills. It can be difficult to not exceed a certain word count. Writing short stories can earn you cash, and some contests offer cash prizes.
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5/10/2024 12:35:29 pm
I have written another book, Though I Walk, a suspense novel set in the North Georgia mountains, where I now live. It is my newest published book. I am currently working on a third, which is loosely based on Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple but set in Atlanta, Georgia. I find the human condition fascinating, so I’m trying to understand why nine hundred people would follow a madman into the jungle, kill a congressman, and commit mass suicide. It is from the perspective of a devoted follower who changes their mind, but it might or might not be too late!
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Mark
5/10/2024 01:05:09 pm
Great. More grit-lit I am guessing. A fascinating genre.
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5/10/2024 06:00:30 pm
Yes, I plan on writing singles in the genre. And I don't want to expand into different genres. I don't have the mental bandwidth to branch out. It takes a lot of talent to write in other genres. I was told to "write what you know," and I feel most comfortable writing in the Southern grit-lit genre. But that could always change with time. Perhaps I'll write some creative non-fiction. There's a crime that occurred in my hometown that I wanted to turn into fiction, but it was too barbaric that it would be an injustice to the victim. Maybe one day I’ll write about that.
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Mark
5/10/2024 06:43:24 pm
There is a lot to be said for writing what you know. Someone said, I think, imagination is for filling in the blanks. If I were a writer, I would probably do the same.
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5/11/2024 11:10:41 am
I dislike AI, especially when it comes to academia. It is so advanced that it stays one step ahead of the program’s teachers can use to detect it. I didn't use AI in my novel because I originally wrote it before it was a thing. I won't use it in my writing in any way, shape, or form. As someone with a background in academia, I thoroughly enjoy researching topics.
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Mark
5/11/2024 01:33:50 pm
I agree with you about AI. I do not think it has true creativity. It is merely a very large list maker and averages the lists in one form or another.
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5/11/2024 08:37:42 pm
Excellent question. I have had a troll give me a one star once on Amazon and Goodreads. He was an Indy author like myself and he asked me to read his book and give him an honest review. So I did and gave him 3 stars. Well, he went ballistic and, without reading my book, went on Amazon and Goodreads and gave me a 1 star. There wasn’t really anything I could do about it. I figure it will come back around on him eventually.
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Mark
5/11/2024 08:53:17 pm
That will come back to him.
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5/12/2024 02:40:17 pm
My first paying job was working in the warehouse of a construction company during the summer I was in high school. They'd tell me what the different trucks needed for their job, and I'd gather them and load them on the truck. We had to arrive at five in the morning, and it was non-stop loading and unloading. It paid great for a 16-year-old, but I knew it wasn't for me.
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Mark
5/12/2024 04:16:40 pm
I bet you gained some muscle while working that job.
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5/12/2024 08:26:01 pm
Yes, the Palms was nominated for Georgia Author of the Year (I didn’t place), it won first place the Reader’s Choice Award for Southern Fiction. It also won first place for BookFest in the Domestic Thriller genre. I was shocked to have won anything. It really encouraged me to keep plugging away on my new projects. I might have lost heart if I hadn’t won anything.
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Mark
5/12/2024 08:37:36 pm
Congratulations! I think the awards were well-earned. Your writing is going to get better the more you write.
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5/13/2024 11:45:26 am
Before graduate school, I'd never met any other writers. I did have a great-grandfather who was, in my opinon, a brilliant painter. He never had them shown, but we have his originals, and they are amazing. His job was painting railroad cars, but he painted scenes as a hobby. He would've been seen as a great painter if only he’d been born in a different time. His paintings are neat because they are painted on any “canvas” he had. Most are painted on slats of wood he’d hammered together, which makes them more unique, in my opinion.
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Mark
5/13/2024 12:42:15 pm
Your grandfather was cool. To go from big rolling boxes to small pieces of wood is quite a talent.
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5/13/2024 03:29:21 pm
Kindle Unlimited is always a surprise. Whenever I check my reports, it's nice to see someone starting or finishing my book via Unlimited. I never get much money from Amazon, which is fine. The few that do buy it always reach out and say good things.
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Mark
5/13/2024 04:24:35 pm
Authors get paid a fraction of a penny for each page read. Amazon has paid out many millions of dollars to authors in the last few years.
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Who am I?An avid reader, typobuster, and the Hyper-Speller. I am a husband, father, and grandfather. Archives
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