Today we’d like to introduce you to Denise Cline.
Hi Denise, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I’m a lawyer by trade, but I’ve always loved writing. Throughout my life and in stolen moments from my day job, I’ve written essays, short stories, and a first novel that still hasn’t seen the light of day. But the story that led me to write my debut novel The Resettlement of Vesta Blonik at the stage of life when most folks are retiring, was an intriguing real life tale about catfishing during the Great Depression. Inspired by a true story, the book is about two strangers, a woman in Minnesota and a man in North Carolina who connect as a result of deliberate deception. When the woman, Vesta Blonik receives a letters and a proposal to marry Gordon Crenshaw in North Carolina, she leaves everything she knows only to learn the truth too late: that the letters were not written by Gordon, who is committed to Dorothea Dix hospital, but instead were written by his family to find a caretaker for their son. The rest of the story is what the couple chooses next and how they navigate those most difficult choices.
The characters are all fictional, but in the course of writing the book, I learned a great deal about Minnesota and North Carolina during the Great Depression, about the state of mental health in 1937, and the power of resilience and kindness in one of the country’s most difficult periods.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Every writer will tell you that writing is lonely and it’s important to be patient. They’ll say, too, that rejections, lots of them, are part of the path forward. When things looked pretty dark for me, I received yet another rejection that turned out to be one of the best things to happen to me. At a low point, when I was losing faith that my book would see the light of day, I reached out to a well-known agent, who immediately said she wanted to see the whole book. Delighted, hopeful, I sent it out and in less the three days she read it, wrote back and rejected it. But she spent a few pages telling me what liked and didn’t, what she thought would help the book and why. With those ideas, I pulled up the floorboards of the novel, revised it during a concentrated writers’ retreat and sold the final product less than a year later. It was the most helpful “no” I have yet to receive.!
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
Although I’m a lawyer by trade, I am most proud of the scary, hard work I do when I’m writing. I’ve written a number of essays and short stories about regular people who have ordinary, hard things that happen to them. I come from a large family and a small town, and the options that particular combination creates are endless.
I am intrigued by how often people rise up and find the strength to move forward, in spite of the most difficult odds. As a lawyer, too, I know that the world is far from black and white. Good people have bad days and bad people often love their mothers.
The rich truths we learn from the complicated heroine or the noble villain fascinate me. I also love the challenge of helping a reader see inside a character’s soul, not by telling her what the soul is like, but by describing how his hand shakes when he puts cream in his coffee, or the sound she makes when she laughs with her best friend.
I am pretty proud of finally getting a book I’m pleased with out in the world at this stage in my life.
What has been the most important lesson you’ve learned along your journey?
Keep at it and find friends to encourage you along the way.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://denisescline.com
- Instagram: denise_s_cline
- Facebook: Denise Smith Cline
- LinkedIn: Denise Cline
- Twitter: @liveonrand
