Viola Shipman (Wade Rouse)
Author Interview - Viola Shipman
Author of The Clover Girls
The Clover Girls is about four different girls who become best friends at summer camp in the 1980s, until life, adulthood and betrayals distance them. Now approaching middle age, V, Liz and Rachel receive a letter containing devastating news from their childhood friend Emily. She implores the former friends, known at camp as The Clover Girls, to return to the place they once loved in order to recapture their friendship, reclaim the women they once were and reclaim their childhood dreams. A summer novel about forgiveness, the fragility of life as well our forever friends that looks at life then and now, and whether we're better -- or worse -- people and friends due to the advent of technology and social media that "connects" us. "Like a true friendship, The Clover Girls is a novel you will forever savor and treasure."-Mary Alice Monroe "A blissful summer novel for fans of Elin Hilderbrand and Kristin Hannah."-Library Journal
(Click here for my list of Best Kristin Hannah Books)
Author Interview - Viola Shipman
Author I draw inspiration from: Erma Bombeck
Author Interview - Viola Shipman
Favorite place to read a book: My Michigan screened porch
Book character I’d like to be stuck in an elevator with: Ignatius J. Reilly, A Confederacy of Dunces
Author Interview - Viola Shipman
The moment I knew I wanted to become an author: I was heckled offstage after singing "Delta Dawn" at my rural Ozarks middle school talent contest by an audience that made the boys from Deliverance look like the Jonas Brothers. My mom and my grandma (Viola Shipman, my pen name) gave me two gifts after it was over: A copy of Erma Bombeck's first book and a little, leather writing journal. "You'll need this to make sense of your life," they told me. I started writing and never stopped.
Hardback, paperback, ebook or audiobook: Hardback for my library, paperback for daily reading (I need to be removed from technology after a day of writing and the constant promotion of social media)
The last book I read: Family Reunion by Nancy Thayer
Author Interview - Viola Shipman
Pen & paper or computer: Computer (although I am always -- and I mean always -- taking notes and jotting down ideas, thoughts, dialogue, phrases on any scrap of paper I can find). I have stacks and stacks of notes. People can't make head or tails of it, but I know every shorthand word and where every arrow is pointing.
Book character I think I’d be best friends with: Holden Caulfield, The Catcher in the Rye
Author Interview - Viola Shipman
If I weren’t an author, I’d be a: Meteorologist (I'm obsessed with the weather and have dear friends who are meteorologists; in fact, the main character in my first holiday novel, The Secret of Snow (Oct. 26) is a meteorologist who has to leave sunny Southern California for wintry northern Michigan
Favorite decade in fashion history: 1980s! No doubt! I could rock a perfect feather (using an entire can of AquaNet and bottle of Sun-In), two popped Polos, Jordache jeans, deck shoes (laces covered in friendship pins), an arm filled with jelly bracelets and wear an entire bottle of Drakkar Noir while dancing to Wham! (And I still can!)
Place I’d most like to travel: Greece is next on my list (it was a trip I had planned last year but had to cancel due to the pandemic)
My signature drink: Champagne (good champagne!). I love it!
Favorite artist: Anne Corlett, a Michigan artist (oils, watercolors, pastels) whose paintings express the ever-changing moods of Michigan's stunning landscape (Lake Michigan, the dunes, the clouds, the aspens, the light). I own two, and plan on collecting many more. Her works are inspiring to me.
Number one on my bucket list: To be grateful every day and to continue writing forever
Anything else you'd like to add: I chose my grandma's name, Viola Shipman, as a pen name to honor the woman whose heirlooms, life, love, lessons and sacrifices inspire my novels and inspired me to become a writer. My novels are meant to honor family and our elders as well as to inspire hope. My grandma used to say, "Life is as short as one blink of God's eye, but we too often forget in that blink what matters most." To her, it was the "simple things," the things we too often take for granted but have been reminded of again this past year: Family, friends, our health, a home, a sunrise and sunset, and each other. My grandma was working poor, a seamstress who stitched overalls at a local factory until she couldn't stand straight. The characters in my novel are inspired by women like her and my mother (a nurse and hospice nurse): Good, strong, hardworking women who are too often knocked down by life but get back up and forge on with dignity, strength and kindness. These are women too often overlooked in life and literature, and I'm happy and humbled these books and characters have resonated with readers around the world.
Find more from the author:
Website: www.ViolaShipman.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authorviolashipman
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/viola_shipman/
TikTok: @Viola_Shipman
GoodReads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14056193.Viola_Shipman
Author Bio: WADE ROUSE is the internationally bestselling author of twelve books, which have been translated into 20 languages. Wade chose his grandmother’s name, Viola Shipman, as a pen name to honor the woman whose heirlooms and family stories inspire his fiction. Wade hosts the popular Facebook Live literary happy hour, “Wine & Words with Wade,” every Thursday at 6:30 p.m. EST on the Viola Shipman author page where he talks writing, inspiration and welcomes bestselling authors and publishing insiders.
Wade has three books publishing in 2021: The Clover Girls (May 18), a novel about four very different girls who become best friends at summer camp in the 1980s before adult life tears them apart ("Like a true friendship, The Clover Girls is a novel you will forever savor and treasure."-Mary Alice Monroe, New York Times bestselling author; "The Clover Girls is Viola Shipman’s most beautiful novel, and her most important."-New York Times best-selling author Nancy Thayer); The Secret of Snow (Oct. 26), a story of a fired southern California meteorologist who returns home to Michigan in the winter for a new start and to confront the memories of a sister she lost; and Christmas Angels (Oct.), a holiday novella about a recently single young decorator and a widower centered on the magic of heirloom angels. Wade will publish two new novels in 2022 as well as his first memoir in a decade (all of his books are published by HarperCollins).
Wade’s previous novels include The Charm Bracelet, a 2017 Michigan Notable Book of the Year; The Hope Chest; The Recipe Box; The Summer Cottage, the #1 bestselling novel in Michigan in 2019; and The Heirloom Garden.
NYT bestselling author Dorothea Benton Frank said: “Every now and then a new voice in fiction arrives to completely charm, entertain and remind us what matters. Viola Shipman is that voice.” Library Journal writes that Wade has “hit upon the perfect formula to tell heartwarming, intergenerational family stories by weaving together the lives, loves and history of family through cherished heirlooms.”
Wade's novels have hit the bestseller lists in Germany, Italy, Spain, Russia, Sweden and the Czech Republic. In addition, his books have been selected multiple times as Must-Reads by NBC’s Today Show, featured in the Washington Post, USA Today and on Chelsea Lately and chosen three times as Indie Next Picks by the nation’s independent booksellers.
His writing has appeared in a diverse range of publications and media, including Coastal Living, Time, All Things Considered, People, Good Housekeeping, Salon, Forbes, The Washington Post, Writer’s Digest and Publisher’s Weekly.
Also a noted humorist of four memoirs, Wade was a finalist for the Goodreads Choice Awards in Humor (he lost to Tina Fey) and was named by Writer’s Digest as “The #2 Writer, Dead or Alive, We’d Like to Have Drinks With” (Wade was sandwiched between Ernest Hemingway and Hunter Thompson).
Wade earned his B.A. from Drury University and his master’s in journalism from Northwestern University. He divides his time between Saugatuck, Michigan, and Palm Springs, California, and is also an acclaimed writing teacher who has mentored numerous students to become published authors.
For more, please visit violashipman.com
