Writer Anna Hamilton is here today and we’re chatting about her new sweet romance, Boy.
During her virtual book tour, Anna will be awarding a $25 Amazon or Barnes and Noble (winner’s choice) gift card to a lucky randomly drawn winner. To be entered for a chance to win, use the form below. To increase your chances of winning, feel free to visit her other tour stops and enter there, too!
Bio:
Originally from Iowa, Anna currently lives in Grand Marais MN where she and her sister Sarah, over a period of 28 years, started and operated a number of restaurants along the Gunflint Trail and in Grand Marais proper. The businesses were created to give people year-round employment in an area where there were few options. The businesses gave the sisters a platform to mentor those who need work and life skills. After selling her last restaurant in Grand Marais Anna became the ‘project manager’ for a non-profit they started called Hamilton Habitat Inc. A charitable organization designed to build affordable housing for the working folks who normally would be pushed out of a popular tourist community due to the real estate market.
Please tell us about your current release.
Boy is a little story that begins about dementia and all the sad things that go along with the experience of watching a loved one lose themselves…BUT it quickly morphs into sweetness with subtle reminders of what matters on this brief walk we call life.
What inspired you to write this book?
My father Hugh had dementia, and for two years while he was in a local nursing home I watched as no one came to visit the other 40+ residents. It broke my heart to see how in the great United States of America we throw everything away, including our elders. It made me sick, and I wanted to make a point about the importance of staying present with the ones we love, especially as they move towards leaving this life, no matter the cost to ourselves.
Excerpt from Boy:
He had just finished the last bit of paint on the sign when the phone began to ring, startling him. He hurried into the kitchen to grab a paper towel to wipe the paint off his hands, but before he could get to the phone, the ringing had stopped. He heard Betty say “hello?”
With all of the strange happenings lately he shouldn’t have been surprised that she’d answered the phone. Anything was possible, he thought as he walked back into the room and burst into laughter when he saw that she hadn’t picked up the phone at all, but a statue of Roy Rogers that sat next to her on the end table. She was holding it up against her ear, as if waiting for someone to answer her greeting.
He couldn’t help himself. “Who is it?” he asked.
Sitting Roy back down on the table she said, “They hung up.”
“They’ll call back,” he said laughing. And they did call back, but by then Betty was no longer interested. She had faded away again.
What exciting story are you working on next?
I have five stories I am working on. One is the sequel to Boy titled Thanksgiving. Then there is Red Van a story of two ex-cons who happen to be my stepfathers at one point, and the crazy ride that they took my family on. The Whores Daughter, which is a memoir about my mother’s turbulent childhood with a prostitute mother during the 1930s and 1940s. It is about my mother’s scars and how she fought for a life of her own and for her children.
When did you first consider yourself a writer?
I never really considered myself a writer. I just wrote. I began with poems when I was young, during the Vietnam war. I wrote about the injustice of the war. You know, make peace not war—heavy for a child. Then I moved on to a few children’s stories, always with the subject matter of racism. My mother was active in the civil rights movement, and for a white child, she taught me the importance of fairness during ugly times, something I tried to convey in my stories. Then when I was in my twenties, I worked in an adolescent drug treatment facility. It was easy to get close to these kids, as I was not far from one myself and I had experienced so much by that age that ‘relating’ was simple. When these kids graduated from treatment, they would ask me to write them something, a poem that reflected their growth and success, and with pleasure I did. It wasn’t until my mid-twenties, after having moved from a city to the very northernmost woods of Minnesota, that I found writing to be something I enjoyed. I was alone in a way I had never been before and writing about the beauty of the woods was the avenue I needed to get going.
Do you write full-time? If so, what’s your work day like? If not, what do you do other than write and how do you find time to write?
Regretfully, I do not write full time though that is my goal. I owned and operated restaurants in our tourist community for over 28 years and in 2018 I sold my last restaurant, giving me time to fulfill a goal of building “affordable housing” for the working people in our town. I formed a nonprofit Hamilton Habitat Inc. in 2020 with my sister Sarah for this very reason. To date and on a shoestring, I have built 4 homes which are owner occupied by hardworking people who deserve to live where most cannot afford to. I also do not have the luxury of endless funds, so I also work at the local lumber/hardware store where I am able to get my building needs at cost which I am grateful for. Once I have the luxury of not having to work, I will devote my time to completing the many stories I have started, and I cannot wait.
Links:
Hamiltonhabitat.wordpress.com “Once upon a time, this community saved me….I will give back to it what it has given me, which is an opportunity to do better.”
Thanks for being here today, Anna.
Thanks for hosting!
Good Morning…what a beautiful one it is here in Grand Marais. Before I head out to work I wanted to thank you for hosting myself and ‘Boy’. I am very grateful for the opportunity and hope all who read this story gain sweetness of their own.
Sounds like a good read.
Thanks for sharing!