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Yesterday I reviewed Sandra Dallas newest book, Prayers for Sale.  In that review I said, “A beautiful book.  Beautiful writing.  Beautiful characters.  I’m not satisfied with leaving Hennie and Nit behind and wonder what their unwritten futures will be like.”   In short, the more I think about it, the more I love it!

I’m thrilled to share an interview with Sandra Dallas today.  Please give her a warm welcome . . .

Maw Books:  Welcome Sandra!  It’s my pleasure to be able to ask you some questions today about your newest novel, Prayers for Sale.

I’m fascinated by where ideas come from and choosing a particular storyline and characters over all the other books you could potentially write.  Where did Nit and Hennie and their relationship come from? How long did you live with them before committing them to paper?

Sandra Dallas: Those are difficult questions to answer.  I don’t plan ahead of time what I’m going to write, don’t outline.  I just let things evolve as I sit at the computer.  The idea for the book came from three sources.  I lived in Breckenridge, Colo., in the early 1960s and knew men who’d worked on the dredges.  I’d always wanted to write about them but had never found a way to do so.  Another idea in the back of my mind was writing a book similar to a quilters’ classic, Aunt Jane of Kentucky, a 100-year-old book in which a quilter tells stories of her life.  I’d wanted to write such a book about Colorado.  But those two ideas didn’t come together until I read a Civil War story about the death of a baby and realized I could tell that story against a background of the brutality of dredging combined with the warmth and friendship represented by quilts.

As for the characters, I don’t know where they came from.  I had to have a very old lady tell the stories, and it just seemed that she should pass them along to someone who was young and new. Once I had the idea for Prayers for Sale, I just sat down and wrote it and let the characters reveal themselves to me as I went along.

Maw Books:  Middle Swan, Colorado is as much as a character in Prayers for Sale as any of the other characters and influences every aspect of their lives.  Two questions:  what led you to choose this setting and how does one create such a strong sense of place?

Sandra Dallas: The setting is always a character in my books.  In fact, I usually get the setting before the plot or the characters.  I chose Breckenridge, as the background for Middle Swan because I know Breckenridge, and I know those rock piles. It’s also one of the few places in America that had extensive gold dredging.  I think you create a sense of place by going there and soaking up the atmosphere (my favorite thing to do when writing a book.  I much prefer that to sitting at the computer.  In fact, it I were smart, I’d set my books in Hawaii or the South of France.) I believe place defines people, and I find it hard to separate the characters from the background.

Maw Books:  Prayers for Sale is the first book of yours I have read (Tallgrass has been on my to be read list forever – on some amazing recommendations from my fellow bloggers).  I understand that many of the characters in Prayers for Sale are from your other books.  Can you talk more about what made you decide to use them and how they helped shape Prayers for Sale?

Sandra Dallas: I don’t like letting characters go, so I give them walk-on roles in subsequent novels. Prayers for Sale is set in 1936, because that was the only year that worked for bringing back characters for previous books.  I like using them because they’re old friends.  Tom Earley turned out to really shape the book.  He was a character from The Diary of Mattie Spenser, and I gave him only a few lines, but he objected and stayed on, and he turned out to be very important in Prayers for Sale.

Maw Books:  I read how you came up with the title of Prayers for Sale but I’d love for my readers to know as well.  Will you expound on what inspired your title?

Sandra Dallas: The working title was The Quilter, which I didn’t like.  Then I ran across a story in one of the WPA slave narratives about a former slave, an old man who went around with his pockets filled with prayers for all occasions and a sign reading “Prayers for Sale.”  I thought that would make a great book title.  Because of the title, the book took on a more spiritual tone.

Maw Books:  Quilts play such a large part in Prayers for Sale.  Are quilts a large part of your own life?  Do you quilt?

Sandra Dallas: I’m a very poor quilter.  But I love quilts because they represent women and are women’s art.  I collect doll quilts, many in poor conditions.  Dolls are very hard on them.

Maw Books:  If you had to describe Prayers for Sale in just one word, which word would you choose?

Sandra Dallas: Friendship.

Maw Books:  Historical fiction is one of my favorite genres because it literally transports me to a different time and learn how people talked, what they did, what they ate,etc. What was the research like for Prayers for Sale?  How do you have the confidence to know that you did it right?

Sandra Dallas: Well, none of those people are around to challenge me.  I used notes from two Breckenridge writers, Helen Rich and Belle Turnbull, who lived in the mountains in the 1940s.  I read period writing and books on the Great Depression to get language.  I go through old magazines, and I love to research in antiques shops.  And while I wasn’t born until 1939, I do remember the 1940s, and things weren’t so much different then.

Maw Books:  If you could have one of your characters from Prayers for Sale step out from the pages of your book and have dinner with you, who would you choose and why?

Sandra Dallas: Oh, Hennie, of course, because she would entertain us with her stories.

Maw Books:  Is the finished book of Prayers for Sale anything like what you envisioned it when you started?  How did it change along the way?

Sandra Dallas: It’s much different, because it started out as a series of short stories.  But my agent, Danielle Egan-Miller, told me it was a novel, and she was right.  So I had to rewrite the manuscript several times to make it the story of Hennie and Nit.

Maw Books:  Prayers for Sale is stitched together from many short stories narrated by Hennie.  Were there any stories that you loved but had to be cut?  Do you have a favorite among them or no?

Sandra Dallas: There was a story about a bank scam, based on a real event in Telluride, Colorado, that I cut out, because the book was getting too long, and I was starting to be annoyed that Hennie talked too much.  I think my favorite was the one about Hennie’s childhood friend, Martha Merritt Grove.  She and her husband are based on Colorado prospectors, but the end is strictly made-up. I also liked the stories about hookers, most of them based on fact.

Maw Books:  This is a question that I ask every single author that I interview and that is to share a recipe with us, particularly if it’s talked about in the book.  I later make the recipe and blog about it. In Prayers for Sale, food is often shared because it’s the way that the woman take care of each other in their moments of grief and hardships and also in their moments of celebration especially when they gather together to quilt.  I know I was drooling over that raspberry pie, raspberry jam and even wonder what half moon cakes or Kentucky Pie are. Would you mind discussing the food a bit and if you have a recipe, would you share it with us?

Sandra Dallas: 1930s cooking is pretty awful, and I’m not sure you’d want to eat some of those things, although who could resist raspberry jam?  Kentucky Pie is really Chess Pie, a southern delicacy so rich that it sets your teeth on edge (not to mention it contains a week’s worth of calories.)  Here is a recipe for it from an 1883 edition of Practical Housekeeping:  “Three eggs, two-thirds cup sugar, half cup butter (half cup milk may be added if not wanted so rich); beat butter to a cream, then add yolks and sugar beaten to a froth with the flavoring; stir all together rapidly, and bake in a nice crust.  When done, spread with the beaten whites, and three table-spoons sugar and a little flavoring.  Return to oven and brown slightly.”  You can also make it without the meringue.  Incidentally, I collect mining-town cookbooks and love to include food in my stories.

Maw Books:  I’m assuming that flavoring is vanilla?  I’ll have to follow up with you on this one.  But wow!  Sounds rich and delicious!  If somebody asked you which single one of your books you would recommend as a gateway to your other books, which book would it be?

Sandra Dallas: My favorite was always the Diary of Mattie Spenser, but I think I like Prayers for Sale better.

Maw Books:  How do you balance your life as a writer with the responsibilities (speaking, promotion, etc.) of being an author?

Sandra Dallas: I probably spend as much time on promotion as I do on writing. I look at the whole thing as a job.  I was a reporter and editor for Business Week Magazine for 35 years.  Writing books even with all the promotional stuff is easier.

Maw Books:  Do you have a particular writing process or any writing rituals?

Sandra Dallas: I sit down and do it, 600-750 words a day.  Journalists don’t have writers’ block.

Maw Books:  I love that attitude!  What’s the last book you finished and what’s on your nightstand right now?

Sandra Dallas: I just finished Jim Schroeder’s Life of a Political Spouse, which is about his life with our long-term congresswoman, Patricia Schroeder.  I’ve known the Schroeders since the days when Pat and I exchanged maternity clothes.   I’m about to read Margaret Coel’s  The Silent Spirit, the latest in her mystery series set on a Wyoming Indian reservation  Margaret, another Colorado author, is also a friend.  As an aside here, it’s interesting to me how supportive writers here in Colorado are of each other. You’d think there might be jealousy and backbiting, but mostly, we read each others’ books and go to each others’ signings. I love reading books by Margaret, John Dunning, Diane Mott Davidson, Robert Greer, Arnold Grossman, Warwick Downing, and other Colorado authors.

Maw Books:  That’s the way it is with children’s writers in Utah!  You see them together all the time at each others signings.  It’s wonderful.  If you could go back and talk to yourself when you were beginning writer, what advice would you offer?

Sandra Dallas: I would have turned to fiction earlier.  As it was, my first novel wasn’t published until I was 50.  But  maybe I wasn’t capable of writing a novel worth publishing before then.

Maw Books:  It’s better late than never!  What do you do outside the world of books and writing?

Sandra Dallas: We’re restoring an historic house in Georgetown, Colorado.  That makes writing look like a snap.

Maw Books:  Wow, what a job!  So what can your fans look forward to next?  Are you working on another book and when can we expect to see it?

Sandra Dallas: The next one, Whiter Than Snow, comes out in April.  It’s about a 1920 avalanche in a small town just down the road from Middle Swan, the town in Prayers for Sale.  The avalanche sweeps up nine school children.  Four of them live.

Maw Books:  I’m looking forward to both that one and exploring your backlist.  Thanks so much Sandra!

Sandra Dallas: No, thank you.  Your questions focused me.  I don’t think a great deal about how or why I write.  I just do it. You’ve given me a chance to think about it.

Links of interest:   Maw Books review of Prayers for Sale, Sandra Dallas’s website, and thank you to Authors on the Web for coordinating this interview.andra’s  Sandra is also the author of Tallgrass, The Chili Queen, New Mercies, Alice’s Tulips, The Diary of Mattie Spencer, The Persian Pickle Club, and Buster’s Midnight Cafe.  Prayers for Sale is available from your favorite independent bookstore, Powell’s and Amazon.
Who’s brave enough to attempt that Chess Pie?

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