- 3 months ago
jdrhawkins.com
J.D.R. Hawkins is an Amazon, USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling, award-winning author. She is one of a few female Civil War authors, uniquely describing the front lines from a Confederate perspective. Her "Renegade Series" includes "A Beautiful Glittering Lie," winner of the 2013 John Esten Cooke Fiction Award and the 2012 B.R.A.G. Medallion. The sequel, "A Beckoning Hellfire," is an Amazon bestseller and winner of the 2022 B.R.A.G. Medallion. "A Rebel Among Us," the third book in the series, is the recipient of the 2017 John Esten Cooke Fiction Award and winner of the 2022 B.R.A.G. Medallion. "Double-Edged Sword," the fourth book in the series, is the recipient of the 2023 B.R.A.G. Medallion and the 2023 John Esten Cooke Fiction Award. These books tell the story of a family from north Alabama who experience immeasurable pain when their lives dramatically change from the war. Ms. Hawkins has published a nonfiction book about the War Between the States, titled "Horses in Gray: Famous Confederate Warhorses." She has also published a short story, titled "A Becharmed Callie Christmas" to go with her "Renegade Series." Ms. Hawkins is a member of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, the International Women's Writing Guild, Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers, and Pikes Peak Writers. She is also an artist and a singer/songwriter.
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™Yaya Diamond
Red Hot Reality Ent. LLC
J.D.R. Hawkins is an Amazon, USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling, award-winning author. She is one of a few female Civil War authors, uniquely describing the front lines from a Confederate perspective. Her "Renegade Series" includes "A Beautiful Glittering Lie," winner of the 2013 John Esten Cooke Fiction Award and the 2012 B.R.A.G. Medallion. The sequel, "A Beckoning Hellfire," is an Amazon bestseller and winner of the 2022 B.R.A.G. Medallion. "A Rebel Among Us," the third book in the series, is the recipient of the 2017 John Esten Cooke Fiction Award and winner of the 2022 B.R.A.G. Medallion. "Double-Edged Sword," the fourth book in the series, is the recipient of the 2023 B.R.A.G. Medallion and the 2023 John Esten Cooke Fiction Award. These books tell the story of a family from north Alabama who experience immeasurable pain when their lives dramatically change from the war. Ms. Hawkins has published a nonfiction book about the War Between the States, titled "Horses in Gray: Famous Confederate Warhorses." She has also published a short story, titled "A Becharmed Callie Christmas" to go with her "Renegade Series." Ms. Hawkins is a member of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, the International Women's Writing Guild, Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers, and Pikes Peak Writers. She is also an artist and a singer/songwriter.
https://podopshost.com/yayadiamond
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appsumo.8odi.net/yayadiamond
The easiest way to make your graphics: https://buff.ly/2RTQLn0
Best website for musicians. Try it for free on me: https://buff.ly/2GMYugG
Make money with Fiverr.com: https://buff.ly/2KjTVvV
Our Amazon store: https://buff.ly/34RYNlm
DISCLAIMER: Links included in this description might be affiliate links. If you purchase a product or service with the links that I provide I may receive a small commission. My affiliate links usually provide either a free trial or discount so go try them out on me! Thank you for supporting DreamChasersRadio.com so I can continue to provide you with free content each week!
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™Yaya Diamond
Red Hot Reality Ent. LLC
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TVTranscript
00:00hey guys it's me yaya diamond what's up peoples how you doing it is a great day i'm so very
00:19excited to be here yes you don't even know what it took to get back here i'm telling you i'm so
00:25excited to have authors back on the show again today and we're talking to jd hawkins now i've
00:31heard her name before i have i love reading i love reading i absolutely love books i like books in my
00:42hand i like audio books i like all kinds of books and jd hawkins is an amazing writer okay she doesn't
00:48even know that i kind of knew of her before but she's amazing i want to welcome her to the show
00:56thank you so much for joining me yay thank you thank you thank you so okay so first of all thank
01:04you so much for doing what you do i mean your books are i mean i i kind of i kind of like you know
01:10kind of like fan crushed you for a minute but it's okay because i i mean it's still like i get
01:18to talk to you so i really want to find out what started you on your journey especially with with
01:27like the historical fiction the civil war area all that i mean just all of that tell me about this
01:33well um i started writing when i was very young i started with songs poetry and as my kids grew
01:42older i wrote longer books picture books storybook young adult and graduated from there to novels
01:49and i i um went on a trip to gettysburg several years ago with my son and i was so inspired by the
01:58enormity of the battlefield i'd never been to a civil war battlefield before and i thought it was
02:04going to be like a football field or something that's how naive i was but i was just impressed and
02:11then i got to thinking well why doesn't anybody write about the southern perspective because all the
02:17books i've read about are about officers or the union army or whatnot so i decided i'd write a book
02:23about just a typical southern soldier and what would inspire him to fight and it wasn't for
02:29slavery it wasn't because most southerners didn't have slaves only four percent had slaves and some
02:36of the slave owners were actually black themselves so it's it's a really interesting time period the
02:42victorian era has always impressed me and fascinated with me and i part of the reason why we lived in
02:49colorado for so long because i loved those old mining towns and things like that but getting back
02:54to my books i got inspired to write a story and i had him i had my main character be a confederate
03:01calvary man and um one book turned into two turned into three and then i went back and wrote a prequel
03:11oh wow and more recently i've written two side stories to go with the series it's called the
03:17renegade series and and right now i'm in the process of editing all the books all over again
03:24oh my gosh once i'm finished with that i'm gonna start the fifth and final installment of the
03:31renegade series wow so okay so your books are covering very asked various aspects of the civil war
03:37and reconstruction period um how do you how did you approach the research though i mean i know you
03:43said that you kind of based it on a factual but fiction kind of thing too so what was that like for
03:50you what what was that process well i i kind of took the forrest gump approach where the main character
03:57is fictitious but everything around him actually happened so there was a lot of research involved
04:03a lot of um old books i went through oh my gosh so many old boring books but to put the story
04:13together i kind of needed to and there were it's interesting because i found a lot of flaws where
04:18they didn't get the dates right so i kind of had to guess and just stuff like that i mean the major
04:24events they had correct but just little things you know so anyway that's kind of how i got the
04:30inspiration i just wanted this guy to be from alabama i picked a random town ryan crossroads
04:37which my maiden name is ryan so that's why i picked it and the whole story just kind of fell
04:44together it's it's interesting any writer will tell you once they start getting involved with
04:50a story the characters take on personas of their own and help you write the story or they'll change
04:56the direction of the stories wow wow you've written so many books okay you've written so many books and
05:03but out of this series which one challenged you the most um i would say
05:12the first one is pretty challenging and that was based off an actual um soldier's journal but it was
05:21pretty graphic and it was hard writing some of that stuff i had nightmares i'll tell you one time i
05:27thought i heard a bullet whiz past my head when i was laying in bed what was that you've written that
05:33book you've written that book what yeah and then and then the third book in the series it's called a
05:40rebel among us and there's a section in that story where he um ends up in a in a prison
05:48and that was really hard to write about too because i had to do a lot of research and once again
05:53reading a lot of journals that the guys had written and just horrific horrific stuff you know wow
06:03double-edged sword explores the reconstructive era how did writing about this period differ from
06:09writing about the civil war itself well at that point in the series i've already had i've already
06:16gotten um many of the characters are already developed so it's more of a character arc for a
06:21lot of them okay um and the reconstruction period just kind of flows into from the end of the civil war
06:30just kind of it just kept flowing the story just kept flowing into the next book so it wasn't too hard
06:36writing about reconstruction but it was it was really difficult to try and wrap your head around it
06:43because just the politics involved and you know i there was still a lot of hatred and and i it was
06:52just yeah and then you know lincoln had just been assassinated and just crazy stuff just crazy time
06:59yeah yeah so i mean okay so you've written your books you got your books done you've done the boring
07:04studying you've done all the boring studying all the boring journals and all the things and you've lived in
07:11and you've dreamt it you know so what about i mean so how did you kind of incorporate this all to be
07:19exciting for not only elders and mid you know mid-age people but also teenagers i mean think about it
07:26this is a history thing that you've created a fictional character but everything else around it was
07:31historically correct how did you do that and does it appeal to the teenager i think it does i think it
07:39definitely does i think it appeals to um everyone really from middle school on up i've had both men
07:46and women request the book and just yeah um a lot of people suggest that they should be incorporated in
07:53school curriculums and um the main character is actually only when the story begins he's only 16
08:04at the start and when he enlists he's 18 so he's still a teenager and and then by the time well by the
08:12time i start this fifth book he'll be in his 20s but still pretty young yeah and a lot most of the
08:18characters are pretty young but it's also his parents what they go through you know and just um any any age
08:27group really and it doesn't really have to be people specifically interested in war or history
08:34because it's also a family drama there's a lot of mystery and suspense and adventure
08:40in all the books and a lot of um subplots going on at the same time so nice nice that is that is really
08:50good i mean you've had to really interject yourself into this and and spend so much time into this you know
08:56and and and give of your of your knowledge of your creativity of everything and i appreciate that
09:01so very much today we're talking to jdr hawkins and i kind of fan kind of crushed on her a little
09:08bit earlier because she's got some really cool books out and i've heard of her before and it's
09:12just an amazing thing to have her on the show um and you know are you currently working on any new
09:17projects and um you know with the books first of all let me ask you a question because it's kind of
09:23you know do you have any like surprising reviews or comments about your books um as far as reviews
09:34go not not specifically i mean for the most part they've gotten really really great reviews they've
09:40all won awards um three of the four books in the series have won the john esten cook award which is
09:47very prestigious award that's given to um writers of confederate history for fiction and um i was the
09:58first person to win that award that was self-published so i kind of was a breaking the glass ceiling there a
10:06little bit that's part of the reason why um i use my initials for my book initially i wasn't sure how men
10:14would react to having a female author and but it hasn't been an issue at all everybody's been super
10:21great that's good yeah but still at the time i didn't know so i'm like yeah you know i just won't
10:27tell him i'm a woman kind of break it there a little bit you know mysteriously yeah and and a lot
10:37there aren't a lot of women writing about what i'm writing you know with the with the war scenes
10:43and things like that you know there's a lot of romance authors and stuff like that but nothing like
10:49this so yeah not too many that is not that is kind of cool so do you have any future plans i know that
10:56you were you were saying about the new thing but after you finish this whole this whole series is
11:00just everything what what do you plan to do um i have another book in the works it's a cozy mystery
11:12it's based on my hometown sioux city iowa during the depression and it's loosely based on my great
11:20aunt and uncle they ran they ran a hotel downtown and supposedly they were involved with capone and
11:29all these other people coming and going what yeah yeah it's pretty interesting so i'm gonna
11:36i'm gonna work on that book and then after that i don't know i might start another series or
11:41i might continue this one and just write about you know one of the kids and continue it i don't
11:47know i haven't really thought that far out but well yeah you know writing books has always been
11:53something that i have always thought that was just amazing like i love listening to books i love reading
12:00books and i literally don't even watch tv that much not unless there's something interesting on but
12:06usually the tv is off what is it like for you as an author to create these characters to to be in
12:15this whole thing does it does it create a world for you that is beyond the world of television beyond
12:21the world of all these other things that are going on today yes and no i mean i try to stay informed my
12:28husband is totally into politics so i'm always getting an update from him but to write the books you
12:34you definitely have to keep yourself in a separate mindset so you know when i'm when i'm there in
12:40the zone i kind of just close the door and turn on civil war music so i can kind of stay focused in the
12:47time period and and just focus on it and it takes me typically about a year to research and write a book
12:55and so during that time i don't see my husband too much i just isolate myself but you know other than
13:05that um i think they both kind of go together yeah real life and writing i appreciate what you do thank
13:15you i really do and i know it takes a lot and not being able to see your husband as often as you like
13:21during that time really people don't understand it takes a lot out of the author to actually put
13:26these things together and i appreciate it i thank you where can people find you now i know we were
13:33looking at earlier in the interview we were looking at your website and i know your website here is uh
13:39jd hawkins.com am i correct it's jdr hawkins oh jdr okay so i know your website is jdr hawkins.com
13:50so great and we saw that but where else are you like are you on facebook are you on instagram
13:56where else i'm on facebook instagram pinterest x um my books are available on amazon
14:05and i'm on goodreads just about anywhere yes i see that and you're on x as well well what we're
14:13going to do is have the link to your website in the description box so that's jzrhawkins.com
14:20so people can actually go to your website and look at the books but also follow you on any of their
14:25favorite social media platforms that they would like to follow you is there anything that we didn't
14:30say today or we didn't ask you that you would like to say something or even to your fans today yeah well
14:38first of all i appreciate everyone who's been with me from the start i can't tell you how much i
14:45appreciate it it's it's awesome it means so much to me and i get i get letters all the time and emails
14:51and it just makes my day it's it's really wonderful to know that i'm making an impact in somebody's life
14:57and actually doing something that's not just keeping me occupied um i wanted to mention my other book um
15:06it's a non-fiction book about horses it's about confederate war horses it's called horses in gray
15:13and i just was inspired to hear or to write this book after i heard a guy give a a little talk on
15:21the horses and i knew of some of the horses but then when i started researching them i thought you know
15:29nobody knows what these poor animals went through and their story needs to be heard too so
15:34i decided to write a book on it and yeah it's called horses in gray famous confederate war horses
15:42oh wow oh wow that is cool that is cool yeah because the animals a lot of times these animals suffered and
15:50they were pushed to their beyond their limits i i would say beyond oh yeah yeah yeah and it's because
15:56of the civil war and what those horses went to that they started certain um like the society for the
16:03prevention of cruelty to animals and things like that so yeah wow well that's amazing i want to thank
16:10you so much thank you so very much miss hawkins for being on the show i appreciate it so very much we're
16:17going to put your information in the description box so people can find it i just say you know go there
16:22support follow like comment ask questions yes definitely and uh i'm sure she will appreciate
16:31it thank you guys so much for tuning in and thank you jdr hawkins for being on the show thank you thank
16:37you very much thank you and until next time guys don't forget to dare to be different bye
16:53thank you for watching
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