Category: Julie Eberhart Painter

Three Days, Three Quotes Challenge

7/1/2015

Thank you Elizabeth Fountain for tagging me in the “3 days, 3 quotes” challenge. Be sure to check out Elizabeth’s blog. She has some insightful articles about writing, and life!

Now, to rise to the challenge, I need to post one favorite quote a day for 3 days, and tag 3 other bloggers. Today’s quote is from MOTHER TERESA. This is how I feel after my first year as a cancer mom.

“I know God will not give me anything I can’t handle. I just wish that He didn’t trust me so much.”

And now, to tag the first of three other bloggers for the challenge: Tag, Julie Eberhart Painter. You’re it! Be sure to check out Julie’s blog for great writing insights!

Hope you'll stop by tomorrow, for Day 2 of this challenge!

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Interview with author Julie Eberhart Painter

6/10/2015

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The laughs continue here on my blog, with more humor author interviews! Today Julie Eberhart Painter is my guest.

Thanks for joining me today, Julie. Why don't you start by telling us, what is your favorite style of comedy?

Puns/plays-on-words and irony. Or there’s nothing like the shaggy dog stories; those run-on funny tales where the listener starts to laugh in anticipation. My favorite example is a delightful Irish folk song called “Why paddy won’t be in to work today”. It incorporates exaggeration, physical humor and disbelief. We heard it sung in a Irish pub.

You can see it coming. Paddy is a construction worker responsible for carrying bricks to the top floor of an ongoing building site. He’s a bit lazy, Paddy is, figures out (erroneously) that he can use the pulley method for bringing them up so he doesn’t have to make so many trips carrying them a few at a time. Paddy completely forgets to factor in his own weight.

He is in for the “ride of his life,” suffering numerous injuries, but always hopeful and then apologetic. So as Paddy sustains blow upon blow and fails at every “good” idea he thought would save him effort, we see graphically why Paddy won’t be coming into work today or for a few days more …

Do you think humor can be incorporated into any genre, or are there genres in which it doesn’t work?

It’s called comic relief and can be subtle irony, or used as gallows humor, or sometimes sarcasm. Eve Arden was famous for her delivery in the movies of the forties. But I’ve given up sarcasm and renamed it sourcasm. The older I get the less bitter I want to sound.

Who is your favorite humor author & why?

The last real laugh-out-loud humor writer I liked was Lewis Grizzard.

Why do you like to incorporate humor into your stories?

Humor adds realism and perspective. In my only Gothic novel, The World the Flesh and the Devil, http://amzn.to/1IHLWSj the subject is serious, a love affair between a priest and a nun, very emotional, touching, sweet and tragic. Both were in the wrong “line of work.” We know nuns can be harsh disciplinarians, and unyielding in their thinking, but these nuns, dignified to a fault in the early 1900’s, named their English Mastiff, Lucifer. They just couldn’t help themselves.

How do you incorporate humor into your novels? Do you ever draw inspiration from real life?

The characters have to be involved in the story so well that the readers are living and experiencing the drama. A surprise, an irony, a funny name, such as OBGYNs named Dr. Christmas, and a gynecologist named Dr. Glove, a root canal dentist named Dr. Borer, and his side-kick Dr. Akers who does extractions, all ironic, and are coincidentally true in my lifetime. Many mystery writers use this gimmick to keep their characters/suspects identifiable.

What is the most challenging aspect of writing humor?

Timing. It’s a known fact that most comedians, humorists, cartoonists, etc. studied music.

Tell us about one of the funniest scenes from your book & where you drew inspiration for it.

An Indian Hill mynah bird morphed from real life into my book, Kill Fee from an experience I had as a teen. My parents, Interior Designers, had a client named Beatty Hill, a serial bride on her third husband. Her parrot liked to tease her current husband by using the name of her most recent husband: “Welcome home, Beatty, and Mr. CLARK.”

The Indian Hill mynah bird in Kill Fee and Medium Rare is heroine Penny’s pet, Bilgewater. He has the same penchant for irony.

In a scene toward the end of the book, Bilgie and Cufflynx, the hero’s black and white tuxedo cat are “incarcerated” in the back seat of a car headed to their new home together. They are NOT friends.

Excerpt:

          Cole (hero) put the suitcases in the car, and returned to the house to retrieve the cat.

While he closed the car door, he held the cat in his lap and waved to Boswell with the other hand. Why was Bilgie always referring to the Bitch? He’d been right about the shoebox and was no longer harping on it, but who was the bitch?   Driving toward his mother’s home near mainland Summerville, and all the way across the bridge, Bilgie screeched.

          “Get this cat off me! Help!” Cole didn’t hear him; his mind was on Penny. Where could she be?

          Bilgie tried to convince the driver that the cat is attacking him, and squawks about it in barnyard language.

Which of your characters cracks you up the most & why?

Bildgie cracks me up. He’s the bad-beaked bird/the foul-mouth’d fowl. He says what others are thinking.

Now, some THIS or THAT:

Knock, knock jokes or Dirty Limericks?

Dirty limericks. My favorite is one I learned in art school. It’s also historically correct.

“There once was sculptor named Phidias/Who sculpted sculptures most hideous / He made Aphrodite without any nightie/And shocked the good people of Lidious.

Erma Bombeck or Dave Barry?

Both, but Erma Bombeck spoke to my issues as a young house wife in the 70’s. Also she was a really decent person refusing a kidney transplant in favor of a younger woman.

Garfield or Peanuts?

Peanuts. His philosophy and POV humor has held up sixty years. Third Rock from the Sun, the TV show, used the same kind of POV humor. Charles Schulz is an established philosopher for the ages.

Janet Evanovich or Judy Blume?

Evanovich. I just wait for her current car to blow up. Love the characters.

Find Julie at:

https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_posts/7929260-tid-bites

www.books-jepainter.com

Twitter: @JulieEPainter

or Amazon: http://amzn.to/1sBpDU8

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Love Poem Challenge - Julie Eberhart Painter

2/4/2015

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About the Author:
Julie Eberhart Painter, a native of Bucks County, Pennsylvania, has ten books in print. Previously, she worked with nursing homes as a volunteer coordinator and later as a community ombudsman. Julie spent eighteen years with Hospice of Volusia/Flagler in Port Orange, Florida and contributed to and edited two of their self-help books.
She loves to write, sing in her head, and mime antique furniture at parties. As Julie gets older Hepplewhite has become easier to do than Chippendale!

The Poem:

Peerless Love

Exempt from mortal boundaries, love empowers

imparting heart to heart this charge:

Hold loosely in a gentle palm,

beloved and solemn as a psalm.

Julie Eberhart Painter

This self-explanatory poem is about all love, regardless of gender, class, age, race or species. Possessiveness is not love, but freedom to grow is.
In my recent novel, Morning After Midnight, two very different people, a Georgia boy, and a very formal Main Line Philadelphia girl, their backgrounds clashing, find love and personal growth between the “States.”

Find Julie at:

Web site at www.books-jepainter.com

Twitter: @JulieEPainter

To vote for your favorite poems:
Stop by my blog every 3 days to see the new poems. Leave positive comments on your favorite posts. Invite friends to do the same. Poems with the most hits & comments will win gift certificates for some on-line shopping -- and bragging rights, of course.

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A visit from Julie Eberhart Painter's Dorian

10/8/2014

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Lock up your valuables! It’s villain month here on my blog. I’ll be interviewing two antagonists each week. Today Dorian, the villain of Julie Eberhart Painter’s novel, Kill Fee, is my guest.

Welcome to my blog, Dorian. Tell us…

1.    What is your ultimate goal?

Dorian, taps a cigarette from a crumpled pack and lights up. “To be rich, famous and loved,” she intones blowing a plume of smoke in my direction.

2.    What makes you so driven to accomplish this goal?

She scratches under her bun and thinks, “The usual, an unhappy childhood. I was never a pretty girl. Ms. Kern, my dear, dear friend, is more my style. But if I were her, I’d dress better. She has seven suits in her closet all the same color, dirty midnight. And, they don’t show off her figure. Yeah, I’d want to look like her—the sallow little twit.”

3.    If you could choose anyone from the literary world as your partner in crime, who would you choose and why?

Grinding her cigarette into an objet d’art, “Well it sure wouldn’t be another agent. I’m THE agent people should use. I’d choose publisher friend Morey. If nothing else, I like his earring, really. But seriously folks, I’d pick Robert Louis Stevenson’s Mr. Hyde. He had interesting drugs.” Laughs.

“Maybe he’d silence that talking Mynah bird of Penny’s. Bilgie lived among the barflies on the docks in a beach town. He’ll be the death of me yet.”

4.    Describe yourself in three words or less.

Opening another pack of smokes: “Ambitious, ambitious, ambitious.”

While the smoke clears around here, read on for more information about the cozy mystery, Kill Fee:

When Penny Olsen’s uncle is murdered during a bridge tournament, she inherits fifteen million dollars, servants and his moldy mausoleum, a ninety-eight-year-old beach house on an environmentally sensitive property.

But who, in this town of genteel seniors would kill this beloved man and the editor of EARTH-be-WARE Magazine? Perhaps the same person, or persons, who are after Penny. What secret do Penny and Cole share that bonds them together—and almost tears them apart?

Buy Links: http://bit.ly/1p1DPlR
http://bit.ly/1BJQQdT
http://champagnebooks.com/store/index.php?id_manufacturer=59&controller=manufacturer
Visit Julie's Web site at www.books-jepainter.com
Or follow her here:
Twitter: @JulieEPainter
Facebook
Linked-In
Julie is also a regular blogger on http://thewritersvineyard.com/ , and feature writer for Her flash fiction appears under http://bewilderingstories.com/bios/painter_bio.htm

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Interview with Julie Eberhart Painter

1/7/2014

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Break out the evidence bags and fingerprint dust, January is crime month here on my blog. Twice a week I’ll be interviewing authors of novels with a crime theme. Be sure to catch them all! Today Julie Eberhart Painter, author of three cozy mysteries, is my special guest. Thanks for stopping by, Julie!

Thank you for inviting me, Audra. By the way I thoroughly enjoyed your Hitchhiker book. Very clever. Of my nine books in print, three are cozy mysteries:

Mortal Coil uses the nursing home setting where the Ponytail Perp runs loose until…The subplot is driven by a behind-the-scenes scandal of greed and neglect—most writers favorite motives.

Kill Fee shows that even a friendly duplicate bridge game can lead to murder. (Although bridge players have been known to feel the urge. In the 1930s, a wife was indicted for the murder of her partner. The judge let her off. He was a bridge player.)

Penny, heroine and bridge director, looks for love in all the wrong places. Penny’s beloved bird, Bilgewater, the foul-mouthed fowl, the bad beaked bird is a crime-solving reprobate from a seaside barroom.

Medium Rare takes Penny from Kill Fee and turns her into the perfect sleuth to find who killed the Medium with a mission. She “knew all” about the crazy office staff. Fearing one of her coworkers at a local hospice had done the deed; our heroine is thrust into yet another mystery, to find the killer of her psychic friend.

What’s the recipe for a good cozy mystery?

I’m so glad you didn’t say formula. There are certain characteristics that feed into that genre: less blood, more humor, contained scene space such as a town or a venue. (They make good plays, easy to present.)

After that, the story can break out into a full-fledged romance with bodies dropping or in my Mortal Coil a more humorous overview. In Kill Fee, a Mynah bird solves the crimes. The sequel to the award-winning Kill Fee is Medium Rare also a funny story set in a hospice office. The bird, Bilgewater stays at home, and the mascot, a “Mrs.” Kermit, Croakette, the biker babe, nurse doll, bathing beauty with golf ball sized…top… acts as a stress reliever for the staff.

Where did you draw inspiration for your latest mystery?

Would you believe that Medium Rare is actually true? Some of the romantic machinations are made up, but the psychic, although she was not a murder victim, nor from Cassadaga, FL, was drawn from life. I still have her voice on tape with my readings from the time I worked with Hospice. I used her distinctive way of speaking.

If they were to make a movie of your latest book, who would you want to play the lead roles, and why?

Croakette would have to play herself. The doll, Croakette, was real. When I left Hospice, she was given to me. Reese Witherspoon would make a perfect Penny.

Tell us about your latest novel in 25 words or less.

My recent novel is not a mystery. Daughters of the Sea is an intrigue based on Polynesian legends. Although it’s advertised as a paranormal because of the parallel time factor, it’s all plausible. Just close your eyes and you’re in Tahiti.

Jan 3, Morning After Midnight, a Southern story about unsettled times (60s and 70s) and dysfunctional families. Young lovers must rethink their values and find love between the States. Available from http://bit.ly/176pOum.

THIS or THAT?

Miss Marple or J.B. Fletcher?

JB Fletcher - Charming

CSI or Law & Order?

CSI - Forensic science is fascinating

Conspiracy Theory or Whodunit?

Motive is essential, whodunit.

Hound of the Baskervilles or Murders in the Rue Morgue?

You had me at Edgar Allen Poe.

Where can we learn more about your books?

Check out http://www.MuseitUppublishing,com, Amazon.com, B&N.com, www.champagnebooks.com

and most of the popular e-vendors.

Visit my Web site at www.books-jepainter.com

http://bit.ly/17GtxDh for Bewildering Stories, my bio takes you to nine flash fiction stories.

I blog for The Writers Vineyard, every fourth Monday, See Dec 30 and Jan. 27…et all

Link: thewritersvineyard.com/

http://cocktailsmagazine.wix.com/fictionandgossip

January 1, I’m featuring our visit to Pompeii.

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Three Days, Three Quotes Challenge

Interview with author Julie Eberhart Painter

Love Poem Challenge - Julie Eberhart Painter

A visit from Julie Eberhart Painter's Dorian

Interview with Julie Eberhart Painter

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