At a young age, Nadene R. Carter developed a love for words. She read everything she could get her hands on and regularly checked out books from the town library near her grade school. As a teenager, she read Little Women and To Kill a Mockingbird, which kindled in her a desire to write fiction. That desire followed through to adulthood. She wrote numerous short stories and studied many novels to learn how they were constructed.

Her ability to write led her to employment with a cosmetic company where she wrote and published their monthly corporate magazine and created their PR and sales literature. Later, she wrote marketing proposals for an architectural firm. Recently, she has worked as a researcher, writer, and publisher of family histories as well as a freelance editor of fiction.

It started with poetry. At a young age I enjoyed reading poetry and in school, we were required to memorize quite a number of poems, some of which I still remember. I wrote my first poem when I was about ten years old and even reading it today, I think it isn’t too bad for a first attempt. However, the problem with me and poetry is that I have to be in a certain frame of mind to access the necessary language. I can’t always conjure up that place I need to be to write poetry. Later as a teenage, I read Little Women. Jo became my hero. The desire to someday write a novel was imprinted at that time.

What do you see as the influences on your writing?

One of my grade school teachers, Beth West, drilled us on the fundamentals of English. Many students who learned the basics from her went on to careers that required a strong grasp of the English language.

Another defining event was when I discovered the town library near my elementary school (they didn’t have a school library at that time). An important part of this equation was Clevonia Ramey, the librarian. After I finished reading a book, I then took it back to check out another. Instead of simply doing her librarian duties, Mrs. Ramey asked me questions about the book I’d just read, none of which could be answered with a simple yes or no. They were probing questions about the characters and about the events in the book that made me think about the story on several levels. Soon, I began to anticipate the librarian’s questions and to read accordingly. Today, that is called reading like a writer.

My interest in the mystery genre first came from reading the Nancy Drew series and The Boxcar Children. My all time favorite novel is To Kill a Mockingbird. Today, my reading of choice is suspense, but across a widely diverse range of authors: Mary Higgins Clark, Marilyn Harris, Diane Mott Davidson, Tami Hoag, Patricia Cornwell, and Jodi Picoult.

I’m working on a nonfiction writers’ craft book. I go about constructing a novel a little differently from other writers. I’m hoping it may provide beginning and experienced authors insight into another approach to writing. I’m a strong believer that each author must find his own way to write his book. Exposure to many of the various approaches to fiction writing increases a writer’s ability to learn what best works for him.

I am also working on sequels to both A Cobweb on the Soul and Echoes of Silence.

My second novel, Echoes of Silence, is an American historical that deals with the Japanese internment during World War II. Inside the pages of this novel, the history of the last two years before the war ended are woven into the story of an honorable group of Japanese-American families who chose to work in the sugar beet fields of eastern Oregon rather than sit out the war in the Minidoka, Idaho internment camp. Another element of this story is a family of German descent who befriends this group of Japanese.

Yes. When I was writing A Cobweb on the Soul, I became stuck. No matter what I did to move forward with the story, I was blocked. I remember the panic and despair I felt. What if I’d written all I had to say? What if I couldn’t complete the story?

What I’ve learned over the years is to listen to the stuckness. Every time this has happened to me, I eventually come to understand that I’ve taken the story in a wrong direction. Getting stuck still happens, but I recognize it for what it is. It may take me some time to figure out where I’ve gone wrong, but at least now I don’t experience the panic. I can stand away from the project and examine the structure until I find the flaw.

That’s a hard question because I admire so many writers. As I’ve said before, my all time favorite novel is To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. The thing that I find fascinating about her work is the layers of symbolism that run through the story. I can relate to the characters and the theme of that story. It’s a classic and well worth analyzing if one aspires to be a writer of fiction.

I’ve come across other authors over the years that I wanted to learn from. I’ve studied and taken apart their novels, and outlined them to study the structure and learn why a particular book held my interest. I find John Irving’s work fascinating. I was captivated by Jean Auel’s book, Clan of the Cave Bear as well as other books in that series. She has a real talent for world building and for drawing you into that world. I enjoy Elizabeth George’s work and have come to enjoy a recently discovered author, Jodi Picoult.

My goals are to complete a novel or nonfiction book every year, to continue editing for other authors, and to teach a writing class.

I’ve always enjoyed living inside the pages of a book. As a youth, I read everything I could get my hands on. For me, writing is simply an extension of that reading enjoyment. I think many readers have a secret desire to be a writer. The characters I create become as real to me as walking, breathing people. I know them so well that I instinctively know how they will and will not react in a given situation. I’d say that getting to know my characters is probably the part I enjoy the most about writing. The way I create characters is one of the things that is different in the way I go about my writing.

The story within the pages of Echoes of Silence appeals to people of all ages and both genders. It speaks to the hearts of old and young alike. The seed idea for this novel sprang from my interest in spinning and weaving as an art form.

In 1980 I was living in Adrian, Oregon, a small town about sixty miles west of Boise, Idaho. I belonged to the local Spinners and Weaver’s Guild, and three of us from that Guild went to a Weaving in the Woods Workshop near Chiloquin, Oregon. The workshop taught Native American weaving, where　each of us built and lashed an upright loom between two trees, designed our own pattern, and created a tapestry.

The three of us from our guild camped in a tent together. One evening around the campfire, we were exchanging background information about ourselves. I had moved to Adrian the year prior, and one of the women and her husband had recently moved there from the Midwest and purchased a business. The other was a Japanese woman, Janet Takami, about 25 years old at the time. I asked Janet how she came to live in east-central Oregon.

I will never forget the shocked look on her face and her words, "My parents were part of the Japanese internment during World War II."

Then it was my turn to feel shock. I was 40 years old at the time and had never heard of the Japanese internment. To learn that U. S. citizens had been detained in camps was impossible for me to understand.

After the workshop I went home and spent days in the Ontario library researching the Japanese internment. I learned that ‘the internment’ was a taboo subject, seldom discussed or acknowledged. Later, I talked at length with George Iseri, who had lived in the camp. He was Nisei, second generation Japanese-American.　He told me the history of that small group of families from the Minidoka, Idaho internment camp who agreed to move to a small work camp near Nyssa, Oregon to help as laborers in the sugar beet fields rather than sit idle until the war was over. That’s how they came to be located there.

He told of their plight after the war was over. Everything they　owned before the war began was gone; they had nowhere to go. This group of Japanese families pooled their funds, formed a lottery, and bought the first family a farm. The farm family and the people still at camp continued pooling their money until they had enough to buy the second family a farm and so on until every Japanese family owned their own land.

I spent several years gathering information and trying various ways to construct a fictional format that would present the story of courage and tenacity of these people in the face of adversity.

Yes, I think I would have. I enjoy running ‘What if?’ scenarios in my mind. When an idea piques my curiosity, I simply must put it to paper and start playing with it. Some people work crossword puzzles to pass the time. I enjoy playing with ideas to see where they take me.