Interview with Evelyn Marchand

I had the honor of chatting with student and aspiring writer, Evelyn Marchand, for one of her assignments. She shared her final report with me and I wanted to share some of it with you!

Evelyn and I had the chance to chat, via Zoom, about writing, the writing community, and family support. It was a wonderful conversation that really got me thinking.

Evelyn writes:

"As an unpublished author, I thought this assignment would be a great time to get to know my fellow authors as well as to gain some advice and wisdom from one as well. The author I chose was Melissa Marie Keeping.

Melissa Marie Keeping is a 29-year old self-published author who has been writing for as long as she can remember. She believes that in order to be a good writer you first have to be a good reader and has always gravitated towards the gothic and horror genres of H.P. Lovecraft, Bram Stoker, and Mary Shelley. She always wanted to become a writer in a sense and during a short period of her life thought she would pursue this by becoming a journalist but quickly set that aside after realizing that’s not what she wanted to write."

Evelyn asked me how involved my children have been in my writing career and, while I always knew that they were a huge influence on my creative efforts, I didn't really realize that my choice to move forward with children's fiction was so greatly influenced by the need to have them involved in a way that makes them feel important. Evelyn called on that realization and I am so happy that she did. Evelyn writes: "Keeping wanted her children to be able to comment on and help her with her writing as her and her family are very tight-knit and decided that children’s stories would be the best route to go so that her family could be involved."

We continued to talk about where my writing career might lead and Evelyn had this to say:

"Keeping has said that as her children grow and her writing career flourishes she will follow it wherever it goes whether that be writing young adult books, horror, or even more children's. And while she has chosen to self-publish, she is not against the thought of going the traditional publishing route through an agent/company and hopes for it in the future so that she can become a full-time writer."

As we neared the end of our conversation, Evelyn asked me for a piece of advice.

"She believes that an art that takes so much of your heart to complete and has so much of your soul in it should be shared with the world. Keeping also said that she has to write an idea down and bring it to life before she can talk about it, because if she talks about it first then it feels as if she’s not doing it justice."

"I really enjoyed my interview with Mrs. Keeping and look forward to hearing from some of my other fellow writing companions. I got some great advice from her and a very interesting back story about her as well."

Well I am just full of backstory! Thanks for all the sweet words, Evelyn! Thank you for thinking of me for your project. Would love to chat again sometime!

Find Evelyn Marchand on Instagram HERE.