Book signings
Diana Vance will be discussing and signing copies of her book:
- Monday, July 9, 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., at Perks Coffee Cafe, 104 W. 8th St.
- Wednesday, July 11, 2 to 4 p.m., at Cafe Claudeen, 1014 17th Ave.
- Monday, July 16, 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., at Boomerang Bakery, 1117 16th Ave.
MONROE - As a former features writer, Diana Vance knows a good story when she hears it. Here's another, 30 years in the making.
In the late 1970s, Vance was writing for Monroe Clinic's internal publication, The Pulse. For one feature, she interviewed a doctor about his recent vacation. She still remembers his name, Dr. William Austad, but it was what he did on his vacation that sparked her imagination.
Dr. Austad had gone on a hunting trip in the Caucasus Mountains, starting from what was then known as Leningrad (now St. Petersburg, since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991).
"When I came away, I was so excited to learn more about Russia," Vance said. She started researching at the Monroe Public Library. "I started pulling out books about Russia and Leningrad. Each book I read fired me up for another one."
Her fascination with Russia eventually led her in 1982 to start working on a romance-adventure novel about Alexis, a University of Wisconsin professor from Madison, who falls in love with a Russian hunter named Mikhail while on a research trip to Leningrad. The book, set in the '80s, weaves in Vance's historical research of Leningrad, the Caucasus Mountains and Baku, a city on the Caspian sea located in what is now Azerbaijan.
Three decades later, her novel "The Heart of a Lion," is finally published. In June, she released it via the self-publishing company Xlibris. She's celebrating its publication with a series of book-signings in the coming weeks around Monroe.
"The Heart of a Lion" didn't take 30 years to write, however. Vance finished a draft in 1985. Her writing routine back then was dictated by the typewriter: she'd write 1 to 4 p.m. every afternoon, then edit the pages after dinner. The next day, she re-typed what she'd written the previous day, this time with edits.
When she finished this first draft in 1985, she sent it out to romance novel publishers, such as Harlequin, but got nothing in return but rejection notices. Defeated, she shelved the novel until 2009.
"What helped me decide to do the rewrite was we had a computer," Vance said. Now she could edit effortlessly and as often as she wanted - no more afternoons of painstakingly re-typing chapters.
This time around, she also sought out more help with editing. First she asked her brother to read the first three chapters and just tell her what he thought.
"My brother said he wasn't expecting much," she said, smiling. "When he read the chapters, he changed his mind. With that kind of encouragement, I definitely kept going."
She also got editing help from a friend in Rockford and, after she ran into him one day downtown on the Square, Earl Brockman, a retired English teacher at Monroe High School.
"He didn't hesitate a minute," she said of Brockman. "That's why I felt so positive about this book, with all the help I got."
She did the bulk of her rewriting of "The Heart of a Lion" during the summer of 2010, inside with the air-conditioner on.
The whole process was so enjoyable, she decided to write another novel.
"I have nine chapters started on another book, about a young woman who was the dress designer for a French design company," Vance said. There's a local connection to this one, too: the woman decides to move back to Wisconsin to start her own dress-design company.
In the late 1970s, Vance was writing for Monroe Clinic's internal publication, The Pulse. For one feature, she interviewed a doctor about his recent vacation. She still remembers his name, Dr. William Austad, but it was what he did on his vacation that sparked her imagination.
Dr. Austad had gone on a hunting trip in the Caucasus Mountains, starting from what was then known as Leningrad (now St. Petersburg, since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991).
"When I came away, I was so excited to learn more about Russia," Vance said. She started researching at the Monroe Public Library. "I started pulling out books about Russia and Leningrad. Each book I read fired me up for another one."
Her fascination with Russia eventually led her in 1982 to start working on a romance-adventure novel about Alexis, a University of Wisconsin professor from Madison, who falls in love with a Russian hunter named Mikhail while on a research trip to Leningrad. The book, set in the '80s, weaves in Vance's historical research of Leningrad, the Caucasus Mountains and Baku, a city on the Caspian sea located in what is now Azerbaijan.
Three decades later, her novel "The Heart of a Lion," is finally published. In June, she released it via the self-publishing company Xlibris. She's celebrating its publication with a series of book-signings in the coming weeks around Monroe.
"The Heart of a Lion" didn't take 30 years to write, however. Vance finished a draft in 1985. Her writing routine back then was dictated by the typewriter: she'd write 1 to 4 p.m. every afternoon, then edit the pages after dinner. The next day, she re-typed what she'd written the previous day, this time with edits.
When she finished this first draft in 1985, she sent it out to romance novel publishers, such as Harlequin, but got nothing in return but rejection notices. Defeated, she shelved the novel until 2009.
"What helped me decide to do the rewrite was we had a computer," Vance said. Now she could edit effortlessly and as often as she wanted - no more afternoons of painstakingly re-typing chapters.
This time around, she also sought out more help with editing. First she asked her brother to read the first three chapters and just tell her what he thought.
"My brother said he wasn't expecting much," she said, smiling. "When he read the chapters, he changed his mind. With that kind of encouragement, I definitely kept going."
She also got editing help from a friend in Rockford and, after she ran into him one day downtown on the Square, Earl Brockman, a retired English teacher at Monroe High School.
"He didn't hesitate a minute," she said of Brockman. "That's why I felt so positive about this book, with all the help I got."
She did the bulk of her rewriting of "The Heart of a Lion" during the summer of 2010, inside with the air-conditioner on.
The whole process was so enjoyable, she decided to write another novel.
"I have nine chapters started on another book, about a young woman who was the dress designer for a French design company," Vance said. There's a local connection to this one, too: the woman decides to move back to Wisconsin to start her own dress-design company.